That is patent ageism. Not only is it prejudiced it is patently wrong. Many judiciary do understand technology and use it on a daily basis. I see blackberry's and laptops in the hands of many judges. You need to visit a modern court building and look in the offices, under the arms and in the briefcases of judges and lawyers..
So if you are going to use that argument. I would have to say, that the youth of today lack the education, experience and sense of morals to understand the right of a company to protect it's IP from interference. Crackers and hackers that reverse engineer and steal that IP should be held accountable. They have no right to rewrite a book and sell it. Nor do the same thing to Blizzard's software. They have no right to distribute something that is designed specifically to interfere with blizzards service in such a way that it changes the intent of this service.
The youth of today are far to ego centric and hedonistic to understand what is simply wrong to do. They have no sense of respect for others. I blame our educational system and especially the lazy parents for a bad upbringing and spoiling their children to the point where instant gratification blinds them to the reality of what is right and wrong. This is why so many here cheat and fear that Blizzard will win and hold the glider author accountable for CP infringement and/or breaking the license agreement. This generation is afraid this will take their toys away and devastate their self esteem. After all. For most this is really about self esteem and for the author of glider it may have started that way, but now it is also about the illegal profits he has made through theft.
This is rationalization at it worse when a lot in this group argue that you have the right to do what you want, no matter the impact on others and that includes the Blizzard company. You hold companies to account but fail miserably in holding yourselves accountable. The consequences of ones actions is lacking. Just because someone can do something doesn't mean they should. You blame the courts for making poor decisions based on twisted facts but feel that same action doesn't apply to individuals. Getting off or losing because of a technicality is still wrong, no matter how you look at it.You want the courts to be more responsive to what is right and wrong but you again don't hold up individuals to the same level of expectation. Glider is wrong on so many levels and all I see are rationalized excuses trying to explain why it is ok. Is it that bad that this younger generation can't tell simple right from wrong anymore.
Take what i have said about the youth of today and apply the intended meaning to my words. Sadly i don't think some will get it. They simply are to much of a sociopath to get it. The same could apply to those that head some companies but hide behind the corporate protections. It is Sad that we continue to support this from either side and when some justices do try to change it, a sad segment of society screams unfair. It is supposed to be about what is fair and just. That is the last thing a large segment really want.
I have to agree with the above sentiment. The story just doesn't add up and the lack of detail and rambling content makes me very leery that what went on even really happened at all. This article is way to complicated and simply flies in the face of normal business. I have also dealt with large companies and small. I have even been in small claims court. The way this person describes the actions and how things unfolded simply flies in the face of normal small claims court proceedings and simply doesn't ring true at all, as described.
Not only how this person describes their court experience, but the lack of even reasonable detail makes me wonder. It is like sitting at a table with one of your friends that you know 'exaggerates' at times, to say the least. Now their latest story once again simply doesn't ring true. If I was to guess. This sounds more like someone that experienced a lot of frustration with support and had to work through the companies legal dept. presenting some of the evidence to their representatives, in order to get satisfaction. Then from there they simply embellished the rest to impress their friends. Now the story get's picked up for one reason or another. Now that person is stuck with continuing and expanding this fantasy story, or face embarrassment if front of those same friends. This simply isn't described like any small claims court I have ever been in.
You must be kidding me. Robert Mullins article is not worthy of publication, just because it is has a catchy byline regarding smelly duck eggs. The content is vague and overstated in many places. The content nothing more than bits of fluff without any kind of supporting detail. It has nothing it in that is new or inspiring and is so dry and boring, I simply began to fall asleep halfway through it. Robert Mullins should be slapped with a wet noodle for writing such drivel.
The only saving grace to the whole thing, was in the comments submitted by readers. Inside this is a gem of links supplied by one such anonymous reader. If you want the tip of the iceberg on hundreds of Chinese Government espionage cases, then follow these links.
However to dig deeper. The Chinese are not the only ones targeting Government and other high tech companies in the US. There are many others, but China is going much further than just the US. It would seem that the Chinese officials, are casting a huge net to capture just about anything they can get and only later throwing away what they don't need. No wonder China is advancing so fast in all the major technologies, including space, military and civilian.
"From Rice Paddies to Rocket Ships". In only a few short years has China advanced or simply stolen it's future? Followed by actual case studies and methods, would have made an article worth reading and a far better byline. I can't believe I wasted 10 minutes of my time reading that piece of crap. Thank the gods for an enlightened and intelligent reader that offered a few links and with just that small effort did far more than Robert Mullins did in a whole page.
Tesla certainly had far better powers of observation and prediction than did the fraud Nostradamus. Tesla also managed great accuracy in his words without all the bull shit and baffle gab of Nostradamus to separates fools from their money. That same Nostradamus spouted muck that so many people interpret as accurate predictions even in this time of supposed enlightened masses. The in reality is more about people trying to fit life to match prediction. The same people that live their life according the their horoscope. The same people that buy the books and films of present day frauds of Nostradamus. Tesla was a great man of his time and a great engineer, who could peek ahead in time using the facts of known physics. This is what separates genius from fraud.
In Ontario, Canada the utility has been swapping in smart meters on every household and later will do condo's and apartment buildings. You can sign up to a program where you let them take control of your heating and cooling systems. The idea is that when demand is at it's highest they will automatically adjust the temperature setting up or down a degree or two. This will be expanded later into the same control of you other appliances like dishwasher, washing and drying machines. The owner can still override the settings if desired.
