Everyone knows that it's not ready for the primetime and uses it knowing that it's a work in progress.
Unfortunately this is not the case. Check out the mozilla newsgroups (especially wishlist) and see all of the "foo.com doesn't work in mozilla. This browser sux, IE is so much better" messages.
You gents who want to lead where we should follow And teach us to stay out of crime and sin: Our stomachs, like your platitudes, are hollow. Give us some grub first, then you can begin! -Bertholt Brecht, "What Keeps Mankind Alive?" from The Threepenny Opera, transl. by Michael Feingold (1989)
In fact, it is almost frightening, because many large corporations have bet over a trillion dollars on the assumption that copyrights are a basic right, they're not, they're not sustainable, and they're not enforcable. It's only a matter of time before all hell breaks loose.
This is an interesting position, since it seems to assert that copyright will eventually disappear because of the ease of copying. But copyright was created because of the ease of copying. Back in the old days before moveable type, there was no need for copyright because the effort involved in mass copying was prohibitive. Once you have the printing press, though, and can print a couple hundred copies of anything, it's a whole new ballgame.
It comes down to a question of whose rights are more important: producer or consumer? Do I, as a producer, have the right to control the use and distribution of what I produce? Or do you, as a consumer, have the right to do whatever you want with it, give copies to your friends, etc.? It's a balancing act, who gets how much control. Giving more rights to the consumer takes away rights from the producer, and vice versa. The only time when this is a non-issue is when the producer and consumer are synonymous (i.e. the open-source model).
As it stands now in most copyright law, and stood for software as well until the DMCA, is that the producer has the right to distribute, while the consumer has the right to do whatever he damn well pleases (fair use) as long as he doesn't violate the producer's right (e.g. by distributing copies without paying the producer). This, IMO, is the way to go. If I as a producer want to grant the consumer additional control and waive some of my own, I can use something like the GPL. The DCMA screwed things up because it put needless restrictions on fair use, throwing everything off balance.
The problem with copyright is that so many companies abuse it. This is not a flaw with the idea of copyright itself, but in how it is written in the law books, how the courts have interpreted those laws, and how companies tend to approach it. Any reform of copyright should attack those problems, but the central idea is still fundamentally sound.
Finally, the argument that copyright is not valid because it is not enforceable is not a good one. It is enforceable: "piracy"--a pretty ridiculous term, granted--is occasionally found out, especially the larger operations (Joe Blow, making a copy of The Matrix for his pal John Doe, is less likely to be caught). Arguing that there should be no copyright laws because law enforcement can't catch all offenders is like saying that there should be no laws against pyramid schemes because law enforcement can't catch all con men. It doesn't hold up.
Speaking of Black Isle, are there any plans for a port of Planescape: Torment? That game kicks all the ass on Earth (and I'm not a big D&D fan normally).
>Bzzt. Wrong. Antimatter has negative charge, not negative mass. Matter with negative mass is something else entirely, and is responsible for antigravity.
Bzzt. Wrong. Antimatter has opposite charge of its corresponding normal particle. This may be positive, neutral or negative.
Of course you're right, I should have said "opposite charge", not "negative charge". Otherwise, electrons would be antimatter! However, I don't see how you could have neutral-charged antimatter. Negative zero is still zero, after all. Is it possible to have an antiphoton?
Ben & Jerry's Dilbert "Totally Nuts" ice cream (I guess they couldn't come up with a better name) tastes pretty good. Gives you 100% of your daily recommended dosage of fat & sugar.
The Dilberrito, on the other hand, looks grotesque.
Now I've also heard theories that dark matter is the same as anti-matter (not sure of the validity),
Not valid. Scientists have found antimatter, played with it, and still needed to look for dark matter.
in which case it would be undense:)
Bzzt. Wrong. Antimatter has negative charge, not negative mass. Matter with negative mass is something else entirely, and is responsible for antigravity.
