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User: yerricde

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  1. Hasbro is a TETRIS® licensee on Hasbro Wins Against Arcade Clones · · Score: 2

    TETRIS® is a registered trademark of The Tetris Company LLC. (There was a /. story on this.) Hasbro, as a TETRIS® licensee, is doing what it's contractually obligated to do: defend the TETRIS® trademark.

    So download freepuzzlearena, a clone of Tetris for Linux, DOS, and Windows 9x.


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  2. Can ya really blame Linus, ESR, and RMS? on Hasbro Wins Against Arcade Clones · · Score: 3

    By your logic, if the GNU/Linux® System is a direct rip-off of the UNIX® System, then it's no better than piracy...
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  3. Hasbro's likely response on Hasbro Wins Against Arcade Clones · · Score: 2

    "If you want to play our games on OS/2 or Linux, please purchase and install Microsoft Windows Me and reboot your computer when you want to play our games."
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  4. So where would it store init? on Are Computers Getting Too Easy To Use? · · Score: 2

    Your suggested filesystem layout (/apps, /docs, /system) looks very Mac OS-like (/Applications, /Documents, /System Folder)...

    The first process the Linux kernel starts is init, the mother of all processes (in more ways than one). Sure, init can (eventually) read an XML-based configuration file that points to each of its daemons and each of their config files, but where will:

    • the kernel find init
    • init find its config file

    The kernel will at least have to be recompiled for these if we will be drifting away from /etc into /system/preferences like the Mac has.


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  5. Python has limitations on Are Computers Getting Too Easy To Use? · · Score: 2

    a trained GUI monkey can automate anything (s)he wants to in Python

    Provided the program you're trying to automate:

    • exposes an API to Python, and
    • is not under GNU GPL (I may be wrong about this).

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  6. So try these tips: on Status Report On Key Internet Legislation · · Score: 2
    The Any Browser Campaign gives tips for making web sites look good in w3m and other text-based browsers (Lynx, etc.). Some tips for making sites look good:
    • Make sure that it still looks good when you delete all <table> and related tags. A left-navigated (like PinEight.com) or right-navigated (like BSI's Everything2) two-column layout works nicely.
    • Make sure that it still looks good when you remove the /images directory (or whatever your site uses for its graphics).
    • Make sure it doesn't require ECMAScript (the language formerly known as Java®Script) or Java® applets.
    • Most recent text browsers handle client-side imagemaps properly (given good alt= text) but there is a patch to make server-side image maps work on any browser.

      And most importantly:
    • Test your work on as many browsers as you can find, even telnet to port 80 :-)
    Now go make your sites accessible.
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  7. Trusted drivers on RealNetworks Settles Lawsuit With Streambox · · Score: 2
    Microsoft's hardware testing labs test devices to make sure:
    • that the supplied Windows 2000 driver works with Windows 2000,
    • that the supplied Windows 9x driver works with both Windows 98 and Windows Me and is 32-bit (not a VxD), and
    • that whenever Digital Rights Management is turned on, the sound card driver disables all digital output (either from a connector on the card or to a disk file).
    Then Microsoft signs the driver digitally, asserting that "if your box crashes, it's not this driver's fault, and this driver is allowed to play copyrighted streams."
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  8. Using the MP3 player CPU would violate DMCA on MP3 Player Released For Handspring Visor · · Score: 2

    The MP3 player CPU is programmed to obey SDMI. SDMI is a buzzword that means, in effect, that portable digital audio media is write-only except through a DAC. Because a user program stored to the ARM's address space might send music data back to the Visor, any hacks that allow this might violate copyright law as amended by the Digital Millennium* Copyright Act.

    *Yes, it has two L's and two N's. Learn to spell.
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  9. Probably not, but... on MP3 Player Released For Handspring Visor · · Score: 2

    Visual Bloat++ probably won't fit on a PocketPC, but I could definitely see some porting group produce Pocket GCC like another group (a Cygnus splinter group) produced DJGPP, the DOS-based GCC we know and love.
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  10. 96-bit DAC? Close but no cigar. on MP3 Player Released For Handspring Visor · · Score: 2

    What 96 probably means in this case is a 96 KHz 1-bit digital to analog converter. 1-bit DAC is 100% linear (high-bit-count DACs aren't) and do not need expensive precision resistors. It works by dithering the sound down to 1 bit per sample, but because it moves the quantization noise way out of the audible spectrum (a low pass filter at 20 to 22 KHz helps), it sounds nice.
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  11. Proprietary memory sticks? on MP3 Player Released For Handspring Visor · · Score: 2

    Another key is inexpensive memory sticks. It isn't really convenient to keep deleting / uploading mp3s to the same memory stick every time you want to listen to something different.

