The difference is that many of us don't believe that this method of cashing in should be legal. Noone has the _right_ to cash in - if they are able to, that's great, but as a society we have no obligation to provide that mechanism, if we think it doesn't benefit the rest of us, socially.
So, let's get this straight... which of the following statements most closely matches your viewpoint?
- Inventors should be able to patent their inventions, but they should only be allowed to self-market the realization of their invention, or grant others a limited license to produce their patented product.
- Inventors should not be able to patent their inventions. If you come up with something great, you better hope you have the money to launch your own production, because you have no legal protection if you reveal your idea to someone else and they start using it without reimbursing you.
- Inventors should be able to patent inventions, those license patents, and those transfer patents, but they should not be able to receive money for licensing and transfers. They should only make money if they manufacture and market the product themselves.
It would all make a lot more sense if you had to *choose* between patent and copyright protection for software. That way, if you want the exclusive right to produce a piece of software that performs a particular function, you file a patent... *and produce the code*, which goes into PD when the patent expires. If you would rather take the route of copyright, with its unlimited time frame but weaker controls, you can't file a patent.
The current method is a classic case of having your cake and eating it too.
You either hate software patents in all cases or you don't, no matter who the defendant is.
You can hate software patents and at the same time be glad to see M$ on the receiving end of abusive litigation. As long as the disaster that is software patents exists, it's good to see the 8000-pound gorilla getting slapped with them.
Oops, sorry. I tried to approach you as someone who was prepared to comprehend and offer a reasonable argument. Instead, you're a zealot who has not the vaguest concept of how your image of the world compares to the actual world.
Let's start with this: Star Wars is entertainment. The movies, novelizations, action figures, single-player games... the whole thing. It exists to entertain people. There are things that Lucas has tried to say about politics and so forth through the story, but primarily he wanted to make a movie that people would enjoy watching.
SWG is no different in this regard. It's totally consistent with the aim of presenting an entertaining piece of media. It is a different format, and therefore has some changes. Let's see you next rail on about action figures, novels, and so forth that are inconsistent with Lucas's movies.
As for PvP: Counterstrike has nearly half a million regular players? Maybe, I dunno. EQ does, and a very small percentage of those engage in PvP. So next you say "That's because PvP in EQ sucks!" and you may be right. But being the first real PvE multiplayer game out there has a lot to do with its enormous playerbase.
Besides, when comparing numbers between CS and EQ, keep in mind that people playing EQ are paying a monthly subscription, and CS players are not. Picture the demand curve from your last economics class. As price goes down, demand goes up. How would the numbers compare if they were the same price? The demand for EQ is a lot higher, so they can charge more for it.
Saying that "most people don't like PvP" is an incredibly vague way of (I assume) saying "those that have tried PvP in the past, haven't liked it".
No, it's a very direct way of saying, "MMOGs which are primarily PvE are far more popular than games which rely on PvP interaction, because there is a large segment of the playerbase who has been turned off by PvP in the past or has never tried it because it doesn't sound appealing." Ever wonder why there are more women playing EQ than there are playing CS? Keep in mind that's a huge untapped market, and if an MMOG can become as popular with women as with men, they can up their market share by 40% or so.
So if some loser comes up and attacks my camp of falumpasets, I can shoot him in the head in defense of my territory? No, I can't. You encourage griefing by disallowing PvP.
BS. Griefing is way, way more common on the red servers in EQ. Griefing is far more satisfying if you can attack and kill another player.
Besides, your falumpaset camp will probably only last a couple hours at most, then you'll have to move on anyway. There aren't "camps" in quite the same way in SWG as in every other MMOG. Spawns are a lot more randomized, which makes "camping" and "camp stealing" a lot less common.
The same guy who did this review of SWG reviewed Shadowbane - and said something to the nature of "PvP in SB is fun and enjoyable - refreshing, actually". PvP doesn't have to be painful. It doesn't have to be about griefing. Hell, it's not about either of these things - it's about letting the players decide their fate in the world.
More BS. It's aobut letting players decide other players' fates in the world. It's not about me getting to do what I want, it's about you getting to prevent me from doing it if you don't like it. And I haven't yet seen a system where there's a compelling interest for you to not abuse that power. Having lawful sections of cities that are "safe" says that "if you don't like PvP, here's a tiny little corner of the game you can enjoy." The rest of the game is wide open to people being bullies, thugs, and general jerks just because they can. PvP seems to bring out the worst in people.
You're right that PvP is not about griefing, but it makes griefing possible on a very personal, annoying level. Griefing is much less satisfying in a PvE environment, so it's a lot less common.
I truly get tired of the 'remove IE' comments. IE is just a browser that uses the HTML engine in Windows - PERIOD.
Then how come hackers and script kiddies are able to make it do so much MORE without asking my permission?
Your point is, they've built the browser functionality into the operating system. No one disputes this. However, most of us rational folks realize that, if there's a bug in a component of the OS, it's an OS bug. IE is a component of Windows as you've just reiterated.
You may like the fact that there's a web browser built into your OS, and that HTML code can change things on your hard drive without your permission. I'll keep using Mozilla, thank you.
Considering that Windows Server 2003 has been out for a few months, has been touted as being much more secure than any previous product, and these are the first security problems to be found, yes, this is progress!
It would be progress, if this wasn't a problem that pre-existed Server 2003 by several years in prior Windows versions. Instead, it's evidence that even if they're more security conscious *now*, they have a tremendous amount of catching up to do.
And the more complex the programs, the more they interact with other components, often in ways the original programmers never thought of _or intended_, the more likely bugs will be found.
Excellent point, and one of the biggest problems with Windows. Why is the HTML converter a component of the *operating system*? Why can a web site give someone access to the system if I'm using Internet Explorer? The more "functionality" they pile into Windows, the more points of access there are to the system, and the more bugs are created.
Let's look at the first security hole more carefully: this vulnerability comes from a protocol that allows a program to execute code on a remote system. They derived it from the OSF version of the protocol, but added their own bits to it, and apparently badly. Buffer overflows are a really, really basic issue to handle.
But, furthermore, RPC is enabled by default on Win2k and XP when you install it. This is pretty stupid. A lot of the vulnerabilities that come out about Windows are much, much more serious because the default installation turns them on, even though 90% of the people installing the OS have no need of the function.