However, and there always is a however. Along with this change based demand system. The power company will also adjust what you pay per kilowatt depending on the time of day or more sinister is adjust cost based on actual demand on their system. Why is this something that steps up the fear factor. Because they determine the break point on when the rate changes and they don't have to tell you. As we know from experience in past history. If given the power to decide where the load break point is, you can be sure that line will go lower and lower and the price will go higher and higher. There is also no incentive for the power company to fix/maintain, let alone increase the capacity of their infrastructure. Paying more for less is a very popular revenue plan of all these conglomerates or monopolies.
The case of Ottawa Ontario where the city begged for people to cut back on water use. They invested in a plan to hand out energy efficient products including shower heads, toilets replacements etc. Now because people have cut back, the city water department has run out of money because there is less water to charge for. So the city is jacking up the base water rate by 20%. So you once again get less for more.
Ontario power corp is embarking on the same plan and you have to be insane if you expect a different result.
Achievements are not designed to combat piracy. They are there as a small reward for those that don't pirate and keep the pirates at the bottom of the pile. Makes it easy to spot some cheat with 200hrs and no account achievements. Along with other methods it's easy way to gather stats that are close to being accurate on the problem. Once again online play is not the problem if there is desire to clean it up. In my opinion Valve isn't the best example of how to do things. They have had plenty of chances, but mostly come up more than short on effort.
There are two large divisions in the marketing of PC games and some minor ones. I think everyone could agree that cd-keys for online play could easily be a sufficient deterrent against piracy. The real problem is the single player portion and what is sufficient.
Online play with cd-key authentication systems quite simply work as a deterrent to piracy. Well it does, if there is a will by game companies to shutdown leaked cd-keys and to close out cracked servers as they appear, then piracy is negligible. There are no cd-key generator that work for online play unless the game company makes a mistake in how it seed the hashes. Monitoring stolen cd-keys is quite easy. It only takes the will on the company to shut them down. Sure there will be a few people complain because they were stupid enough to allow their cd-key to be stolen, but those people are idiots and have no one to blame but themselves. They lone their cd-keys out or load cd-key stealers onto their comp. I have no sympathy for either type of person. cd-key stealers are usually contained in game downloads over torrents or most commonly when they download cheats for online play. Simply to bad for them.
The issue of cracked servers. First thing is to exclude them from showing up in the game server list and in the common server browser programs. The rest of the remaining few servers are easy to find and kill with a simple take down notice. Then the extreme cracked server located on the net are reduced to hiding in some third world country where their use is very limited. Even then there are legal ways to make the server so unplayable as to be useless, but by then the crowd is what? A few hundred players and so full of idiots and cheaters not even pirates are attracted. Ooopps... ya it is usually the pirates that are idiots and cheats. Hardly worth further effort. Doing these simple things means that for the common average person a cracked copy is unattractive, useless and reduces piracy in this online segment to negligible.
So where does this leave the single player game. This is the problem area. Perhaps some choices must be made. People can argue about the causes all they want over semantics, but the reality is piracy is simply about convenience and has nothing todo with some personal philosophy once you start looking at the amount of piracy involved are hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions. This is where for a long time game companies wanted it stopped but it meant unusual harsh methods that would affect their actual customers. I don't blame traditional PC game companies from being pissed at this. However I don't have much sympathy for those same companies that deal in primarily online games with putting in DRM that affects it's online customers. Not when 90% or better buy the game to play online and have little interest in the single player portion. This is where game companies can make a choice about their product. They do have options in how they split single player and online play so that online isn't pirated as stated above.
So this comes down to only single player games or the single player portion of a game that have issues with piracy and heavy handed and intrusive DRM. What Ubisoft has done is hit this issue with a hammer. They took the easy way out with the least cost involved, so of course the solution is horrid.There are registration and monitoring methods for single player that are far less obtrusive but are more costly that can control piracy. Yes it does require a connection to the net, but not a live connection all the time. Ubisoft choose the cheap way, not the best way. At least not the best way for their customers that is. But for those that don't want more control. Well you are living in a dream world where there is free beer. I'm sorry but the days of free beer are over and large scale piracy is to blame.
Now there are game companies or their publishers that are greedy. There is no doubt about that. They have new models in mind that are strictly to increase profits. However this primarily has noth
The big movie companies claim to be losing money on all movies has been such a fraud. This is why the major movie stars like Will Smith have their percentage of the revenue taken from the Gross sales figures and not the net profit. The net shows a loss so that Sony and the others don't have to pay taxes on their profit...ooops sorry that was no profit.
The same scams the big movie houses pull are the same concepts being done in the game industry with a small change to the rhetoric. Both make initial good sales for good product, but blame piracy on not making a net profit. This puts the onus on the Gov to make changes in law that will allow these industries to do whatever they want, up to and including ridiculous court settlements of millions for a download infraction instead of a more appropriate penalty for a sharing infraction.
Well then, by extension this NDE thesis also shows that if there is no heaven, then there are no ghosts for the ghost buster TV shows. All this regarding paranormal entities people reort must be from a sick brain. The implications of this thesis is mindblowing, or should that be mind dying.
Not only are what libraries buy under discussion in the Canadian national capital of Ottawa. The relevance of library buildings themselves isa hot topic. Ottawa wants several million dollars to build a new library. This comes at a time when city and library budgets are under review in these tight times. The topic has gone well beyond what content a library should purchase. It has now expanded to the discussion if libraries are relevant in our world of the Kindle.
One Kindle could hold the complete content of a 200 million dollar library building, plus the costs of running it. Should we not question the whole idea of a bricks and mortar building. The costs to the tax payer is huge in a time when there are very few users of the buildings. Are cities better off financially to open kiosks in stores just like the post offices are now around the city. At these places people could borrow a kindle with the appropriate book activated? Is our tax money better spent in this fashion?