    Do you mean "memory stick" (generic stick-shaped storage media) or Sony MemoryStick? Not only are MemoryStick products proprietary to Sony, but Sony is a member of both RIAA and MPAA (yes, both four-letter words) so you probably won't be able to put plain old MP3 files on them.


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  12. Capslock behavior depends on the OS on Slashback: Guido, Games, Felines · · Score: 2

    By default, Windows systems use invert capslock. Apple II, Mac, and Linux* systems, OTOH, use toupper() capslock. The Apple IIGS computer's BIOS had a function that could change the capslock behavior.

    *Keyboard I/O is a kernel function; GNU/not involved.
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  13. These cards will not be compatible with Me. on RealNetworks Settles Lawsuit With Streambox · · Score: 3

    Windows Millennium Edition supports driver signing: companies submit their drivers to M$ and they get a logo license and a digital signature. Its audio pipeline will not play copyrighted data over an unsigned (i.e. untrusted) driver.
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  14. Why AOL bought Netscape on Is Netscape's Code Falling Apart At The Seams? · · Score: 1

    It has been said that AOL bought Netscape because it wanted the Netscape.com portal.
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  15. No sync because of covert-channel protection? on Open MPEG-4 Codec Contest · · Score: 2

    Some operating systems are not capable of providing synchronized multimedia because of features built into them to thwart covert channels. For example, their schedulers jitter the CPU time values so one process can't use the amount of CPU time it uses as a covert channel to leak classified information to another process.

    UNIX® systems and GNU systems are in general not affected by this feature.


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  16. "No Open Source Allowed" on Open MPEG-4 Codec Contest · · Score: 1

    There are a few other codecs that are important including Sorenson (Quicktime's primary codec these days)

    I wouldn't be surprised if Sorenson were patented up the ass.

    Reminder: Don't click ass if you don't want to see ass.
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  17. Or GPL with a Clause 10 exception. on Open MPEG-4 Codec Contest · · Score: 2

    Clause 10 of the GNU GPL allows authors to create exceptions to the License. Guile and libstdc++ both use an exception "this library may be linked to proprietary software."
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  18. Re:DC vs. PS2 on Sega Giving Stock To Stop ISO Pirates? · · Score: 1

    The PS2 has enough bandwidth to swap the whole of the GS's memory several times a frame.

    So what do they do? Draw a whole bunch of polygons using texture set 1, swap in texture set 2, draw more polygons, swap in texture set 3, etc. until the frame is built? Sorry, rendering didn't work that way last time I checked.

    It takes as long to move texture and screen data to and from the PowerVR as it does to swap textures on the PS2.

    For several textures to be displayed on the same screen, they must all be in VRAM simultaneously, correct?


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  19. Stock options, in a way, are stock. on Sega Giving Stock To Stop ISO Pirates? · · Score: 2

    Let's say you are given half-price options for x shares of stock. You buy x shares at half price and then sell x/2 shares at market. What you effectively got was x free shares of Sega stock.
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  20. (OT)K5 does this. on Sega Giving Stock To Stop ISO Pirates? · · Score: 1

    kuro5hin.org coming soon: Mass moderation of stories. There's a "front page" and a "back page" for each section; the community votes to move stories from the back page to either the front page or /dev/null.
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  21. (OT)Which is why I use w3m. on Sega Giving Stock To Stop ISO Pirates? · · Score: 1

    w3m is a full-featured character-cell web browser. Unlike Lynx, w3m supports tables, making web site layout look more like what the designers intended.
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  22. DC vs. PS2 on Sega Giving Stock To Stop ISO Pirates? · · Score: 2

    And with the PS2 being released soon - holding Sega shares would properly not be a wise idea.

    PlayStation 2 is a fighting game platform. (Coincidentally, fighting is one of the four arcade genres, the others being racing, shooting at a movie, and pinball.) It doesn't have enough texture RAM to hold detailed textures for more than about four characters, and this is coincidentally the number of players in some fighting games (trying to show up Nintendo's Smash Bros.?).

    Dreamcast, OTOH, seems more balanced in its technical capabilities.


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  23. Not mine. on Are Formats What Napster Really Needs? · · Score: 1

    The Slashdot "format" is not supposed to include penis birds, so my bird now rests on a "Reply to This" link.
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  24. Wrong kind of "format" but I'll bite. on Are Formats What Napster Really Needs? · · Score: 2

    The article refers to station formats (top 40, c(o)untry, rap, etc.) not file formats (mp3, ogg, wma, mid, s3m). To gain legitimacy, Napster needs to support formats other than lossy-compressed wav files (mp3, wma). Support for tracked formats such as mod/xm, s3m/it, mid, etc. will bring more original (non-RIAA) content to Napster.
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  25. MODERATORS: Parent links... on Are Formats What Napster Really Needs? · · Score: 1

    ...to goatse.cx. (Score:-1, Offtopic)
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