How much time is it going to take to crack this new movie format?
It's already cracked, but the programmer who did it is not going to release his/her results because of the DMCA?
I guess this means the DMCA is working, right?
They made something illegal, and lo-and-behold, many people stopped doing it.
About six months ago I commented on slashdot about how the fight against Napster vis-a-vis the DMCA was analogous to the US "war" on drugs. I said that the criminalization of a certain lifestyle behavior along with an aggressive punitive justice will never stop 100% of people from participating in the lifestyle, but it may stop 85% or 90%. Which the US government must consider "good enough" to create a net positive effect for the whole of society.
Now it seems that DCMA is having a similar effect.
* as a footnote, the government from time to time is forced to re-evaluate punitive justice policies that have very serious negative consequences. As that 85% effectiveness drops to 65%, and the side effects of losing freedom are more apparent, these laws are often modified or repealed (amendments XVIII and XXI come to mind.) Keep the faith. Keep making noise.
Has America ever done something that isnt in their own self interest?
I'm a technologist, not a historian, but has any country ever used military force when it wasn't (knowingly) in their self interest?
I'm not talking about taking action that ultimately turned out to be a bad idea (i.e., Japan attacking Pearl Harbor, the US putting troops in Vietnam and Cambodia, etc). I'm wondering if any country ever said, "well, this is not in our self interest, but we'll do it anyway."
I remember what a prof said to me in college (economics, not comp sci or business, BTW). Paraphrased: "I don't think it's morally wrong to 'borrow' software while you are a student. But the day after you graduate and get a job, you should either delete it, or send someone a check."
Is it morally wrong to borrow medicine if you are deathly ill and not going on health care until next month? Is it morally wrong to borrow medicine if you have maxed out your credit card? How about borrowing food to feed a starving child? How about borrowing food to feed yourself before next week's paycheck? How about borrowing software when you are a poor student? What about when you are rich student?
Yes, morality and ethics are fuzzy, but you should mention to your professor that stealing is stealing, not borrowing. Sometimes it is justifiable, of course. Just don't kid yourself about what you are doing.
PS, one of the reasons that I love free, open-source software is because the author gives the public the right to make their own decisions about such things. But intellectual property laws protect the author, and say that he or she alone has the choice to grant away that control and propriety as they see fit. In other words, the laws should protect the author, and isn't it great when the author turns out to be a good person?
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles officials seeking to impose property taxes on space satellites were brought back down to Earth on Tuesday when a state board moved toward declaring satellites beyond the reach of even the tax collector.
But Los Angeles County Assessor Rick Auerbach said he was not yet ready to scrap the proposed tax and would consider a court challenge if he finds that the California State Board of Equalization has circumvented state or federal law.
It was Auerbach who determined that eight communications satellites owned by Hughes Electronics Corp.(NYSE:GMH - news) and currently in geostationary orbit 22,300 miles over Earth's equator were taxable as movable property that was currently out of state, similar to construction equipment.
That decision prompted county officials to consider an assessment on the communications satellites, which are each worth up to $100 million new.
But State Board of Equalization members appeared to short circuit that plan on Tuesday when they voted 5-0 to ``fast track'' a rule that satellites cannot be taxed, even though Hughes, a unit of GM (NYSE:GM - news), is based in Los Angeles.
The decision came after presentations by Hughes and Auerbach and directs the board's staff to draft a rule declaring the satellites nontaxable. Board members would vote on that proposed rule in the coming months.
George Jamison, a Hughes vice president, said the firm was relieved and pleased by what he called the ``good common sense'' of the board and said they considered the proposed tax a very bad idea from the start.
HUGHES: TAX IS 'LUDICROUS'
``It's ludicrous, absolutely,'' Jamison said. ``It's the type of issue, quite frankly, that causes the company to consider relocating its base of operations to a more business-friendly environment.''
The satellites are not launched from California, do not pass over California while in orbit and will never return to the state, instead becoming space junk, he said.
``We think the ruling is important,'' Jamison said. ``These spacecraft are not be in the state of California, have never been in the state of California during their useful lives and will never be in the state of California in the future.''