Your point that the more code you have interacting on a computer, the more likely you are to run into bad bugs, is well taken. One of the key problems with Microsoft's attitude toward development is that they do not seek to minimize that interaction. You might be able to find as many security issues with a given Linux distro as with a given Windows version, but the difference is that for the Linux bug, chances are it affects only a fraction of the machines running that distro. With a Windows bug, it more often than not affects every computer with that version installed.
Furthermore, it seems that upgrading or patching a Linux install is less likely to interfere with functionality than your typical Windows patch. Again, this is because there is so much interaction between components. As one poster mentioned, this patch broke OpenGL. There should not be interaction between these components. If there wasn't, the patch wouldn't be able to break OpenGL.
I don't like MS, but not "because of all the/. reasons." I haven't liked them since before I started reading/. I don't like them because they place control of the software market above making a good product. They actively make decisions that are designed to make users more dependent on their software, even if those decisions create greater security risks.
That's right - because the Empire takes any funny-looking alien (when they're supposed to be xenophobic),
And you'd be happy with the game if you had to play a human to join the Empire? Well, you're in a tiny minority then. One thing people have complained bitterly about in EQ is the class/race restrictions. "But I want to be a Troll bard! Is that so wrong?"
Wookies roam the streets (when Kashyyyk is supposed to be under Imperial Control and *any* rogue Wookie is highly suspect),
And Wookiees were practically the most requested playable race when they were planning the game. I'm sorry it's not cannon, but see above about restrictions. It's still a *game* that people want to have fun playing.
criminal activities are virtually impossible (nothing to hack, steal, smuggle, or swindle),
Actually, hacking is one of the basic skills for the Smuggler class. It's called Slicing. You can hack weapons, mission terminals, locked containers, and some other stuff too. Haven't actually played the Smuggler class yet so I'm not sure about the other stuff... you can make and deal in drugs, though.
you can't defend yourself or attack anyone unles they're a declared enemy of your affiliation (...as Aunt Beru / Uncle Owen were "overt" enemies of the Empire, hmm?),
You can always defend yourself. You can't always attack someone. But, if you're covert, you can be attacked if you attack first... maybe Aunt Beru slapped one of those snooping storm troopers across the face. I sure hope she did, anyway; they deserved it.
But, no, as I said above, it's a *game*, and a game that they want to have wide appeal. And guess what? Most people don't like PvP. This is a hard concept for avid PvP fans to swallow, but the majority of the potential audience doesn't want to shoot at other players or be shot at by some 13-year-old who has just had a fight with his mom and needs to take it out on someone. Star Wars may be the first game to really effectively implement opt-in PvP. It was possible in Everquest, but almost no one did it.
Perhaps in a while, they'll open up a PvP-only server, where everyone picks an allegiance at character creation. But for now, yes, the game is primarily PvE, because it makes for a more popular game.
and you can't so much as take a landspeed for a spin - forget about anything that flies, hovers, or is capable of hyperspace (oh, wait, EXPANSION PACK).
Actually, no. Space expansion yes, for flying... but personal vehicles are slated to be implemented in about six months. No expansion required.
The Jedi are extinct (are they even in the game? won't know until they're up for sale on e-bay),
The devs have said they expect it to be at least six months before anyone even gets a force-sensitive character. After that, becoming a Jedi is *extremely* difficult... as it should be. We all know the Jedi are not, in fact, extinct, much as the Empire would like to believe they are. They've been decimated, and they're very hard to come by. That makes sense. What, you want to be able to create a character right off the bat who is already a Jedi? What would be "Star Wars" about that?
and Dark Jedi are slated for that ethereal Space Expansion. Except, of course, that Dark Jedi WANDER THE SANDS OF TATOOINE.
Spent nearl all of beta 3 on Tatooine. Never saw a Dark Jedi. Again, they must be hella rare. (And, yes, I did a lot of wandering in the wilderness.)
It seems really blindingly obvious to me that if you adapt a piece of fictional entertainment to a new medium, you are usually not going to do it successfully by not changing a blessed thing. When books are made into movies, the story usually has to be somewhat condensed, and sometimes certain elements are changed because of the differences in the medium. Dorothy's Silver Slippers turned Ruby because that way, they could show off Technicolor and highlight the difference between Kansas a
- I played EverQuest for 2 1/2 years. I loved it. (I finally got tired of it when they upped the level cap to 65.)
- I love SWG. I'm having a ball. In EQ, though, I was a bard, and liked tailoring... though it just wasn't that interesting, so I never got much past backpacks. In SWG, I can actually be the character I really wanted to play in EQ... though I'm not an entertainer, I'm a "bard" in the sense that as a Scout and a Pistol Specialist I can do pretty much anything I need to do. And once I get Novice Creature Handler, I'll be able to charm animals too.
People who go into SWG looking for a game they've seen before will not find anything, much like this reviewer who didn't find any "content" or "loot" in SWG and therefore gave it bad marks. There's a ton of "content"... but it's not NPCs-trying-to-kill-you content. There's a ton of "loot"... but it's not kill-badass-mob-who-spawns-every-39-minutes-over-a nd-over-until-he-drops-it loot. Instead, the game has very little in the way of NPCs, and relies on players to create their world. The "content" is when 20 players decide they're going to drag a Rogue Fambaa into town and kill it, or when you and your party say, "Hm, I wonder what's between here and Keren" and start a safari. The "loot" is that awesome blaster you found, because a friend tipped you off to a guy who actually did the Experiment tree *first* in Weaponsmith, and is now making kickass Scout Blasters when others are struggling with D-18s. (And if you looked on the Bazaar all day, you wouldn't have found this one, because this guy doesn't sell there... he makes personal contacts, and that's plenty.)
I love the fact that in order to get my character well-equipped, I don't have to spend days camping a mob. Heck, I can't even spend days camping a mob, because only high-level mobs are static spawns. There's no fighting over mobs to kill, because (a) they're randomly spawned at different places all the time, and (b) you can spawn your own by picking up missions. You want to go hunting, but not really have to "hunt?" Sure, everyone in your group can pick up a couple missions, then you go out and slaughter several lairs, get a bunch of resources and exp, and then head back to town for more.
What this also means is, if you want to get somewhere (like to your harvester, or house, or you're just wandering to a different town instead of taking the shuttle for a change), you don't look up the "safe path" on a map somewhere and then go on autopilot. No... you have to constantly be on the lookout for scary stuff, because it's *everywhere*, even pretty close to town, even near the beach or near player buildings or whatever. You have to decide whether to go around, hope you can slip between that rogue falumpaset and those Maulers (though given a choice, you'd rather aggro the falumpaset), or decide to fight your way through.
