Even worse, this was done by the Marketing Department. In other words, if you let this go on, it wouldn't be long before the marketing weasels would be deciding what was 'news'.
I don't think he'll have much luck pressing a case against anyone using 'Android', just those using 'Android Data' for the same reason that 'Bovine Ventures' won't succeed in suing 'Bovine Growth Hormone'.
If you don't know, it's because Android is just a single word that's been in the modern language for a couple of generations now. Apparently there are laws against somebody absconding with single words of our language and claiming sole ownership of them. Of course the courts are slow and stupid, so anyone fighting this will have to pay lots of lawyers lots of money before getting this crushed, but at least Google has that cash.
By the way, those same rules or laws are the same reason why Google can't rub their hands together and laugh maniacally while preparing lawsuits against thousands of authors of science fiction, not to mention a fair stack of movies as well.
...citing ethnic reactions to 'swine,' for example among middle-eastern cultures who feel that swine are unclean...
Hey guys, if you haven't noticed yet, the flu isn't exactly clean. With all the vomiting, diarrhea, and possible death, giving it a clean and happy name would be like renaming arsenic to 'honey-nuggets'.
So if some people think it's a foul and unhealthy name, GOOD !!!!
And if you're worried about being accused of trying to trick the security chimp, then have a thin panel of (metal, plastic, whatever) material superglued over the camera lens. There's no way a rational person will accuse you of trying to sneak in a camera.
If you're worried about looks, have the panel cut clean and neat and matching the case color.
You may even preserve you're warranty as you didn't open the unit to do this job required modification.
Wanted Spore, but wasn't about to deal with their B.S. annoyance system. (My computer has been reformatted 3 times this year already. If I had Spore, I'd be out of 'installs' before much long. What can I say, betas aren't exactly stable...)
Demigod - I tried it, looks good, but I don't care for the game. Hope they sell tons of it to adoring fans, I'm just not one of them.
X-Com: Yeah, I still play those. They are great. There are several attempts at copying them, but I don't think they captured it good enough. The best, though incomplete still, is UFO Alien Invasion. It's free for download.
If X-Com had those same types of restrictive screw the customer D.R.M. schemes that so many current games have, we'd be playing pirate copies because our originals would be useless.
(And to the smart@ss out there, CDs and Floppy Disks do NOT make usable drink coasters.):-)
The highest res mode was black and white only, but due to limitations of the CRTs used in TVs at that time, if the pixels weren't a solid block, the color would shift to something not-white.
Back then I wrote a drawing program that took advantage of the artificing to draw in color. I knew which pixels in a block could be turned on or off to generate one of up to about 16 colors. Obviously, the smallest blocks were only 5 colors. (Red, Green, Blue, Black, White) So the more detail you wanted your drawing, the less colors available.
If these guys can properly emulate that program properly (sorry, don't have a copy anymore), then they've definitely hit the mark with their attempt.
Ah, the ancient days of programming when the kid with 16k memory was the uber133t. (Of course, back then, you used a different dialect of what eventually became l337 to save precious bytes of memory. And Ascii-bombing was used to play mindgames on the BBSs.)
Yes, I remember the first time I used linux.
It was 3 days of pain and frustration.
I couldn't get the kernel to compile no matter what I did.
After a couple hours of hair pulling, I called a friend of mine who had installed linux hundreds of times. He was with me for the next several days as we both went insane trying to get that to work.
In the end, we had to give up, linux wouldn't work no matter what we did. It definitely wasn't ready for users if professional techs and consultants couldn't get it to work on a standard machine.
Of course, things are much better now. I haven't had a problem like that in ages, and the installers are infinitely superior now. I'd even let some of the moderately adept users install linux if they wanted to. So before going off on a rant about the (imaginary) perfection of linux, just remember that it wasn't that many years ago it was a major pain in the @** and impossible for a non-techie to deal with.
It was apparently unknown even to the dead guy that he had HepC until the autopsy was done.
Doesn't the law include certain 'good faith' clauses so that someone can't be penalized after the fact for failing to reveal information they didn't even have in the first place?
Basically, it just boils down to a cheap@zz insurance conjob, err, company trying to find any excuse not to have to fulfill it's end of the contract.
I know of one large company that specializes in software. They have multiple sites. They spent a lot of money to purchase dedicated bandwidth for use between sites. (The contract basically states that it's never supposed to decrease, it's just for them, no oversubscribing, or reduction in bandwidth, ever.)
Funny thing, they had to run bandwidth tests all the time because every couple of weeks the ISP would massively reduce their bandwidth. The company had an advantage, they were big enough that when they screamed at the ISP for ripping them off, again, they had their full dedicated bandwidth back in only a few hours. br?
