By the time it's gone through retail it's been marked up about 100% (generally the amount the publisher sees is about $25 to $30).
So, consider it as $15 for your first month, $10 to $15 for the CDs and starting the account, and $20 to $25 to supporting the retailer you bought from.
Not surprised, since they haven't passed the ban yet, you can still be taxed for access.
If you reread what I wrote, I said the article was about a possible ban on taxing access, while everyone keeps assuming it is a ban on taxing purchases.
Seems like not only did you not RTFA you didn't RTFP before you replied to it.
So many posts here seem to assume this article is about taxing purchases made over the internet. That is not the case. This is a ban on taxing ACCESS (i.e, a tax on your DSL/cable/dialup services).
So far they're only restricting featurse that aren't available on the cable-provided DVRs:
1. PayPerView autodelete. You can't even record these (or On-Demand content) on a cable DVR.
2. Local NFL shows - you can't even view them locally anyways, and what they're locking out is the ability to use the TivoToGo feature to transfer these, a feature the cable DVRs dont provide.
As much as I hate to suggest it, it seems like underground vigilantism may be the only way to deal with the problem currently.
It seems like we are approaching a time when the need for friendly "retroviruses" that patch/disinfect (or at least warn the user and attempt to disable invasive services) is more critical to the internet's survival than before, given law enforcement's general inability to deal with the problem (not that it is really their fault, but it is beyond their capabilities).
At a minimum, "retroviruses" that can find and identify compromised zombie systems and report them, would be useful to build reports for ISPs of infected customers, and allow them to deal with the problem. Unfortunately, most of the infected PCs are probably in countries where people don't care or can't really deal with the problem anyways (can't afford anti-virus software or are running pirated versions of Windows that they can't patch.
The only other alternative I can come up with is infrastructure changes to identify incoming attack addresses at a router, automatically report them to their source (or to something up stream), and implement blocking at that end. But that's talking expensive hardware...
When I played (early during first tale), the legal system had much more power - including, if I remember correctly, passing laws to establish societal norms (this happened plenty while everyone got a feel for the way the legal system should work).
Anyone who has played the game will know that ATITD is about roleplaying and community. It is about building a civilization, and rising as a civilization to meet challenges. I haven't played the game in a year and a half, but I think most of what was true then holds true now.
The incident in question (for those who didnt RTFA) involves a game event where a staff-controlled character, a merchant, travelled the world and traded with people. Females were treated as slaves - which, given the place and time that this role playing game portrays, was not necessarily an inaccurate representation. Should a game whose purpose is roleplaying (and to an extent, re-enactment) set thousands of years ago, represent modern day values? That is up for the players to decide. They took for granted modern day values, but never passed any laws to enforce them (which was entirely within their power).
So when an event-character comes along, behaving perfectly appropriately given the location, era, and currently enacted laws - yet inappropriately given modern day values - people are expressing outrage...
If the players wish to truly do something, a riot is the wrong way to go. This is a game that they have control over, and this was a challenge that was presented to them in game and should be met in-game. The players should use the legal system within the game to pass an equal rights act and abolish slavery.
They never asked me to (and it would have been difficult to actually prove it, since it wasn't exactly a published work; no product of the project was available to the public, not even a binary), but they could have looked at the code and saw my copyright notices intact.
I had some source code to a game I was working on, and had licensed the code to a friend (it was for a MUD, and I had years of work invested). After an altercation, he violated the agreement we had and decided to release his copy to the world to spite me. Fortunately the code was several years old from my current work, but UNfortunately what he released contained player files with plain text passwords, and some of the players had played on both of the games with the same password.
Within 20 minutes of his posting it, I politely asked the ISP to take it down (was about midnight), and they had it taken down by morning. Someone obviously got hold of it and hacked a few of our players' accounts, but the source+assets itself never resurfaced.
Seriously, though - in the working world, I find that the more ahead of schedule, the more work my bosses will pile on me. The faster I perform, the less they will quote next time.
I'm like that at my job too. A supervisor actually advised me to be careful and even pad things out if need be, so that others dont start relying on me finishing ahead of schedule and start overloading me with work.
It can be a very precarious balancing act especially if you are working on a promotion.
At least until the corporations lobby and buy a change of decision from the FCC.