But what about copy right? With the new and expanding legislation and ingrained DRM are we going to lose the concept of a library. Have there been provision for electronic libraries to exists. If there is I do not see it.
Correction: A 5ft 6in male with dark hair and a blue jacket robbed the Mac Milk on Bank St. If you see a person of that description please call the police. There is nothing wrong with saying 6-2 Asian male. A big difference
Should read: A 6ft 2in male with dark hair and a blue jacket robbed the Mac Milk on Bank St. If you see a person of that description please call the police. There is nothing wrong with saying 6-2 Asian male. A big difference as a 6.2 asian would stand out on average. This is important information when put in context.
What a distorted far left view of Canada you have Speedy. Unfortunately I'm not about to write such a long dissertation as you, so I'll pick out a couple of items. First there is no shame in calling Americans our friends. Much better than to insult our largest trading partner and damage trade as liberalism did. It wasn't the left that solve trade disputes that festered for years without resolution. Yet when the conservatives came in they settle the pork and softwood lumber disputes in months. Yet there was no bad deal made.
Now as to free speech. It was not the conservatives that limited free speech in this country. It was the liberals and you can thank Pierre Trudeau for his famous line when asked about the constitutional aspects of free speech. He said "Canadians have freedom of thought". Notice how Pierre limited in our constitution our freedom of speech. Thank you very much.
It was the liberals that set the rule of law to be in the power of appointed court judges, not in the hands of Parliament. This means the rule of law was taken out of the hands of the Canadian people and placed power directly under the control of the intellectual elites. Only left liberal lawyers need apply. This is why in this country only the anglophiles will be put in jail for free speech and yet the Imams in Toronto can continue to preach hate speech from the safety of their religious exclusion. In our country only the white man can be a racist. It is not just minorities that speak the truth or have the right to speak it. But you certainly wouldn't know it in this country where anything not representing the view of the left is attacked as racist, bigoted etc. It got so bad our police and news papers were not allowed to describe a wanted suspect as Black or Asian. They had to issue such useless descriptions as Mediterranean skinned, tanned skinned or as in Ottawa were not allowed to even mention skin tone at all for a while. So we got such crap as. A 5ft 6in male with dark hair and a blue jacket robbed the Mac Milk on Bank St. If you see a person of that description please call the police. There is nothing wrong with saying 6-2 Asian male. A big difference
It was the liberals that stripped our rights to the point that in our universities will only hear from left wing speakers and anyone even considered right of centre is banned from speaking. Unless you agree with my views then you are a right wing zealot type of mentality that is so widespread in this country. You don't have to agree with such a right wing nut such as Ann Coulter was barred by the president of the students association until pressure was put to bare, via public exposure in the news. Coulter is nothing more than a profiteering by controversy nut job, but she should be allowed to speak. Our place is to debate her and show publicly and with reason the fraud that she is, by using our voice to counter her crap. Never should we try to bury opinion be it right or left of centre. In the end because of threats she never made her speech. But so much for the bastion of free speech that our universities are supposed to be.
There is so much that is wrong with your rant and you are a prime example of what is wrong with this country. You believe Canada is primarily a left wing socialist state. You see fiscal responsible government as a threat. Steven Harper is only a prime minister and he is only leading a minority government. Yet you greatly overstate the actual power he has. You are one of the hidden agenda conspiracy nut jobs looking to interpret every move as some great secret movement by the conservatives to limit your freedoms. Yet it is the Liberals that have historically taken and restricted more of our rights over the last 20 years they held power, than any other government in the history of our nation.
This router won't be sold to the telco's by saying it allows for customers to get more. You're dreaming. It will be sold to telco's claiming it can gain new markets at a huge cost savings and still maintain control of the bulk rates. It also maintains control over their competitors costs and bandwidth limits. It's a win win for telco profits.
This router will perhaps ease the congestion excuse/claims made by the large providers and ISP's that actually rule the main backbones. I say claim because how much bandwidth is actually available is more of a management issue. If say the telco's were to upgrade to this router what would happen to the cost structure? The manipulation of the trunk fee structure has always been a big money maker for the telco's. This router upsets that balance. Before the telco's were able to make claims based on how much fibre was lit not how much fibre was there and just dark. In Canada at least a few years ago the telco's went dark on 60% of their fibre and I heard a report of another 40% of the remaining (See dslreports back then). Since that time I do not know if any was ever re-lit or how it relates to the so called bandwidth crunch, but it gave reason to tell the CRTC they needed to raise/control the wholesale rates if they were to increase/invest in the infrastructure. I guess the CRTC bought the argument as nothing has changed here and if anything it has become worse. The big fibre lie of 2001 (I think it was 2001 could have been 2002)
So now here they are without lighting up one single new/old fibre, just changing out some routers the telco's have 3x the bandwidth and the question is how this will effect the MPAA/RIAA business model? Well it won't change anything. It's no longer the argument about how the MPAA/RIAA can make money. That was always about the MPAA/RIAA wanting to make huge obscene amounts of money. The MPAA/RIAA won't change that desire simply because there is more bandwidth. Nor will they change their business model. There won't be anymore bandwidth available even with this router. If anything at all it will allow the telco's to turn off another 30% of their fibre backbones and still control the pricing just like before if they want too. There is nothing here to affect the MPAA/RIAA. It's not related to nor ever will this relate to the MPAA/RIAA and their desires. This is about telco's price control. It never was or ever be about anything but that.