Other games can be judged by their "content" and "loot", because that's what drives them. SWG doesn't need as much driving, because it gives the players control over interacting with the world. Me, I like it that way... but if you want to be able to go to your favorite spoiler site to find out exactly what to camp so you can get the next uberloot in the line for your class, don't even bother with SWG. Since that's exactly what people have been bitching about for years in EQ, though, I don't see why it's a problem.
The phone company, power company, etc. asked for mine when I moved to a new city so they could run a credit check. How would they do that without a SSN?
Turn the question around for a moment: if you do not give out your SSN when applying for credit cards, rentals, etc., how would they run a credit check *with* your SSN?
Where do you get "many" from the conditions of the GPL are utterly irrelevent to any business which does not distribute software. Which is the vast majority. And of some relevence to companies which write software for contract.
Regardless of whether it would actually ever come into play, businesses who are hung up on trade secrets and proprietary information will balk at the terms of the GPL, because they're not sure *what* it will oblige them to release (remember, lots of people don't actually know what "source code" is... and this article doesn't explain it, either).
Re:Better stop them before they arrive...
on
Labelling RFID Products
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· Score: 4, Informative
Why do we have to use our social security numbers for everything these days? They were only invented for tax purposes, but because this is a juicy bit of information corperations want, they have lobbied, and won, the rights to ask for this info for say, signing up for your cell phone.
They have the right to ask. They also have the right to ask your underwear size. But, while they might deny you service if you refuse to tell them your underwear size, you have no obligation to give them your social security number. The legal protections have gotten more stringent in the last few years; last summer while I was temping the word came down that our time cards, which we were supposed to fill in our SSN on, should no longer bear that information. The reason was because most people faxed them in, and a new law dictated that an entity that requires SSNs for tax or benefit purposes has an obligation to ensure that NO ONE who does not need the information has access to it... not even *within the company*.
The only people you ever *have* to give your SSN to are the IRS and the Social Security Administration (and, if you insist on driving, sometimes the DMV... they've gotten more picky in recent years about confirming your identity).
20 years. no exceptions. simple, to the point and gets the job done.
Does it? There are plenty of authors out there who never wrote a bestseller, but finally after 30 years of publishing every so often their royalty checks get to the left of the decimal point. What if someone comes up with an idea, messes around with it, then drags it out 17 years later and finally works it into something complete?
There are reasons our current copyright law is ridiculously convoluted, but I contend that one of the main reasons is that we try to create a single rule and apply it to vastly different situations. By taking into account the commerciality of a work and how much money it has actually made, we can come up with a law that protects art and creativity as it was intended, without sheltering huge corporations from having to do anything useful after the first five years.
Every so often, you get a band or movie that has a cult attraction, but the laws should not be based on the exception to the rule.
The MPAA would not care one whit about piracy if it relied on initial box office to line their pockets. A whole lot of the gross revenue from your typical movie is expected to come from video sales, television licenses, and so on.
IP can depreciate or appreciate over time. The Star Wars franchise isn't a case of no depreciation; it's worth a whole lot MORE than it was when it was first released. But what I was trying to point out is, these "exceptions" are more a commercial phenomenon than an artistic/creative one. Part of the problem with copyright is that it treats all creation, regardless of purpose, producer, or medium, the same. But there's a whole world of difference between the IP protection needs of a sculptor, a progr^H^H^H^H^Hsoftware engineer and a multi-million-dollar movie machine. Those "exceptions" are what everyone in the Industry is working their asses off to create. When it happens, it's not a fluke, it's a success. The rules *should* take into account the overt goal of the work, IMO.
I need to rely on making nearly all my sales in the next few quarters, just like with a music CD or new movie.
Difference being: you might be able to re-release your game 20 years later as a "classic," *if* it was really tremendously successful and you bundle it properly... and you'll make not very much. Disney can re-release their animated features about every 16 years to a whole new crop of kids, and make consistently strong box-office grosses. And it is those kinds of expectations that have broken copyright for all practical purposes.
Let's establish a cap. After you've made your production costs plus some obscene amount of profit, you're in the public domain... whether it's been nine weeks or ninety years. And let's have some distinction between "art" and "commercial entertainment" while we're at it. A movie or album produced by a giant company for the sole purpose of making lots of money does not need the same brand of protection as a unique sculpture or painting produced as a form of expression.
You *might* beable to, however *I* can not. I don't have a gas line where I live.
So? You would have to move to a different place to be able to use this option. It's still an option.
How much is eco-friendliness worth to you? Like a lot of people, it's probably worth a minimal amount of inconvenience. It's not worth taking into account with major life decisions, like where to live, work, or go to school.
Me, I want to sell my car. I almost never drive, and even the times I do it's usually out of laziness (hey, I can leave 20 minutes later if I drive!) Right now I live in a place that's right off of two major bus lines, and two miles from the subway (yes, in Los Angeles, there is a subway... just one, though). When we next move, which will be buying a house, we'll have a lot of considerations, but among them will be availability of transit and distance to where my husband works, just as they were when we picked this location.
Choices. They exist; we make them every day. We need to be aware of them, though.
Again, this has nothing to do with my original post. I thank you for putting a black mark on cyclists by pointing out that they can get places a lot faster by violating the traffic laws.
Not sure about bicycles, but under the California Vehicle Code, motorcycles can legally "split the lane" provided:
- They do not exceed the speed of traffic flow by more than 10 mph;
- They at no time go faster than 35 mph.
Granted, motorcyclists that do this routinely break both of these rules... but that doesn't mean it's patently illegal.
When you plug your electric car into the grid you're probably burning coal.
Southern California Edison, not known for their ethically responsible business practices, got 9% of the power they sold last year from burning coal. The times, they are a-changin'.
I could care less if there was a bike that ran on a perpetual motion machine, I would not use it.
Why? I value not being made into a paraplegic in an accident. When in transport, I want a frame around me. In a battle of a head hitting the road, the road always wins.
If your head hits the road, you already lost. You're either on a bike without a helmet (which is required by law around here), or you're in a very sleek-looking convertible without a rollbar. In either case, it's your own damn fault.
