Re:Copyright and Trademark Laws
on
Superbowling
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· Score: 1
RTFPDF. The relevant paragraph in the law firm's document is specifically referring to the use of the trademarks in "marketing or promotions", that is, ADVERTISING or things like radio promotions. The use of the terminology in news reporting or research is, of course, protected, and isn't even addressed in the PDF.
"(Is there a reason that what any sane person would call a "zero" is a 400 on the SATs?"
The idea is that each section of the SAT is theoretically scored from 0 to 1000, with a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100 points. After calculating the scores, they drop the low and high outliers and shift them to 200 or 800 respectively, keeping three standard deviations from the mean.
As previous slashdot articles have mentioned, the selection of "cutting edge" games on PS2 is far superior to those on the X-box. Think about it. GT3, GTA3, MGS, etc., etc., etc. on PS2 (plus all the great PS1 games as another poster has mentioned). The only thing that makes me even want to consider an X-Box is Halo, and as it was originally going to be a PC/MAC title, my hope is that it will eventually be released for home computer.
(The sad fact is that I haven't the funds for either unit, so this is really the opinion of a totally outside observer. Take with requisite salt allowance.)
"It looks like you're trying to take a left turn. Do you need help? If you have right of way, click here. If you do not have right of way, click here. If you aren't sure, click here. If the light is red..."
The problem with DNA analysis is that (as someone else pointed out) it doesn't narrow down to an individual. Let's take the other person's numbers and say that 1 in 10,000 people has a particular DNA signature. In a city of 1,000,000 people, that means that 100 people have this DNA signature.
Now, the prosecution may say something like this: "There's only a 1 in 10,000 chance that your DNA print matches the DNA print found at the scene! Certainly that's beyond a reasonable doubt!"
But the defense can counter as follows, "What particular DNA print my client has is not in question. He shares that pattern with 99 other people here in Smog City. So there's only a 1 in 100 chance that you're accusing the right person! How's that for reasonable doubt?!"
John Allen Paulos does a nice treatment of just this kind of fallacy/paradox in "Once Upon A Number," his most recent book, as well as perhaps a couple of his other books (I'm guessing "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper").
Okay, maybe I made it sound more complex than it really is. It hardly seemed like a hassle at all when I installed Mathematica. Then again, back then I was young and naive and I didn't read slashdot.
Mathematica (for students, v. 3.0 for Windows) had a similar process when I installed it. It didn't require internet connectivity to get your "product key" but you still needed to talk to Wolfram Products to finish the install. The process was something like this, IIRC:
You install Mathematica using the license number included on your license. The install process generates a "Mathematica Computer Code" or something, generated via some algorithm and based at least in part on your hardware configuration/registry configuration. Then you call/email/snail-mail/web-page-ize this code number to Wolfram, as well as your vitals (name, address, etc). They spit back at you another code number that you give to Mathematica. It completes the install and you're on your way. Wolfram mails you a "real" license in a couple of weeks (the one in the box was just a "temp" license).
If you ever need to reinstall Mathematica or install it on another computer, you need to call Wolfram and get a new code to match your new computer code. Since I haven't gotten there (yet-- my win95 partition recently crashed and I haven't reinstalled....) I don't know what the "re-licensing" process is like.
In any case, this seems a little friendlier than Microsoft's little game. The Mathematica manual clearly outlines what you need to do if you change your hardware, and you don't need to be connected to the internet to get your new license number. It's still a bit of a pain, but it does a good job of protecting Mathematica's interests without being -too- much of a hassle to the user.
I don't recall (nor do I have immediately available) what the license's provisions re: reselling are.
This message will probably rehash a little of what has been said in other comments, but I will try to be more complete to make up for it. Most of the people in this discussion have pointed out that Bungie is nothing compared to its contemporaries in terms of gameplay, game engine design, etc. This is a little true and a little not true. Yes, the Marathon engine was essentially the same as the Doom engine. However, there were a few significant improvements that the Marathon engine had. The physics model was much more complete -- height was a consideration, explosions could actually knock you into the air, you had to look up and down, etc. Also, the Marathon maps had the cool ability to do '5D space' where two rooms could occupy the same space at the same time and yet be distinct rooms. This made for some very cool and incredibly frustrating levels.