Of course, us individuals and small companies don't have that kind of 800lb gorilla effect, so we have even less ability to prevent the ISPs from selling us one thing, and substituting it for an inferior product when they think we aren't looking.
So people think they are being used as test subjects because they are getting an approved and new system.
In that case, maybe they should wait till they can find a plant that's been running flawlessly for a century.
All humor aside, there is no way to 100% test something as large, expensive, and complex as a powerplant until it's been built, and used for a significant amount of time. Not to mention surviving several unexpected disasters.
So if you don't want to be part of the test, you might be able to avoid it by going back to the time before the Industrial Revolution.
Don't forget that the kindle uses e-ink/e-paper for it's display, so it's much easier to read than lcd or crt displays in many lighting situations, especially if you are not at home.
Combine that with the inherently superior weight factor, and it's obvious why people might want it. Now if I could only get those 40lbs of required books for my classes on one...
(Many a college student suffers from bad backs and elongated arms due to the sheer weight of the textbooks they are forced to carry/drag around with them.)
There are a number of admins out there that won't power down any server even if it's the only way to fix a problem that's trashing their files and network.
Sometimes it's because they don't 'have the authority' to down the machines.
Other times it's because they get unrealistic bonuses for unbroken uptime, and they are greed cretins who'd rather see their work go down the tubes for money.
I know that it's rarely an issue with downing non-servers, and most admins are responsible as well as being the rarely disputed managers of their boxes, but there are way too many fools and scum.
If you're curious, yes, I've dealt with a large number of those two types I just listed. They have no pride in their work, and give all admins a bad name. But that's all fodder for a different rant.
Not exactly a new concept, just new in that somebody actually built one.
This kind of thing has been in Sci-fi for ages, everything from Star Trek to X-Men.
When Commander Taco was posting this article I'm pretty sure he put on his asbestos undies and muttered something about the smell of napalm in the morning breeze.:)
This also illustrates how stupid police (especially the campus variety) can be. I would be surprised if they can find even one 'computer major' that doesn't have multiple operating systems. It's almost a guarantee that one of the computer majors first year classes has them installing and using Linux.
So basically, you can get jailed for a drawing that someone else thinks might be of someone under 18.
Talk about B.S.
What next? Getting arrested for stalking or mugging just because you and some paranoid idiot were walking the same direction on a mostly deserted street?
Actually that isn't what happens with science. It might seem that way to some, but it isn't. There is a lot of discussion about the various parts of evolution. Currently, the entire 'tree of life' is under attack and has been for some time. Were you aware of that?
Evolution is just another scientific theory. It is by far and any way the front runner because nothing else even comes close. This theory, like all theories is constantly changing to take into account new information.
Did you realize that Gravity is a scientific theory? It also is under contention. Some scientists have a different gravitational formula that explains certain galactic motions without dark matter. Of course, since we haven't actually found/identified dark matter, that is also under contention.
Now, just because something is a scientific theory, and it's not perfect, do you doubt it's generalities without contradictory proof? Only if you are ignorant, stupid, or take any religious text as literal fact despite the voluminous quantity of contradictory data, which to me, is the same as the first two reasons.
Whether you like it or not, evolution has been observed many times by mankind. It does exist without any reasonable doubt. If you want to quibble about the fine details, that's expected. However, just because you don't know how many ounces of gas your car burned going to the grocery store, it doesn't mean that the car doesn't exist. (Yeah, I know, that comparision is going to have every smartass without a car making a comment about there is no car... And the Matrix fans making spoon references... I know, have fun with that...)
Of course it's very common for those types of tests to actually have several different versions, to reduce the chance of someone knowing too much of it, even after taking it.
I participated in a study for a new psychological test. They had us take several of the other tests to establish a baseline. One of them had 2 version, another had 5, and one had 6. There may have been more version than that, but those were all I could verify at that time.
Of course, do we know how many versions of the test mentioned in the article that there are?
It's probably a safe bet that there are 2 or more. In which case, the supposed percentage of questions posted drops.
I agree that Blizzard has a right to alter their script interpreter to disallow activities that they find to be gamebreakers or against the spirit of the game. They change their code, and addons can no longer do that action.
On the other hand, the addons that people write belong to them, they may sell them, or obfuscate their code as much as they want, and Blizzard should just shut up about that.
Of course, anybody selling a WoW addon had better own what they are selling, no collecting other peoples creations and selling "The best of WoW addons volume 3" or anything like that.
Slashdot Mirror
Even worse, this was done by the Marketing Department.
In other words, if you let this go on, it wouldn't be long before the marketing weasels would be deciding what was 'news'.
IANAL
I don't think he'll have much luck pressing a case against anyone using 'Android', just those using 'Android Data' for the same reason that 'Bovine Ventures' won't succeed in suing 'Bovine Growth Hormone'.
