Actually, as you yourself point out, it's fucking up the actual copy rather than removing it. Perhaps this should be called "identity vandalism". Oh, and sorry you think I'm a "jackass" for saying this. What do you call people who do worse things than making a crack at people who try to justify criminal behavior and bitch about being called on it?
"Infringement" has nothing to do with copying. Since you failed to grasp the meaning of the post...
Slashdotters like to blabber about how the media, RIAA, etc. uses hot words like "theft" in place of "copyright infringement" because the former sounds worse to the average joe. They argue that it makes infringers seem more criminal than they are, and they say that it's not "theft" because theft requires that the original be removed from the owner's possession.
Now in a thread about "identity theft," I mention that no actual theft of an identity is occurring because if my identity is "stolen", I maintain possession of the original. It was a jab at all the people who seem to want to justify breaking the law for any number of reasons, and then begin bitching when people start calling them on breaking the law.
I also find it strange that the site up and closed about the same time that donation bar stopped moving.
That's not so odd, if the purpose of the donation bar was to fund the legal defense. If the bar stops moving, no money is coming in, no funds for legal defense, have to settle. Not too much of a stretch.
I've not seen anyone say that the old system was better (and that's certainly not what I said). The problem is something you stated in your post! misleading commercials aside
That's the whole point. I can't advertise the sale of a car for $15 and then, when you come in, say, "Well really, it's $30, but hey, that's still better than the $12,000 you would have payed under the old system!"
I have a question...What's a late fee??? Isn't a late fee at Blockbuster an amount of money charged to customer for returning a movie late??? If that's the case then how can any of this be considered a late fee??? You aren't returning anything...And if you aren't returning anything how can you be late in returning it???
Excess question marks aside, if they were just charging you the cost of the movie it would be one thing. But if you bring the movie back after 7 days but before 37 days, they charge you $1.25. They call it a restocking fee since you've (presumably) already bought the movie. But what is there to restock? What do they have to do differently than if you'd returned it 3 days in? Nothing. It's a late fee, pure and simple, and it's something they claimed they got rid of.
The cashiers at my Blockbuster talk way too damn much, but at least nobody ever leaves there confused over how the new system works.
Ah, but the problem is false advertising, not failure to alert the customer of the system. There is a distinct difference.
Of course, the problem is that if you keep the movie for 10 days but then return it, they charge you a fee to credit your account for the purchase they already charged you. That's basically where the fraud comes in, IMO. They're charging you a fee if you bring the movie in late rather than not at all.
If we're talking about your generic MMORPG (all of which have an up front cost as well as a monthy cost--at least when they first come out they do) then everything you've said is tangential at best and off-topic for the sub-thread at worst.
If you want to talk about a specific MMORPG from a specific company that did something you don't like, sure, you can talk about how we shouldn't give them our money. But the grand-parent and parent were referring to MMORPGs/pay-to-play games in general.
Sure, most games. But most nonlinear RPGs have this element anyway. Morrowind managed to do it without an ongoing fee and being within your average cost for a video game. Months into playing this one and my friends and I are still coming across new things to explore.
Really? Your average non-MMORPG probably costs about US $45. That cost is an attempt to recoup development costs, since clearly a company can't get money from the consumer first and then develop the game. Of course, no company makes a game simply for the purpose of making the game--they want to make money off of it, too. If you call that greed, then I think you're being pretty silly. It's called business.
Now look at your average MMORPG. It's got roughly the same initial cost for the consumer, which makes sense as it also must be developed. There's an argument that MMORPGs cost more to develop due to the fact that it's a networked game. Even if there weren't added complexities in dealing with the network code, you have to code the server in addition to the client, and generally the server code has to be highly scalable as one "server" in the game will probably span across many different machines. So assuming that the complexity of a MMORPG like this is greater than that of your average game (and thus the development costs are greater) isn't really stretching things. But for the sake of argument, let's ignore that point.