But the most important difference between Bungie and most of its competitors is this: Bungie actually cares about plot. As someone else said, Doom was go-kill-all-find-exit-next-level, whereas the Marathon series had an intricate storyline with twists, turns, deceptions, and all kinds of mysteries. Just consider The Marathon Story Page. For like five years Hamish Sinclair has been compiling his and others' observations about the Marathon storyline and trying to puzzle together all of the secrets, plot pieces, and inside jokes that Bungie has worked into the Marathon games.
Bungie's attention to plot depth and detail is not just part of the Marathon series. Since Pathways into Darkness, which was, I think, Bungie's first single player game, the company has loaded all of their games with so much plot that you'd have to draw a chart just to keep your head straight. Their dedication to plot also played into the Myth series and doubtless will play a large role in Halo.
The real difference between Bungie and other games is not innovations in game engines (though they have had a few of those) but absorbing and enthralling plot lines in their games. Once you start playing a Bungie game it's hard to stop.
There are certain problems which are considerably easier using analog (though not necessarily mechanical) computers than to use a digital computer. The one that leaps to mind is a particular minimization problem-- given three cities, let's say, at the vertices of an equilateral triangle, what is the shortest amount of road needed to connect them? The answer is to do this: make a new vertex at the centroid of the triangle and connect roads from each of the three cities to that new vertex.
This uses considerably less road than, say, connecting city A to city B and then city B to city C. The problem gets considerably harder if you are not using a regular figure or if you are using more than three points. It's really a calculus of variations problem (I think) -- you're minimizing over an infinite number of paths so this makes it a pretty tough problem for a computer.
This problem is a piece of cake, however, if you use a very special analog computer -- namely soap bubble solution. If I make two plexiglas plates and put pins between them representing the cities I am trying to connect, then dip the construction into bubble solution, a soap film forms connecting the pins. As long as the soap film doesn't close on itself (that is, as long as it doesn't make a 'real' bubble) you will get a solution to the problem. The number of solutions to a given problem grows depending on the number of vertices, but suffice it to say it's a lot quicker to check all the solutions using soap bubbles than it is to use a computer. Also, each solution is quite close to the absolute minimal solution, so within certain parameters it may not be necessary to check every solution. My old differential geometry teacher tells me that they actually use the soap bubble method to do minimization problems for such things as highway planning.
There's a lot more interesting stuff about this problem which I shan't go into, partly because I don't remember and partly because it's not very relevant to the discussion at hand. In any case, this is a good example of an analog 'computer' being demonstrably faster than a digital one.
Eratosthenes' sieve is not the same as the number field sieve. I think the number field sieve is several orders of magnitude faster. Sorry, I don't know the big-O times for either algorithm... but Eratosthenes' sieve is pretty straightforward, whereas the number field sieve is apparently rather difficult to comprehend--Anyway, that's what my number theory teacher told me.
For those who are curious, here's Eratosthenes' sieve, more or less. The basic idea anyway is this:
1) Think of a number n. Is it prime? I wonder.
2) Formulate a sequential list of numbers, starting with 1 and ending with n.
3) Consider the lowest numnber, less than or equal to sqrt(n), not alreay considered. Call it k. Cross of every kth number of the list from (2), except for k.
Repeat (3) sequentially for each number less than or equal to sqrt(n) that has not already been crossed off. If n never gets crossed off, it's prime.
Incidentally, any number less than sqrt(n) that has not alreay been crossed off is prime as well.
As you can see there are some problems with this algorithm. You have to go through the list sqrt(n) times to find out whether n is prime. Then again, it's pretty mindless. It also gives you all the primes less than sqrt(n) for free. But not good for factoring big numbers, even with a computer.
If anyone can give a sketch of the number field sieve, I would love to see it.
Was the number field sieve developed in the 20th century? If I recall correctly it is by far the fastest integer-factoring algorithm that has been developed. Important for all kinds of brute-force applications, notably that "crack the encryption" distributed-computing program on your computer. Granted the viability of PGP style encryption relies on any factoring method being slow, but the number field sieve is still pretty important.
I haven't even -seen- the film and I have been immensely amused by the reviews! My vicarious Battlefield Earth experience has been infinitely rewarding! I concur with this man!