Auerbach conceded that the board members ``have made up their mind already that the property is not taxable,'' but said the issue was not necessarily dead because he had researched the case and found legal opinions supporting his position.
``I'll have to see what basis they have for the rule,'' Auerbach said. ``If I believe it's improper (under the) U.S. Constitution and and state statutes my option is to go to Superior Court.''
``I have to keep an open mind,'' Auerbach said. ``Based on the opinions I have I think it still looks taxable.''
Auerbach insisted that he was not pushing for a tax on the satellites but was simply doing his job and trying to determine whether they should be taxed.
``I'm neutral on the whole thing,'' he said. ``My job is to make sure all property that's taxable gets assessed and I'm going to follow the law. If the law says its not taxable it's not taxable. If it is taxable I will assess it.''
"I saw A.I. last weekend, and I thought it was simply shwark. A total tobble-fest."
"The Diablo II expansion set is perfy, and certainly nittie-ho, but is it too moibly?"
"The Jeep Liberty is pure thrangal to drive -- but boy does it look like umgah!"
The is something charming about reviews with made-up words. Just not informative. Sort of like reading A Clockwork Orange without realizing that there is a glossary in the back.
> > With any PHP-based solution, you have to hit the DB every time you want to get anything dynamic.
> You must not have a clue how slashcode works, or you have never heard of database caching.
If you are into caching and using Perl, check out the Cache::Cache project on SourceForge. It provides a solid architecture for caching results from databases, middle-tiers, etc., in web applications. I wrote the module as a followup to the File::Cache and IPC::Cache modules. It is in use on a number of high volume sites and seems to be doing rather well. Feedback, suggestions, bug reports, and contributions are always welcome.
Their [Transgaming] solution is to refine and extend Wine, their "development toolkit for porting Windows source code to UNIX systems (Winelib), and program loader which allows Windows.EXE files to run directly on Intel-based UNIX flavors," so that Windows games will work well under Linux.
Emphasis mine. I thought that Transgaming was adding DirectX APIs to Wine. This makes it sound like Wine itself is their doing. Not to discredit Transgaming, of course (although I do wish they would open it up sooner rather than later). But rather to mentioned where credit is due.
If we can create a Napster-like groundswell for an open audio codec such as Vorbis, then it will not matter if Windows XP ships with only Windows Media Audio and the Windows Media Player. The fact is, while WMA is good, it isn't open or free, and and the Windows player isn't as strong as WinAmp or XMMS.
Free is good. That is why Napster did so well. If the downloadable audio market is saturated by ".ogg" files and flooded with high quality and free audio players, then Ogg Vorbis has a chance of beating those nasty little ".wma"'s.
Falcon's Eye (working title) is a mouse-driven interface for NetHack that displays the game in high-res, isometric, light-source shaded graphics, yet retains all of the game features. The new interface eases many tasks; for example, there's an 'autopilot' for long movements, and tooltips to describe the many objects and creatures in the game.
Re:Tatara is a drooling moron's drooling moron
on
Hollywood and Hackers
·
· Score: 1
> Tatara is living proof of the Peter Principle.
I didn't know what the "Peter Principle" was, so I looked it up. According to this page on the Principia Cybernetica the generalized Peter Principle states that in evolution systems tend to develop up to the limit of their adaptive competence.
The full quote:
The Peter Principle was first introduced by L. Peter in a humoristic book (of the same title) describing the pitfalls of bureaucratic organization. The original principle states that in a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their "level of incompetence". The principle is based on the observation that in such an organization new employees typically start in the lower ranks, but when they prove to be competent in the task to which they are assigned, they get promoted to a higher rank. This process of climbing up the hierarchical ladder can go on indefinitely, until the employee reaches a position where he or she is no longer competent. At that moment the process typically stops, since the established rules of bureacracies make that it is very difficult to "demote" someone to a lower rank, even if that person would be much better fitted and more happy in that lower position. The net result is that most of the higher levels of a bureaucracy will be filled by incompetent people, who got there because they were quite good at doing a different (and usually, but not always, easier) task than the one they are expected to do.
