WHILE HE WRESTLED with the financial difficulties of his San Francisco-based software company, Vladimir Pokhilko watched from the sidelines as business associates and friends readied the lucrative relaunch of Tetris, the world's most popular video game.
Apparently pushed to the edge, Pokhilko - president of AnimaTek, a San Francisco-based software design company - brutally murdered his 39-year-old wife, Elena Fedotova, and their 12-year-old son, Peter Pokhilko, before killing himself, police said Wednesday.
A business associate said Pokhilko had been wrestling with company problems brought on, in part, by the economic upheaval in Russia, where 70 of AnimaTek's 82 employees work.
Adding to those pressures, said Henk Rogers, who helped found AnimaTek in 1988, was a push to get more financing to create software that would yield "Hollywood-type" computer effects.
"We were in the middle of raising money," said Rogers. "It was nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that we couldn't see past the end of."
But sometime Monday night, in the family's home on the 400 block of Ferne Avenue in southern Palo Alto, Pokhilko killed his family and then himself, police believe. Pokhilko hit Fedotova, a popular yoga instructor, and Peter, a seventh-grader, with a hammer, and repeatedly stabbed them with a hunting knife, apparently as they lay sleeping.
Then he stabbed himself once in the throat with the knife, police said.
"It's unfathomable that someone would do this to themselves and a child," said Palo Alto police spokeswoman Tami Gage.
A close family friend called police at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, after he arrived at the family home, having failed in repeated attempts to reach the family by phone.
The pajama-clad bodies of Fedotova and Peter were found in their beds by police. There was no sign of a struggle, indicating they may have been sleeping when they were attacked.
Pokhilko's body was found in Peter's room, with the hunting knife in his hand, police said.
Along with the knife, police recovered the hammer believed to have been used in the attacks, and they found a note. Investigators would not release its contents.
"Not a suicide note'
"It is not a suicide note," Gage said. "We don't even know who wrote the note or how significant it might be."
Wednesday, the community was reeling from the horrific incident.
Flags at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School, where Peter was a student, flew at half-staff. And during the day, about 40 of his classmates placed a makeshift memorial of poster board in front of the family house. The poster board carried messages such as "In loving memory of Peter" and was covered with signatures of classmates and teachers.
Meanwhile, more was learned about Pokhilko, 43, whose firm, AnimaTek, emerged from a partnership formed in Moscow more than a decade ago with Rogers and Russian computer scientist Alexey Pajitnov, who invented the video game Tetris in 1985.
Pajitnov based Tetris, which entails lining up stacks of blocks as they drop to the bottom of a computer screen, on an ancient Roman puzzle called Pentamino.
Pokhilko, a Russian clinical psychologist and a longtime friend of Pajitnov's, had been experimenting with using puzzles as psychological tests when Pajitnov first showed him his invention, said Rogers.
Mass appeal of puzzle
Pokhilko immediately saw the mass appeal of the puzzle and convinced Pajitnov it would make a great computer game. But in 1986, before the game was published, Soviet authorities demanded that Pajitnov sign over all rights to the game.
Later, Pokhilko and Pajitnov teamed to create other digital diversions, including El-Fish, a virtual aquarium.
In a 1996 Examiner interview, Pajitnov said he had acquiesced to the Soviet demand to sign over the rights of Tetris because he feared reprisals.
"I would have been in prison for sure had I gone directly to Nintendo," Pajitnov said. "I would have had to be a dissident and possibly be cheated for everything anyway. So it wasn't worth it."
During the 10 years the Soviet government brokered deals with Nintendo, Atari and other video-game makers, Pajitnov lost an estimated $40million in royalties.
One of those who brokered the largest license agreement was Rogers, whose Japan-based Bullet Proof Software locked in the rights to sell Tetris to its largest market, the hand-held gaming-device industry.
"That was the biggest market for Tetris," Rogers said. "That's what made the game huge."
Rights revert to inventor
In 1996, the Soviet restrictions expired and Tetris rights reverted to inventor Pajitnov, who, at Roger's urging, had immigrated to the United States five years earlier with Pokhilko.
Rogers had helped the pair open AnimaTek International Inc., a software development company creating computer-generated terrains and characters for the gaming industry. Pokhilko became president of the company. Rogers was the chairman and largest stockholder.