The fact that Blizzard has to maintain persistent servers in order for people to play this game means that they have an ongoing cost above the cost of developing the game. Now with the old battle.net, this wasn't a big deal. Although still an ongoing cost, the servers only had to dish out random numbers for monsters and store character files. Servers for an MMORPG have to pass much more traffic and store much more information, in addition to needing more processor power to maintain the game world. The monthly cost goes to keep the servers running and probably help defray the cost of updates/patches, etc.
I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect people to purchase the game (to cover the costs of development) as well as pay a monthly subscription (for the use of the servers). What is unreasonable is not allowing a transfer of the game media if the previous account is cancelled. For any other game (except maybe Half-life 2?) once I'm tired of it, I can sell it or give it to a friend. Why can't I with WoW?
They're crossing over into a scary use of GPS, however.
I can get a restraining order against you even if you have been convicted of no crime. At some point, I can see GPS being used to restrict people who haven't been convicted, but have restraining orders against them. It's not that slippery a slope to see this being used on innocent people.
GPS as terms of probation are fine by me, but this is a different question altogether.
He said: But don't those heavier cars put more wear and tear on the roads? I'm guessing that a Hummer puts a hell of a lot more wear on a road the a prius, or maybe not... Which is precisely what I said in the post he replied to.
As for the number of miles a car gets driven, that was per gallon of gas. Of course big heavy SUVs aren't going to get driven less, but it shows the relationship between gas, car size, and wear-and-tear on the road.
The GPS tax alone certainly doesn't provide an incentive to get a fuel-efficient car, but you still have to buy gas. Also, knowing governments in general, they will probably maintain the gas tax in addition to the GPS tax:\
Of course they are. The thinking is that the more you drive on roads, the more damage you cause them and the more you should pay in taxes to help maintain them. Right now, the method for determining how much you use roads is flawed--it's a gas tax. The idea, of course, being that if you buy more gas, you're driving more. However people who own big gas guzzlers are actually driving less than people who own fuel efficient cars if they buy the exact same amount of gas per year, so the gas guzzlers are being "penalized" with a higher tax when they use the roads precisely the same amount.
The flaw, of course, is that larger, heavier vehicles do more damage to the road than lighter cars. Of course, larger, heavier vehicles tend to use more gas, so in reality, the gas tax works just fine. It's the perception that's skewed such that people believe that they're overpaying.
Also, there are restrictions on how the photos can be used without blurring the faces or getting a model release signed. The photo has be in the public interest (for example, to be used in a newspaper article). Otherwise, you may be able to require that they blur your face.
It's also one of the most useless OS's in the world with an unmodified install! Seriously, the "all services off by default" is why OpenBSD can make the claim you made. Once you start making the box more useful, you start making it less secure.
...you really might as well go Windows all the way. Periodically I look at the Linux tools for video capture/video editing. As far as I'm concerned, they're not there yet, which is a large part of the reason that I still have Windows on my desktop. There are some really advanced filtering tools on Windows so you can really make your final product shine. Check out AVISynth and its related documentation, as well as VirtualDUB (if you're going the mpeg-4 route) our QuENC (if you're going the mpeg-1 or mpeg-2 route).
Also, if you ever intend on doing analog captures, you should consider using a striped raid array for a scratch drive for capturing. This way you can capture losslessly compressed AVI (with HuffYUV) and have as much data to work with. Be wary though that you should try to capture in a multiple of your final resolution--the less pixel interpolation you do when resizing, the better.
It's an idea, which is the popular definition of a theory. Most people are spouting the scientific definition of a theory, which relies on observable facts and the ability to be proven false.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, as you yourself point out, it's fucking up the actual copy rather than removing it. Perhaps this should be called "identity vandalism". Oh, and sorry you think I'm a "jackass" for saying this. What do you call people who do worse things than making a crack at people who try to justify criminal behavior and bitch about being called on it?
"Infringement" has nothing to do with copying. Since you failed to grasp the meaning of the post...