The evolutionary generalization of the principle is less pessimistic in its implications, since evolution lacks the bureaucratic inertia that pushes and maintains people in an unfit position. But what will certainly remain is that systems confronted by evolutionary problems will quickly tackle the easy ones, but tend to get stuck in the difficult ones. The better (more fit, smarter, more competent, more adaptive) a system is, the more quickly it will solve all the easy problems, but the more difficult the problem will be it finally gets stuck in. Getting stuck here does not mean "being unfit", it just means having reached the limit of one's competence, and thus having great difficulty advancing further. This explains why even the most complex and adaptive species (such as ourselves, humans) are always still "struggling for survival" in their niches as energetically as are the most primitive organisms such as bacteria. If ever a species would get control over all its evolutionary problems, then the "Red Queen Principle" would make sure that new, more complex problems would arise, so that the species would continue to balance on the border of its domain of incompetence. In conclusion, the generalized Peter principle states that in evolution systems tend to develop up to the limit of their adaptive competence.
The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers.
--Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, Viking Penguin (1995), p. 265.
[OT] Affect vs. Effect
on
XBox Tidbits
·
· Score: 3
The normal usage of affect is in the verb form. From www.dict.org:
Affect\Af*fect"\ ([a^]f*f[e^]kt"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Affected; p. pr. & vb. n. Affecting.] [L. affectus, p. p. of afficere to affect by active agency; ad + facere to make: cf. F. affectere, L. affectare, freq. of afficere. See Fact.]
1. To act upon; to produce an effect or change upon.
As might affect the earth with cold heat. --Milton.
The climate affected their health and spirits. --Macaulay.
Affect\Af*fect"\, n. (Psychotherapy)
The emotional complex associated with an idea or mental state. In hysteria, the affect is sometimes entirely dissociated, sometimes transferred to another than the original idea.
In comparison with the noun form of effect:
Effect\Ef*fect"\, n. [L. effectus, fr. efficere, effectum, to effect; ex + facere to make: cf. F. effet, formerly also spelled effect. See Fact.]
3. In general: That which is produced by an agent or cause; the event which follows immediately from an antecedent, called the cause; result; consequence; outcome; fruit; as, the effect of luxury.
The effect is the unfailing index of the amount of
the cause. --Whewell.
Yes, go ahead and mod me down for being an off topic wanker.
The biggest problem with people mistaking Slashdot for Freshmeat is that there is rarely enough information given for a good software announcement. That said:
XFree86 is a freely redistributable implementation of the X Window System that runs on UNIX(R) and UNIX-like operating systems.
Some temporary file-related security vulnerabilities are fixed.
Screen corruption problems and palette saving problems with some Neomagic chips are fixed.
'XFree86 -configure' problems are fixed in some drivers (including sis and i810).
A problem with some plain S3 ViRGE cards is fixed.
Some Xaw incompatibilities with Xaw6 are fixed.
Some XKB files are updated.
Some trident driver updates, including fixing acceleration for the Cyber9388.
A palette saving problem in the vgahw module is fixed.
Support for the wsmouse protocol is added for OpenBSD/i386.
A load problem with the sis driver module, and some depth 24 problems are fixed.
Support for the "PD" variant of the ATI Rage 128 is added.
Support for GNU Hurd is updated.
Some TrueType font problems are fixed.
The mga driver doesn't attempt to drive the G450 if the "mga_hal" module isn't available.
A problem with bold font simulation in xterm is fixed.
The (DPS) stub files created by pswrap are now compatible with the Adobe version.
Some glint driver problems are fixed.
Support for building on OpenBSD-current, and multi-thread support for OpenBSD are provided.
A problem with the ThinkingMousePS/2 protocol is fixed in the mouse driver.
Support for the Render extension with Xinerama is added.
A DGA-related server crash is fixed.
Some Chips & Technologies driver bugs are fixed.
Some tseng driver bugs are fixed.
Some Alpha platform updates are included.
Support for the GeForce3 is added to the nv driver.
Misc build-related issues are fixed.
Various documentation updates, including a reworked XFree86(1) manual page.
Dungeon Master, Wizardry, and like games, started a tradition of dungeon crawl RPGs that are currenly best explemfified by Diablo II on one end of the spectrum, and Baldur's Gate II on the other. But it looks like Bioware's Neverwinter Nights is about to take the crown.