If you don't know, it's because Android is just a single word that's been in the modern language for a couple of generations now. Apparently there are laws against somebody absconding with single words of our language and claiming sole ownership of them. Of course the courts are slow and stupid, so anyone fighting this will have to pay lots of lawyers lots of money before getting this crushed, but at least Google has that cash.
By the way, those same rules or laws are the same reason why Google can't rub their hands together and laugh maniacally while preparing lawsuits against thousands of authors of science fiction, not to mention a fair stack of movies as well.
...citing ethnic reactions to 'swine,' for example among middle-eastern cultures who feel that swine are unclean...
Hey guys, if you haven't noticed yet, the flu isn't exactly clean. With all the vomiting, diarrhea, and possible death, giving it a clean and happy name would be like renaming arsenic to 'honey-nuggets'.
So if some people think it's a foul and unhealthy name, GOOD !!!!
And if you're worried about being accused of trying to trick the security chimp, then have a thin panel of (metal, plastic, whatever) material superglued over the camera lens. There's no way a rational person will accuse you of trying to sneak in a camera.
If you're worried about looks, have the panel cut clean and neat and matching the case color.
You may even preserve you're warranty as you didn't open the unit to do this job required modification.
Wanted Spore, but wasn't about to deal with their B.S. annoyance system. (My computer has been reformatted 3 times this year already. If I had Spore, I'd be out of 'installs' before much long. What can I say, betas aren't exactly stable...)
:-)
Demigod - I tried it, looks good, but I don't care for the game. Hope they sell tons of it to adoring fans, I'm just not one of them.
X-Com: Yeah, I still play those. They are great. There are several attempts at copying them, but I don't think they captured it good enough. The best, though incomplete still, is UFO Alien Invasion. It's free for download.
If X-Com had those same types of restrictive screw the customer D.R.M. schemes that so many current games have, we'd be playing pirate copies because our originals would be useless. (And to the smart@ss out there, CDs and Floppy Disks do NOT make usable drink coasters.)
The highest res mode was black and white only, but due to limitations of the CRTs used in TVs at that time, if the pixels weren't a solid block, the color would shift to something not-white.
Back then I wrote a drawing program that took advantage of the artificing to draw in color. I knew which pixels in a block could be turned on or off to generate one of up to about 16 colors. Obviously, the smallest blocks were only 5 colors. (Red, Green, Blue, Black, White) So the more detail you wanted your drawing, the less colors available.
If these guys can properly emulate that program properly (sorry, don't have a copy anymore), then they've definitely hit the mark with their attempt.
Ah, the ancient days of programming when the kid with 16k memory was the uber133t. (Of course, back then, you used a different dialect of what eventually became l337 to save precious bytes of memory. And Ascii-bombing was used to play mindgames on the BBSs.)
Throw it into the Firewall.
Yes, I remember the first time I used linux.
It was 3 days of pain and frustration.
I couldn't get the kernel to compile no matter what I did.
After a couple hours of hair pulling, I called a friend of mine who had installed linux hundreds of times. He was with me for the next several days as we both went insane trying to get that to work.
In the end, we had to give up, linux wouldn't work no matter what we did. It definitely wasn't ready for users if professional techs and consultants couldn't get it to work on a standard machine.
Of course, things are much better now. I haven't had a problem like that in ages, and the installers are infinitely superior now. I'd even let some of the moderately adept users install linux if they wanted to. So before going off on a rant about the (imaginary) perfection of linux, just remember that it wasn't that many years ago it was a major pain in the @** and impossible for a non-techie to deal with.
It was apparently unknown even to the dead guy that he had HepC until the autopsy was done.
Doesn't the law include certain 'good faith' clauses so that someone can't be penalized after the fact for failing to reveal information they didn't even have in the first place?
Basically, it just boils down to a cheap@zz insurance conjob, err, company trying to find any excuse not to have to fulfill it's end of the contract.
I know of one large company that specializes in software. They have multiple sites. They spent a lot of money to purchase dedicated bandwidth for use between sites.
(The contract basically states that it's never supposed to decrease, it's just for them, no oversubscribing, or reduction in bandwidth, ever.)
Funny thing, they had to run bandwidth tests all the time because every couple of weeks the ISP would massively reduce their bandwidth. The company had an advantage, they were big enough that when they screamed at the ISP for ripping them off, again, they had their full dedicated bandwidth back in only a few hours.
br? Of course, us individuals and small companies don't have that kind of 800lb gorilla effect, so we have even less ability to prevent the ISPs from selling us one thing, and substituting it for an inferior product when they think we aren't looking.
So people think they are being used as test subjects because they are getting an approved and new system.
In that case, maybe they should wait till they can find a plant that's been running flawlessly for a century.
All humor aside, there is no way to 100% test something as large, expensive, and complex as a powerplant until it's been built, and used for a significant amount of time. Not to mention surviving several unexpected disasters.