Slashdotters like to blabber about how the media, RIAA, etc. uses hot words like "theft" in place of "copyright infringement" because the former sounds worse to the average joe. They argue that it makes infringers seem more criminal than they are, and they say that it's not "theft" because theft requires that the original be removed from the owner's possession.
Now in a thread about "identity theft," I mention that no actual theft of an identity is occurring because if my identity is "stolen", I maintain possession of the original. It was a jab at all the people who seem to want to justify breaking the law for any number of reasons, and then begin bitching when people start calling them on breaking the law.
You sir, need a sense of humor.
Ah, indeed!
Fascinating. Even though you were nitpicking grammar, I'd mod this informative because I didn't know the distinction before!
This is identity infringement. Or is it actually "theft" when people do it to content owners?
Can't have it both ways, Slashdotters.
I also find it strange that the site up and closed about the same time that donation bar stopped moving.
That's not so odd, if the purpose of the donation bar was to fund the legal defense. If the bar stops moving, no money is coming in, no funds for legal defense, have to settle. Not too much of a stretch.
I've not seen anyone say that the old system was better (and that's certainly not what I said). The problem is something you stated in your post! misleading commercials aside
That's the whole point. I can't advertise the sale of a car for $15 and then, when you come in, say, "Well really, it's $30, but hey, that's still better than the $12,000 you would have payed under the old system!"
I have a question...What's a late fee??? Isn't a late fee at Blockbuster an amount of money charged to customer for returning a movie late??? If that's the case then how can any of this be considered a late fee??? You aren't returning anything...And if you aren't returning anything how can you be late in returning it???
Excess question marks aside, if they were just charging you the cost of the movie it would be one thing. But if you bring the movie back after 7 days but before 37 days, they charge you $1.25. They call it a restocking fee since you've (presumably) already bought the movie. But what is there to restock? What do they have to do differently than if you'd returned it 3 days in? Nothing. It's a late fee, pure and simple, and it's something they claimed they got rid of.
The cashiers at my Blockbuster talk way too damn much, but at least nobody ever leaves there confused over how the new system works.
Ah, but the problem is false advertising, not failure to alert the customer of the system. There is a distinct difference.
Of course, the problem is that if you keep the movie for 10 days but then return it, they charge you a fee to credit your account for the purchase they already charged you. That's basically where the fraud comes in, IMO. They're charging you a fee if you bring the movie in late rather than not at all.
Yeah, in a very real way, these corporations are "stealing" from us.
Of course, you've kinda gotten off the point.
If we're talking about your generic MMORPG (all of which have an up front cost as well as a monthy cost--at least when they first come out they do) then everything you've said is tangential at best and off-topic for the sub-thread at worst.
If you want to talk about a specific MMORPG from a specific company that did something you don't like, sure, you can talk about how we shouldn't give them our money. But the grand-parent and parent were referring to MMORPGs/pay-to-play games in general.
Sure, most games. But most nonlinear RPGs have this element anyway. Morrowind managed to do it without an ongoing fee and being within your average cost for a video game. Months into playing this one and my friends and I are still coming across new things to explore.
Really? Your average non-MMORPG probably costs about US $45. That cost is an attempt to recoup development costs, since clearly a company can't get money from the consumer first and then develop the game. Of course, no company makes a game simply for the purpose of making the game--they want to make money off of it, too. If you call that greed, then I think you're being pretty silly. It's called business.
Now look at your average MMORPG. It's got roughly the same initial cost for the consumer, which makes sense as it also must be developed. There's an argument that MMORPGs cost more to develop due to the fact that it's a networked game. Even if there weren't added complexities in dealing with the network code, you have to code the server in addition to the client, and generally the server code has to be highly scalable as one "server" in the game will probably span across many different machines. So assuming that the complexity of a MMORPG like this is greater than that of your average game (and thus the development costs are greater) isn't really stretching things. But for the sake of argument, let's ignore that point.