But two years ago, when the Soviet rights to Tetris expired, Rogers said, he formed the Tetris Co., which bought the rights to the game from Pajitnov, leaving Pokhilko out of the loop.
Rogers also launched Blue Planet Software, which he said was to publish the next-generation Tetris computer games, including versions that would allow players to conduct Tetris matches over the Internet.
The new version is expected to be a big hit.
"There's a lot of anticipation around (the new Tetris)," said Cindy Blair, publisher of the San Francisco-based Game Developer magazine. "It's huge. It's one of the biggest games, ever."
Have you purchased the latest version of Microsoft's Forced Migration(TM)? It has nifty new features like fixes for some of the bugs in the last version of MS Forced Migration(TM). Without question it is a much better piece of software than Forced Migration 95(TM) and Forced Migration 98(TM). We have even fixed some of the bugs we intentionally placed in the previous code in order to give you a better user experience. Microsoft has been working hard to innovate every aspect of Forced Migration and we hope that the motivation to buy the latest release will come to you soon!
Just wanted to say nice write up, Hemos. nd gave a good submission and Hemos took it to the next level by reading the content from the link and including a closer link while commenting neutrally about it with a joke thrown in. And no spelling errors or grammar abuse. Kudos! This is the way/.
Your name made me ask myself whatever happened to the gnulix_guy (he was so lovable). Anyways, Salon.com is running a very nice article on that very issue, Ralph Reed's attachment to Bush, Jr. and the influence Bill Gate might be hoping to buy.
I'm sure Microsoft was fully aware that they were going to lose this one. Their ultimate plan is two-fold. First, and most important, drag this thing out as long as possible (i.e., avoid justice). Second, in their many, many appeals they will say that the judge was flawed and ruled inappropriately, the evidence for that being that the judge ruled completely not in their favor. This will be used to garner support with the less intelligent populous they hope to ralley to their side (Ralph Reed's flock among them).
Matrox is dealing big time in Macintosh ware these days. Apple has gotten together with Matrox to build a very powerful Real-Time DV card for the G4. Today's press release detail some of the more salient points.
NAB2000, LAS VEGAS--April 10, 2000--Matrox Video Products Group and Apple® today announced the first PCI video card for real-time digital video (DV) editing on the Macintosh®. The RTMac, architected by Matrox and Apple engineers, is tightly integrated with Apple's award-winning Final Cut Pro(TM) video creation software to provide real-time editing, effects and compositing. Fully configured systems are expected to start at under $5,000
There is also a rumor that Matrox may replace ATI as Apple's video card supplier.
They could have gotten around this by making all initial bids uniform and reasonable ($200 range), then adding an extended time limit of, say, 120 days. Advertise the heck out DotTV to attract eyeballs, and let the bidders determine the market.
By determining the market themselves, particularly with respect to trademarked names, DotTV has opened themselves up to lawsuits which will crush them.
They could have... but they were greedy.
--- To avoid the market being flooded they need only limit the total number of auctions running at any one time to a finite number. Start with around 700 and then increase as activity warrants. Decrease available spaces too, if necessary.
DotTV is backed by the Pasadena Internet business incubator Idealab, the firm behind online retailer eToys and the free Internet service provider NetZero.
Idealab "creates, launches and operates Internet businesses". Unfortunately, they have something to do with etoys which deserves a swift execution for its treatment of etoy.com
The dotTV Terms of Service contract specifically explains the company's nationality:
LIMITED DISTRIBUTION AND TERRITORIAL CONSIDERATIONS Unless otherwise specified, all materials and services in the Site are presented solely for the use in the United States, its territories, possessions and protectorates. This site is controlled and operated by dotTV from its offices within the State of California, U.S.A. dotTV makes no representation that materials in the Site are appropriate or available for use in other locations.
The FBI keeps a nice library of its doings at its Freedom of Information Act homepage. They also explain why, and what they've left out. They even had a file on Lucille Ball ("I Love Lucy") at the request of the house Un-American Activities Committee. Here's an alphabetical listing of what they'll show, which is much less than what they've got.
I like my single button mouse. Control + click gets the same result as the right click and is just as simple (for my purposes). If you want a multi-button mouse, buy it and add Alessandro Levi Montalcini's USB Overdrive to take full advantage. Works with joysticks and gamepads, too (if InputSprockets doesn't suffice.).