No amount of vehicle can make up for basic safety. The other day, the professor in my Transportation Engineering class told us about a fatal accident on one of the streets in his jurisdiction (he's also a practicing engineer): a woman picked her nephew up from school, then, without him putting on his seatbelt first, proceeded to go the WRONG WAY for about 10 feet on the street so she wouldn't have to drive farther and make a U-turn. Her large SUV got hit by a driver travelling legally along the left lane of traffic, and because of where she was positioned relative to the traffic island (the one she was driving around, because it was inconvenient for her), her vehicle tipped over. Now, the kid might have survived, except that the very large passenger window of this very large vehicle was open, and the kid (no seatbelt, remember) fell out and was crushed by the very large vehicle.
I've been in more accidents than I'm strictly speaking comfortable with, both as driver and passenger. They were in: a late-70s Honda Civic hatchback; a late-80s Saab 900 sedan; a 1985 Honda Civic sedan; an early-90s Saab 900; and three in my del Sol. Want to know how many times I've been injured? Zero. Some of these were relatively minor accidents; the three times my del Sol has been hit have all been in the right rear quadrant and at relatively low speeds (though the guy in the Ford Excessive who hit me at 5 mph while literally looking OVER my roof for traffic still managed to do a good $4,000 damage), but all the others officially totalled the car I was in. The first Saab accident was a spinout from about 65 mph where we hit the center divider. The second Honda Civic went smash into the back of a 1970s station wagon at about 15 mph, and demolished the front end... but not me.
Also, note that none of these cars had the kinds of safety features required now. In at least one, I was only wearing a lap belt. I've never seen an airbag go off.
On the other hand, we're finding that accidents involving SUVs tend to be a LOT more injurious and deadly. Why? More pounds of metal to squish people with, higher centers of gravity to make rolling easier, and then there's the occasional massive tire defect;-).
Your large vehicle might make you feel safer, but it definitely makes everyone else on the road less safe. Stop being shortsighted and start being smart about the road.
Electric vehicles are great, BUT, how much fossil fuel must be burned to recharge the batteries??
If they are charged by solar panels then that it fantastic and I'm totally, 1000% for it. But it they are burning oil and even worse, foreign oil, to charge them up, then it seems to defeat the purpose.
I'll check when I get home, but it seems to me that a very small percentage of my household electricity is generated by burning oil. (They actually sent us a run-down of what our energy comes from with the last bill.)
Besides, in another post, someone mentioned a comparison in terms of pollution between an EV powered by burning coal, and a 27-mpg conventional car... and the EV *still* was only half the pollution. I would be surprised if they don't also use a smaller amount of energy for the same mileage compared to cars.
Furthermore, many power companies now offer the option of paying a few more bucks per month and then they buy renewable power for you. No oil burned there.
There's lots more to think about than oil vs. solar...
Who said that having a house on a decent sized lot means you have to drive an oversized SUV to work?
Who said anything about commuting? The parent post was lamenting the poor walkability of neighborhoods for things having nothing to do with how you get to work. People typically make 3-4 trips per day; only two of those are to and from work. How much could we reduce VMT (vehicle miles traveled) if people could walk for most of their routine errands?
But, sadly, having walkability means having proximity... which means smaller lots, narrower streets, and fewer big-box retail chains with a football-field's worth of parking spread around them. It's usually easiest to walk in places that are the hardest to park in, and that's not a coincidence. Those neighborhoods mostly grew up before the 1920's, so people *were* mostly walking. Places where you can find parking were built not just after, but *for* the car. And the scale of the car is different from the scale of the pedestrian.
I gotta say, what is it with the attitude of people that drive large trucks?
To be fair, I don't think that "people who drive large trucks" all fit together in one attitude classification.
BUT...
Most of the biggest a-holes I have ever met on the road do fall into the large-truck-driving category.
For example, the guy who decided he was going to make an illegal left turn from the right lane in front of me (and signaled his intention by pulling his fender halfway across my lane.) I shouted something about the illegality of his manouver, and he let me know that he could do it "Because I'm bigger than you, b*tch!" Before this, I had no interaction with him whatsoever; we approached the intersection from different streets.
Then there was the guy who decided that because he had a huge something-or-other vehicle and was wearing a security guard uniform that he would start yelling and cursing at me to back out of a parking space I had just pulled into so that he could get his vehicle into a space that was not really large enough for a sedan, let alone anything with the word "utility" in the name.
And my favorite... the guy who left me a note "Don't ever f*cking park close again!" the other day. I pulled my del Sol (bigger than a Miatta, but smaller than everything else) into a compact space, which was really hard to get into because of his Ford Extinction or whatever which was parked asymmetrically in the compact space to the right of me. Oh, btw, I was almost touching the line on the left of my car, meaning I had parked as far from him as was legally possible.
It's not that driving these vehicles turns people into jerks (only Lexus seems to have mastered that), but people who are these kinds of jerks, dealing with their own sense of self-loathing, possible sexual identity issues, maybe a history of abuse, feel they need a vehicle that will dominate the world in a way they can't. At least, that's my theory.
Next time, I'll see if I can come up with the psychological profile of people who drive Porche convertibles at a speed not exceeding 25 mph.
That's a solution that ignores a few unpleasant realities. Like vandals.
Just a few. They brush off the issue of vandalism, which no matter how much pride a municipality has in a system, will be an issue as long as there are teenagers who don't get a feeling of power or ownership over their own lives.
Safety, though, seems to me to be the biggest problem. Security cameras on the platforms are all well and good, but only if someone's monitoring them. How is access controlled? Is identity known? Most importantly, who can get in that unattended vehicle with you? How far is it to the next stop, and how much could someone who jumps in after you do to you before you get there?
That may never be an issue in Cardiff, England, but here in Los Angeles where two bus drivers got their throats slit last year, it's of some minor concern.
The issue of visual intrusion is brushed off as well. Again, there may not be anyone in Cardiff who paid a 40% premium on their house just for the view, but it certainly is the case here. What they definitely will have to address, but didn't even mention, is privacy of people in their own homes. Suddenly backyards and bedroom windows which were heretofore very private are a tourist attraction. That raises the cost of mitigations or land acquisition, and can reduce many of the benefits of such an elevated system (for example, if you have to erect some sort of screening when going through neighborhoods, whoops... there goes your minimalist look).
PRT is one of the big hip things these days, but it is no panacea. We are going to need a whole lot of different solutions for different parts of the problem in places like LA (which, some will argue, has the most cumbersome transportation issues in the world). The entire industry needs critical dialogue and evaluation on a continuing basis, not just pretty web brochures.
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The difference is that many of us don't believe that this method of cashing in should be legal. Noone has the _right_ to cash in - if they are able to, that's great, but as a society we have no obligation to provide that mechanism, if we think it doesn't benefit the rest of us, socially.