This won't affect the indie guys either. Nothing will change for them either except for perhaps one way. Unless they sign a deal with the telcos for exclusive content. The only people that will ever get in on this supposed improvement are those that the telcos want to use for their premium content services. The rest of the world be damned. There is something new on the horizon and it is a new business plan for the telco's at the price of a few routers. Now they don't need to disclose they had the fibre all along, just sitting dark and so no risk at getting caught in the big lie about how much they physically had. Now they can keep that lie for later and yet keep the rates high for all end of line carriers, well except for their own that is. They suddenly can supply their end users with a unique service but keep the rest the status quo. The MPAA/RIAA will continue to navel gaze and throw tantrums they aren't getting $26 a movie and/or while signing backroom deals with the telco's if they want. Who's to know.
Even though I kept warning for months that Bob (call me Rob) Kotick is a menace. oh ya.. So I also thank the powers to be around here for modding my comments a big fat zero, unless I identify what I do that is. Then I score high. I'm glad to see this happen. The more people that leave infinityward and the more Chaos that is generated there the better. It was the only real profitable division, so now lets see what happens next. I look forward to watching this story to its conclusion over the next many months. I hope Kotick crashes and burns in hell. Unfortunately he has his big fat contract where he wins even if he loses, so he could care less.
Is anyone surprised? Bob (call me Rob) Kotick is exactly as portrayed. He is maniacal in his belief that the gaming community is an impediment to profit and uses the console players as the poster children for his proof. He has no understanding of how core gamer communities influence sales over the long run. He would rather spend 10's of millions on hype to carry the day, than spend a penny back to the customer base to secure some brand loyalty. He believes that customers as are the actual game franchises and are meant to be wrung out, for every single dime. He has said as much publicly several times. Why complicate things by having to aid or listen to what he considers a small radical segment. He considers free content as competition that costs him profit and anything like a community, as a challenge to his total control to get those profits.
None should be surprised by this latest move of abject disgust for anything relating to free content by a community. In fact you can expect more to come. Bob Kotick will continue this scorched earth policy. Bobby is here and he is letting everyone know who is in charge. Dissent will be squashed.
As long as gamers let Bob Kotick go unchallenged, then they are the sheep he thinks they are. Until free content and free servers are systematically destroyed, then the future of pay to play and pay content can't be fully realized and exploited for profit. Bob Kotick is betting you he is right.
Agreed my ADSL is solid with almost it's 2.2/1.5mbps as advertised. I live about 1km from the switch. But then again, I don't have the overhead of the crappy PPOE, also throttled and the 'not always on' connection, that Bell has foisted on 99.9% of its ADSL customers since I got my introductory connection in 1995. Cable in my area is just crap and practically unusable anytime after 3pm to 1am and never on weekends. Even with it's claimed 6mbps d/w 'upto' speed that is also throttled on any kind of download attempted.
Management: We want our latest title ported to the PC
Project manager: I can do that Sire'.
Management: You will have to do this within the budget of the console program
Project manager: I can't do that Sire.We have already used the allocated budget, your greatness
Management: WHaaaaT! Look Jack (modern equiv to plebe). The PC segment is small but it is worth 100's of millions to Greedo Corp.and I want a good share of that segment. All you have to do is run it through one of your conversion compilator things. One of your developers can do that on his lunch while he is doing his other tasks. It's not like he needs to do much of anything, it will do it all by itself. I see no problem here.
Project manager: Uhh sire it is a little more complicated than that. These are completely different platforms, the controls are all different, there are.......(interrupted)
Management: It's not difficult! I've been here a year since I left MilkDuddy Inc. It has been done before, everybody does it. I want that PC market segment You have a week. I have already ordered the artwork and packaging. This has to be complete, released and sales figures before the next quarterly report! Make this happen! And make it happen within budget!
Project manager: Ummm yes sire. But there is no budget, it will take longer, all the control conversions, debugging....(interrupted)
Management: Are you saying you can't do your job?
Project manager: No..I... yes sire (leaves the penthouse offices and walks the long dark hallway dimly lit by the lights reflected off the oil paintings of the past CEO's of Greedo Corp).
*Next installment. Programming Engineer is called to Project Manager's cubical (There is a window and the light is blinding to the engineer). Hey Jack (His name is really Ed) I have a new priority for you. Should only take about a wee........... This all goes badly and some poor schmuck living in the slums of India, studies the strange English dialog with his stained and bent English for Dummies book perched on an old yogurt crate, "Oh my goodness, I pray to Ganesh for mercy. What is this 'toggle' mean?".
Well according to that last round of climate data falsification there has already been a digital dark age. The claim is the original source data has already been digitally lost. So no one can prove their numbers wrong, we just have to take their word for it, even though these same people have been caught fudging data that can be proven and not victim of digital dark age.
I wonder if the tax man will believe me if I said it was a digital dark age so please take my word for those huge tax deductible donations I made.
Wow this article is coincidentally so close to the September 2009 Popular Science story titled The Future of Remote-Control Warfare. Pg;36
Change the name to Captain Adam Brockshus, drive 45 minutes instead of 40 and these guys should carpool unless they are on different shifts. I guess there isn't much new to tell that hasn't already been written before so it really boils down to as long as it is a different Captain acting as tour guide then it isn't the same story. These remote control pilots must get the same briefing notes on what to say and not say when being interviewed by some hack. Is there really any point of sending out different reporters? It really is a waste of money but what else is there ti do on slow news days. I was at first almost convinced that this Los Angeles Times story was a reprint, or mostly plagiarized. Then I realized this is the military, of course anything printed would have the same look and feel..
Slashdot Mirror
That is patent ageism. Not only is it prejudiced it is patently wrong. Many judiciary do understand technology and use it on a daily basis. I see blackberry's and laptops in the hands of many judges. You need to visit a modern court building and look in the offices, under the arms and in the briefcases of judges and lawyers..