The fact that Blizzard has to maintain persistent servers in order for people to play this game means that they have an ongoing cost above the cost of developing the game. Now with the old battle.net, this wasn't a big deal. Although still an ongoing cost, the servers only had to dish out random numbers for monsters and store character files. Servers for an MMORPG have to pass much more traffic and store much more information, in addition to needing more processor power to maintain the game world. The monthly cost goes to keep the servers running and probably help defray the cost of updates/patches, etc.
I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect people to purchase the game (to cover the costs of development) as well as pay a monthly subscription (for the use of the servers). What is unreasonable is not allowing a transfer of the game media if the previous account is cancelled. For any other game (except maybe Half-life 2?) once I'm tired of it, I can sell it or give it to a friend. Why can't I with WoW?
They're crossing over into a scary use of GPS, however.
I can get a restraining order against you even if you have been convicted of no crime. At some point, I can see GPS being used to restrict people who haven't been convicted, but have restraining orders against them. It's not that slippery a slope to see this being used on innocent people.
GPS as terms of probation are fine by me, but this is a different question altogether.
He said: But don't those heavier cars put more wear and tear on the roads? I'm guessing that a Hummer puts a hell of a lot more wear on a road the a prius, or maybe not... Which is precisely what I said in the post he replied to.
As for the number of miles a car gets driven, that was per gallon of gas. Of course big heavy SUVs aren't going to get driven less, but it shows the relationship between gas, car size, and wear-and-tear on the road.
The GPS tax alone certainly doesn't provide an incentive to get a fuel-efficient car, but you still have to buy gas. Also, knowing governments in general, they will probably maintain the gas tax in addition to the GPS tax :\
How about reading the whole post before replying?
Of course they are.
The thinking is that the more you drive on roads, the more damage you cause them and the more you should pay in taxes to help maintain them. Right now, the method for determining how much you use roads is flawed--it's a gas tax. The idea, of course, being that if you buy more gas, you're driving more. However people who own big gas guzzlers are actually driving less than people who own fuel efficient cars if they buy the exact same amount of gas per year, so the gas guzzlers are being "penalized" with a higher tax when they use the roads precisely the same amount.
The flaw, of course, is that larger, heavier vehicles do more damage to the road than lighter cars. Of course, larger, heavier vehicles tend to use more gas, so in reality, the gas tax works just fine. It's the perception that's skewed such that people believe that they're overpaying.
Not sure if it helps or not, but my Dell came with both. They make good laptops, at least in my experience. I'd happily buy from them again.
Unfortunately, newer Dells appear to be shipping with only the touchpad, which is a shame since I also hate touchpads and prefer the nipple-mouse.
Also, there are restrictions on how the photos can be used without blurring the faces or getting a model release signed. The photo has be in the public interest (for example, to be used in a newspaper article). Otherwise, you may be able to require that they blur your face.
It's also one of the most useless OS's in the world with an unmodified install!
Seriously, the "all services off by default" is why OpenBSD can make the claim you made. Once you start making the box more useful, you start making it less secure.
...you really might as well go Windows all the way. Periodically I look at the Linux tools for video capture/video editing. As far as I'm concerned, they're not there yet, which is a large part of the reason that I still have Windows on my desktop. There are some really advanced filtering tools on Windows so you can really make your final product shine. Check out AVISynth and its related documentation, as well as VirtualDUB (if you're going the mpeg-4 route) our QuENC (if you're going the mpeg-1 or mpeg-2 route).
Also, if you ever intend on doing analog captures, you should consider using a striped raid array for a scratch drive for capturing. This way you can capture losslessly compressed AVI (with HuffYUV) and have as much data to work with. Be wary though that you should try to capture in a multiple of your final resolution--the less pixel interpolation you do when resizing, the better.
Ironic? No, more along the lines of, "How easy is it to answer this question?"
Does your phone operate at frequencies from 100 megahertz to 2.4 gigahertz" ?
It's an idea, which is the popular definition of a theory. Most people are spouting the scientific definition of a theory, which relies on observable facts and the ability to be proven false.