So, let's get this straight... which of the following statements most closely matches your viewpoint?
- Inventors should be able to patent their inventions, but they should only be allowed to self-market the realization of their invention, or grant others a limited license to produce their patented product.
- Inventors should not be able to patent their inventions. If you come up with something great, you better hope you have the money to launch your own production, because you have no legal protection if you reveal your idea to someone else and they start using it without reimbursing you.
- Inventors should be able to patent inventions, those license patents, and those transfer patents, but they should not be able to receive money for licensing and transfers. They should only make money if they manufacture and market the product themselves.
It would all make a lot more sense if you had to *choose* between patent and copyright protection for software. That way, if you want the exclusive right to produce a piece of software that performs a particular function, you file a patent... *and produce the code*, which goes into PD when the patent expires. If you would rather take the route of copyright, with its unlimited time frame but weaker controls, you can't file a patent.
The current method is a classic case of having your cake and eating it too.
You either hate software patents in all cases or you don't, no matter who the defendant is.
You can hate software patents and at the same time be glad to see M$ on the receiving end of abusive litigation. As long as the disaster that is software patents exists, it's good to see the 8000-pound gorilla getting slapped with them.
Oops, sorry. I tried to approach you as someone who was prepared to comprehend and offer a reasonable argument. Instead, you're a zealot who has not the vaguest concept of how your image of the world compares to the actual world.
Let's start with this: Star Wars is entertainment. The movies, novelizations, action figures, single-player games... the whole thing. It exists to entertain people. There are things that Lucas has tried to say about politics and so forth through the story, but primarily he wanted to make a movie that people would enjoy watching.
SWG is no different in this regard. It's totally consistent with the aim of presenting an entertaining piece of media. It is a different format, and therefore has some changes. Let's see you next rail on about action figures, novels, and so forth that are inconsistent with Lucas's movies.
As for PvP: Counterstrike has nearly half a million regular players? Maybe, I dunno. EQ does, and a very small percentage of those engage in PvP. So next you say "That's because PvP in EQ sucks!" and you may be right. But being the first real PvE multiplayer game out there has a lot to do with its enormous playerbase.
Besides, when comparing numbers between CS and EQ, keep in mind that people playing EQ are paying a monthly subscription, and CS players are not. Picture the demand curve from your last economics class. As price goes down, demand goes up. How would the numbers compare if they were the same price? The demand for EQ is a lot higher, so they can charge more for it.
Saying that "most people don't like PvP" is an incredibly vague way of (I assume) saying "those that have tried PvP in the past, haven't liked it".
No, it's a very direct way of saying, "MMOGs which are primarily PvE are far more popular than games which rely on PvP interaction, because there is a large segment of the playerbase who has been turned off by PvP in the past or has never tried it because it doesn't sound appealing." Ever wonder why there are more women playing EQ than there are playing CS? Keep in mind that's a huge untapped market, and if an MMOG can become as popular with women as with men, they can up their market share by 40% or so.
So if some loser comes up and attacks my camp of falumpasets, I can shoot him in the head in defense of my territory? No, I can't. You encourage griefing by disallowing PvP.
BS. Griefing is way, way more common on the red servers in EQ. Griefing is far more satisfying if you can attack and kill another player.
Besides, your falumpaset camp will probably only last a couple hours at most, then you'll have to move on anyway. There aren't "camps" in quite the same way in SWG as in every other MMOG. Spawns are a lot more randomized, which makes "camping" and "camp stealing" a lot less common.
The same guy who did this review of SWG reviewed Shadowbane - and said something to the nature of "PvP in SB is fun and enjoyable - refreshing, actually". PvP doesn't have to be painful. It doesn't have to be about griefing. Hell, it's not about either of these things - it's about letting the players decide their fate in the world.
More BS. It's aobut letting players decide other players' fates in the world. It's not about me getting to do what I want, it's about you getting to prevent me from doing it if you don't like it. And I haven't yet seen a system where there's a compelling interest for you to not abuse that power. Having lawful sections of cities that are "safe" says that "if you don't like PvP, here's a tiny little corner of the game you can enjoy." The rest of the game is wide open to people being bullies, thugs, and general jerks just because they can. PvP seems to bring out the worst in people.
You're right that PvP is not about griefing, but it makes griefing possible on a very personal, annoying level. Griefing is much less satisfying in a PvE environment, so it's a lot less common.
We can *ALL* be a her
I truly get tired of the 'remove IE' comments. IE is just a browser that uses the HTML engine in Windows - PERIOD.
Then how come hackers and script kiddies are able to make it do so much MORE without asking my permission?
Your point is, they've built the browser functionality into the operating system. No one disputes this. However, most of us rational folks realize that, if there's a bug in a component of the OS, it's an OS bug. IE is a component of Windows as you've just reiterated.
You may like the fact that there's a web browser built into your OS, and that HTML code can change things on your hard drive without your permission. I'll keep using Mozilla, thank you.
Considering that Windows Server 2003 has been out for a few months, has been touted as being much more secure than any previous product, and these are the first security problems to be found, yes, this is progress!
It would be progress, if this wasn't a problem that pre-existed Server 2003 by several years in prior Windows versions. Instead, it's evidence that even if they're more security conscious *now*, they have a tremendous amount of catching up to do.
And the more complex the programs, the more they interact with other components, often in ways the original programmers never thought of _or intended_, the more likely bugs will be found.
/. reasons." I haven't liked them since before I started reading /. I don't like them because they place control of the software market above making a good product. They actively make decisions that are designed to make users more dependent on their software, even if those decisions create greater security risks.
Excellent point, and one of the biggest problems with Windows. Why is the HTML converter a component of the *operating system*? Why can a web site give someone access to the system if I'm using Internet Explorer? The more "functionality" they pile into Windows, the more points of access there are to the system, and the more bugs are created.
Let's look at the first security hole more carefully: this vulnerability comes from a protocol that allows a program to execute code on a remote system. They derived it from the OSF version of the protocol, but added their own bits to it, and apparently badly. Buffer overflows are a really, really basic issue to handle.
But, furthermore, RPC is enabled by default on Win2k and XP when you install it. This is pretty stupid. A lot of the vulnerabilities that come out about Windows are much, much more serious because the default installation turns them on, even though 90% of the people installing the OS have no need of the function.