So if you are going to use that argument. I would have to say, that the youth of today lack the education, experience and sense of morals to understand the right of a company to protect it's IP from interference. Crackers and hackers that reverse engineer and steal that IP should be held accountable. They have no right to rewrite a book and sell it. Nor do the same thing to Blizzard's software. They have no right to distribute something that is designed specifically to interfere with blizzards service in such a way that it changes the intent of this service.
The youth of today are far to ego centric and hedonistic to understand what is simply wrong to do. They have no sense of respect for others. I blame our educational system and especially the lazy parents for a bad upbringing and spoiling their children to the point where instant gratification blinds them to the reality of what is right and wrong. This is why so many here cheat and fear that Blizzard will win and hold the glider author accountable for CP infringement and/or breaking the license agreement. This generation is afraid this will take their toys away and devastate their self esteem. After all. For most this is really about self esteem and for the author of glider it may have started that way, but now it is also about the illegal profits he has made through theft.
This is rationalization at it worse when a lot in this group argue that you have the right to do what you want, no matter the impact on others and that includes the Blizzard company. You hold companies to account but fail miserably in holding yourselves accountable. The consequences of ones actions is lacking. Just because someone can do something doesn't mean they should. You blame the courts for making poor decisions based on twisted facts but feel that same action doesn't apply to individuals. Getting off or losing because of a technicality is still wrong, no matter how you look at it.You want the courts to be more responsive to what is right and wrong but you again don't hold up individuals to the same level of expectation. Glider is wrong on so many levels and all I see are rationalized excuses trying to explain why it is ok. Is it that bad that this younger generation can't tell simple right from wrong anymore.
Take what i have said about the youth of today and apply the intended meaning to my words. Sadly i don't think some will get it. They simply are to much of a sociopath to get it. The same could apply to those that head some companies but hide behind the corporate protections. It is Sad that we continue to support this from either side and when some justices do try to change it, a sad segment of society screams unfair. It is supposed to be about what is fair and just. That is the last thing a large segment really want.
I have to agree with the above sentiment. The story just doesn't add up and the lack of detail and rambling content makes me very leery that what went on even really happened at all. This article is way to complicated and simply flies in the face of normal business. I have also dealt with large companies and small. I have even been in small claims court. The way this person describes the actions and how things unfolded simply flies in the face of normal small claims court proceedings and simply doesn't ring true at all, as described.
Not only how this person describes their court experience, but the lack of even reasonable detail makes me wonder. It is like sitting at a table with one of your friends that you know 'exaggerates' at times, to say the least. Now their latest story once again simply doesn't ring true. If I was to guess. This sounds more like someone that experienced a lot of frustration with support and had to work through the companies legal dept. presenting some of the evidence to their representatives, in order to get satisfaction. Then from there they simply embellished the rest to impress their friends. Now the story get's picked up for one reason or another. Now that person is stuck with continuing and expanding this fantasy story, or face embarrassment if front of those same friends. This simply isn't described like any small claims court I have ever been in.
You must be kidding me. Robert Mullins article is not worthy of publication, just because it is has a catchy byline regarding smelly duck eggs. The content is vague and overstated in many places. The content nothing more than bits of fluff without any kind of supporting detail. It has nothing it in that is new or inspiring and is so dry and boring, I simply began to fall asleep halfway through it. Robert Mullins should be slapped with a wet noodle for writing such drivel.
The only saving grace to the whole thing, was in the comments submitted by readers. Inside this is a gem of links supplied by one such anonymous reader. If you want the tip of the iceberg on hundreds of Chinese Government espionage cases, then follow these links.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/02/AR2008040203952.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/25/60minutes/main6242498.shtml
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/3319656
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KG31Ad01.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/world/europe/01spy.html?src=sch&pagewanted=all
http://www.intelligencesearch.com/ia068.html
However to dig deeper. The Chinese are not the only ones targeting Government and other high tech companies in the US. There are many others, but China is going much further than just the US. It would seem that the Chinese officials, are casting a huge net to capture just about anything they can get and only later throwing away what they don't need. No wonder China is advancing so fast in all the major technologies, including space, military and civilian.
"From Rice Paddies to Rocket Ships". In only a few short years has China advanced or simply stolen it's future? Followed by actual case studies and methods, would have made an article worth reading and a far better byline. I can't believe I wasted 10 minutes of my time reading that piece of crap. Thank the gods for an enlightened and intelligent reader that offered a few links and with just that small effort did far more than Robert Mullins did in a whole page.
Tesla certainly had far better powers of observation and prediction than did the fraud Nostradamus. Tesla also managed great accuracy in his words without all the bull shit and baffle gab of Nostradamus to separates fools from their money. That same Nostradamus spouted muck that so many people interpret as accurate predictions even in this time of supposed enlightened masses. The in reality is more about people trying to fit life to match prediction. The same people that live their life according the their horoscope. The same people that buy the books and films of present day frauds of Nostradamus. Tesla was a great man of his time and a great engineer, who could peek ahead in time using the facts of known physics. This is what separates genius from fraud.
In Ontario, Canada the utility has been swapping in smart meters on every household and later will do condo's and apartment buildings. You can sign up to a program where you let them take control of your heating and cooling systems. The idea is that when demand is at it's highest they will automatically adjust the temperature setting up or down a degree or two. This will be expanded later into the same control of you other appliances like dishwasher, washing and drying machines. The owner can still override the settings if desired.