While this is a win for fair use rights (although it could sanely be argued it goes beyond fair use, I'm not going to be the one doing the arguing), it goes without saying that the MPAA and friends will not take this sitting down.
they mean it can absorb whatever impact the round itself doesn't absorb, which means the round doesn't penetrate though it may deform
Which isn't necessarily a good thing either.
The proliferation of plate armor in Medieval Europe was offset by crushing weapons such as the war hammer, flail, mace, and axes. The introduction of the gun brought about the final death blow to full body armor.
Now we're coming back full circle... fully protective armor, beaten by pounding it in with enough force to crush the occupant.
We had a Win2K Server box running as a router/firewall/server at a tiny company I worked at, back in 2002, before this crap started happening a lot. The person who configured the server never set it up to ignore those messages... One day I went to changed something on the server, and there were about 1,000 of those damned messages up. I think the last time someone had used the machine locally was about 2 months ago...
So I changed something else on the server that day, of course.
MacHack '96, they were showing off BeBoxen alongside Macs (and the fabled 'Copeland').
During the Hack show, one of the fold up tables collapsed, sending a BeBox tumbling down the table onto the floor. Someone shouted out to switch the overhead view to the BeBox, and it was still running fine, running it's little 3D demos.
Of course, just a tumble with a desktop system, but still, everyone cheered.
... NASA wants some of this spotlight, and will gladly make hints of support and pose for the camera.
NASA has a budget of USD$16 Billion for this year alone. $10M to $30M?
Lets see prizes in the range of $100M on up. That would make the financial investment risks FAR easier to swallow, and we might actually see more serious commercial enterprises make the attempt.
Seeing SpaceShipOne's successes makes me dream of a brighter future. I'd love to see serious interplanetary space travel within my lifetime.
Slashdot Mirror
By the time it's gone through retail it's been marked up about 100% (generally the amount the publisher sees is about $25 to $30).
So, consider it as $15 for your first month, $10 to $15 for the CDs and starting the account, and $20 to $25 to supporting the retailer you bought from.
Not surprised, since they haven't passed the ban yet, you can still be taxed for access.
If you reread what I wrote, I said the article was about a possible ban on taxing access, while everyone keeps assuming it is a ban on taxing purchases.
Seems like not only did you not RTFA you didn't RTFP before you replied to it.
So many posts here seem to assume this article is about taxing purchases made over the internet. That is not the case. This is a ban on taxing ACCESS (i.e, a tax on your DSL/cable/dialup services).
RTFA, people.
So far they're only restricting featurse that aren't available on the cable-provided DVRs:
1. PayPerView autodelete. You can't even record these (or On-Demand content) on a cable DVR.
2. Local NFL shows - you can't even view them locally anyways, and what they're locking out is the ability to use the TivoToGo feature to transfer these, a feature the cable DVRs dont provide.
That is misleading. You are implying that the expansion meets the original expectations of the game, which is, sadly, still not true.
Some people actually expected something enjoyable, balanced, and not bugridden... who knows when THAT will occur.
As much as I hate to suggest it, it seems like underground vigilantism may be the only way to deal with the problem currently.
It seems like we are approaching a time when the need for friendly "retroviruses" that patch/disinfect (or at least warn the user and attempt to disable invasive services) is more critical to the internet's survival than before, given law enforcement's general inability to deal with the problem (not that it is really their fault, but it is beyond their capabilities).
At a minimum, "retroviruses" that can find and identify compromised zombie systems and report them, would be useful to build reports for ISPs of infected customers, and allow them to deal with the problem. Unfortunately, most of the infected PCs are probably in countries where people don't care or can't really deal with the problem anyways (can't afford anti-virus software or are running pirated versions of Windows that they can't patch.
The only other alternative I can come up with is infrastructure changes to identify incoming attack addresses at a router, automatically report them to their source (or to something up stream), and implement blocking at that end. But that's talking expensive hardware...
When I played (early during first tale), the legal system had much more power - including, if I remember correctly, passing laws to establish societal norms (this happened plenty while everyone got a feel for the way the legal system should work).
You don't understand the game then. There are no powerups, no special items.
They were trading for general everyday (in-game) commodities. The whole point of the merchant event was mostly role-playing as well.
Anyone who has played the game will know that ATITD is about roleplaying and community. It is about building a civilization, and rising as a civilization to meet challenges. I haven't played the game in a year and a half, but I think most of what was true then holds true now.