Yeah, I previewed, but now I would like to clarify. Sorry. When I say 'does an engineered virus count', I don't mean it in the way mentioned in the/. article (where a virus is used to 'grow' mechanic/electrical parts) but rather 'does an engineered virus that is engineered to perform a virus-like but beneficial-to-the-body task as its sole purpose count'. I hope that's a little clearer-- does the engineered virus as the end (rather than the means) count as nanotech?
I was just thinking about this reading the article and some of the comments-- here it is.
In the coming world of nanotechnology, will we really be aiming to miniaturize 'macrotechnology' to a molecular level? Or rather will we try to manipulate molecular and biological chemistry in such a way that it acheives the ends we are looking for? Are we just making little robots, or does, say, engineering a -virus- that repairs, I don't know, nerve damage, count as nanotechnology? Are we specifically limiting the term "nanotechnology" to superminiaturized electrical/mechanical technology? Or will nanotech involve elements of both mechanical and chemical engineering in the execution of the nanite's task?
Plenty of interesting questions for someone who knows more about this stuff than me to answer.
Since I'm a math person I get to torture you all with a detailed analysis of the average teacher's schedule (here, anyway-- snotty prep school environment).
Most full-time faculty have a four-course load and each course meets about 4.5 out of six days a week. Each class is an hour. So actual weekly in-class time is 18 hours, let's say.
It takes anywhere from an equal amount of time to no time at all to prepare each class outside of the classroom. We'll split the differnece and say 9 hours of prep time a week.
Usually 4 hours of meetings (department meeting and faculty meeting, all-school assemblies) each week.
Two out of three terms you must coach a sport for two hours a day, four days a week, so we can call that 8 hours.
About 1.75 nights a week you have dormitory duty, which is four hours a night. Seven hours there. You also have dining hall duty on the nights you have dorm duty, so we'll call it another 2 hours a week there.
Additionally there are various committees and extracirricular activities you may participate in. Anywhere from 0 to, say, 5 hours a week for that.
So at best you are doing 40 hours a week (assuming no sports and no extracirriculars) and at worst 53 hours. Feel free to toss in a few hours here and there in private meetings or responding to faculty email or helping students outside of class or what have you.
Granted you have three months of downtime over the year, but our salary technically only covers the nine months that we work.
Slashdot Mirror
RTFPDF. The relevant paragraph in the law firm's document is specifically referring to the use of the trademarks in "marketing or promotions", that is, ADVERTISING or things like radio promotions. The use of the terminology in news reporting or research is, of course, protected, and isn't even addressed in the PDF.
"(Is there a reason that what any sane person would call a "zero" is a 400 on the SATs?"
The idea is that each section of the SAT is theoretically scored from 0 to 1000, with a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100 points. After calculating the scores, they drop the low and high outliers and shift them to 200 or 800 respectively, keeping three standard deviations from the mean.
As previous slashdot articles have mentioned, the selection of "cutting edge" games on PS2 is far superior to those on the X-box. Think about it. GT3, GTA3, MGS, etc., etc., etc. on PS2 (plus all the great PS1 games as another poster has mentioned). The only thing that makes me even want to consider an X-Box is Halo, and as it was originally going to be a PC/MAC title, my hope is that it will eventually be released for home computer.
(The sad fact is that I haven't the funds for either unit, so this is really the opinion of a totally outside observer. Take with requisite salt allowance.)
I can see it now...
"It looks like you're trying to take a left turn. Do you need help? If you have right of way, click here. If you do not have right of way, click here. If you aren't sure, click here. If the light is red..."
Do they celebrate Pi Day in Europe? April doesn't have 31 days.
(think about it.)
The problem with DNA analysis is that (as someone else pointed out) it doesn't narrow down to an individual. Let's take the other person's numbers and say that 1 in 10,000 people has a particular DNA signature. In a city of 1,000,000 people, that means that 100 people have this DNA signature.
Now, the prosecution may say something like this: "There's only a 1 in 10,000 chance that your DNA print matches the DNA print found at the scene! Certainly that's beyond a reasonable doubt!"
But the defense can counter as follows, "What particular DNA print my client has is not in question. He shares that pattern with 99 other people here in Smog City. So there's only a 1 in 100 chance that you're accusing the right person! How's that for reasonable doubt?!"
John Allen Paulos does a nice treatment of just this kind of fallacy/paradox in "Once Upon A Number," his most recent book, as well as perhaps a couple of his other books (I'm guessing "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper").