However, and there always is a however. Along with this change based demand system. The power company will also adjust what you pay per kilowatt depending on the time of day or more sinister is adjust cost based on actual demand on their system. Why is this something that steps up the fear factor. Because they determine the break point on when the rate changes and they don't have to tell you. As we know from experience in past history. If given the power to decide where the load break point is, you can be sure that line will go lower and lower and the price will go higher and higher. There is also no incentive for the power company to fix/maintain, let alone increase the capacity of their infrastructure. Paying more for less is a very popular revenue plan of all these conglomerates or monopolies.
The case of Ottawa Ontario where the city begged for people to cut back on water use. They invested in a plan to hand out energy efficient products including shower heads, toilets replacements etc. Now because people have cut back, the city water department has run out of money because there is less water to charge for. So the city is jacking up the base water rate by 20%. So you once again get less for more.
Ontario power corp is embarking on the same plan and you have to be insane if you expect a different result.
Achievements are not designed to combat piracy. They are there as a small reward for those that don't pirate and keep the pirates at the bottom of the pile. Makes it easy to spot some cheat with 200hrs and no account achievements. Along with other methods it's easy way to gather stats that are close to being accurate on the problem. Once again online play is not the problem if there is desire to clean it up. In my opinion Valve isn't the best example of how to do things. They have had plenty of chances, but mostly come up more than short on effort.
There are two large divisions in the marketing of PC games and some minor ones.
I think everyone could agree that cd-keys for online play could easily be a sufficient deterrent against piracy. The real problem is the single player portion and what is sufficient.
Online play with cd-key authentication systems quite simply work as a deterrent to piracy. Well it does, if there is a will by game companies to shutdown leaked cd-keys and to close out cracked servers as they appear, then piracy is negligible. There are no cd-key generator that work for online play unless the game company makes a mistake in how it seed the hashes. Monitoring stolen cd-keys is quite easy. It only takes the will on the company to shut them down. Sure there will be a few people complain because they were stupid enough to allow their cd-key to be stolen, but those people are idiots and have no one to blame but themselves. They lone their cd-keys out or load cd-key stealers onto their comp. I have no sympathy for either type of person. cd-key stealers are usually contained in game downloads over torrents or most commonly when they download cheats for online play. Simply to bad for them.
The issue of cracked servers. First thing is to exclude them from showing up in the game server list and in the common server browser programs. The rest of the remaining few servers are easy to find and kill with a simple take down notice. Then the extreme cracked server located on the net are reduced to hiding in some third world country where their use is very limited. Even then there are legal ways to make the server so unplayable as to be useless, but by then the crowd is what? A few hundred players and so full of idiots and cheaters not even pirates are attracted. Ooopps... ya it is usually the pirates that are idiots and cheats. Hardly worth further effort. Doing these simple things means that for the common average person a cracked copy is unattractive, useless and reduces piracy in this online segment to negligible.
So where does this leave the single player game. This is the problem area. Perhaps some choices must be made. People can argue about the causes all they want over semantics, but the reality is piracy is simply about convenience and has nothing todo with some personal philosophy once you start looking at the amount of piracy involved are hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions. This is where for a long time game companies wanted it stopped but it meant unusual harsh methods that would affect their actual customers. I don't blame traditional PC game companies from being pissed at this. However I don't have much sympathy for those same companies that deal in primarily online games with putting in DRM that affects it's online customers. Not when 90% or better buy the game to play online and have little interest in the single player portion. This is where game companies can make a choice about their product. They do have options in how they split single player and online play so that online isn't pirated as stated above.
So this comes down to only single player games or the single player portion of a game that have issues with piracy and heavy handed and intrusive DRM. What Ubisoft has done is hit this issue with a hammer. They took the easy way out with the least cost involved, so of course the solution is horrid.There are registration and monitoring methods for single player that are far less obtrusive but are more costly that can control piracy. Yes it does require a connection to the net, but not a live connection all the time. Ubisoft choose the cheap way, not the best way. At least not the best way for their customers that is. But for those that don't want more control. Well you are living in a dream world where there is free beer. I'm sorry but the days of free beer are over and large scale piracy is to blame.
Now there are game companies or their publishers that are greedy. There is no doubt about that. They have new models in mind that are strictly to increase profits. However this primarily has noth
The big movie companies claim to be losing money on all movies has been such a fraud. This is why the major movie stars like Will Smith have their percentage of the revenue taken from the Gross sales figures and not the net profit. The net shows a loss so that Sony and the others don't have to pay taxes on their profit...ooops sorry that was no profit.
The same scams the big movie houses pull are the same concepts being done in the game industry with a small change to the rhetoric. Both make initial good sales for good product, but blame piracy on not making a net profit. This puts the onus on the Gov to make changes in law that will allow these industries to do whatever they want, up to and including ridiculous court settlements of millions for a download infraction instead of a more appropriate penalty for a sharing infraction.
Well then, by extension this NDE thesis also shows that if there is no heaven, then there are no ghosts for the ghost buster TV shows. All this regarding paranormal entities people reort must be from a sick brain. The implications of this thesis is mindblowing, or should that be mind dying.
Not only are what libraries buy under discussion in the Canadian national capital of Ottawa. The relevance of library buildings themselves isa hot topic. Ottawa wants several million dollars to build a new library. This comes at a time when city and library budgets are under review in these tight times. The topic has gone well beyond what content a library should purchase. It has now expanded to the discussion if libraries are relevant in our world of the Kindle.
One Kindle could hold the complete content of a 200 million dollar library building, plus the costs of running it. Should we not question the whole idea of a bricks and mortar building. The costs to the tax payer is huge in a time when there are very few users of the buildings. Are cities better off financially to open kiosks in stores just like the post offices are now around the city. At these places people could borrow a kindle with the appropriate book activated? Is our tax money better spent in this fashion?