There is an undocumented feature where if you have been mod'd down more than 5 times in 24 hours every single one of your past, not-yet-archived posts gets reset down to -1 (even if it had been mod'd up). The effect of this, though seemingly punitive to the down-mod'd user, is that others going through the archives in the future will have no idea what is being discussed due to broad jumps in content caused by the missing relevant posts.
Your examples are valid, but the practice of not archiving -1 posts needs to be rethought due to the feature I described above. Perhaps, if this "feature" is removed, -1 posts will not need archiving.
A better thing would be to archive all with moderation scores intact. Then those sorting through the archives can choose on their own to view or not -1 posts. Retaining the nesting structure would be nice, too.
CmdrTaco should have said 'UPDATE:' before the stuff about the Japanese article. That being said, that article disturbed me greatly. One line in particular.
The personal opinion of this journalist is that the judge has made an extremely appropriate decision
The reporter calls himself a journalist and then goes on to editorialize. I truly hope that this is not (though expect it is) a normal part of Japanese journalism. It is completely inappropriate to both act as though you are reporting the facts and then to go on to proffer a very specific opinion as to your view on the facts while at the same time calling yourself a journalist. Such behavior is completely inappropriate and exceptionally unprofessional.
Of course, the journalist is wrong. Which is perfectly appropriate for me to point out since I am not purporting to report news events but rather candidly giving my opinion on a message board.
When someone places a link on their web page to another webpage (or any other Internet content outside of their own site), that person has no way of knowing or controlling what exactly it is they are linking to. You may say that they should know because they have placed the link on the page, but at the very instant in which a person places a link on their own page, the content to which the link connects to can change. The change can be (and usually is) without any knowledge on the part of the linker.
In this particular case, the content linked to had NOT been deemed illegal by court proceedings at the time the link was made, but only after.
The logical conclusion this Japanese court would want us to believe is that whenever you place an HTML link onto your webpage you are responsible ever afterwards for what it links to whether or not you know it has been changed or deemed illegal. This is absurd.
Specific to the claim that "the defendant undeniably increased the number of ways of accessing pornographic sites" and has thus run afoul of the law: the defendant has not increased the number of ways of accessing the offending material at all. There is one way to access it (so far as we know), the one URL which links to it. Publishing of the URL does NOT increase the number of ways to access. That remains but one.
The idea has been presented before: lobby your congressperson to go before congress and read the DeCSS source into the Congressional Record. We all know it's speech. This just seals the deal. (Anyone know if citizens can get in on their own to read something like this?)
To avoid competition that reuses Canvas 7 source code from competing with Deneba's profitable Mac/Win versions or taking away mindshare on Linux. They can't make money if they don't sell their for-profit versions. Opening the source would effectively put them out of business with their current business model. And, initially, the Linux port adds to the growth of another windOS competitor. I'm sure that if Linux catches on as much as windOS has, then Deneba will have to change it's business plan to profit. For now, the promise of another market where Microsoft will not dominate everything is very lucrative. Onward to the future!
Deneba Software... plans to offer a free Linux version of Canvas 7... graphics software... [which] will work only with Linux releases designed for Intel hardware, but Deneba left the door open to a PowerPC version if there is sufficient user demand.
...
However, porting the Intel version to the PowerPC shouldn't be difficult, [Peters] said, as long as the software is written in a high-level language such as C++ and limits direct interactions with hardware. Hsu said that Canvas is written in C++.
It appears that the release will not be open-sourced (to retain the competetive advantage on the profit Mac & Win versions), so does anyone want to comment on Hsu's implication that porting to PPC should be relatively easy?
Yeah, I have my biases and tend not to look too closely at right wing sites. Could you provide some specific web links? Your firm laying out of the dead associated with Clinton does make more credible your assertion. I wonder how many were taken out by the administration versus how many were taken out by the enemy camp? That many with those strange of circumstances does look suspicious.
One of those circumstances where it would be nice to have more info.
I did read the article. She learned about the problems in May 1998 before leaving the White House in July 1998. Apparently the problems were reported in the December 1998 issue of Insight. You are right about the coming forward. I was wrong. I wonder why the documents were unsealed. I wonder why they were sealed.
Allegedly, they hid evidence (nothing new). Other than that, I'm not sure what you mean.
