'The people' have already paid for the BBC via their TV license fees, it is in no way 'free'. Why should they pay again just because Murdoch doesn't like the competition?
It's basic sensationalistic everything is the worst possible case stupidity combined with Dora the explorer guidelines, RIAA false information, and a quantity of Shatneresce voice acting.
For the most part, it's the standard dry government garbage that is used to give insomniacs some sleep time while racking up at-work hours.
Watching the trailer you can get a little bit of info about whats going on.
Humans go to another planet, looks like a jungle planet.
They create "avatars" that are either clones, simulacrum, or repurposed native bodies.
One of the humans (the main character) who is brainmapped into an avatar, is a paraplegic in his human body.
The avatars are sent on an exploration or diplomacy mission. (It obviously wasn't infiltration because they were wearing human clothes and carrying human gear.)
There's some fighting with some dino like things, possibly with the natives as well, although I didn't see any shots showing actual combat with natives, just strung together combat scenes that implied combat with the natives.
Oh, and the main character falls for a native female.
I'm sure somebody paying more attention to it can pick out other tidbits of info, but yeah, it was kinda sparse on data. It's not like the trailers/ads for 6th sense where you can identify all major plot points including the so called twist ending... (so bloody obvious he's one of the dead...)
You'd be surprised how much of this stuff can be done on the cheap if you know what you're doing.
I'm surprised it's taken this long for someone to do this stunt when you consider it's been some time since they've created a synthetic duplicate of the genomes in a microbe. (In theory, they could have recreated any microbe they had the complete genome stored for, more or less.) It's only a small conceptual step from doing that stuff to faking DNA evidence.
Oh well, guess we know what surprise twist CSI will have next season.
I probably shouldn't reply to someone obviously trolling like you, but here goes.
Stop with the insults, it's inappropriate.
Do I despise what Bush did? You bet!
Is Obama any better? Don't know yet, it takes more than a few months after jumping into the cesspool to find out if the new president is actually better, worse, or caught by the undertow.
No matter what, Obama is a politician, and that bodes not well... I'm willing to give him a chance to prove if he's the lesser evil or not...
The way the right (a horrible inaccurate nomenclature) is attacking Obama and the policies being developed (such as health care) with rhetoric vitriol and out right lies, I seriously have to wonder why they are so afraid and/or hateful. Is it because he's a Hawaiian?
If you'd stop rolling your eyes into the back of your head and foaming at the mouth, maybe you can figure out the difference between counterproductive fear/hate mongering and constructive criticism and debate.
And yes, this is the last post I will make to this article and thread. Rant all you want and spit into the wind to your hearts content, I will not respond.
Thank you for those rather nearsighted and puerile opinions and comments.
Hopefully the people that'll review that 'request' will remember all the previous times Comcast has said that and lied... Who am I kidding? They'll fall for it hook line and s(t)inker, just look at the bailouts they've done this year...
Not only is this NOT an Obama article, but it's almost impossible for those 'politicians' to get anything done in 6 months, much less completely undoing the work of Darth Bush's last EIGHT YEARS !
Sheesh, bureaucrats and politicians undoing anything they don't get kickbacks for is done at a speed that makes glaciers look like Daytona Racers.
I've been to the meetings of our local electricity utility board, so I'm NOT just babbling randomly.
Also, I only know the local situation, which is obviously not the only one.
Our utilities love anything that reduces demand.
They especially love renewable energies, but the rebates are paid by the government, not them.
Their only current issue with solar panels, wind power, etc, is a move by some greedy scum to pay those people premiums on the electricity they dump into the grid. I'm with the utilities on this, there is NO reason to pay those people more than the current market value for, err... current...:-)
Guess this is an example of greed and misdirected indignation in both situations, just with the sides getting switched.
