I could be wrong though. Is there such a thing as a dual-layer burner?
To my knowledge, such a beast should not be possible.
Commercial dual-layer discs are made by "burning" (actually pressing) two separate layers and then glueing them together with a special adhesive that will allow the light through. One layer clearly has to be semitransparent (no pun intended) so that the laser can read the second layer.
In order to "burn" a dual-layer disc, you'd need to have a laser that would puncture the lower layer during the burning process, but leave the top layer intact. Then a second pass would be required to burn the top layer without damaging the lower layer. I can't believe that would be stable, if such a thing is even possible. The other option would be to burn two layers and then glue them together. Right. That's gonna work;)
Sancho
Re:What's the big deal about Nethack?
on
Nethack 3.4.0
·
· Score: 2
For me, it's the challenge. Nethack is an incredibly challenging game. A new player is likely to get frustrated, but if they tough it out they can learn quite quickly.
Nethack is also about discovery. Each game, certain elements are randomized so that you never know exactly what potion heals you and what potion is going to make you pass out. You can ID them, sure, but part of the fun is figuring out new and interesting ways of identifying items without using magic.
It's also the thrill of playing against friends for those coveted high-score positions:) And discussing it, talking about new strategies, etc. Man, I can't get enough of this game:)
This is not entirely true. You don't pay for the first month, and although they ask for the CC #, you don't have to provide it until that first month is over.
Kind of a tangent to the original argument, but a 6 year old COULD go to the store, buy the game, install it and play it for a month.
I'd just like the ability to use regular expressions in my search...and maybe also have a localization function where I could require that certain search terms be within so many words of each other.
For the most part, music is available in some shape or form, even if it means buying it online. Most television programs are, as yet, not.
Case in point: my local cable company recently shut off UPN. This means that the 4 television shows i watch (Buffy, Enterprise, Angel and Special Unit 2) I no longer have the option of watching. I also can't watch it via satellite, because of FCC regulations on what can be broadcast. In other words, I have no venue to watch these television shows.
This isn't about not wanting to see the commercials. This isn't about not wanting to pay for the television shows. This is about a flat unavailability in my area. My only option is to get episodes from the internet (until/unless they eventually are put on DVD for sale, in which case I would definately buy them.)
Music, of course, since it is available on CD almost by default, doesn't suffer from this problem.
Is it breaking a copyright? Sure. Is it morally as bad as "stealing" music? Probably not. As I don't have the option of "supporting" these television shows by watching the commercials, they really aren't losing anything by this practice.
I tried to do something like this once, but I foolishly used a computer to keep track of the keys pressed. Pretty soon the infinite loop I was in pressing keys and then pressing keys for the keys I just pressed and then pressing keys for the keys I just pressed got old.
To an extent, but also realize that the cost of development will almost NEVER be worth the profits they'd make selling to Linux users. Sure, if they use a cross-platform development tool, but then still there's the learning curve for that, the cost of the tool, etc....
And the software to begin with was free to windows users. That's the problem..
I'd pay for a port of DirectX that *worked*. I wouldn't pay for the *chance* that said port will come out (i.e. Codeweaver's subscription philosophy) when there's really a lower chance that it will happen.
You actually bring up a good point, though... if Apple/Sorenson notice people paying for the Crossover plugin, maybe they'll rethink their business model.
Honestly, though, these sort of tools may ultimately hurt the free operating system world because it means that the companies that write the 'doze only software will be less likely to write ports to alternate OS's.
Regardless, I would love to have workign DirectX stuff:)
They've rereleased the Ultima series more than Lucas has rereleased VHS versions of Star Wars.
Basically, you can get the "Ultima Collection", which is Ultimas 0 (Aklabeth) through 9, on CDs. Can't get the Underworlds, as those were developed by a different company.
I'm sorry.. when the P4 2ghz can't outperform an Athlon 1.3ghz, I don't think that AMD is doing the dirty marketing.
Rating computer systems (specifically) and chips (more generally) by mhz is absurd. There is more to computer speed than mhz, as we've seen by the various cache and bus differences between the chips available (even using the same manufacturer). A 450mhz P2 will frequently outperform a 500mhz Celeron. When you make the jump to the P3, the change actually widens the gap.