Your point that the more code you have interacting on a computer, the more likely you are to run into bad bugs, is well taken. One of the key problems with Microsoft's attitude toward development is that they do not seek to minimize that interaction. You might be able to find as many security issues with a given Linux distro as with a given Windows version, but the difference is that for the Linux bug, chances are it affects only a fraction of the machines running that distro. With a Windows bug, it more often than not affects every computer with that version installed.
Furthermore, it seems that upgrading or patching a Linux install is less likely to interfere with functionality than your typical Windows patch. Again, this is because there is so much interaction between components. As one poster mentioned, this patch broke OpenGL. There should not be interaction between these components. If there wasn't, the patch wouldn't be able to break OpenGL.
I don't like MS, but not "because of all the
That's right - because the Empire takes any funny-looking alien (when they're supposed to be xenophobic),
And you'd be happy with the game if you had to play a human to join the Empire? Well, you're in a tiny minority then. One thing people have complained bitterly about in EQ is the class/race restrictions. "But I want to be a Troll bard! Is that so wrong?"
Wookies roam the streets (when Kashyyyk is supposed to be under Imperial Control and *any* rogue Wookie is highly suspect),
And Wookiees were practically the most requested playable race when they were planning the game. I'm sorry it's not cannon, but see above about restrictions. It's still a *game* that people want to have fun playing.
criminal activities are virtually impossible (nothing to hack, steal, smuggle, or swindle),
Actually, hacking is one of the basic skills for the Smuggler class. It's called Slicing. You can hack weapons, mission terminals, locked containers, and some other stuff too. Haven't actually played the Smuggler class yet so I'm not sure about the other stuff... you can make and deal in drugs, though.
you can't defend yourself or attack anyone unles they're a declared enemy of your affiliation (...as Aunt Beru / Uncle Owen were "overt" enemies of the Empire, hmm?),
You can always defend yourself. You can't always attack someone. But, if you're covert, you can be attacked if you attack first... maybe Aunt Beru slapped one of those snooping storm troopers across the face. I sure hope she did, anyway; they deserved it.
But, no, as I said above, it's a *game*, and a game that they want to have wide appeal. And guess what? Most people don't like PvP. This is a hard concept for avid PvP fans to swallow, but the majority of the potential audience doesn't want to shoot at other players or be shot at by some 13-year-old who has just had a fight with his mom and needs to take it out on someone. Star Wars may be the first game to really effectively implement opt-in PvP. It was possible in Everquest, but almost no one did it.
Perhaps in a while, they'll open up a PvP-only server, where everyone picks an allegiance at character creation. But for now, yes, the game is primarily PvE, because it makes for a more popular game.
and you can't so much as take a landspeed for a spin - forget about anything that flies, hovers, or is capable of hyperspace (oh, wait, EXPANSION PACK).
Actually, no. Space expansion yes, for flying... but personal vehicles are slated to be implemented in about six months. No expansion required.
The Jedi are extinct (are they even in the game? won't know until they're up for sale on e-bay),
The devs have said they expect it to be at least six months before anyone even gets a force-sensitive character. After that, becoming a Jedi is *extremely* difficult... as it should be. We all know the Jedi are not, in fact, extinct, much as the Empire would like to believe they are. They've been decimated, and they're very hard to come by. That makes sense. What, you want to be able to create a character right off the bat who is already a Jedi? What would be "Star Wars" about that?
and Dark Jedi are slated for that ethereal Space Expansion. Except, of course, that Dark Jedi WANDER THE SANDS OF TATOOINE.
Spent nearl all of beta 3 on Tatooine. Never saw a Dark Jedi. Again, they must be hella rare. (And, yes, I did a lot of wandering in the wilderness.)
It seems really blindingly obvious to me that if you adapt a piece of fictional entertainment to a new medium, you are usually not going to do it successfully by not changing a blessed thing. When books are made into movies, the story usually has to be somewhat condensed, and sometimes certain elements are changed because of the differences in the medium. Dorothy's Silver Slippers turned Ruby because that way, they could show off Technicolor and highlight the difference between Kansas a
Make sure no EQ/Diablo II players like it.
a nd-over-until-he-drops-it loot. Instead, the game has very little in the way of NPCs, and relies on players to create their world. The "content" is when 20 players decide they're going to drag a Rogue Fambaa into town and kill it, or when you and your party say, "Hm, I wonder what's between here and Keren" and start a safari. The "loot" is that awesome blaster you found, because a friend tipped you off to a guy who actually did the Experiment tree *first* in Weaponsmith, and is now making kickass Scout Blasters when others are struggling with D-18s. (And if you looked on the Bazaar all day, you wouldn't have found this one, because this guy doesn't sell there... he makes personal contacts, and that's plenty.)
- I played EverQuest for 2 1/2 years. I loved it. (I finally got tired of it when they upped the level cap to 65.)
- I love SWG. I'm having a ball. In EQ, though, I was a bard, and liked tailoring... though it just wasn't that interesting, so I never got much past backpacks. In SWG, I can actually be the character I really wanted to play in EQ... though I'm not an entertainer, I'm a "bard" in the sense that as a Scout and a Pistol Specialist I can do pretty much anything I need to do. And once I get Novice Creature Handler, I'll be able to charm animals too.
People who go into SWG looking for a game they've seen before will not find anything, much like this reviewer who didn't find any "content" or "loot" in SWG and therefore gave it bad marks. There's a ton of "content"... but it's not NPCs-trying-to-kill-you content. There's a ton of "loot"... but it's not kill-badass-mob-who-spawns-every-39-minutes-over-
I love the fact that in order to get my character well-equipped, I don't have to spend days camping a mob. Heck, I can't even spend days camping a mob, because only high-level mobs are static spawns. There's no fighting over mobs to kill, because (a) they're randomly spawned at different places all the time, and (b) you can spawn your own by picking up missions. You want to go hunting, but not really have to "hunt?" Sure, everyone in your group can pick up a couple missions, then you go out and slaughter several lairs, get a bunch of resources and exp, and then head back to town for more.
What this also means is, if you want to get somewhere (like to your harvester, or house, or you're just wandering to a different town instead of taking the shuttle for a change), you don't look up the "safe path" on a map somewhere and then go on autopilot. No... you have to constantly be on the lookout for scary stuff, because it's *everywhere*, even pretty close to town, even near the beach or near player buildings or whatever. You have to decide whether to go around, hope you can slip between that rogue falumpaset and those Maulers (though given a choice, you'd rather aggro the falumpaset), or decide to fight your way through.