I asked the question because the reporting of these circumstances does not seem very newsworthy. It does seem unfair that the right wing has been routinely able to review the private communications of a presidential candidate. When the other side has full knowledge of your activities, it makes putting on an effective campaign a difficult task.
I still don't see any connection to Internet anonymity (timothy's claim, not yours).
The first legally binding public election via the Internet is the first step toward innovation in our present form of government.
Remote voting is extremely efficient. The steep increase in turnout in Arizona demonstrates that technology has the potential to allow voting on a much broader level. In the future, we may no longer have to rely on candidates to speak fully for us. Perhaps, the people of a nation could individually vote on political issues.
On the local level, referendum-style voting occurs all the time, but what about on the national level?
I would like to make an assumption here. Suppose we can avoid the balloting process being influenced in an inappropriate/disproportionate manner by special interests and other groups. That is, suppose we could have a fully secure and accurate voting system via the Internet. Then I think a true people's government (an open government) could be a reality
Much like the telephone, computers will soon be in every home. The connection provided by the Internet could allow a national level voting populace to decide on the legislation of specific issues instead of a select few. What bills do you want to have passed? What bills do you oppose? Instead of writing a letter to your congress person, cast your own vote.
I wonder if everyone having such specific voting power would be a bad thing? Popular sentiment is easily influenced by the news media. Can that component be minimized acceptably?
So let's change topics for a second. The open-source ethic seems to have spontaneously come into existence at the present level (without giving specific credit where due). When open source works, open source propagates. A fundamental change to the nation's political system could yield the same result. An open government, that is one in which the people have full scrutiny and voting power, could work self- correctingly. When problems arise, the dissemination of current and plentiful information via the Internet and remote voting could work to fix things. You don't have to do it for us -- we'll do it ourselves!
Optimal efficiency and participation are high ideals. Is there enough faith in the people to be able to decide their fates? Will the corruption found in all political systems keep this theoretical notion of government from coming into existence? Could such a system even be created?
We don't need no mind control. Instead, substantiate your claims with facts. Care to provide references?
Only two of Clinton's close associates have died in anything close to strange events, one a plane crash, the other a suicide. On reflection, these are not such strange events as people die every day. When you know as many people as our president does, you will be subjected to loss on a fairly routine basis. It comes with the job.
If Lambuth had come forward, supposing she thought to back in 1996, it seems rather unlikely anything would have happened to her. The media's attention quickly shifts to anyone who has something bad to say about our president. These people's lives fall under rather intense scrutiny, much like the president himself, and if anything unexpected occured we would know about it. I just don't buy Lambuth being scared. Scared of what?
Assuming she believed the alleged threats to be credible, what has changed? If there was something for her to fear then, there is surely something for her to fear now. Why the sudden change of mind?
Anyways, in this instance, what exactly did the Clinton whitehouse do?
I knew it. You're trollin' for Troll Touch touchscreens. Your cunning plan has been foiled! Even non-Trolls knows that LCD screens can be touch sensitive.
Not to belabor the point, but the emails under question do not pertain to anonymity. We know whose emails these are.
I'm not sure why people who have been threatened not to do something will often resurface *years* later to tell about it. How come Lambuth didn't go to the authorities when these events happened 5 years ago? How come she has only come forward now, during an election year?
Slashdot Mirror
Not only that, but we found out yesterday that some Netherlanders have done it before:
s h.html
http://etv.et.tudelft.nl/commissies/lustrum/engli
They claim to have the Guinness Book of World Records record for largest tetris building game.
Anyone want to look it up?
Rumors of Alexey Pajitnov's death have been greatly over-stated.
x aminer/archive/1998/09/24/NEWS7742.dtl
(It wasn't him, it was a business associate.)
Pushed past the brink: Business pressures led Palo Alto exec to kill wife, son and self
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/e
WHILE HE WRESTLED with the financial difficulties of his San Francisco-based software company, Vladimir Pokhilko watched from the sidelines as business associates and friends readied the lucrative relaunch of Tetris, the world's most popular video game.
Apparently pushed to the edge, Pokhilko - president of AnimaTek, a San Francisco-based software design company - brutally murdered his 39-year-old wife, Elena Fedotova, and their 12-year-old son, Peter Pokhilko, before killing himself, police said Wednesday.