AMD moving away from the mhz game is an excellent move, but they really need to come up with some way of letting the public have some idea of how fast their chips are compared to the competition..
I beg to differ. My Cable ISP throttles their news feed, whereas giganews allows full bandwidth to their servers. It's faster for me to download from them than from my local ISP server!
Also, most news servers archive the newsgroups for longer than ISPs, or so I've noticed..
Huh? He just now realized that OpenBSD was distributing a modified version of his software? He had no clue they had been doing it for years? Are *you* out of your mind?
And that's beside the point. He was under no obligation to tell Theo that he was violating the license. Sure, it may be an assholish thing to do--what are you going to do, sue him? The fact of the matter is, it's Theo (and company)'s fault for assuming that the license was BSD style and not a proprietary license.
This is actually an extremely valid point that has not been brought up yet (that I've seen). However I think that to "use" source code is to compile it rather than to change it. I have a feeling most US courts would agree.
Largely, I think, because Slashdot really just points to other news stories. Occasionally they'll actually point to the source of a story (in this example, if they pointed to just the M$ webpage, then it would be a new story) but if you look over the archives and such, 90% or so of the "news" stories (not Katz's review of TMR or anything) are pointers to other news sites. And remember that it's users who submit stories to slashdot, so of course it's going to have some lag time.
I think it's great, personally.. even if I get the news a few days late, it's rarely important that I get the info right away and this way I don't have to watch 20 news sites.
Man that's tiny.. I thought my 15" screen on my Dell was bad, but running resolutions greater than 800x600 on this thing will simply be a strain on the eyes.
On the plus side, it's nice to see companies shipping machines with dual-boot configurations rather than just Windows or just Linux. This is probably the way to get consumers to use try out Linux--rather than give them only one or the other, give them both.
I wonder how Microsoft feels about this, however. And I wonder if they will do anything to try to stop this.
Ah, but what you fail to realize is that the GPL is not a license to use, whereas almost all EULAs are. You can download and use a GPL'd program and completely ignore the GPL. The only time the GPL affects you is if you wish to redistribute the software.
See, copyright law has been around for a long time. It's illegal to distribute copyrighted works without the author's permission. The GPL is a way for the author to give permission in select cases--that is, as long as you agree to give the source code to copyrighted work (modified or not, if I understand correctly). Otherwise it's illegal to distribute.
However, UCITA is something completely different. UCITA works on *use* agreements--that is, you aren't allowed to use this software unless you blahblahblah... That's where the problem is. If I buy the software, I should be able to use it as I see fit, not only according to your idea of how it should be used.
This doesn't interfere with copyright, because you can STILL only install one copy of the software legally, unless otherwise allowed by the company.
Actually I can't, I can only go by what some fellows at my school went through for running such a proxy and not keeping logs. Perhaps it's not law that you can't do it, but if you can't prove it wasn't you, they consider you to have done it.
Because if you run a gateway of any sort (in the US) and you don't log, you're held liable for the actions of anyone using the gateway. That means, in the eyes of the government, if someone threatents the president from your anonymizer, and you don't keep logs, it's just as though *you* threatened the president from your own machine.
Read up on freenet. In a very small nutshell, it stores pieces of files, encrypted, on lots of different people's servers. For example, it might encrypt an mp3, split it into 10 parts, and store it on 30 servers (for redundancy). Now it's the internals of freenet that determine where each piece is (all encrypted of course) and how to correctly put them together. This means that the HOSTS are safe--they don't know what they have and have no way of deleting JUST the copyright infringing data. Since they can't decrypt it, they'd have to delete it all to get rid of the illegal stuff. That's not something the RIAA has the power to do, if they can even prove you're hosting the stuff in the first place.
However the end user who downloads the materials is liable. In fact, that's how it should be, ultimately.
Slashdot Mirror
Possibly, but I still think it would be quite unstable :)
It would also require a degree of control that we *currently* don't have, media-wise.
I could be wrong though. Is there such a thing as a dual-layer burner?