Sometimes change is not a good thing. Now I have to relearn the whole thing again. There's no reason for this...you had to have bee a brain dead monkey with no fingers to have trouble with the system from the other VS. games (X-Men / Street Fighter, Marvel / Capcom etc.). Why did they do this? ---
Actually, I tend to prefer the hand-drawn look of 2D fighters, although Dead or Alive 2 seriously rocks the house (it actually has good gameplay, unlike the first one, which just had the most detailed breast-jiggle physics engine in videogames) ---
Of course articles are biased. It is nearly impossible to write anything without a personal bias, even if it only shows in your choice of words or your sentence structure. Language is always biased.
However, articles show the reporter's bias. There is no media uber-bias that dictates what the reporters will think about the issue. They don't all get together in a secret cabal and say, "Well, what sort of spin should we put on this event?" And most reporters try very hard to be unbiased (unless they're writing an editorial), even if true objectivity is impossible. After a story is submitted, the editor (or at least a copy editor) looks through the story not only for spelling and grammar errors but also for bias. This is not foolproof, of course, but it's better than nothing.
Finally, reporters have to write their stories based on the information they can find. If the information tends to favor a particular viewpoint, the article probably will too.
Of course, I'm biased too...I've worked for a newspaper (and also for The Newspaper Guild, the union for reporters and other newspaper employees), and my father is a reporter.
Well maybe you caught me in a philosophical mood today but I think that the data on the internet is absolutely not limiteless. You have lots of data in categories that is sensationally popular however those obscure things are usually not to be found anywhere.
Then again, there are several things I would have thought were obscure that turn out to have a fairly large presence on the internet. One of my personal hobbies, imaginary languages, for example. There are many webrings, FAQs, how-tos, etc. on the web, and at least one mailing list (which I don't actually subscribe to due to the amount of email I get already, but it's there). I thought that there might be one or two enthusiasts in the world before I found it on the net, but there's actually a wealth of information out there. You can never tell.
Heh! I think I'll print a few out and post them around campus. There's a brand new DVD rental vending machine on campus that's just begging to have one of these suckers stuck on it, there're a few video rental places nearby that need some dressing up...oh, and that new DVD rental shop just down the street...
However, I do think that the satirical Mickey Mouse / Uncle Sam just screams out "paranoid radical hippies made this!" Maybe a graphic of a DVD in one of those red cross-out circles. Some color would be nice, too, to make it show up a little better. But that's what graphics programs are for!
If anyone has a great writing on this topic try getting it sent to one of the bigger papers. If we can explain the position on this issue to the public then the judges will start to come around.
Don't try to get it sent to one of the bigger papers. The large papers won't print articles that are submitted by just anyone. Generally, to get an article printed you have to be a reporter for that paper, a freelancer hired by the paper, or a writer for one of the wire services like the Associated Press.
While I was working as an editorial assistant (read: gofer) for the SF Chronicle, I would frequently get calls from people trying to "place an article in the paper". I'd usually inform them that you can't "place" an article, and transfer them to the reporter who covers the appropriate beat. Then I'd have a good chuckle. And I don't think writing a letter to the editor would be a good idea in this case...letters to the editor just don't have the same ring of authority, and people tend to assume they are biased.
Mike Godwin's rules for "Hacking the Media" (I wish I had a link) are exactly how you should contact members of the media. They are how reporters like to be treated. Best of all, if you consistently follow those guidelines and provide good information, you will start to be considered a "good source" and they may start contacting you without prodding.
It is a good idea to contact reporters at your nearest metropolitan newspaper (do your homework and contact the reporter with the right beat!), but don't overlook the wire services. An article from a wire service tends to get run in several major newspapers. Contact any of them that seem appropriate: Associated Press, Tribune Media Services, BusinessWire (don't forget your industry statistics for this one!), Reuters, Bloomberg, DC Wire (political angle), etc.
I added a request for this in bugzilla. It is Bug #26272. If you have some spare browser-component votes, vote for it. If you don't have a (free) bugzilla account yet, get one.
I can't conceive of anything digital that can't be opened. Five years and they couldn't decrypt it? What the hell kind of encryption was Mitnick using?