A business associate said Pokhilko had been wrestling with company problems brought on, in part, by the economic upheaval in Russia, where 70 of AnimaTek's 82 employees work.
Adding to those pressures, said Henk Rogers, who helped found AnimaTek in 1988, was a push to get more financing to create software that would yield "Hollywood-type" computer effects.
"We were in the middle of raising money," said Rogers. "It was nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that we couldn't see past the end of."
But sometime Monday night, in the family's home on the 400 block of Ferne Avenue in southern Palo Alto, Pokhilko killed his family and then himself, police believe. Pokhilko hit Fedotova, a popular yoga instructor, and Peter, a seventh-grader, with a hammer, and repeatedly stabbed them with a hunting knife, apparently as they lay sleeping.
Then he stabbed himself once in the throat with the knife, police said.
"It's unfathomable that someone would do this to themselves and a child," said Palo Alto police spokeswoman Tami Gage.
A close family friend called police at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, after he arrived at the family home, having failed in repeated attempts to reach the family by phone.
The pajama-clad bodies of Fedotova and Peter were found in their beds by police. There was no sign of a struggle, indicating they may have been sleeping when they were attacked.
Pokhilko's body was found in Peter's room, with the hunting knife in his hand, police said.
Along with the knife, police recovered the hammer believed to have been used in the attacks, and they found a note. Investigators would not release its contents.
"Not a suicide note'
"It is not a suicide note," Gage said. "We don't even know who wrote the note or how significant it might be."
Wednesday, the community was reeling from the horrific incident.
Flags at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School, where Peter was a student, flew at half-staff. And during the day, about 40 of his classmates placed a makeshift memorial of poster board in front of the family house. The poster board carried messages such as "In loving memory of Peter" and was covered with signatures of classmates and teachers.
Meanwhile, more was learned about Pokhilko, 43, whose firm, AnimaTek, emerged from a partnership formed in Moscow more than a decade ago with Rogers and Russian computer scientist Alexey Pajitnov, who invented the video game Tetris in 1985.
Pajitnov based Tetris, which entails lining up stacks of blocks as they drop to the bottom of a computer screen, on an ancient Roman puzzle called Pentamino.
Pokhilko, a Russian clinical psychologist and a longtime friend of Pajitnov's, had been experimenting with using puzzles as psychological tests when Pajitnov first showed him his invention, said Rogers.
Mass appeal of puzzle
Pokhilko immediately saw the mass appeal of the puzzle and convinced Pajitnov it would make a great computer game. But in 1986, before the game was published, Soviet authorities demanded that Pajitnov sign over all rights to the game.
Later, Pokhilko and Pajitnov teamed to create other digital diversions, including El-Fish, a virtual aquarium.
In a 1996 Examiner interview, Pajitnov said he had acquiesced to the Soviet demand to sign over the rights of Tetris because he feared reprisals.
"I would have been in prison for sure had I gone directly to Nintendo," Pajitnov said. "I would have had to be a dissident and possibly be cheated for everything anyway. So it wasn't worth it."
During the 10 years the Soviet government brokered deals with Nintendo, Atari and other video-game makers, Pajitnov lost an estimated $40million in royalties.
One of those who brokered the largest license agreement was Rogers, whose Japan-based Bullet Proof Software locked in the rights to sell Tetris to its largest market, the hand-held gaming-device industry.
"That was the biggest market for Tetris," Rogers said. "That's what made the game huge."
Rights revert to inventor
In 1996, the Soviet restrictions expired and Tetris rights reverted to inventor Pajitnov, who, at Roger's urging, had immigrated to the United States five years earlier with Pokhilko.
Rogers had helped the pair open AnimaTek International Inc., a software development company creating computer-generated terrains and characters for the gaming industry. Pokhilko became president of the company. Rogers was the chairman and largest stockholder.
But two years ago, when the Soviet rights to Tetris expired, Rogers said, he formed the Tetris Co., which bought the rights to the game from Pajitnov, leaving Pokhilko out of the loop.
Rogers also launched Blue Planet Software, which he said was to publish the next-generation Tetris computer games, including versions that would allow players to conduct Tetris matches over the Internet.
The new version is expected to be a big hit.
"There's a lot of anticipation around (the new Tetris)," said Cindy Blair, publisher of the San Francisco-based Game Developer magazine. "It's huge. It's one of the biggest games, ever."