;)
To my knowledge, such a beast should not be possible.
Commercial dual-layer discs are made by "burning" (actually pressing) two separate layers and then glueing them together with a special adhesive that will allow the light through. One layer clearly has to be semitransparent (no pun intended) so that the laser can read the second layer.
In order to "burn" a dual-layer disc, you'd need to have a laser that would puncture the lower layer during the burning process, but leave the top layer intact. Then a second pass would be required to burn the top layer without damaging the lower layer. I can't believe that would be stable, if such a thing is even possible.
The other option would be to burn two layers and then glue them together. Right. That's gonna work
Sancho
For me, it's the challenge. Nethack is an incredibly challenging game. A new player is likely to get frustrated, but if they tough it out they can learn quite quickly.
:) And discussing it, talking about new strategies, etc. Man, I can't get enough of this game :)
Nethack is also about discovery. Each game, certain elements are randomized so that you never know exactly what potion heals you and what potion is going to make you pass out. You can ID them, sure, but part of the fun is figuring out new and interesting ways of identifying items without using magic.
It's also the thrill of playing against friends for those coveted high-score positions
But you're PAYING for the newspaper!
This is not entirely true. You don't pay for the first month, and although they ask for the CC #, you don't have to provide it until that first month is over.
Kind of a tangent to the original argument, but a 6 year old COULD go to the store, buy the game, install it and play it for a month.
Sancho
I'd just like the ability to use regular expressions in my search...and maybe also have a localization function where I could require that certain search terms be within so many words of each other.
Erik
For the most part, music is available in some shape or form, even if it means buying it online. Most television programs are, as yet, not.
Case in point: my local cable company recently shut off UPN. This means that the 4 television shows i watch (Buffy, Enterprise, Angel and Special Unit 2) I no longer have the option of watching. I also can't watch it via satellite, because of FCC regulations on what can be broadcast. In other words, I have no venue to watch these television shows.
This isn't about not wanting to see the commercials. This isn't about not wanting to pay for the television shows. This is about a flat unavailability in my area. My only option is to get episodes from the internet (until/unless they eventually are put on DVD for sale, in which case I would definately buy them.)
Music, of course, since it is available on CD almost by default, doesn't suffer from this problem.
Is it breaking a copyright? Sure. Is it morally as bad as "stealing" music? Probably not. As I don't have the option of "supporting" these television shows by watching the commercials, they really aren't losing anything by this practice.
At least, not by people in my situation.
I tried to do something like this once, but I foolishly used a computer to keep track of the keys pressed. Pretty soon the infinite loop I was in pressing keys and then pressing keys for the keys I just pressed and then pressing keys for the keys I just pressed got old.
I thought it was not able to be pirated! Man, did Microsoft lie to us?
I thought the GPL said that you had to deliver the source on the same type of medium as the binary is available?
Sancho
To an extent, but also realize that the cost of development will almost NEVER be worth the profits they'd make selling to Linux users. Sure, if they use a cross-platform development tool, but then still there's the learning curve for that, the cost of the tool, etc....
And the software to begin with was free to windows users. That's the problem..
I'd pay for a port of DirectX that *worked*. I wouldn't pay for the *chance* that said port will come out (i.e. Codeweaver's subscription philosophy) when there's really a lower chance that it will happen.
You actually bring up a good point, though... if Apple/Sorenson notice people paying for the Crossover plugin, maybe they'll rethink their business model.
What about stability? Choice? Security?
:)
Honestly, though, these sort of tools may ultimately hurt the free operating system world because it means that the companies that write the 'doze only software will be less likely to write ports to alternate OS's.
Regardless, I would love to have workign DirectX stuff
They've rereleased the Ultima series more than Lucas has rereleased VHS versions of Star Wars.
Basically, you can get the "Ultima Collection", which is Ultimas 0 (Aklabeth) through 9, on CDs. Can't get the Underworlds, as those were developed by a different company.
I'm sorry.. when the P4 2ghz can't outperform an Athlon 1.3ghz, I don't think that AMD is doing the dirty marketing.
