A company such as Google should not operate in a country where free speech is not lawful.
That wouldn't really leave anywhere, would it? Every country has things which are "secret" and talking about, for example, the security arrangements at the Pentagon will get you in gaol pretty quick.
It wasn't the very first first-person game-- that title belongs to "Ultima Underworld" (1992),
1992?! Don't make me laugh: I played "Wizards Castle" on the Commodore PET in the late 70's and it was first person; and it was very similar to an older TRS-80 game whose name I forget.
And on the whole it's a good thing that examiners' discretion to reject applications is limited to the claims themselves, and not (subjective) assessments of what is or is not ridiculous or useful.
Where this falls down is that patents are not to be granted to "obvious" inventions. This is a clearly subjective requirement and demands a level of knowedge and expertise by the examiner, and it's a legal requirement.
In practice the USPTO has decided it doesn't want to bother paying anyone with that level of skill and has choosen to ignore the law and save some money.
So does the fact that the people lived (for 100 years before some other country invaded) mean that God doesn't exist, or that repenting will save your life?
No, the fact that God never existed is why he doesn't exist. What made you think he did?
However I'm willing to perdict the next terrorist bombing will be in Iseral/Palistine.
Yes, sad isn't it? DNA research has shown that not only did the Jews never go to or leave Egypt (they were just hill-dwelling Caaninites) but the current Palestinian population is actually more closely related to the Israelies than to any of the Arab nations! So this entire conflict is based, on both sides, on nothing more than myths and fairy-stories from 3500+ years ago.
TWW
Re:Moderation - a warning from history
on
Simulating Societies
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
How bored/boring do you have to be to bother typing all this? It's only a game, man. Even if you're joking, you still need to get out more.
Re:Off-Topic, but technical implausibilty...
on
Review: Panic Room
·
· Score: 2
The answer to all your points is that the writers of The Matrix had to copy so many bits of their plot from other things that they had no time to fit them together to make any sense. So they just had big fight scenes instead.
I was getting at the broader point that MS likes the BSDL and hates the GPL apparently because the former allows them to take from others while the latter requires them to pay (in kind).
Why shouldn't microsoft explicitly prohibit GPL'd code from linking to their libraries...
I don't know why not; I also don't know why you ask since the issue here is not linking. MS are saying you are not allowed to write a program which implements their brain-damaged protocol if you then release it under the GPL. Doesn't matter if you don't link to ANYTHING, MS or not.
Under GPL, they couldn't. Under a BSD type license, they could.
For all its faults, this shows the superiority of GPL over BSD licencing. Under BSD everyone gets to work for MS but MS doesn't have to give them anything back. I don't want MS using my work unless they let me use what they build with it. I don't know why the BSD crowd put up with it; what do they get out of it: the comfort of knowing they're helping a multi-billion dollar organisation?
The evidence from the sheep is that any child born this way will have some signs of accelerated aging fairly quickly, so the only reason to do this is the vanity of the researcher and the parents. No one would appear to give a shit about the ethics as long as there's money in it.
Shouldn't the RIAA be trying to outlaw speakers? After all, I can turn the volume up on my computer and my girlfriend can hear the music in her study too - but I've only paid for one copy of the CD!
RIAA-approved headphones are the next logical step.
Joseph Swan invented it and Edison, realising that he had been beat, went into partnership with him, setting up the Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company. Swan had the bulb; Edison had the money. Edison's main contribution to the technology was to realise that an oxygen-free atmosphere greatly extended the bulb's life, but the filament of carbon was Swan's.
None of this is secret, so why do so many people still credit Edison with the invention and who do they think the "Swan" was in the Edision Swan Co?
Davy (of the Davy safty lamp fame) had invented a bulb even earlier but it worked by producing an arc rather than an incandescent filament.
What would happen to them if all of a sudden there was 5 different versions of Office XP? One version with increased security, another with enhanced menus, etc. It would blow their minds!
Why? There have been periods where there were 4 versions of Windows knocking about and I don't remember any "Scanners" incidents. People just use what they have at work or the cheapest. Sysadmins will know which one they need (ie the one with the penguin on it).
just that there are many resonable people who believe that one could be.
I know what you mean, but I think that anyone that believes that an economy which can be based on such ideas is not being reasonable, they're being idealistic which is not the same thing at all! At least Thomas Moore had the insight to call his book "nowhere".
I however believe strongly in a free market economy.
Ah, now we're into debating space. A market economy is certainly a good way to motivate people but a (totally) free market goes too far; a free market tends to a mono-culture or at least one where each production niche is dominated by one monopoly or at best a small cartel. This is fine so long as you believe that the purpose of the market is to be a market. If you want the market to be useful adjunct to society, giving each person an outlet for their skills and ideas as well as possibly providing society as a whole with some things which are too big for individuals to do themselves then you need regulation of some sort.