So if you don't want to be part of the test, you might be able to avoid it by going back to the time before the Industrial Revolution.
Don't forget that the kindle uses e-ink/e-paper for it's display, so it's much easier to read than lcd or crt displays in many lighting situations, especially if you are not at home.
Combine that with the inherently superior weight factor, and it's obvious why people might want it. Now if I could only get those 40lbs of required books for my classes on one...
(Many a college student suffers from bad backs and elongated arms due to the sheer weight of the textbooks they are forced to carry/drag around with them.)
There are a number of admins out there that won't power down any server even if it's the only way to fix a problem that's trashing their files and network.
Sometimes it's because they don't 'have the authority' to down the machines.
Other times it's because they get unrealistic bonuses for unbroken uptime, and they are greed cretins who'd rather see their work go down the tubes for money.
I know that it's rarely an issue with downing non-servers, and most admins are responsible as well as being the rarely disputed managers of their boxes, but there are way too many fools and scum.
If you're curious, yes, I've dealt with a large number of those two types I just listed. They have no pride in their work, and give all admins a bad name. But that's all fodder for a different rant.
This is better than the other idea NASA tossed out, naming a toilet.
I guess it really is better to be walked on than dumped on...
But come on! Fricking Tranquility?!?!?
Sheesh, talk about a 60s cliche name...
Not exactly a new concept, just new in that somebody actually built one.
This kind of thing has been in Sci-fi for ages, everything from Star Trek to X-Men.
So now they've invented lasers that bend like the ones in so many animes. :)
Well, not really, but it was fun to imagine.
When Commander Taco was posting this article I'm pretty sure he put on his asbestos undies and muttered something about the smell of napalm in the morning breeze. :)
I have to agree with you.
This also illustrates how stupid police (especially the campus variety) can be.
I would be surprised if they can find even one 'computer major' that doesn't have multiple operating systems.
It's almost a guarantee that one of the computer majors first year classes has them installing and using Linux.
Steve Jackson Games STILL hasn't gotten back all their stuff from the FBI raid 1 March 1990, and the FBI even issued and apology for f-ing up!
Screw one month, that's over NINETEEN YEARS !!!!
Basically, if the Federal Bureau of Idiots confiscates your stuff, be happy if you ever get it back.
Today is April 1st.
Enjoy the joke, go to thepiratebay.org, click on the icon/picture, download the 'release'.
So basically, you can get jailed for a drawing that someone else thinks might be of someone under 18.
Talk about B.S.
What next?
Getting arrested for stalking or mugging just because you and some paranoid idiot were walking the same direction on a mostly deserted street?
maybe for the cops survival, but what about ours?
Actually that isn't what happens with science. It might seem that way to some, but it isn't. There is a lot of discussion about the various parts of evolution. Currently, the entire 'tree of life' is under attack and has been for some time. Were you aware of that?
Evolution is just another scientific theory. It is by far and any way the front runner because nothing else even comes close. This theory, like all theories is constantly changing to take into account new information.
Did you realize that Gravity is a scientific theory? It also is under contention. Some scientists have a different gravitational formula that explains certain galactic motions without dark matter. Of course, since we haven't actually found/identified dark matter, that is also under contention.
Now, just because something is a scientific theory, and it's not perfect, do you doubt it's generalities without contradictory proof? Only if you are ignorant, stupid, or take any religious text as literal fact despite the voluminous quantity of contradictory data, which to me, is the same as the first two reasons.
Whether you like it or not, evolution has been observed many times by mankind. It does exist without any reasonable doubt. If you want to quibble about the fine details, that's expected. However, just because you don't know how many ounces of gas your car burned going to the grocery store, it doesn't mean that the car doesn't exist.
(Yeah, I know, that comparision is going to have every smartass without a car making a comment about there is no car... And the Matrix fans making spoon references... I know, have fun with that...)
Of course it's very common for those types of tests to actually have several different versions, to reduce the chance of someone knowing too much of it, even after taking it.
I participated in a study for a new psychological test. They had us take several of the other tests to establish a baseline. One of them had 2 version, another had 5, and one had 6. There may have been more version than that, but those were all I could verify at that time.
Of course, do we know how many versions of the test mentioned in the article that there are?
It's probably a safe bet that there are 2 or more. In which case, the supposed percentage of questions posted drops.
I agree that Blizzard has a right to alter their script interpreter to disallow activities that they find to be gamebreakers or against the spirit of the game. They change their code, and addons can no longer do that action.
On the other hand, the addons that people write belong to them, they may sell them, or obfuscate their code as much as they want, and Blizzard should just shut up about that.
Of course, anybody selling a WoW addon had better own what they are selling, no collecting other peoples creations and selling "The best of WoW addons volume 3" or anything like that.