Of course, I have a vested interested in seeing people switch to zsh. It is my primary shell, and the more people use it, the more boxes will come standard with zsh, and the less frequently I'll have to revert to bash.
Outpost.com has been my first instinct for a year or two now. But when I went to their site to pre-order B&W, I noticed that they no longer offer their trademark free overnight shipping on all purchases. You now need to spend over a $100 to get the free shipping. Still a good deal, but not enough to make me automatically buy this at Outpost.
Hmm. I can't even double check this since their site seems to be down. At least from where I am.
It is interesting, because we knew all along that they would drop their free overnight shipping policy. They were losing money on every purchase. I imagine they were betting on customer loyality to keep their sales up.
I would have been loyal -- but there was no dislaimer anywhere in the shopping process that said that the shipping would cost money. It was only after I was reading the final receipt that I noticed that suddenly $12.50 was being tacked on to my purchases to cover overnight delivery. I came very close to hitting submit and paying a total $70 for B&W at Outpost. This upset me, and now I'm looking elsewhere.
Now the site is back up. There slogan is still "Free Delivery. Overnight". Of course, that is now only for orders over $100.
It seems that with respect to US patent law, the discussions here are all about vocalizing loudly on the soapbox, but somewhat lacking in any real agenda.
What do people really want to accomplish with all of this? Similar to the Napster "debate", most posts are simply pointing out how the system is being misused. Some articles, like this one, offer a thorough analysis of one instance of the problem. But few, if any, offer either a suggestion for a solution, or even clear position that explains why these particular instances are being mentioned in the first place.
Is the agenda in question the abolition of the US patent, trademark, and copyright law? I highly doubt that, considering those laws are protecting the individual inventor (even the open source, GPL inventor) from having their work shameless pilfered by the faceless and greedy corporation.
Is the agenda to simply reform the patent system such that these obviously outrageous examples of misuse are avoided in the future? If so, that sounds wonderful! What are your recommendations on how the reform should take place?
And that's just to name a few that immediately came to mind. Note that some of them had coporate sponsorship, some are truly community reviewed, and some are a mixture. But standards are essential for ever moving *beyond* the technology of today. If we didn't have a standard C, then people will still be arguing over how to improve C, rather than creating new languages.
Really, standards shouldn't evolve that much. And people shouldn't wait to get them perfect. Agree on something that mostly works, use it, and move on.
I would definitely love to get an HDTV system, but right now I find the cost prohibatively high for the amount of broadcast service available in most areas. For example, a good sized high resolution television would set you back about US $3K, and a set top receiver would be about $1K.
What are the estimates for when those systems will be comparable in price to a nice 32" Sony Wega of today ($1.4K with free home delivery at Outpost)?
First, the RIAA will, in the near future, have some success at stopping Napster, as one particular service, from distributing copyrighted material. They will accomplish this because Napster is a corporate entity and Napster will cooperate with the courts, because that is in the best interest of their shareholders.
Second, other services, whether they are OpenNap servers, Gnutella, FreeNet, or whatever, will emerge from Napster's ashes and allow people to distribute copyrighted material.
Third, the RIAA will notice that there is not one particular corporate entity to go after in this case, and will take the issue to the legislature instead.
Fourth, the legislature will pass unambiguous laws that declare distributing copyright material online illegal, and there are medium penalties (like fines, and possibly jail time for multiple offenses).
Fifth, some people will continue distributing copyright materials online. Most won't.
Sixth, some people will get caught. Most won't.
The parallel I am making should be clear. This is analogous to the United State's so-called war on drugs.
No, the US can never "win" the war on drugs. Nor can it win the war against distributing copyrighted material. However, it can certainly scare the majority of people into not participating. And that is all the RIAA wants to preserve its profits.
I noticed the headline FCC to Decline Ordering 10-Digit Dialing for Calls on Reuters just minutes before I noticed the one on Slashdot referenced the LA Times saying FCC Considering 10-Digit Dialing.
To quote briefly from the Reuters article (available at Yahoo here):
By Jeremy Pelofsky
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal regulators on Thursday will not order Americans to include the three-digit area code when making local calls, a move that could have made more than a billion telephone numbers available.