I like the giant sticky trap idea, but there seem to be a few problems with it.
debris magnet: anything that gets on it, stays on it... dirt, leaves, small animals....
storage: when you want people going through that entry/exit you are going to have to put the mat someplace. Roll it up and throw it away?
only effective on the ignorant: it won't be long before criminals learn of these things and roll up all mats just to be sure, it's not like they care if your 'precaution' is destroyed when they intend to rob you anyway
Children and Pets: screw the urban wildlife, I can see cats, dogs, and small children getting rolled up in these things, sometimes even by accident
vandalism: if outside the house, how long until vandals steal these to stick on walls, car windows, etc
user issues: if inside the house, how long until the owner forgets one night when half asleep and trips on it
I find this idea to be great fodder for a comedy routine, but horribly impractical for the real world.
I'm not any kind of patent expert or anything like that, so take this guesswork with a few thousand grains of salt.
I believe that prior art has to be listed for a variety of reasons. I'm pretty sure that one of them is to limit the scope and duration of that portion of any new patent that includes that same (?) feature. To not list prior art that they themselves own is kind of like trying to get a free (and faudulent) extension to the previous patent.
(Kind of like expecting the warranty on your old stereo to be fully renewed because you bought a new knob for it.)
Also, I've seen articles about several patents that just don't have enough substance to qualify for a patent after removing stuff covered by prior art. In which case, not listing your own prior art can be an attempt at getting a patent for something that doesn't qualify.
A third possible reason why not listing your own prior art can be a legal or proceedural problem. That prior art may have it's own licensing or other IP agreements or issues, but if a new patent covers that same functionality without excluding it via prior art you're probably looking at a number of possible fraudulent lawsuits.
(We already licensed patent zyy, and now they want us to pay again because it also violates patent zzx...)
I'm sure you can see how patent trolls and other patent lowlifes can really abuse this.
No matter what the price is, there will always be some level of piracy.
On the other hand, if games were actually $1, their sales would freaking skyrocket like Nasa on a coke binge.
And I believe I've seen enough examples of modest cost reductions cause greatly increased software sales to guess that they are probably already on the wrong side of the sales/cost curve. Of course there are 'studies' by people who actually research this stuff that shows the same thing, but I'm not an economist or statistician.
Here's a big question for you: How much does it cost for that DRM on each unit, and what is the time until it's cracked. Give a cost vs benefit analysis on that. I'm betting it won't look good.
If you've read the article, you will note that it states specifically that it doesn't use algae.
It does say that the closest thing out there to what they do are ones that use algae.
When the first cars were built, the closest thing to them was the carriage, but automobiles didn't use horses to power them.
As to the people questioning as to whether they are using genetically engineered organisms, the article clearly states that they are.
Yes, your fuel may soon come from a genetically engineered non-algal microbe.
Sure, fine and all that, but I still want man portable fusion cells... Or maybe pocket antimatter. >^_^
The Daily Mail is an interesting 'newpaper', but it's accuracy is rather suspect. There have been many times it has posted articles of old hoaxes and presented them as current 'news'.
They seem to have no fact-checker on staff and an editor that rubber stamps everything.
At least don't show pictures obviously photoshopped with the skill of a 3rd grader...
With anything that has been marketed/hyped, never rely on the initial numbers.
Ignore the first month of a search engine, and the first week of a new movie.
After the curious and easily manipulated are out of the way, you can get a real result.
err... maintain the tiger population?
We thought it was a themed hunting park.
For a measly $10,000 you too can try to bag your own trophy tiger in a natural habitat...
We still have spots left in our other 3 sites, but they're going fast, so contact your Extinction Hunting Tours Representative now before there all gone, forever...
In talking with people (or company representatives) about their security regarding passwords and keys, I always told them two things.
First, all security experts will tell you that you should not keep copies of that stuff around.
Second, that's not a realistic expectation, stuff happens. The IT guy goes on vacation, has an accident, or dies. (Seen all 3 numerous times.) You fire the Admin for some reason. This building burns down. Etc.