The incident in question (for those who didnt RTFA) involves a game event where a staff-controlled character, a merchant, travelled the world and traded with people. Females were treated as slaves - which, given the place and time that this role playing game portrays, was not necessarily an inaccurate representation. Should a game whose purpose is roleplaying (and to an extent, re-enactment) set thousands of years ago, represent modern day values? That is up for the players to decide. They took for granted modern day values, but never passed any laws to enforce them (which was entirely within their power).
So when an event-character comes along, behaving perfectly appropriately given the location, era, and currently enacted laws - yet inappropriately given modern day values - people are expressing outrage...
If the players wish to truly do something, a riot is the wrong way to go. This is a game that they have control over, and this was a challenge that was presented to them in game and should be met in-game. The players should use the legal system within the game to pass an equal rights act and abolish slavery.
Keep it in-game, where it belongs.
They never asked me to (and it would have been difficult to actually prove it, since it wasn't exactly a published work; no product of the project was available to the public, not even a binary), but they could have looked at the code and saw my copyright notices intact.
I had some source code to a game I was working on, and had licensed the code to a friend (it was for a MUD, and I had years of work invested). After an altercation, he violated the agreement we had and decided to release his copy to the world to spite me. Fortunately the code was several years old from my current work, but UNfortunately what he released contained player files with plain text passwords, and some of the players had played on both of the games with the same password.
Within 20 minutes of his posting it, I politely asked the ISP to take it down (was about midnight), and they had it taken down by morning. Someone obviously got hold of it and hacked a few of our players' accounts, but the source+assets itself never resurfaced.
Seriously, though - in the working world, I find that the more ahead of schedule, the more work my bosses will pile on me. The faster I perform, the less they will quote next time.
I'm like that at my job too. A supervisor actually advised me to be careful and even pad things out if need be, so that others dont start relying on me finishing ahead of schedule and start overloading me with work.
It can be a very precarious balancing act especially if you are working on a promotion.
And yes, I know I used the tagline for 'Alien'. The Aliens' tagline is "This Time it's War".
On slashdot, anybody can hear you scream.
Seriously, though, my all time favorite. Better than Bladerunner by far.
...and go to the bahamas by 2006:
1:1.
Sales were so abysmal
So was the book. Kind of explains the sales, eh?
SHHHH! Don't remind them!
At least until the corporations lobby and buy a change of decision from the FCC.
While this is a win for fair use rights (although it could sanely be argued it goes beyond fair use, I'm not going to be the one doing the arguing), it goes without saying that the MPAA and friends will not take this sitting down.
they mean it can absorb whatever impact the round itself doesn't absorb, which means the round doesn't penetrate though it may deform
Which isn't necessarily a good thing either.
The proliferation of plate armor in Medieval Europe was offset by crushing weapons such as the war hammer, flail, mace, and axes. The introduction of the gun brought about the final death blow to full body armor.
Now we're coming back full circle... fully protective armor, beaten by pounding it in with enough force to crush the occupant.
We had a Win2K Server box running as a router/firewall/server at a tiny company I worked at, back in 2002, before this crap started happening a lot. The person who configured the server never set it up to ignore those messages... One day I went to changed something on the server, and there were about 1,000 of those damned messages up. I think the last time someone had used the machine locally was about 2 months ago...
So I changed something else on the server that day, of course.
'annoyances you have to deal with in a free society.'
No, no I don't. Thank you, FTC.
They're tough little things.
MacHack '96, they were showing off BeBoxen alongside Macs (and the fabled 'Copeland').
During the Hack show, one of the fold up tables collapsed, sending a BeBox tumbling down the table onto the floor. Someone shouted out to switch the overhead view to the BeBox, and it was still running fine, running it's little 3D demos.
Of course, just a tumble with a desktop system, but still, everyone cheered.
... NASA wants some of this spotlight, and will gladly make hints of support and pose for the camera.
NASA has a budget of USD$16 Billion for this year alone. $10M to $30M?
Lets see prizes in the range of $100M on up. That would make the financial investment risks FAR easier to swallow, and we might actually see more serious commercial enterprises make the attempt.
Seeing SpaceShipOne's successes makes me dream of a brighter future. I'd love to see serious interplanetary space travel within my lifetime.
It'll just be moved to Taiwan.
I'm sure then China will try to use that as leverage as to why they should get Taiwan back.