Instead, the Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) will consider a raft of
proposals to ensure telephone carriers are using the numbers they already have efficiently
and the agency will weigh whether to charge companies a fee to obtain more.
[...continued...]
The Reuters article is dated Wednesday December 6 1:01 PM ET. The LA times is dated the same day, but doesn't mention the time.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess this means the DMCA is working, right?
They made something illegal, and lo-and-behold, many people stopped doing it.
About six months ago I commented on slashdot about how the fight against Napster vis-a-vis the DMCA was analogous to the US "war" on drugs. I said that the criminalization of a certain lifestyle behavior along with an aggressive punitive justice will never stop 100% of people from participating in the lifestyle, but it may stop 85% or 90%. Which the US government must consider "good enough" to create a net positive effect for the whole of society.
Now it seems that DCMA is having a similar effect.
* as a footnote, the government from time to time is forced to re-evaluate punitive justice policies that have very serious negative consequences. As that 85% effectiveness drops to 65%, and the side effects of losing freedom are more apparent, these laws are often modified or repealed (amendments XVIII and XXI come to mind.) Keep the faith. Keep making noise.
Has America ever done something that isnt in their own self interest?
I'm a technologist, not a historian, but has any country ever used military force when it wasn't (knowingly) in their self interest?
I'm not talking about taking action that ultimately turned out to be a bad idea (i.e., Japan attacking Pearl Harbor, the US putting troops in Vietnam and Cambodia, etc). I'm wondering if any country ever said, "well, this is not in our self interest, but we'll do it anyway."
I remember what a prof said to me in college (economics, not comp sci or business, BTW). Paraphrased: "I don't think it's morally wrong to 'borrow' software while you are a student. But the day after you graduate and get a job, you should either delete it, or send someone a check."
Is it morally wrong to borrow medicine if you are deathly ill and not going on health care until next month? Is it morally wrong to borrow medicine if you have maxed out your credit card? How about borrowing food to feed a starving child? How about borrowing food to feed yourself before next week's paycheck? How about borrowing software when you are a poor student? What about when you are rich student?
Yes, morality and ethics are fuzzy, but you should mention to your professor that stealing is stealing, not borrowing. Sometimes it is justifiable, of course. Just don't kid yourself about what you are doing.
PS, one of the reasons that I love free, open-source software is because the author gives the public the right to make their own decisions about such things. But intellectual property laws protect the author, and say that he or she alone has the choice to grant away that control and propriety as they see fit. In other words, the laws should protect the author, and isn't it great when the author turns out to be a good person?
...this coming from the people who brought you the Sun WorkShop? :)
From http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20010710/tc/life _satellites_dc_1.html. This actually was on Reuters a few hours before the slashdot post.
Tuesday July 10 7:46 PM ET
L.A. May Be Shot Down in Bid to Tax Satellites
By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles officials seeking to impose property taxes on space satellites were brought back down to Earth on Tuesday when a state board moved toward declaring satellites beyond the reach of even the tax collector.
But Los Angeles County Assessor Rick Auerbach said he was not yet ready to scrap the proposed tax and would consider a court challenge if he finds that the California State Board of Equalization has circumvented state or federal law.
It was Auerbach who determined that eight communications satellites owned by Hughes Electronics Corp.(NYSE:GMH - news) and currently in geostationary orbit 22,300 miles over Earth's equator were taxable as movable property that was currently out of state, similar to construction equipment.
That decision prompted county officials to consider an assessment on the communications satellites, which are each worth up to $100 million new.
But State Board of Equalization members appeared to short circuit that plan on Tuesday when they voted 5-0 to ``fast track'' a rule that satellites cannot be taxed, even though Hughes, a unit of GM (NYSE:GM - news), is based in Los Angeles.
The decision came after presentations by Hughes and Auerbach and directs the board's staff to draft a rule declaring the satellites nontaxable. Board members would vote on that proposed rule in the coming months.
George Jamison, a Hughes vice president, said the firm was relieved and pleased by what he called the ``good common sense'' of the board and said they considered the proposed tax a very bad idea from the start.