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately this is not the case. Check out the mozilla newsgroups (especially wishlist) and see all of the "foo.com doesn't work in mozilla. This browser sux, IE is so much better" messages.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
You gents who want to lead where we should follow
And teach us to stay out of crime and sin:
Our stomachs, like your platitudes, are hollow.
Give us some grub first, then you can begin!
-Bertholt Brecht, "What Keeps Mankind Alive?" from The Threepenny Opera, transl. by Michael Feingold (1989)
I think that says enough.
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Zardoz has spoken!
This is an interesting position, since it seems to assert that copyright will eventually disappear because of the ease of copying. But copyright was created because of the ease of copying. Back in the old days before moveable type, there was no need for copyright because the effort involved in mass copying was prohibitive. Once you have the printing press, though, and can print a couple hundred copies of anything, it's a whole new ballgame.
It comes down to a question of whose rights are more important: producer or consumer? Do I, as a producer, have the right to control the use and distribution of what I produce? Or do you, as a consumer, have the right to do whatever you want with it, give copies to your friends, etc.? It's a balancing act, who gets how much control. Giving more rights to the consumer takes away rights from the producer, and vice versa. The only time when this is a non-issue is when the producer and consumer are synonymous (i.e. the open-source model).
As it stands now in most copyright law, and stood for software as well until the DMCA, is that the producer has the right to distribute, while the consumer has the right to do whatever he damn well pleases (fair use) as long as he doesn't violate the producer's right (e.g. by distributing copies without paying the producer). This, IMO, is the way to go. If I as a producer want to grant the consumer additional control and waive some of my own, I can use something like the GPL. The DCMA screwed things up because it put needless restrictions on fair use, throwing everything off balance.
The problem with copyright is that so many companies abuse it. This is not a flaw with the idea of copyright itself, but in how it is written in the law books, how the courts have interpreted those laws, and how companies tend to approach it. Any reform of copyright should attack those problems, but the central idea is still fundamentally sound.
Finally, the argument that copyright is not valid because it is not enforceable is not a good one. It is enforceable: "piracy"--a pretty ridiculous term, granted--is occasionally found out, especially the larger operations (Joe Blow, making a copy of The Matrix for his pal John Doe, is less likely to be caught). Arguing that there should be no copyright laws because law enforcement can't catch all offenders is like saying that there should be no laws against pyramid schemes because law enforcement can't catch all con men. It doesn't hold up.
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Zardoz has spoken!
Of course, if the text was by Catullus, the blocking might actually be legit. His poetry is all sex and profanity (some of it quite amusing).
I made the mistake of taking Latin in high school. Horrible, horrible experience.
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Zardoz has spoken!
Speaking of Black Isle, are there any plans for a port of Planescape: Torment? That game kicks all the ass on Earth (and I'm not a big D&D fan normally).
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Zardoz has spoken!
I have a friend who likes to do stuff like that. The pickle lit up like an incandescent bulb.
He also likes to make fireballs with his stove. Here's how to do it:
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Zardoz has spoken!
Ganbatte!
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Of course you're right, I should have said "opposite charge", not "negative charge". Otherwise, electrons would be antimatter! However, I don't see how you could have neutral-charged antimatter. Negative zero is still zero, after all. Is it possible to have an antiphoton?
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Nice costume. I'm thinking of going as Ohminae Yuu (Spriggan) to the next Anime Expo.
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The person was being sarcastic.
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Ben & Jerry's Dilbert "Totally Nuts" ice cream (I guess they couldn't come up with a better name) tastes pretty good. Gives you 100% of your daily recommended dosage of fat & sugar.
The Dilberrito, on the other hand, looks grotesque.
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The fillings look like baby puke.
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Not valid. Scientists have found antimatter, played with it, and still needed to look for dark matter.
Bzzt. Wrong. Antimatter has negative charge, not negative mass. Matter with negative mass is something else entirely, and is responsible for antigravity.
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So, is this sort of like an LCD hologram?