Okay, maybe I made it sound more complex than it really is. It hardly seemed like a hassle at all when I installed Mathematica. Then again, back then I was young and naive and I didn't read slashdot.
Mathematica (for students, v. 3.0 for Windows) had a similar process when I installed it. It didn't require internet connectivity to get your "product key" but you still needed to talk to Wolfram Products to finish the install. The process was something like this, IIRC:
You install Mathematica using the license number included on your license. The install process generates a "Mathematica Computer Code" or something, generated via some algorithm and based at least in part on your hardware configuration/registry configuration. Then you call/email/snail-mail/web-page-ize this code number to Wolfram, as well as your vitals (name, address, etc). They spit back at you another code number that you give to Mathematica. It completes the install and you're on your way. Wolfram mails you a "real" license in a couple of weeks (the one in the box was just a "temp" license).
If you ever need to reinstall Mathematica or install it on another computer, you need to call Wolfram and get a new code to match your new computer code. Since I haven't gotten there (yet-- my win95 partition recently crashed and I haven't reinstalled....) I don't know what the "re-licensing" process is like.
In any case, this seems a little friendlier than Microsoft's little game. The Mathematica manual clearly outlines what you need to do if you change your hardware, and you don't need to be connected to the internet to get your new license number. It's still a bit of a pain, but it does a good job of protecting Mathematica's interests without being -too- much of a hassle to the user.
I don't recall (nor do I have immediately available) what the license's provisions re: reselling are.
This message will probably rehash a little of what has been said in other comments, but I will try to be more complete to make up for it. Most of the people in this discussion have pointed out that Bungie is nothing compared to its contemporaries in terms of gameplay, game engine design, etc. This is a little true and a little not true. Yes, the Marathon engine was essentially the same as the Doom engine. However, there were a few significant improvements that the Marathon engine had. The physics model was much more complete -- height was a consideration, explosions could actually knock you into the air, you had to look up and down, etc. Also, the Marathon maps had the cool ability to do '5D space' where two rooms could occupy the same space at the same time and yet be distinct rooms. This made for some very cool and incredibly frustrating levels.
But the most important difference between Bungie and most of its competitors is this: Bungie actually cares about plot. As someone else said, Doom was go-kill-all-find-exit-next-level, whereas the Marathon series had an intricate storyline with twists, turns, deceptions, and all kinds of mysteries. Just consider The Marathon Story Page. For like five years Hamish Sinclair has been compiling his and others' observations about the Marathon storyline and trying to puzzle together all of the secrets, plot pieces, and inside jokes that Bungie has worked into the Marathon games.
Bungie's attention to plot depth and detail is not just part of the Marathon series. Since Pathways into Darkness, which was, I think, Bungie's first single player game, the company has loaded all of their games with so much plot that you'd have to draw a chart just to keep your head straight. Their dedication to plot also played into the Myth series and doubtless will play a large role in Halo.
The real difference between Bungie and other games is not innovations in game engines (though they have had a few of those) but absorbing and enthralling plot lines in their games. Once you start playing a Bungie game it's hard to stop.
There are certain problems which are considerably easier using analog (though not necessarily mechanical) computers than to use a digital computer. The one that leaps to mind is a particular minimization problem-- given three cities, let's say, at the vertices of an equilateral triangle, what is the shortest amount of road needed to connect them? The answer is to do this: make a new vertex at the centroid of the triangle and connect roads from each of the three cities to that new vertex.
This uses considerably less road than, say, connecting city A to city B and then city B to city C. The problem gets considerably harder if you are not using a regular figure or if you are using more than three points. It's really a calculus of variations problem (I think) -- you're minimizing over an infinite number of paths so this makes it a pretty tough problem for a computer.
This problem is a piece of cake, however, if you use a very special analog computer -- namely soap bubble solution. If I make two plexiglas plates and put pins between them representing the cities I am trying to connect, then dip the construction into bubble solution, a soap film forms connecting the pins. As long as the soap film doesn't close on itself (that is, as long as it doesn't make a 'real' bubble) you will get a solution to the problem. The number of solutions to a given problem grows depending on the number of vertices, but suffice it to say it's a lot quicker to check all the solutions using soap bubbles than it is to use a computer. Also, each solution is quite close to the absolute minimal solution, so within certain parameters it may not be necessary to check every solution. My old differential geometry teacher tells me that they actually use the soap bubble method to do minimization problems for such things as highway planning.