Other games can be judged by their "content" and "loot", because that's what drives them. SWG doesn't need as much driving, because it gives the players control over interacting with the world. Me, I like it that way... but if you want to be able to go to your favorite spoiler site to find out exactly what to camp so you can get the next uberloot in the line for your class, don't even bother with SWG. Since that's exactly what people have been bitching about for years in EQ, though, I don't see why it's a problem.
The phone company, power company, etc. asked for mine when I moved to a new city so they could run a credit check. How would they do that without a SSN?
Turn the question around for a moment: if you do not give out your SSN when applying for credit cards, rentals, etc., how would they run a credit check *with* your SSN?
Where do you get "many" from the conditions of the GPL are utterly irrelevent to any business which does not distribute software. Which is the vast majority. And of some relevence to companies which write software for contract.
Regardless of whether it would actually ever come into play, businesses who are hung up on trade secrets and proprietary information will balk at the terms of the GPL, because they're not sure *what* it will oblige them to release (remember, lots of people don't actually know what "source code" is... and this article doesn't explain it, either).
Why do we have to use our social security numbers for everything these days? They were only invented for tax purposes, but because this is a juicy bit of information corperations want, they have lobbied, and won, the rights to ask for this info for say, signing up for your cell phone.
They have the right to ask. They also have the right to ask your underwear size. But, while they might deny you service if you refuse to tell them your underwear size, you have no obligation to give them your social security number. The legal protections have gotten more stringent in the last few years; last summer while I was temping the word came down that our time cards, which we were supposed to fill in our SSN on, should no longer bear that information. The reason was because most people faxed them in, and a new law dictated that an entity that requires SSNs for tax or benefit purposes has an obligation to ensure that NO ONE who does not need the information has access to it... not even *within the company*.
The only people you ever *have* to give your SSN to are the IRS and the Social Security Administration (and, if you insist on driving, sometimes the DMV... they've gotten more picky in recent years about confirming your identity).
Thought it was "Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers."
Funny thing is, just last night I was trying to remember what the M stood for. I kept thinking, "is it Mouse? No, don't think so..."
20 years. no exceptions.
simple, to the point and gets the job done.
Does it? There are plenty of authors out there who never wrote a bestseller, but finally after 30 years of publishing every so often their royalty checks get to the left of the decimal point. What if someone comes up with an idea, messes around with it, then drags it out 17 years later and finally works it into something complete?
There are reasons our current copyright law is ridiculously convoluted, but I contend that one of the main reasons is that we try to create a single rule and apply it to vastly different situations. By taking into account the commerciality of a work and how much money it has actually made, we can come up with a law that protects art and creativity as it was intended, without sheltering huge corporations from having to do anything useful after the first five years.
Every so often, you get a band or movie that has a cult attraction, but the laws should not be based on the exception to the rule.
The MPAA would not care one whit about piracy if it relied on initial box office to line their pockets. A whole lot of the gross revenue from your typical movie is expected to come from video sales, television licenses, and so on.
IP can depreciate or appreciate over time. The Star Wars franchise isn't a case of no depreciation; it's worth a whole lot MORE than it was when it was first released. But what I was trying to point out is, these "exceptions" are more a commercial phenomenon than an artistic/creative one. Part of the problem with copyright is that it treats all creation, regardless of purpose, producer, or medium, the same. But there's a whole world of difference between the IP protection needs of a sculptor, a progr^H^H^H^H^Hsoftware engineer and a multi-million-dollar movie machine. Those "exceptions" are what everyone in the Industry is working their asses off to create. When it happens, it's not a fluke, it's a success. The rules *should* take into account the overt goal of the work, IMO.
...Hollywood made a movie about this?
Well, it would be in keeping with their stalwart insistence that the problems with DRM are entirely fictional...
I need to rely on making nearly all my sales in the next few quarters, just like with a music CD or new movie.
Difference being: you might be able to re-release your game 20 years later as a "classic," *if* it was really tremendously successful and you bundle it properly... and you'll make not very much. Disney can re-release their animated features about every 16 years to a whole new crop of kids, and make consistently strong box-office grosses. And it is those kinds of expectations that have broken copyright for all practical purposes.
Let's establish a cap. After you've made your production costs plus some obscene amount of profit, you're in the public domain... whether it's been nine weeks or ninety years. And let's have some distinction between "art" and "commercial entertainment" while we're at it. A movie or album produced by a giant company for the sole purpose of making lots of money does not need the same brand of protection as a unique sculpture or painting produced as a form of expression.
You *might* beable to, however *I* can not. I don't have a gas line where I live.
So? You would have to move to a different place to be able to use this option. It's still an option.
How much is eco-friendliness worth to you? Like a lot of people, it's probably worth a minimal amount of inconvenience. It's not worth taking into account with major life decisions, like where to live, work, or go to school.
Me, I want to sell my car. I almost never drive, and even the times I do it's usually out of laziness (hey, I can leave 20 minutes later if I drive!) Right now I live in a place that's right off of two major bus lines, and two miles from the subway (yes, in Los Angeles, there is a subway... just one, though). When we next move, which will be buying a house, we'll have a lot of considerations, but among them will be availability of transit and distance to where my husband works, just as they were when we picked this location.
Choices. They exist; we make them every day. We need to be aware of them, though.
Again, this has nothing to do with my original post. I thank you for putting a black mark on cyclists by pointing out that they can get places a lot faster by violating the traffic laws.
Not sure about bicycles, but under the California Vehicle Code, motorcycles can legally "split the lane" provided:
- They do not exceed the speed of traffic flow by more than 10 mph;
- They at no time go faster than 35 mph.
Granted, motorcyclists that do this routinely break both of these rules... but that doesn't mean it's patently illegal.
When you plug your electric car into the grid you're probably burning coal.
Southern California Edison, not known for their ethically responsible business practices, got 9% of the power they sold last year from burning coal. The times, they are a-changin'.
I could care less if there was a bike that ran on a perpetual motion machine, I would not use it.
;-).
Why? I value not being made into a paraplegic in an accident. When in transport, I want a frame around me. In a battle of a head hitting the road, the road always wins.
If your head hits the road, you already lost. You're either on a bike without a helmet (which is required by law around here), or you're in a very sleek-looking convertible without a rollbar. In either case, it's your own damn fault.