A reasonable thing to do, is keep a password/key log with that critical information that is kept up to date at all times. You have two copies of it. Both are kept secure in good quality safes (not a $200 lockbox).
Both safes are in different physical locations, at least separate buildings, preferably miles apart.
The reason for this is pretty easy. Once again, things happen. I've seen buildings burnt down, flooded, inaccessible due to chemical hazards from a truck wreck, etc. You don't know what will happen, but if you have them stored at separate physical locations, you at least know you will be able to get to one of them if you need to, assuming nobody uses a nuke.
It all falls under that old techie saying, "So, when did your data become important to you? Before or after you lost it...".
The military has had line filters and other protocols to deal with this exact issue in place for at least 20 years now.
And no, that's not idle speculation, it was one of the things we had to deal with when I was in the military.
It's even referred to by one of those silly military project names.
Sorry, I'm not sure if I can post the name, so I won't.
(If someone else posts it, correctly or otherwise, I will neither confirm nor deny it's accuracy, so please don't ask.)
That's amazing!
He actually found an MMORPG with a faction battlezone where the participants are NOT at each others throats?!?
Maybe he should go into WoW, or Warhammer, or just about all the others.
Try walking into a PvP flagged area and not get killed, especially if you are half the power of your opponents, or even weaker.
He should be more interested in why CoH/CoV has a PvP area that is used peacefully when that's unthinkable in other games.
Guess they've never had someone jump down their throat for being cheerful.
I have.
A lot of Americans associate a business attitude with a neutral or even stern expression.
That person smiling all the time is assumed to be an idiot, disingenuous, or high.
Yes, smiling can be bad.
Slashdot Mirror
'The people' have already paid for the BBC via their TV license fees, it is in no way 'free'.
Why should they pay again just because Murdoch doesn't like the competition?
Techies have been joking about this for many decades.
Realistically though, we all know it's about as likely as needing a license to read or talk.
I find it hard to believe anyone is actually wanting such a concept to become law. What's next, a license for sex?
So that's where I parked it... Now where did I put my keys...
>^_^<
It's basic sensationalistic everything is the worst possible case stupidity combined with Dora the explorer guidelines, RIAA false information, and a quantity of Shatneresce voice acting.
For the most part, it's the standard dry government garbage that is used to give insomniacs some sleep time while racking up at-work hours.
Watching the trailer you can get a little bit of info about whats going on.
Humans go to another planet, looks like a jungle planet.
They create "avatars" that are either clones, simulacrum, or repurposed native bodies.
One of the humans (the main character) who is brainmapped into an avatar, is a paraplegic in his human body.
The avatars are sent on an exploration or diplomacy mission.
(It obviously wasn't infiltration because they were wearing human clothes and carrying human gear.)
There's some fighting with some dino like things, possibly with the natives as well, although I didn't see any shots showing actual combat with natives, just strung together combat scenes that implied combat with the natives.
Oh, and the main character falls for a native female.
I'm sure somebody paying more attention to it can pick out other tidbits of info, but yeah, it was kinda sparse on data. It's not like the trailers/ads for 6th sense where you can identify all major plot points including the so called twist ending... (so bloody obvious he's one of the dead...)
You'd be surprised how much of this stuff can be done on the cheap if you know what you're doing.
I'm surprised it's taken this long for someone to do this stunt when you consider it's been some time since they've created a synthetic duplicate of the genomes in a microbe. (In theory, they could have recreated any microbe they had the complete genome stored for, more or less.) It's only a small conceptual step from doing that stuff to faking DNA evidence.
Oh well, guess we know what surprise twist CSI will have next season.
I probably shouldn't reply to someone obviously trolling like you, but here goes.
Stop with the insults, it's inappropriate.
Do I despise what Bush did? You bet!
Is Obama any better? Don't know yet, it takes more than a few months after jumping into the cesspool to find out if the new president is actually better, worse, or caught by the undertow.
No matter what, Obama is a politician, and that bodes not well... I'm willing to give him a chance to prove if he's the lesser evil or not...