HUGHES: TAX IS 'LUDICROUS'
``It's ludicrous, absolutely,'' Jamison said. ``It's the type of issue, quite frankly, that causes the company to consider relocating its base of operations to a more business-friendly environment.''
The satellites are not launched from California, do not pass over California while in orbit and will never return to the state, instead becoming space junk, he said.
``We think the ruling is important,'' Jamison said. ``These spacecraft are not be in the state of California, have never been in the state of California during their useful lives and will never be in the state of California in the future.''
Auerbach conceded that the board members ``have made up their mind already that the property is not taxable,'' but said the issue was not necessarily dead because he had researched the case and found legal opinions supporting his position.
``I'll have to see what basis they have for the rule,'' Auerbach said. ``If I believe it's improper (under the) U.S. Constitution and and state statutes my option is to go to Superior Court.''
``I have to keep an open mind,'' Auerbach said. ``Based on the opinions I have I think it still looks taxable.''
Auerbach insisted that he was not pushing for a tax on the satellites but was simply doing his job and trying to determine whether they should be taxed.
``I'm neutral on the whole thing,'' he said. ``My job is to make sure all property that's taxable gets assessed and I'm going to follow the law. If the law says its not taxable it's not taxable. If it is taxable I will assess it.''
Timothy writes:
> [...]and trackpads always seem wibbly to me.
"I saw A.I. last weekend, and I thought it was simply shwark. A total tobble-fest."
"The Diablo II expansion set is perfy, and certainly nittie-ho, but is it too moibly?"
"The Jeep Liberty is pure thrangal to drive -- but boy does it look like umgah!"
The is something charming about reviews with made-up words. Just not informative. Sort of like reading A Clockwork Orange without realizing that there is a glossary in the back.
> You must not have a clue how slashcode works, or you have never heard of database caching.
If you are into caching and using Perl, check out the Cache::Cache project on SourceForge. It provides a solid architecture for caching results from databases, middle-tiers, etc., in web applications. I wrote the module as a followup to the File::Cache and IPC::Cache modules. It is in use on a number of high volume sites and seems to be doing rather well. Feedback, suggestions, bug reports, and contributions are always welcome.
Emphasis mine. I thought that Transgaming was adding DirectX APIs to Wine. This makes it sound like Wine itself is their doing. Not to discredit Transgaming, of course (although I do wish they would open it up sooner rather than later). But rather to mentioned where credit is due.
I guess on my machine gcc should give a warning. But it doesn't. Damn that RedHat 2.96 gcc!
All the more reason to agressively push for the adoption and penetration of Ogg Vorbis.
By know, everyone in the know should have checked out the Xiphophorus company homepage, and taken a look at Ogg and Vorbis.
If we can create a Napster-like groundswell for an open audio codec such as Vorbis, then it will not matter if Windows XP ships with only Windows Media Audio and the Windows Media Player. The fact is, while WMA is good, it isn't open or free, and and the Windows player isn't as strong as WinAmp or XMMS.
Free is good. That is why Napster did so well. If the downloadable audio market is saturated by ".ogg" files and flooded with high quality and free audio players, then Ogg Vorbis has a chance of beating those nasty little ".wma"'s.
Check out Falcon's Eye. From the site:
And a screenshot or two.
I didn't know what the "Peter Principle" was, so I looked it up. According to this page on the Principia Cybernetica the generalized Peter Principle states that in evolution systems tend to develop up to the limit of their adaptive competence.
The full quote:
The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers.
--Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, Viking Penguin (1995), p. 265.
The normal usage of affect is in the verb form. From www.dict.org:
Affect \Af*fect"\ ([a^]f*f[e^]kt"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Affected; p. pr. & vb. n. Affecting.] [L. affectus, p. p. of afficere to affect by active agency; ad + facere to make: cf. F. affectere, L. affectare, freq. of afficere. See Fact.]
1. To act upon; to produce an effect or change upon.
As might affect the earth with cold heat. --Milton.
The climate affected their health and spirits. --Macaulay.
The less common noun forms of affect:
Affect \Af*fect"\, n. [L. affectus.]
Affection; inclination; passion; feeling; disposition. [Obs.] --Shak.