No amount of vehicle can make up for basic safety. The other day, the professor in my Transportation Engineering class told us about a fatal accident on one of the streets in his jurisdiction (he's also a practicing engineer): a woman picked her nephew up from school, then, without him putting on his seatbelt first, proceeded to go the WRONG WAY for about 10 feet on the street so she wouldn't have to drive farther and make a U-turn. Her large SUV got hit by a driver travelling legally along the left lane of traffic, and because of where she was positioned relative to the traffic island (the one she was driving around, because it was inconvenient for her), her vehicle tipped over. Now, the kid might have survived, except that the very large passenger window of this very large vehicle was open, and the kid (no seatbelt, remember) fell out and was crushed by the very large vehicle.
I've been in more accidents than I'm strictly speaking comfortable with, both as driver and passenger. They were in: a late-70s Honda Civic hatchback; a late-80s Saab 900 sedan; a 1985 Honda Civic sedan; an early-90s Saab 900; and three in my del Sol. Want to know how many times I've been injured? Zero. Some of these were relatively minor accidents; the three times my del Sol has been hit have all been in the right rear quadrant and at relatively low speeds (though the guy in the Ford Excessive who hit me at 5 mph while literally looking OVER my roof for traffic still managed to do a good $4,000 damage), but all the others officially totalled the car I was in. The first Saab accident was a spinout from about 65 mph where we hit the center divider. The second Honda Civic went smash into the back of a 1970s station wagon at about 15 mph, and demolished the front end... but not me.
Also, note that none of these cars had the kinds of safety features required now. In at least one, I was only wearing a lap belt. I've never seen an airbag go off.
On the other hand, we're finding that accidents involving SUVs tend to be a LOT more injurious and deadly. Why? More pounds of metal to squish people with, higher centers of gravity to make rolling easier, and then there's the occasional massive tire defect
Your large vehicle might make you feel safer, but it definitely makes everyone else on the road less safe. Stop being shortsighted and start being smart about the road.
Electric vehicles are great, BUT, how much fossil fuel must be burned to recharge the batteries??
If they are charged by solar panels then that it fantastic and I'm totally, 1000% for it.
But it they are burning oil and even worse, foreign oil, to charge them up, then it seems to defeat the purpose.
I'll check when I get home, but it seems to me that a very small percentage of my household electricity is generated by burning oil. (They actually sent us a run-down of what our energy comes from with the last bill.)
Besides, in another post, someone mentioned a comparison in terms of pollution between an EV powered by burning coal, and a 27-mpg conventional car... and the EV *still* was only half the pollution. I would be surprised if they don't also use a smaller amount of energy for the same mileage compared to cars.
Furthermore, many power companies now offer the option of paying a few more bucks per month and then they buy renewable power for you. No oil burned there.
There's lots more to think about than oil vs. solar...
OTOH, last time this came up, someone said that they were quite noisy.
Compared to other EVs, or to traditional vehicles?
Who said that having a house on a decent sized lot means you have to drive an oversized SUV to work?
Who said anything about commuting? The parent post was lamenting the poor walkability of neighborhoods for things having nothing to do with how you get to work. People typically make 3-4 trips per day; only two of those are to and from work. How much could we reduce VMT (vehicle miles traveled) if people could walk for most of their routine errands?
But, sadly, having walkability means having proximity... which means smaller lots, narrower streets, and fewer big-box retail chains with a football-field's worth of parking spread around them. It's usually easiest to walk in places that are the hardest to park in, and that's not a coincidence. Those neighborhoods mostly grew up before the 1920's, so people *were* mostly walking. Places where you can find parking were built not just after, but *for* the car. And the scale of the car is different from the scale of the pedestrian.
I gotta say, what is it with the attitude of people that drive large trucks?
To be fair, I don't think that "people who drive large trucks" all fit together in one attitude classification.
BUT...
Most of the biggest a-holes I have ever met on the road do fall into the large-truck-driving category.
For example, the guy who decided he was going to make an illegal left turn from the right lane in front of me (and signaled his intention by pulling his fender halfway across my lane.) I shouted something about the illegality of his manouver, and he let me know that he could do it "Because I'm bigger than you, b*tch!" Before this, I had no interaction with him whatsoever; we approached the intersection from different streets.
Then there was the guy who decided that because he had a huge something-or-other vehicle and was wearing a security guard uniform that he would start yelling and cursing at me to back out of a parking space I had just pulled into so that he could get his vehicle into a space that was not really large enough for a sedan, let alone anything with the word "utility" in the name.
And my favorite... the guy who left me a note "Don't ever f*cking park close again!" the other day. I pulled my del Sol (bigger than a Miatta, but smaller than everything else) into a compact space, which was really hard to get into because of his Ford Extinction or whatever which was parked asymmetrically in the compact space to the right of me. Oh, btw, I was almost touching the line on the left of my car, meaning I had parked as far from him as was legally possible.
It's not that driving these vehicles turns people into jerks (only Lexus seems to have mastered that), but people who are these kinds of jerks, dealing with their own sense of self-loathing, possible sexual identity issues, maybe a history of abuse, feel they need a vehicle that will dominate the world in a way they can't. At least, that's my theory.
Next time, I'll see if I can come up with the psychological profile of people who drive Porche convertibles at a speed not exceeding 25 mph.
That's a solution that ignores a few unpleasant realities. Like vandals.
Just a few. They brush off the issue of vandalism, which no matter how much pride a municipality has in a system, will be an issue as long as there are teenagers who don't get a feeling of power or ownership over their own lives.
Safety, though, seems to me to be the biggest problem. Security cameras on the platforms are all well and good, but only if someone's monitoring them. How is access controlled? Is identity known? Most importantly, who can get in that unattended vehicle with you? How far is it to the next stop, and how much could someone who jumps in after you do to you before you get there?
That may never be an issue in Cardiff, England, but here in Los Angeles where two bus drivers got their throats slit last year, it's of some minor concern.
The issue of visual intrusion is brushed off as well. Again, there may not be anyone in Cardiff who paid a 40% premium on their house just for the view, but it certainly is the case here. What they definitely will have to address, but didn't even mention, is privacy of people in their own homes. Suddenly backyards and bedroom windows which were heretofore very private are a tourist attraction. That raises the cost of mitigations or land acquisition, and can reduce many of the benefits of such an elevated system (for example, if you have to erect some sort of screening when going through neighborhoods, whoops... there goes your minimalist look).
PRT is one of the big hip things these days, but it is no panacea. We are going to need a whole lot of different solutions for different parts of the problem in places like LA (which, some will argue, has the most cumbersome transportation issues in the world). The entire industry needs critical dialogue and evaluation on a continuing basis, not just pretty web brochures.