The way the right (a horrible inaccurate nomenclature) is attacking Obama and the policies being developed (such as health care) with rhetoric vitriol and out right lies, I seriously have to wonder why they are so afraid and/or hateful. Is it because he's a Hawaiian?
If you'd stop rolling your eyes into the back of your head and foaming at the mouth, maybe you can figure out the difference between counterproductive fear/hate mongering and constructive criticism and debate.
And yes, this is the last post I will make to this article and thread. Rant all you want and spit into the wind to your hearts content, I will not respond.
Thank you for those rather nearsighted and puerile opinions and comments.
Hopefully the people that'll review that 'request' will remember all the previous times Comcast has said that and lied... Who am I kidding? They'll fall for it hook line and s(t)inker, just look at the bailouts they've done this year...
Not only is this NOT an Obama article, but it's almost impossible for those 'politicians' to get anything done in 6 months, much less completely undoing the work of Darth Bush's last EIGHT YEARS !
Sheesh, bureaucrats and politicians undoing anything they don't get kickbacks for is done at a speed that makes glaciers look like Daytona Racers.
All the people I know with modded consoles have done it to play the import games that are not (and never will be) available in their region.
I've been to the meetings of our local electricity utility board, so I'm NOT just babbling randomly.
:-)
Also, I only know the local situation, which is obviously not the only one.
Our utilities love anything that reduces demand.
They especially love renewable energies, but the rebates are paid by the government, not them.
Their only current issue with solar panels, wind power, etc, is a move by some greedy scum to pay those people premiums on the electricity they dump into the grid.
I'm with the utilities on this, there is NO reason to pay those people more than the current market value for, err... current...
Guess this is an example of greed and misdirected indignation in both situations, just with the sides getting switched.
I like the giant sticky trap idea, but there seem to be a few problems with it.
debris magnet: anything that gets on it, stays on it... dirt, leaves, small animals....
storage: when you want people going through that entry/exit you are going to have to put the mat someplace. Roll it up and throw it away?
only effective on the ignorant: it won't be long before criminals learn of these things and roll up all mats just to be sure, it's not like they care if your 'precaution' is destroyed when they intend to rob you anyway
Children and Pets: screw the urban wildlife, I can see cats, dogs, and small children getting rolled up in these things, sometimes even by accident
vandalism: if outside the house, how long until vandals steal these to stick on walls, car windows, etc
user issues: if inside the house, how long until the owner forgets one night when half asleep and trips on it
I find this idea to be great fodder for a comedy routine, but horribly impractical for the real world.
I'm not any kind of patent expert or anything like that, so take this guesswork with a few thousand grains of salt.
I believe that prior art has to be listed for a variety of reasons. I'm pretty sure that one of them is to limit the scope and duration of that portion of any new patent that includes that same (?) feature. To not list prior art that they themselves own is kind of like trying to get a free (and faudulent) extension to the previous patent.
(Kind of like expecting the warranty on your old stereo to be fully renewed because you bought a new knob for it.)
Also, I've seen articles about several patents that just don't have enough substance to qualify for a patent after removing stuff covered by prior art. In which case, not listing your own prior art can be an attempt at getting a patent for something that doesn't qualify.
A third possible reason why not listing your own prior art can be a legal or proceedural problem. That prior art may have it's own licensing or other IP agreements or issues, but if a new patent covers that same functionality without excluding it via prior art you're probably looking at a number of possible fraudulent lawsuits.
(We already licensed patent zyy, and now they want us to pay again because it also violates patent zzx...)
I'm sure you can see how patent trolls and other patent lowlifes can really abuse this.
No matter what the price is, there will always be some level of piracy.
On the other hand, if games were actually $1, their sales would freaking skyrocket like Nasa on a coke binge.
And I believe I've seen enough examples of modest cost reductions cause greatly increased software sales to guess that they are probably already on the wrong side of the sales/cost curve. Of course there are 'studies' by people who actually research this stuff that shows the same thing, but I'm not an economist or statistician.
