Its called a hand (admittedly a 1976 model, but based on a much older desing). 10 digits and I can do all
sorts of calculations on them. I can add. I
can subtract. I can get a whole load of games
such as the highly succesful rock, paper, scissors.
I can even interface it with my PC.
However, I believe knowingly aiding in a criminal act *IS* a crime itself.
I believe you're right. But I think you have to know that a specific crime is being carried out. Gun makers know that people will use their guns for illegal purposes, but wouldn't be considered to be aiding in a crime.
This isn't as clear as that though. If someone said "I want to pirate Zombiemaster 2000" and the response was "Okay, what you do is get a blank CD, copy this chunk, this chunk and this chunk and add this chunk" then perhaps it could be called contributary. isonews are somewhere in between these two examples though.
The PS seemed succesful before games were copyable. OTOH, I probably wouldn't have bought my Amiga were it not for the fact that I knew that I could pirate games from friends.
What I want to know is do the hardware vendors realise this? Sony and Sega put a lot of effort into preventing piracy. Of course they get money from sales and not from piracyy too, so its in their interests. Are there any examples of something that we can prove flourished through piracy?
Its an odd attitude. Everyone assumes that the PS2 will be successful simply because the PS1 was. This is hardly ever the case. The Sega Saturn was not succesful merely because the Megadrive was. Commodore and Atari both had a good number of failures after an initial success. Even hugely succesful companies like Apple have had a lot of flops.
A more vald comparison would be soemthing like BeOS or OS/2. Both have always had roughly the same price as Windows 3.1/95/98.
If M$ decide that the profit maximising price is at the $1000 areas then that is good for the competition. Isn't that the point? You don't NEED Windows if you want an OS.
The twilight zone section mentioned various pages that were censored for odd reasons. My suggestions as to why
Webcrawler - 2 possibilities.
1 - it bans all sites that are similar to banned ones. Webcralwer.com would probably be caught.
2 - It contains the word excite
Webmonkey - Has a link for backend.
It seems quite obvious that they have no
real teeth. The first time they complained it
gave everyone a bit of a scare, but since they
failed to try to back up their claim of IP
infringement, and started making more and more
vague threats, it has become apparent that they
are just trying to scare people away from their turf.
Since they're a tiny insignificant company who
aren't going to be around for a lot longer unless
they come up with a viable business plan, I
think everyone should just ignore them and see
if they go away.
The Democrats are trying to "poison pill" the bill
Does this strike anyone else as a bloody stupid way to run a country? The logical implication is that if any unpopular bill gets through, it will be far worse for those who were against it than when it was first proposed.
Yeah. Watching a huge hydraulic chomper compete against a battering ram was pretty cool. A plane that only flew downwards vs a balloon that was too slow to handle a gentle draught was a bit dull.
Judging by this copy of the FC logo and the Idealab! logo, the complaint was not that they were using a copy of the idealab logo as their own logo. Its not that they were saying that Idealab was a Fucked Company. Just that all the companies on the logo were.
Since they weren't actually using this as a criticism of Idealab, their case is changed completely from showing it in connection with the company, to their right to parody. Unfortunately for FC, they aren't on as firm ground here. US law seems to demand that parody is satirizing the material that was copied. They would probably be well within their rights if Idealab had screwed up all those companies, but since they haven't, and they seem to have been using it as their own logo, they can't claim the right to parody.
There are various properties of software that make the open source model much better. The main one being that people who use the software can immediately tell if the software is good. "Good" in this sense is an ability to do its job. I can tell you if Gimp can do the processing I want to do on my pictures. I might find it insufficient if it can't handle a particular format, so the modification I should make is obvious.
On the other hand, I use a book to learn. It isn't easy to judge the quality of learning from a book since I have nothing to compare it with. If the information is wrong I can't correct it since I don't know its wrong. If I already knew it was wrong I wouldn't have read that book.
I feel I've been far too pessimistic so far. I feel open source books would be great. I believe it is possible. I just feel that still we need to find a way to make it work.
The piracy is theft argument. While there are all sorts of reasonable arguments supporting the position that piracy is wrong, comparing it with theft of the physical medium is not one of them.
Perhaps they should have said that downloading music from the internet is as bad as borrowing a CD from someone and copying it to tape.
Somehow this strikes me as a little too angry. The points are all reasonable, I just don't think I'd put it on a letters page aimed at parents, and I agree with you generally. The first sentence is far too confrontational.
By the way, did you send it from the iloveporn@moralmajority.org address perchance?
I am still at a loss as to how a decypher routine, that does not play or copy anything by itself, can be a "pirating device"
As far as I can tell, the MPAA managed to convince the judge that an encrpyted file can't be copied at all whereas a decrypted file can be. (The docs have various comments along the lines of "decrypted...and copied just like any other file"
Meanwhile, 2600 didn't seem to realise that anyone could be so stupid as to assume this, and 2600's legal experts didn't have the technical knowledge to understand that an encrypted file could still be copied.