Affect \Af*fect"\, n. (Psychotherapy)
The emotional complex associated with an idea or mental state. In hysteria, the affect is sometimes entirely dissociated, sometimes transferred to another than the original idea.
In comparison with the noun form of effect:
Effect \Ef*fect"\, n. [L. effectus, fr. efficere, effectum, to effect; ex + facere to make: cf. F. effet, formerly also spelled effect. See Fact.]
3. In general: That which is produced by an agent or cause; the event which follows immediately from an antecedent, called the cause; result; consequence; outcome; fruit; as, the effect of luxury.
The effect is the unfailing index of the amount of
the cause. --Whewell.
Yes, go ahead and mod me down for being an off topic wanker.
The biggest problem with people mistaking Slashdot for Freshmeat is that there is rarely enough information given for a good software announcement. That said:
:: X11 :: System
XFree86 is a freely redistributable implementation of the X Window System that runs on UNIX(R) and UNIX-like operating systems.
Author:
The XFree86 Project <XFree86 at XFree86 dot org>
Homepage:
http://www.xfree86.org/
Tar/GZ:
ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.0.3/
Changelog:
http://www.xfree86.org/4.0.3/RELNOTES.html
Trove categories:
Old Appindex
Summary of updates in 4.0.3.
Some temporary file-related security vulnerabilities are fixed.
Screen corruption problems and palette saving problems with some Neomagic chips are fixed.
'XFree86 -configure' problems are fixed in some drivers (including sis and i810).
A problem with some plain S3 ViRGE cards is fixed.
Some Xaw incompatibilities with Xaw6 are fixed.
Some XKB files are updated.
Some trident driver updates, including fixing acceleration for the Cyber9388.
A palette saving problem in the vgahw module is fixed.
Support for the wsmouse protocol is added for OpenBSD/i386.
A load problem with the sis driver module, and some depth 24 problems are fixed.
Support for the "PD" variant of the ATI Rage 128 is added.
Support for GNU Hurd is updated.
Some TrueType font problems are fixed.
The mga driver doesn't attempt to drive the G450 if the "mga_hal" module isn't available.
A problem with bold font simulation in xterm is fixed.
The (DPS) stub files created by pswrap are now compatible with the Adobe version.
Some glint driver problems are fixed.
Support for building on OpenBSD-current, and multi-thread support for OpenBSD are provided.
A problem with the ThinkingMousePS/2 protocol is fixed in the mouse driver.
Support for the Render extension with Xinerama is added.
A DGA-related server crash is fixed.
Some Chips & Technologies driver bugs are fixed.
Some tseng driver bugs are fixed.
Some Alpha platform updates are included.
Support for the GeForce3 is added to the nv driver.
Misc build-related issues are fixed.
Various documentation updates, including a reworked XFree86(1) manual page.
Two words:
Neverwinter Nights
Dungeon Master, Wizardry, and like games, started a tradition of dungeon crawl RPGs that are currenly best explemfified by Diablo II on one end of the spectrum, and Baldur's Gate II on the other. But it looks like Bioware's Neverwinter Nights is about to take the crown.
Znork wrote:
:). Which shell has the most features? Not that you'd ever use them all...
Just check the comp.sys.shells faq
Perhaps you meant the comp.unix.shell FAQ? Good pointer. The one with the feature list you are referring to is right here:
UNIX shell differences and how to change your shell
Definitely worth a read. And a specific FAQ on ZSH:
Z-shell (zsh) Frequently-Asked Questions
Of course, I have a vested interested in seeing people switch to zsh. It is my primary shell, and the more people use it, the more boxes will come standard with zsh, and the less frequently I'll have to revert to bash.
ZDNet's Gamespot did a great set of previews on B&W. Start here:
Black & White
The links to the individual articles:
Black & White--Day Two: Hands-On, Part One
Black & White--Day Three: Hands-On, Part Two
Black & White--Day Four: The Creatures
...still lamenting the death of Gamecenter. I used to only buy games that got a 8, 9, or 10 from Gamecenter...
Any suggestions on where to order it online?