But what about copy right? With the new and expanding legislation and ingrained DRM are we going to lose the concept of a library. Have there been provision for electronic libraries to exists. If there is I do not see it.
Correction:
A 5ft 6in male with dark hair and a blue jacket robbed the Mac Milk on Bank St. If you see a person of that description please call the police. There is nothing wrong with saying 6-2 Asian male. A big difference
Should read:
A 6ft 2in male with dark hair and a blue jacket robbed the Mac Milk on Bank St. If you see a person of that description please call the police. There is nothing wrong with saying 6-2 Asian male. A big difference as a 6.2 asian would stand out on average. This is important information when put in context.
What a distorted far left view of Canada you have Speedy. Unfortunately I'm not about to write such a long dissertation as you, so I'll pick out a couple of items. First there is no shame in calling Americans our friends. Much better than to insult our largest trading partner and damage trade as liberalism did. It wasn't the left that solve trade disputes that festered for years without resolution. Yet when the conservatives came in they settle the pork and softwood lumber disputes in months. Yet there was no bad deal made.
Now as to free speech. It was not the conservatives that limited free speech in this country. It was the liberals and you can thank Pierre Trudeau for his famous line when asked about the constitutional aspects of free speech. He said "Canadians have freedom of thought". Notice how Pierre limited in our constitution our freedom of speech. Thank you very much.
It was the liberals that set the rule of law to be in the power of appointed court judges, not in the hands of Parliament. This means the rule of law was taken out of the hands of the Canadian people and placed power directly under the control of the intellectual elites. Only left liberal lawyers need apply. This is why in this country only the anglophiles will be put in jail for free speech and yet the Imams in Toronto can continue to preach hate speech from the safety of their religious exclusion. In our country only the white man can be a racist. It is not just minorities that speak the truth or have the right to speak it. But you certainly wouldn't know it in this country where anything not representing the view of the left is attacked as racist, bigoted etc. It got so bad our police and news papers were not allowed to describe a wanted suspect as Black or Asian. They had to issue such useless descriptions as Mediterranean skinned, tanned skinned or as in Ottawa were not allowed to even mention skin tone at all for a while. So we got such crap as. A 5ft 6in male with dark hair and a blue jacket robbed the Mac Milk on Bank St. If you see a person of that description please call the police. There is nothing wrong with saying 6-2 Asian male. A big difference
It was the liberals that stripped our rights to the point that in our universities will only hear from left wing speakers and anyone even considered right of centre is banned from speaking. Unless you agree with my views then you are a right wing zealot type of mentality that is so widespread in this country. You don't have to agree with such a right wing nut such as Ann Coulter was barred by the president of the students association until pressure was put to bare, via public exposure in the news. Coulter is nothing more than a profiteering by controversy nut job, but she should be allowed to speak. Our place is to debate her and show publicly and with reason the fraud that she is, by using our voice to counter her crap. Never should we try to bury opinion be it right or left of centre. In the end because of threats she never made her speech. But so much for the bastion of free speech that our universities are supposed to be.
There is so much that is wrong with your rant and you are a prime example of what is wrong with this country. You believe Canada is primarily a left wing socialist state. You see fiscal responsible government as a threat. Steven Harper is only a prime minister and he is only leading a minority government. Yet you greatly overstate the actual power he has. You are one of the hidden agenda conspiracy nut jobs looking to interpret every move as some great secret movement by the conservatives to limit your freedoms. Yet it is the Liberals that have historically taken and restricted more of our rights over the last 20 years they held power, than any other government in the history of our nation.
I've said enough
Thank you
This router won't be sold to the telco's by saying it allows for customers to get more. You're dreaming. It will be sold to telco's claiming it can gain new markets at a huge cost savings and still maintain control of the bulk rates. It also maintains control over their competitors costs and bandwidth limits. It's a win win for telco profits.
This router will perhaps ease the congestion excuse/claims made by the large providers and ISP's that actually rule the main backbones. I say claim because how much bandwidth is actually available is more of a management issue. If say the telco's were to upgrade to this router what would happen to the cost structure? The manipulation of the trunk fee structure has always been a big money maker for the telco's. This router upsets that balance. Before the telco's were able to make claims based on how much fibre was lit not how much fibre was there and just dark. In Canada at least a few years ago the telco's went dark on 60% of their fibre and I heard a report of another 40% of the remaining (See dslreports back then). Since that time I do not know if any was ever re-lit or how it relates to the so called bandwidth crunch, but it gave reason to tell the CRTC they needed to raise/control the wholesale rates if they were to increase/invest in the infrastructure. I guess the CRTC bought the argument as nothing has changed here and if anything it has become worse. The big fibre lie of 2001 (I think it was 2001 could have been 2002)
So now here they are without lighting up one single new/old fibre, just changing out some routers the telco's have 3x the bandwidth and the question is how this will effect the MPAA/RIAA business model? Well it won't change anything. It's no longer the argument about how the MPAA/RIAA can make money. That was always about the MPAA/RIAA wanting to make huge obscene amounts of money. The MPAA/RIAA won't change that desire simply because there is more bandwidth. Nor will they change their business model. There won't be anymore bandwidth available even with this router. If anything at all it will allow the telco's to turn off another 30% of their fibre backbones and still control the pricing just like before if they want too. There is nothing here to affect the MPAA/RIAA. It's not related to nor ever will this relate to the MPAA/RIAA and their desires. This is about telco's price control. It never was or ever be about anything but that.