Alhough I'm not totally convinced that its worth the effort. Collecting the boosters is an expensive operation, almost as costly as rebuilding them. The shuttle itself is pretty much taken to bits and put back together again for each flight.
hey should also have copies of any hate literature published, The Anarcists Cookbook, and any liturature the general populous might find offensive.
Should the library have the capacity for unlimited books, then yes they should have these. If I asked for some hate literature then I would expect the library to order them.
I beleive censorship is a community decision. As such, that community has the right to subject their morals on you,
Well, okay. Thats fair. If the majority agrees that the library should not allow certain things I'll accept that decision (And campaign against it) In this case though it wasn't the community that decided on censorship. It was the library.
For those that don't agree with this, DOWN WITH SLASHDOT RATINGS! They are a form of sensorship. You likely won't see this post, because your threshold is set to more than 1
Sounds fair. I have the right to read what you write should I choose. I also have the right to choose to ignore you. You have the right to write. But writing is your choice and reading is mine. By changing my threshold I'm voluntarily giving the moderators the right to choose for me (which is why I set my threshold to 0 or -1 mostly)
Okay, it could be considered censorship if all computers in Great Britain had these limitations on them
But some people don't have access to any other computers. Should only the rich have free access to information?
it's not like it's such a big deal, right?
YES! Its important we have rights and that no beurocratic organisations try to circumvent them. This is funded by the taxpayer. Its only right that the taxpayer should have the use of it. If not then spend the money on something more useful.
The library is free to prohibit certain types of activities. You are free to pursue them elsewhere.
Yes they are. However, since they are a publicly funded organisation, they need a good reason to do so though. They are free to prohibit loud talking (I wish they would) because that might distract users. They are free to prohibit people from chopping up newspapers (because that will prevent other people from using those papers) What reason do they have for preventing access to certain sites?
Wait, this was a British public library? Is that anything like a British public school (what we Yanks would call a private school)?
No. We only have totally screwed up terminology
when it comes to schools. (Historical reasons -
I think its because ordinary members of the public
can go to them as long as they have enough cash)
Slashdot Mirror
What's more important? Some useless freedom or food on the table?
Freedom. If it wasn't then anyone who was starving would just get themselves arrested.
Its called a hand (admittedly a 1976 model, but based on a much older desing). 10 digits and I can do all sorts of calculations on them. I can add. I can subtract. I can get a whole load of games such as the highly succesful rock, paper, scissors. I can even interface it with my PC.
I never said it was successful. Just that the megadrive's success didn't help it.
However, I believe knowingly aiding in a criminal act *IS* a crime itself.
I believe you're right. But I think you have to know that a specific crime is being carried out. Gun makers know that people will use their guns for illegal purposes, but wouldn't be considered to be aiding in a crime.
This isn't as clear as that though. If someone said "I want to pirate Zombiemaster 2000" and the response was "Okay, what you do is get a blank CD, copy this chunk, this chunk and this chunk and add this chunk" then perhaps it could be called contributary. isonews are somewhere in between these two examples though.
The PS seemed succesful before games were copyable. OTOH, I probably wouldn't have bought my Amiga were it not for the fact that I knew that I could pirate games from friends.
What I want to know is do the hardware vendors realise this? Sony and Sega put a lot of effort into preventing piracy. Of course they get money from sales and not from piracyy too, so its in their interests. Are there any examples of something that we can prove flourished through piracy?
Its an odd attitude. Everyone assumes that the PS2 will be successful simply because the PS1 was. This is hardly ever the case. The Sega Saturn was not succesful merely because the Megadrive was. Commodore and Atari both had a good number of failures after an initial success. Even hugely succesful companies like Apple have had a lot of flops.
A more vald comparison would be soemthing like BeOS or OS/2. Both have always had roughly the same price as Windows 3.1/95/98.
If M$ decide that the profit maximising price is at the $1000 areas then that is good for the competition. Isn't that the point? You don't NEED Windows if you want an OS.
The twilight zone section mentioned various pages that were censored for odd reasons. My suggestions as to why
Webcrawler - 2 possibilities.
1 - it bans all sites that are similar to banned ones. Webcralwer.com would probably be caught.
2 - It contains the word excite
Webmonkey - Has a link for backend.
Judging by their legal knowledge, I think I could get an out of court settlemnet based on their breach of copyright of this post.
It seems quite obvious that they have no real teeth. The first time they complained it gave everyone a bit of a scare, but since they failed to try to back up their claim of IP infringement, and started making more and more vague threats, it has become apparent that they are just trying to scare people away from their turf.
Since they're a tiny insignificant company who aren't going to be around for a lot longer unless they come up with a viable business plan, I think everyone should just ignore them and see if they go away.
Slash is written in perl. Those "else if"s should be "elsif"s and {}s should be used around all the conditional code.