Btw, you can download the original tetris.exe.
For more some background read The Tetris saga.
Have you purchased the latest version of Microsoft's Forced Migration(TM)? It has nifty new features like fixes for some of the bugs in the last version of MS Forced Migration(TM). Without question it is a much better piece of software than Forced Migration 95(TM) and Forced Migration 98(TM). We have even fixed some of the bugs we intentionally placed in the previous code in order to give you a better user experience. Microsoft has been working hard to innovate every aspect of Forced Migration and we hope that the motivation to buy the latest release will come to you soon!
Just wanted to say nice write up, Hemos. nd gave a good submission and Hemos took it to the next level by reading the content from the link and including a closer link while commenting neutrally about it with a joke thrown in. And no spelling errors or grammar abuse. Kudos! This is the way /.
Brazil is a great movie. I've seen it thrice and still plan to watch it again. There is so much there and it applies amazingly to its own time and today. Gilliam is genius. (Also brought us 12 Monkeys, Time Bandits, Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He's working on Good Omens right now for those of you who've the crazy-ass book.)
Your name made me ask myself whatever happened to the gnulix_guy (he was so lovable). Anyways, Salon.com is running a very nice article on that very issue, Ralph Reed's attachment to Bush, Jr. and the influence Bill Gate might be hoping to buy.
r osoft/index.html
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2000/04/12/mic
The Ralph Reed-Redmond connection
I'm sure Microsoft was fully aware that they were going to lose this one. Their ultimate plan is two-fold. First, and most important, drag this thing out as long as possible (i.e., avoid justice). Second, in their many, many appeals they will say that the judge was flawed and ruled inappropriately, the evidence for that being that the judge ruled completely not in their favor. This will be used to garner support with the less intelligent populous they hope to ralley to their side (Ralph Reed's flock among them).
Matrox is dealing big time in Macintosh ware these days. Apple has gotten together with Matrox to build a very powerful Real-Time DV card for the G4. Today's press release detail some of the more salient points.
Matrox and Apple Announce Real-Time DV Editing for the Mac
NAB 2000 Convention
Matrox Video
NAB2000, LAS VEGAS--April 10, 2000--Matrox Video Products Group and Apple® today announced the first PCI video card for real-time digital video (DV) editing on the Macintosh®. The RTMac, architected by Matrox and Apple engineers, is tightly integrated with Apple's award-winning Final Cut Pro(TM) video creation software to provide real-time editing, effects and compositing. Fully configured systems are expected to start at under $5,000
There is also a rumor that Matrox may replace ATI as Apple's video card supplier.
They could have gotten around this by making all initial bids uniform and reasonable ($200 range), then adding an extended time limit of, say, 120 days. Advertise the heck out DotTV to attract eyeballs, and let the bidders determine the market.
... but they were greedy.
By determining the market themselves, particularly with respect to trademarked names, DotTV has opened themselves up to lawsuits which will crush them.
They could have
---
To avoid the market being flooded they need only limit the total number of auctions running at any one time to a finite number. Start with around 700 and then increase as activity warrants. Decrease available spaces too, if necessary.
The last sentence of the article states:
DotTV is backed by the Pasadena Internet business incubator Idealab, the firm behind online retailer eToys and the free Internet service provider NetZero.
Idealab "creates, launches and operates Internet businesses". Unfortunately, they have something to do with etoys which deserves a swift execution for its treatment of etoy.com
The dotTV Terms of Service contract specifically explains the company's nationality:
LIMITED DISTRIBUTION AND TERRITORIAL CONSIDERATIONS Unless otherwise specified, all materials and services in the Site are presented solely for the use in the United States, its territories, possessions and protectorates. This site is controlled and operated by dotTV from its offices within the State of California, U.S.A. dotTV makes no representation that materials in the Site are appropriate or available for use in other locations.
So DotTV is an American (U.S.) company.
The FBI keeps a nice library of its doings at its Freedom of Information Act homepage. They also explain why, and what they've left out. They even had a file on Lucille Ball ("I Love Lucy") at the request of the house Un-American Activities Committee. Here's an alphabetical listing of what they'll show, which is much less than what they've got.
I like my single button mouse. Control + click gets the same result as the right click and is just as simple (for my purposes). If you want a multi-button mouse, buy it and add Alessandro Levi Montalcini's USB Overdrive to take full advantage. Works with joysticks and gamepads, too (if InputSprockets doesn't suffice.).