There's a lot more interesting stuff about this problem which I shan't go into, partly because I don't remember and partly because it's not very relevant to the discussion at hand. In any case, this is a good example of an analog 'computer' being demonstrably faster than a digital one.
Eratosthenes' sieve is not the same as the number field sieve. I think the number field sieve is several orders of magnitude faster. Sorry, I don't know the big-O times for either algorithm... but Eratosthenes' sieve is pretty straightforward, whereas the number field sieve is apparently rather difficult to comprehend--Anyway, that's what my number theory teacher told me.
For those who are curious, here's Eratosthenes' sieve, more or less. The basic idea anyway is this:
1) Think of a number n. Is it prime? I wonder.
2) Formulate a sequential list of numbers, starting with 1 and ending with n.
3) Consider the lowest numnber, less than or equal to sqrt(n), not alreay considered. Call it k. Cross of every kth number of the list from (2), except for k.
Repeat (3) sequentially for each number less than or equal to sqrt(n) that has not already been crossed off. If n never gets crossed off, it's prime.
Incidentally, any number less than sqrt(n) that has not alreay been crossed off is prime as well.
As you can see there are some problems with this algorithm. You have to go through the list sqrt(n) times to find out whether n is prime. Then again, it's pretty mindless. It also gives you all the primes less than sqrt(n) for free. But not good for factoring big numbers, even with a computer.
If anyone can give a sketch of the number field sieve, I would love to see it.
Was the number field sieve developed in the 20th century? If I recall correctly it is by far the fastest integer-factoring algorithm that has been developed. Important for all kinds of brute-force applications, notably that "crack the encryption" distributed-computing program on your computer. Granted the viability of PGP style encryption relies on any factoring method being slow, but the number field sieve is still pretty important.
I haven't even -seen- the film and I have been immensely amused by the reviews! My vicarious Battlefield Earth experience has been infinitely rewarding! I concur with this man!
Yeah, I previewed, but now I would like to clarify. Sorry. When I say 'does an engineered virus count', I don't mean it in the way mentioned in the /. article (where a virus is used to 'grow' mechanic/electrical parts) but rather 'does an engineered virus that is engineered to perform a virus-like but beneficial-to-the-body task as its sole purpose count'. I hope that's a little clearer-- does the engineered virus as the end (rather than the means) count as nanotech?
I was just thinking about this reading the article and some of the comments-- here it is.
In the coming world of nanotechnology, will we really be aiming to miniaturize 'macrotechnology' to a molecular level? Or rather will we try to manipulate molecular and biological chemistry in such a way that it acheives the ends we are looking for? Are we just making little robots, or does, say, engineering a -virus- that repairs, I don't know, nerve damage, count as nanotechnology? Are we specifically limiting the term "nanotechnology" to superminiaturized electrical/mechanical technology? Or will nanotech involve elements of both mechanical and chemical engineering in the execution of the nanite's task?
Plenty of interesting questions for someone who knows more about this stuff than me to answer.
Since I'm a math person I get to torture you all with a detailed analysis of the average teacher's schedule (here, anyway-- snotty prep school environment).
Most full-time faculty have a four-course load and each course meets about 4.5 out of six days a week. Each class is an hour. So actual weekly in-class time is 18 hours, let's say.
It takes anywhere from an equal amount of time to no time at all to prepare each class outside of the classroom. We'll split the differnece and say 9 hours of prep time a week.
Usually 4 hours of meetings (department meeting and faculty meeting, all-school assemblies) each week.
Two out of three terms you must coach a sport for two hours a day, four days a week, so we can call that 8 hours.
About 1.75 nights a week you have dormitory duty, which is four hours a night. Seven hours there. You also have dining hall duty on the nights you have dorm duty, so we'll call it another 2 hours a week there.
Additionally there are various committees and extracirricular activities you may participate in. Anywhere from 0 to, say, 5 hours a week for that.
So at best you are doing 40 hours a week (assuming no sports and no extracirriculars) and at worst 53 hours. Feel free to toss in a few hours here and there in private meetings or responding to faculty email or helping students outside of class or what have you.
Granted you have three months of downtime over the year, but our salary technically only covers the nine months that we work.