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Sometimes change is not a good thing. Now I have to relearn the whole thing again. There's no reason for this...you had to have bee a brain dead monkey with no fingers to have trouble with the system from the other VS. games (X-Men / Street Fighter, Marvel / Capcom etc.). Why did they do this?
---
Actually, I tend to prefer the hand-drawn look of 2D fighters, although Dead or Alive 2 seriously rocks the house (it actually has good gameplay, unlike the first one, which just had the most detailed breast-jiggle physics engine in videogames)
---
Of course articles are biased. It is nearly impossible to write anything without a personal bias, even if it only shows in your choice of words or your sentence structure. Language is always biased.
However, articles show the reporter's bias. There is no media uber-bias that dictates what the reporters will think about the issue. They don't all get together in a secret cabal and say, "Well, what sort of spin should we put on this event?" And most reporters try very hard to be unbiased (unless they're writing an editorial), even if true objectivity is impossible. After a story is submitted, the editor (or at least a copy editor) looks through the story not only for spelling and grammar errors but also for bias. This is not foolproof, of course, but it's better than nothing.
Finally, reporters have to write their stories based on the information they can find. If the information tends to favor a particular viewpoint, the article probably will too.
Of course, I'm biased too...I've worked for a newspaper (and also for The Newspaper Guild, the union for reporters and other newspaper employees), and my father is a reporter.
---
Then again, there are several things I would have thought were obscure that turn out to have a fairly large presence on the internet. One of my personal hobbies, imaginary languages, for example. There are many webrings, FAQs, how-tos, etc. on the web, and at least one mailing list (which I don't actually subscribe to due to the amount of email I get already, but it's there). I thought that there might be one or two enthusiasts in the world before I found it on the net, but there's actually a wealth of information out there. You can never tell.
---
Heh! I think I'll print a few out and post them around campus. There's a brand new DVD rental vending machine on campus that's just begging to have one of these suckers stuck on it, there're a few video rental places nearby that need some dressing up...oh, and that new DVD rental shop just down the street...
However, I do think that the satirical Mickey Mouse / Uncle Sam just screams out "paranoid radical hippies made this!" Maybe a graphic of a DVD in one of those red cross-out circles. Some color would be nice, too, to make it show up a little better. But that's what graphics programs are for!
---
Don't try to get it sent to one of the bigger papers. The large papers won't print articles that are submitted by just anyone. Generally, to get an article printed you have to be a reporter for that paper, a freelancer hired by the paper, or a writer for one of the wire services like the Associated Press.
While I was working as an editorial assistant (read: gofer) for the SF Chronicle, I would frequently get calls from people trying to "place an article in the paper". I'd usually inform them that you can't "place" an article, and transfer them to the reporter who covers the appropriate beat. Then I'd have a good chuckle. And I don't think writing a letter to the editor would be a good idea in this case...letters to the editor just don't have the same ring of authority, and people tend to assume they are biased.
Mike Godwin's rules for "Hacking the Media" (I wish I had a link) are exactly how you should contact members of the media. They are how reporters like to be treated. Best of all, if you consistently follow those guidelines and provide good information, you will start to be considered a "good source" and they may start contacting you without prodding.
It is a good idea to contact reporters at your nearest metropolitan newspaper (do your homework and contact the reporter with the right beat!), but don't overlook the wire services. An article from a wire service tends to get run in several major newspapers. Contact any of them that seem appropriate: Associated Press, Tribune Media Services, BusinessWire (don't forget your industry statistics for this one!), Reuters, Bloomberg, DC Wire (political angle), etc.
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Sorry, only MSX emulator I've ever used was on a Mac.
Metal Gear on NES was pretty cool, but the MSX one was better. Better atmosphere.
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The MSX couldn't replace a PC, but it could play a damn good version of Metal Gear
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I added a request for this in bugzilla. It is Bug #26272. If you have some spare browser-component votes, vote for it. If you don't have a (free) bugzilla account yet, get one.
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I'll submit this to buzilla as a feature request. Maybe somebody'll find the time to code it.
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I can't conceive of anything digital that can't be opened. Five years and they couldn't decrypt it? What the hell kind of encryption was Mitnick using?
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