There is an undocumented feature where if you have been mod'd down more than 5 times in 24 hours every single one of your past, not-yet-archived posts gets reset down to -1 (even if it had been mod'd up). The effect of this, though seemingly punitive to the down-mod'd user, is that others going through the archives in the future will have no idea what is being discussed due to broad jumps in content caused by the missing relevant posts.
Your examples are valid, but the practice of not archiving -1 posts needs to be rethought due to the feature I described above. Perhaps, if this "feature" is removed, -1 posts will not need archiving.
A better thing would be to archive all with moderation scores intact. Then those sorting through the archives can choose on their own to view or not -1 posts. Retaining the nesting structure would be nice, too.
CmdrTaco should have said 'UPDATE:' before the stuff about the Japanese article. That being said, that article disturbed me greatly. One line in particular.
The personal opinion of this journalist is that the judge has made an extremely appropriate decision
The reporter calls himself a journalist and then goes on to editorialize. I truly hope that this is not (though expect it is) a normal part of Japanese journalism. It is completely inappropriate to both act as though you are reporting the facts and then to go on to proffer a very specific opinion as to your view on the facts while at the same time calling yourself a journalist. Such behavior is completely inappropriate and exceptionally unprofessional.
Of course, the journalist is wrong. Which is perfectly appropriate for me to point out since I am not purporting to report news events but rather candidly giving my opinion on a message board.
When someone places a link on their web page to another webpage (or any other Internet content outside of their own site), that person has no way of knowing or controlling what exactly it is they are linking to. You may say that they should know because they have placed the link on the page, but at the very instant in which a person places a link on their own page, the content to which the link connects to can change. The change can be (and usually is) without any knowledge on the part of the linker.
In this particular case, the content linked to had NOT been deemed illegal by court proceedings at the time the link was made, but only after.
The logical conclusion this Japanese court would want us to believe is that whenever you place an HTML link onto your webpage you are responsible ever afterwards for what it links to whether or not you know it has been changed or deemed illegal. This is absurd.
Specific to the claim that "the defendant undeniably increased the number of ways of accessing pornographic sites" and has thus run afoul of the law: the defendant has not increased the number of ways of accessing the offending material at all. There is one way to access it (so far as we know), the one URL which links to it. Publishing of the URL does NOT increase the number of ways to access. That remains but one.
The idea has been presented before: lobby your congressperson to go before congress and read the DeCSS source into the Congressional Record. We all know it's speech. This just seals the deal. (Anyone know if citizens can get in on their own to read something like this?)
Hey, want to disable region-encoding limitations on your DVD player? Check out Multi-Region Hacks for Domestic DvD Players.
CNET.com article: Corel to offer free Linux image editor
ZDNET.com article: Canvas moves to Linux
PC Mag Review: Canvas 7
To avoid competition that reuses Canvas 7 source code from competing with Deneba's profitable Mac/Win versions or taking away mindshare on Linux. They can't make money if they don't sell their for-profit versions. Opening the source would effectively put them out of business with their current business model. And, initially, the Linux port adds to the growth of another windOS competitor. I'm sure that if Linux catches on as much as windOS has, then Deneba will have to change it's business plan to profit. For now, the promise of another market where Microsoft will not dominate everything is very lucrative. Onward to the future!
Related links:
Deneba Canvas 7.0 (March) review at MacWorld
Deneba Canvas 7 (Feb 1) at The Internet Eye.com
Velocity Engine (Jan 17) MacCentral article on G4 Acceleration for Canvas 7
Another Review (12 Jan) at CreativePro.com
Yes, to AC above; Did it occur to you that the Windows release of Canvas 7 runs on x86 hardware?
As a follow-up, would velocity engine acceleration be easy to add to a Linux PPC version of Canvas or would it require a lot more coding?
Deneba Software ... plans to offer a free Linux version of Canvas 7 ... graphics software ... [which] will work only with Linux releases designed for Intel hardware, but Deneba left the door open to a PowerPC version if there is sufficient user demand.
...
However, porting the Intel version to the PowerPC shouldn't be difficult, [Peters] said, as long as the software is written in a high-level language such as C++ and limits direct interactions with hardware. Hsu said that Canvas is written in C++.