Outpost.com has been my first instinct for a year or two now. But when I went to their site to pre-order B&W, I noticed that they no longer offer their trademark free overnight shipping on all purchases. You now need to spend over a $100 to get the free shipping. Still a good deal, but not enough to make me automatically buy this at Outpost.
Hmm. I can't even double check this since their site seems to be down. At least from where I am.
It is interesting, because we knew all along that they would drop their free overnight shipping policy. They were losing money on every purchase. I imagine they were betting on customer loyality to keep their sales up.
I would have been loyal -- but there was no dislaimer anywhere in the shopping process that said that the shipping would cost money. It was only after I was reading the final receipt that I noticed that suddenly $12.50 was being tacked on to my purchases to cover overnight delivery. I came very close to hitting submit and paying a total $70 for B&W at Outpost. This upset me, and now I'm looking elsewhere.
Now the site is back up. There slogan is still "Free Delivery. Overnight". Of course, that is now only for orders over $100.
It seems that with respect to US patent law, the discussions here are all about vocalizing loudly on the soapbox, but somewhat lacking in any real agenda.
What do people really want to accomplish with all of this? Similar to the Napster "debate", most posts are simply pointing out how the system is being misused. Some articles, like this one, offer a thorough analysis of one instance of the problem. But few, if any, offer either a suggestion for a solution, or even clear position that explains why these particular instances are being mentioned in the first place.
Is the agenda in question the abolition of the US patent, trademark, and copyright law? I highly doubt that, considering those laws are protecting the individual inventor (even the open source, GPL inventor) from having their work shameless pilfered by the faceless and greedy corporation.
Is the agenda to simply reform the patent system such that these obviously outrageous examples of misuse are avoided in the future? If so, that sounds wonderful! What are your recommendations on how the reform should take place?
In a word, "what?" As in, what are people thinking when the write tirades *against* open standards bodies for computing technology?
Here are some that have worked, and made your lives a whole lot better:
RFCs
POSIX/IEEE
HTTP/HTML
ASCII/ISO 8859
ANSI C
And that's just to name a few that immediately came to mind. Note that some of them had coporate sponsorship, some are truly community reviewed, and some are a mixture. But standards are essential for ever moving *beyond* the technology of today. If we didn't have a standard C, then people will still be arguing over how to improve C, rather than creating new languages.
Really, standards shouldn't evolve that much. And people shouldn't wait to get them perfect. Agree on something that mostly works, use it, and move on.
Does the Celmson program in question have an established honor code or written policy on this?
If so, and the students violated that code, no matter now antiquated it might be, then they are guilty.
Is the administration claiming that they violated a specific clause in your school's honor code? Or is it really, as you say, a "grey area"?
I would definitely love to get an HDTV system, but right now I find the cost prohibatively high for the amount of broadcast service available in most areas. For example, a good sized high resolution television would set you back about US $3K, and a set top receiver would be about $1K.
What are the estimates for when those systems will be comparable in price to a nice 32" Sony Wega of today ($1.4K with free home delivery at Outpost)?
First, the RIAA will, in the near future, have some success at stopping Napster, as one particular service, from distributing copyrighted material. They will accomplish this because Napster is a corporate entity and Napster will cooperate with the courts, because that is in the best interest of their shareholders.
Second, other services, whether they are OpenNap servers, Gnutella, FreeNet, or whatever, will emerge from Napster's ashes and allow people to distribute copyrighted material.
Third, the RIAA will notice that there is not one particular corporate entity to go after in this case, and will take the issue to the legislature instead.
Fourth, the legislature will pass unambiguous laws that declare distributing copyright material online illegal, and there are medium penalties (like fines, and possibly jail time for multiple offenses).
Fifth, some people will continue distributing copyright materials online. Most won't.
Sixth, some people will get caught. Most won't.
The parallel I am making should be clear. This is analogous to the United State's so-called war on drugs.
No, the US can never "win" the war on drugs. Nor can it win the war against distributing copyrighted material. However, it can certainly scare the majority of people into not participating. And that is all the RIAA wants to preserve its profits.
To quote briefly from the Reuters article (available at Yahoo here):
The Reuters article is dated Wednesday December 6 1:01 PM ET. The LA times is dated the same day, but doesn't mention the time.