It looks like a Scott Pakin's Complaint generator written complaint. I've always been quite fond of that myself.
The Democrats are trying to "poison pill" the bill
Does this strike anyone else as a bloody stupid way to run a country? The logical implication is that if any unpopular bill gets through, it will be far worse for those who were against it than when it was first proposed.
Yeah. Watching a huge hydraulic chomper compete against a battering ram was pretty cool. A plane that only flew downwards vs a balloon that was too slow to handle a gentle draught was a bit dull.
Judging by this copy of the FC logo and the Idealab! logo, the complaint was not that they were using a copy of the idealab logo as their own logo. Its not that they were saying that Idealab was a Fucked Company. Just that all the companies on the logo were.
Since they weren't actually using this as a criticism of Idealab, their case is changed completely from showing it in connection with the company, to their right to parody. Unfortunately for FC, they aren't on as firm ground here. US law seems to demand that parody is satirizing the material that was copied. They would probably be well within their rights if Idealab had screwed up all those companies, but since they haven't, and they seem to have been using it as their own logo, they can't claim the right to parody.
There are various properties of software that make the open source model much better. The main one being that people who use the software can immediately tell if the software is good. "Good" in this sense is an ability to do its job. I can tell you if Gimp can do the processing I want to do on my pictures. I might find it insufficient if it can't handle a particular format, so the modification I should make is obvious.
On the other hand, I use a book to learn. It isn't easy to judge the quality of learning from a book since I have nothing to compare it with. If the information is wrong I can't correct it since I don't know its wrong. If I already knew it was wrong I wouldn't have read that book.
I feel I've been far too pessimistic so far. I feel open source books would be great. I believe it is possible. I just feel that still we need to find a way to make it work.
The piracy is theft argument. While there are all sorts of reasonable arguments supporting the position that piracy is wrong, comparing it with theft of the physical medium is not one of them.
Perhaps they should have said that downloading music from the internet is as bad as borrowing a CD from someone and copying it to tape.
Somehow this strikes me as a little too angry. The points are all reasonable, I just don't think I'd put it on a letters page aimed at parents, and I agree with you generally. The first sentence is far too confrontational.
By the way, did you send it from the iloveporn@moralmajority.org address perchance?
I am still at a loss as to how a decypher routine, that does not play or copy anything by itself, can be a "pirating device"
As far as I can tell, the MPAA managed to convince the judge that an encrpyted file can't be copied at all whereas a decrypted file can be. (The docs have various comments along the lines of "decrypted...and copied just like any other file"
Meanwhile, 2600 didn't seem to realise that anyone could be so stupid as to assume this, and 2600's legal experts didn't have the technical knowledge to understand that an encrypted file could still be copied.
but being in the UK..... I have a flatmate in california
Thats a big flat.
Alhough I'm not totally convinced that its worth the effort. Collecting the boosters is an expensive operation, almost as costly as rebuilding them. The shuttle itself is pretty much taken to bits and put back together again for each flight.
hey should also have copies of any hate literature published, The Anarcists Cookbook, and any liturature the general populous might find offensive.
Should the library have the capacity for unlimited books, then yes they should have these. If I asked for some hate literature then I would expect the library to order them.
I beleive censorship is a community decision. As such, that community has the right to subject their morals on you,
Well, okay. Thats fair. If the majority agrees that the library should not allow certain things I'll accept that decision (And campaign against it) In this case though it wasn't the community that decided on censorship. It was the library.
For those that don't agree with this, DOWN WITH SLASHDOT RATINGS! They are a form of sensorship. You likely won't see this post, because your threshold is set to more than 1
Sounds fair. I have the right to read what you write should I choose. I also have the right to choose to ignore you. You have the right to write. But writing is your choice and reading is mine. By changing my threshold I'm voluntarily giving the moderators the right to choose for me (which is why I set my threshold to 0 or -1 mostly)
Star Wars III: The search for Star Wars II
Okay, it could be considered censorship if all computers in Great Britain had these limitations on them
But some people don't have access to any other computers. Should only the rich have free access to information?
it's not like it's such a big deal, right?
YES! Its important we have rights and that no beurocratic organisations try to circumvent them. This is funded by the taxpayer. Its only right that the taxpayer should have the use of it. If not then spend the money on something more useful.
The library is free to prohibit certain types of activities. You are free to pursue them elsewhere.
Yes they are. However, since they are a publicly funded organisation, they need a good reason to do so though. They are free to prohibit loud talking (I wish they would) because that might distract users. They are free to prohibit people from chopping up newspapers (because that will prevent other people from using those papers) What reason do they have for preventing access to certain sites?
Wait, this was a British public library? Is that anything like a British public school (what we Yanks would call a private school)?
No. We only have totally screwed up terminology when it comes to schools. (Historical reasons - I think its because ordinary members of the public can go to them as long as they have enough cash)