It appears that the release will not be open-sourced (to retain the competetive advantage on the profit Mac & Win versions), so does anyone want to comment on Hsu's implication that porting to PPC should be relatively easy?
Cool. Thanks, that was what I was looking for.
Yeah, I have my biases and tend not to look too closely at right wing sites. Could you provide some specific web links? Your firm laying out of the dead associated with Clinton does make more credible your assertion. I wonder how many were taken out by the administration versus how many were taken out by the enemy camp? That many with those strange of circumstances does look suspicious.
One of those circumstances where it would be nice to have more info.
I did read the article. She learned about the problems in May 1998 before leaving the White House in July 1998. Apparently the problems were reported in the December 1998 issue of Insight. You are right about the coming forward. I was wrong. I wonder why the documents were unsealed. I wonder why they were sealed.
Allegedly, they hid evidence (nothing new). Other than that, I'm not sure what you mean.
I asked the question because the reporting of these circumstances does not seem very newsworthy. It does seem unfair that the right wing has been routinely able to review the private communications of a presidential candidate. When the other side has full knowledge of your activities, it makes putting on an effective campaign a difficult task.
I still don't see any connection to Internet anonymity (timothy's claim, not yours).
The first legally binding public election via the Internet is the first step toward innovation in our present form of government.
Remote voting is extremely efficient. The steep increase in turnout in Arizona demonstrates that technology has the potential to allow voting on a much broader level. In the future, we may no longer have to rely on candidates to speak fully for us. Perhaps, the people of a nation could individually vote on political issues.
On the local level, referendum-style voting occurs all the time, but what about on the national level?
I would like to make an assumption here. Suppose we can avoid the balloting process being influenced in an inappropriate/disproportionate manner by special interests and other groups. That is, suppose we could have a fully secure and accurate voting system via the Internet. Then I think a true people's government (an open government) could be a reality
Much like the telephone, computers will soon be in every home. The connection provided by the Internet could allow a national level voting populace to decide on the legislation of specific issues instead of a select few. What bills do you want to have passed? What bills do you oppose? Instead of writing a letter to your congress person, cast your own vote.
I wonder if everyone having such specific voting power would be a bad thing? Popular sentiment is easily influenced by the news media. Can that component be minimized acceptably?
So let's change topics for a second. The open-source ethic seems to have spontaneously come into existence at the present level (without giving specific credit where due). When open source works, open source propagates. A fundamental change to the nation's political system could yield the same result. An open government, that is one in which the people have full scrutiny and voting power, could work self- correctingly. When problems arise, the dissemination of current and plentiful information via the Internet and remote voting could work to fix things. You don't have to do it for us -- we'll do it ourselves!
Optimal efficiency and participation are high ideals. Is there enough faith in the people to be able to decide their fates? Will the corruption found in all political systems keep this theoretical notion of government from coming into existence? Could such a system even be created?
Anybody want to start the Open Party?
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Free.
We don't need no mind control. Instead, substantiate your claims with facts. Care to provide references?
Only two of Clinton's close associates have died in anything close to strange events, one a plane crash, the other a suicide. On reflection, these are not such strange events as people die every day. When you know as many people as our president does, you will be subjected to loss on a fairly routine basis. It comes with the job.
If Lambuth had come forward, supposing she thought to back in 1996, it seems rather unlikely anything would have happened to her. The media's attention quickly shifts to anyone who has something bad to say about our president. These people's lives fall under rather intense scrutiny, much like the president himself, and if anything unexpected occured we would know about it. I just don't buy Lambuth being scared. Scared of what?
Assuming she believed the alleged threats to be credible, what has changed? If there was something for her to fear then, there is surely something for her to fear now. Why the sudden change of mind?
Anyways, in this instance, what exactly did the Clinton whitehouse do?
Please, be clear on that last part.
I knew it. You're trollin' for Troll Touch touchscreens. Your cunning plan has been foiled! Even non-Trolls knows that LCD screens can be touch sensitive.
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Have you ever touched a Troll?
Not to belabor the point, but the emails under question do not pertain to anonymity. We know whose emails these are.
I'm not sure why people who have been threatened not to do something will often resurface *years* later to tell about it. How come Lambuth didn't go to the authorities when these events happened 5 years ago? How come she has only come forward now, during an election year?