This won't affect the indie guys either. Nothing will change for them either except for perhaps one way. Unless they sign a deal with the telcos for exclusive content. The only people that will ever get in on this supposed improvement are those that the telcos want to use for their premium content services. The rest of the world be damned. There is something new on the horizon and it is a new business plan for the telco's at the price of a few routers. Now they don't need to disclose they had the fibre all along, just sitting dark and so no risk at getting caught in the big lie about how much they physically had. Now they can keep that lie for later and yet keep the rates high for all end of line carriers, well except for their own that is. They suddenly can supply their end users with a unique service but keep the rest the status quo. The MPAA/RIAA will continue to navel gaze and throw tantrums they aren't getting $26 a movie and/or while signing backroom deals with the telco's if they want. Who's to know.
Even though I kept warning for months that Bob (call me Rob) Kotick is a menace. oh ya.. So I also thank the powers to be around here for modding my comments a big fat zero, unless I identify what I do that is. Then I score high.
I'm glad to see this happen. The more people that leave infinityward and the more Chaos that is generated there the better. It was the only real profitable division, so now lets see what happens next. I look forward to watching this story to its conclusion over the next many months. I hope Kotick crashes and burns in hell. Unfortunately he has his big fat contract where he wins even if he loses, so he could care less.
Is anyone surprised?
Bob (call me Rob) Kotick is exactly as portrayed. He is maniacal in his belief that the gaming community is an impediment to profit and uses the console players as the poster children for his proof. He has no understanding of how core gamer communities influence sales over the long run. He would rather spend 10's of millions on hype to carry the day, than spend a penny back to the customer base to secure some brand loyalty. He believes that customers as are the actual game franchises and are meant to be wrung out, for every single dime. He has said as much publicly several times. Why complicate things by having to aid or listen to what he considers a small radical segment. He considers free content as competition that costs him profit and anything like a community, as a challenge to his total control to get those profits.
None should be surprised by this latest move of abject disgust for anything relating to free content by a community. In fact you can expect more to come. Bob Kotick will continue this scorched earth policy. Bobby is here and he is letting everyone know who is in charge. Dissent will be squashed.
As long as gamers let Bob Kotick go unchallenged, then they are the sheep he thinks they are. Until free content and free servers are systematically destroyed, then the future of pay to play and pay content can't be fully realized and exploited for profit. Bob Kotick is betting you he is right.
Agreed my ADSL is solid with almost it's 2.2/1.5mbps as advertised. I live about 1km from the switch. But then again, I don't have the overhead of the crappy PPOE, also throttled and the 'not always on' connection, that Bell has foisted on 99.9% of its ADSL customers since I got my introductory connection in 1995. Cable in my area is just crap and practically unusable anytime after 3pm to 1am and never on weekends. Even with it's claimed 6mbps d/w 'upto' speed that is also throttled on any kind of download attempted.
What exactly is the process set down by ACTA for those falsely accused? Or more to the point just accused?
Management: We want our latest title ported to the PC
Project manager: I can do that Sire'.
Management: You will have to do this within the budget of the console program
Project manager: I can't do that Sire.We have already used the allocated budget, your greatness
Management: WHaaaaT! Look Jack (modern equiv to plebe). The PC segment is small but it is worth 100's of millions to Greedo Corp.and I want a good share of that segment. All you have to do is run it through one of your conversion compilator things. One of your developers can do that on his lunch while he is doing his other tasks. It's not like he needs to do much of anything, it will do it all by itself. I see no problem here.
Project manager: Uhh sire it is a little more complicated than that. These are completely different platforms, the controls are all different, there are.......(interrupted)
Management: It's not difficult! I've been here a year since I left MilkDuddy Inc. It has been done before, everybody does it. I want that PC market segment You have a week. I have already ordered the artwork and packaging. This has to be complete, released and sales figures before the next quarterly report! Make this happen! And make it happen within budget!
Project manager: Ummm yes sire. But there is no budget, it will take longer, all the control conversions, debugging....(interrupted)
Management: Are you saying you can't do your job?
Project manager: No..I... yes sire (leaves the penthouse offices and walks the long dark hallway dimly lit by the lights reflected off the oil paintings of the past CEO's of Greedo Corp).
*Next installment. Programming Engineer is called to Project Manager's cubical (There is a window and the light is blinding to the engineer).
Hey Jack (His name is really Ed) I have a new priority for you. Should only take about a wee...........
This all goes badly and some poor schmuck living in the slums of India, studies the strange English dialog with his stained and bent English for Dummies book perched on an old yogurt crate, "Oh my goodness, I pray to Ganesh for mercy. What is this 'toggle' mean?".
Well according to that last round of climate data falsification there has already been a digital dark age. The claim is the original source data has already been digitally lost. So no one can prove their numbers wrong, we just have to take their word for it, even though these same people have been caught fudging data that can be proven and not victim of digital dark age. I wonder if the tax man will believe me if I said it was a digital dark age so please take my word for those huge tax deductible donations I made.
Wow this article is coincidentally so close to the September 2009 Popular Science story titled The Future of Remote-Control Warfare. Pg;36 Change the name to Captain Adam Brockshus, drive 45 minutes instead of 40 and these guys should carpool unless they are on different shifts. I guess there isn't much new to tell that hasn't already been written before so it really boils down to as long as it is a different Captain acting as tour guide then it isn't the same story. These remote control pilots must get the same briefing notes on what to say and not say when being interviewed by some hack. Is there really any point of sending out different reporters? It really is a waste of money but what else is there ti do on slow news days. I was at first almost convinced that this Los Angeles Times story was a reprint, or mostly plagiarized. Then I realized this is the military, of course anything printed would have the same look and feel..