Rating computer systems (specifically) and chips (more generally) by mhz is absurd. There is more to computer speed than mhz, as we've seen by the various cache and bus differences between the chips available (even using the same manufacturer). A 450mhz P2 will frequently outperform a 500mhz Celeron. When you make the jump to the P3, the change actually widens the gap.
AMD moving away from the mhz game is an excellent move, but they really need to come up with some way of letting the public have some idea of how fast their chips are compared to the competition..
Sancho
I beg to differ. My Cable ISP throttles their news feed, whereas giganews allows full bandwidth to their servers. It's faster for me to download from them than from my local ISP server!
Also, most news servers archive the newsgroups for longer than ISPs, or so I've noticed..
Huh? He just now realized that OpenBSD was distributing a modified version of his software? He had no clue they had been doing it for years? Are *you* out of your mind?
And that's beside the point. He was under no obligation to tell Theo that he was violating the license. Sure, it may be an assholish thing to do--what are you going to do, sue him? The fact of the matter is, it's Theo (and company)'s fault for assuming that the license was BSD style and not a proprietary license.
This is actually an extremely valid point that has not been brought up yet (that I've seen). However I think that to "use" source code is to compile it rather than to change it. I have a feeling most US courts would agree.
Largely, I think, because Slashdot really just points to other news stories. Occasionally they'll actually point to the source of a story (in this example, if they pointed to just the M$ webpage, then it would be a new story) but if you look over the archives and such, 90% or so of the "news" stories (not Katz's review of TMR or anything) are pointers to other news sites. And remember that it's users who submit stories to slashdot, so of course it's going to have some lag time.
I think it's great, personally.. even if I get the news a few days late, it's rarely important that I get the info right away and this way I don't have to watch 20 news sites.
Man that's tiny.. I thought my 15" screen on my Dell was bad, but running resolutions greater than 800x600 on this thing will simply be a strain on the eyes.
On the plus side, it's nice to see companies shipping machines with dual-boot configurations rather than just Windows or just Linux. This is probably the way to get consumers to use try out Linux--rather than give them only one or the other, give them both.
I wonder how Microsoft feels about this, however. And I wonder if they will do anything to try to stop this.
Ah, but what you fail to realize is that the GPL is not a license to use, whereas almost all EULAs are. You can download and use a GPL'd program and completely ignore the GPL. The only time the GPL affects you is if you wish to redistribute the software.
See, copyright law has been around for a long time. It's illegal to distribute copyrighted works without the author's permission. The GPL is a way for the author to give permission in select cases--that is, as long as you agree to give the source code to copyrighted work (modified or not, if I understand correctly). Otherwise it's illegal to distribute.
However, UCITA is something completely different. UCITA works on *use* agreements--that is, you aren't allowed to use this software unless you blahblahblah... That's where the problem is. If I buy the software, I should be able to use it as I see fit, not only according to your idea of how it should be used.
This doesn't interfere with copyright, because you can STILL only install one copy of the software legally, unless otherwise allowed by the company.
Does this hold true for ME/2k? Or are retail versions of these OS's nontransferrable?
Actually I can't, I can only go by what some fellows at my school went through for running such a proxy and not keeping logs. Perhaps it's not law that you can't do it, but if you can't prove it wasn't you, they consider you to have done it.
Because if you run a gateway of any sort (in the US) and you don't log, you're held liable for the actions of anyone using the gateway. That means, in the eyes of the government, if someone threatents the president from your anonymizer, and you don't keep logs, it's just as though *you* threatened the president from your own machine.
Read up on freenet. In a very small nutshell, it stores pieces of files, encrypted, on lots of different people's servers. For example, it might encrypt an mp3, split it into 10 parts, and store it on 30 servers (for redundancy). Now it's the internals of freenet that determine where each piece is (all encrypted of course) and how to correctly put them together. This means that the HOSTS are safe--they don't know what they have and have no way of deleting JUST the copyright infringing data. Since they can't decrypt it, they'd have to delete it all to get rid of the illegal stuff. That's not something the RIAA has the power to do, if they can even prove you're hosting the stuff in the first place.
However the end user who downloads the materials is liable. In fact, that's how it should be, ultimately.