Here's a big question for you: How much does it cost for that DRM on each unit, and what is the time until it's cracked. Give a cost vs benefit analysis on that. I'm betting it won't look good.
If you've read the article, you will note that it states specifically that it doesn't use algae.
It does say that the closest thing out there to what they do are ones that use algae.
When the first cars were built, the closest thing to them was the carriage, but automobiles didn't use horses to power them.
As to the people questioning as to whether they are using genetically engineered organisms, the article clearly states that they are.
Yes, your fuel may soon come from a genetically engineered non-algal microbe.
Sure, fine and all that, but I still want man portable fusion cells... Or maybe pocket antimatter. >^_^
The Daily Mail is an interesting 'newpaper', but it's accuracy is rather suspect. There have been many times it has posted articles of old hoaxes and presented them as current 'news'.
They seem to have no fact-checker on staff and an editor that rubber stamps everything.
At least don't show pictures obviously photoshopped with the skill of a 3rd grader...
or a tinfoil hat...
With anything that has been marketed/hyped, never rely on the initial numbers.
Ignore the first month of a search engine, and the first week of a new movie.
After the curious and easily manipulated are out of the way, you can get a real result.
Over a year ago Uwe Boll approached Blizzard to let him do the WoW movie. :)
They made it rather clear to even him, No Fng Way...
Easy to find articles about that, here's a couple to get you started.
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52322
http://warcraft.moviechronicles.com/2008-04/blizzard-laugh-away-uwe-boll/
err... maintain the tiger population?
We thought it was a themed hunting park.
For a measly $10,000 you too can try to bag your own trophy tiger in a natural habitat...
We still have spots left in our other 3 sites, but they're going fast, so contact your Extinction Hunting Tours Representative now before there all gone, forever...
In talking with people (or company representatives) about their security regarding passwords and keys, I always told them two things.
First, all security experts will tell you that you should not keep copies of that stuff around.
Second, that's not a realistic expectation, stuff happens. The IT guy goes on vacation, has an accident, or dies. (Seen all 3 numerous times.) You fire the Admin for some reason. This building burns down. Etc.
A reasonable thing to do, is keep a password/key log with that critical information that is kept up to date at all times. You have two copies of it. Both are kept secure in good quality safes (not a $200 lockbox).
Both safes are in different physical locations, at least separate buildings, preferably miles apart.
The reason for this is pretty easy. Once again, things happen. I've seen buildings burnt down, flooded, inaccessible due to chemical hazards from a truck wreck, etc. You don't know what will happen, but if you have them stored at separate physical locations, you at least know you will be able to get to one of them if you need to, assuming nobody uses a nuke.
It all falls under that old techie saying, "So, when did your data become important to you? Before or after you lost it...".
The military has had line filters and other protocols to deal with this exact issue in place for at least 20 years now.
And no, that's not idle speculation, it was one of the things we had to deal with when I was in the military.
It's even referred to by one of those silly military project names.
Sorry, I'm not sure if I can post the name, so I won't.
(If someone else posts it, correctly or otherwise, I will neither confirm nor deny it's accuracy, so please don't ask.)
Mmmmm.... Penguin Burgers........ (drool)
Uh sir, do you want Walrus Fries with that?
That's amazing!
He actually found an MMORPG with a faction battlezone where the participants are NOT at each others throats?!?
Maybe he should go into WoW, or Warhammer, or just about all the others.
Try walking into a PvP flagged area and not get killed, especially if you are half the power of your opponents, or even weaker.
He should be more interested in why CoH/CoV has a PvP area that is used peacefully when that's unthinkable in other games.
Guess they've never had someone jump down their throat for being cheerful.
I have.
A lot of Americans associate a business attitude with a neutral or even stern expression.
That person smiling all the time is assumed to be an idiot, disingenuous, or high.
Yes, smiling can be bad.