A classic example in the UK at the moment is the Post Office. The government is lining it up for privatisation but is currently unable to say why a private company would provide a postal service to remote islands or villages at a price people on pensions can afford. They are finding that, as a society, people are not keen on letting market forces decide who gets post and who doesn't.
If you're in the US it might be worth knowing that the UK Post Office is regarded as quite good but badly organised; I'm under the impression that the USPO is not so highly though of.
The American example has to be Microsoft. I remember Gates saying that he could see no reason why any other software company would be needed in his vision of the future. This is the same as saying that he wants every programmer in the world (such was the scale of this vision) to either work for him or not work at all. Regardless of free market ideals, this is not a situation I would be happy with and it's not because of who it is, the same situation would be intolerable if it was Ford or Sony.
Sometimes society has to flex its muscles and say "we don't care if it makes money; it has to be done".
Being a Poli Sci fanatic I can think of several political theories in which a perfectly legitimate argument could be made that a person does not own his works nor is compensation required.
However all of them have about as much relation to real societies with real people in them as Freud's theories of the mind: ie, bugger-all.
People just aren't like that and no large (300+) society based on such ideals has ever lasted more than a decade. There are (lots of) examples of societies where some people's work is treated thus, but there's always someone (Stalin, the Pharaoh or whoever) who quite clearly does own their own work and probably everybody else's to boot and has an army to engage nay-sayers in "Poli Sci debates".
Slashdot Mirror
Yep: no characters, lot of fights, very crap. Still it's saved me 2/3 of the money I would have spent on a good adaptation of LotR.
TWW
I think that was my point.
TWW
That wouldn't really leave anywhere, would it? Every country has things which are "secret" and talking about, for example, the security arrangements at the Pentagon will get you in gaol pretty quick.
TWW
1992?! Don't make me laugh: I played "Wizards Castle" on the Commodore PET in the late 70's and it was first person; and it was very similar to an older TRS-80 game whose name I forget.
TWW
Where this falls down is that patents are not to be granted to "obvious" inventions. This is a clearly subjective requirement and demands a level of knowedge and expertise by the examiner, and it's a legal requirement.
In practice the USPTO has decided it doesn't want to bother paying anyone with that level of skill and has choosen to ignore the law and save some money.
TWW
I hate both so I use WindowMaker, there's also at least a dozen others, all better than KDE/Gnome's Windows-alike approach.
TWW
Where from???
Senior Lecturer of Computing, University of Sunderland
Yi'aye, man: we're go'un doon th' toon!
TWW
No, the fact that God never existed is why he doesn't exist. What made you think he did?
However I'm willing to perdict the next terrorist bombing will be in Iseral/Palistine.
Yes, sad isn't it? DNA research has shown that not only did the Jews never go to or leave Egypt (they were just hill-dwelling Caaninites) but the current Palestinian population is actually more closely related to the Israelies than to any of the Arab nations! So this entire conflict is based, on both sides, on nothing more than myths and fairy-stories from 3500+ years ago.
TWW
TWW
But, perhaps having Daneel there to guide the course of history is exactly what Seldon needs to cancel the Mule out.
TWW
Psychohistory!
TWW
TWW
I don't know why not; I also don't know why you ask since the issue here is not linking. MS are saying you are not allowed to write a program which implements their brain-damaged protocol if you then release it under the GPL. Doesn't matter if you don't link to ANYTHING, MS or not.
TWW
Under GPL, they couldn't. Under a BSD type license, they could.
For all its faults, this shows the superiority of GPL over BSD licencing. Under BSD everyone gets to work for MS but MS doesn't have to give them anything back. I don't want MS using my work unless they let me use what they build with it. I don't know why the BSD crowd put up with it; what do they get out of it: the comfort of knowing they're helping a multi-billion dollar organisation?
TWW
They're more likely to just stop signing the cheques that pay for all that high-tech military equipment.
TWW
Prison should beckon for all involved.
TWW
RIAA-approved headphones are the next logical step.
TWW
None of this is secret, so why do so many people still credit Edison with the invention and who do they think the "Swan" was in the Edision Swan Co?
Davy (of the Davy safty lamp fame) had invented a bulb even earlier but it worked by producing an arc rather than an incandescent filament.
TWW
How do you get around that?
TWW
Not to mention forcing them to install useless software. When it works at all.
TWW
Why? There have been periods where there were 4 versions of Windows knocking about and I don't remember any "Scanners" incidents. People just use what they have at work or the cheapest. Sysadmins will know which one they need (ie the one with the penguin on it).
TWW
Who uses java?
People who don't need an unsigned data type.
So, no one then.
TWW
I know what you mean, but I think that anyone that believes that an economy which can be based on such ideas is not being reasonable, they're being idealistic which is not the same thing at all! At least Thomas Moore had the insight to call his book "nowhere".
I however believe strongly in a free market economy.
Ah, now we're into debating space. A market economy is certainly a good way to motivate people but a (totally) free market goes too far; a free market tends to a mono-culture or at least one where each production niche is dominated by one monopoly or at best a small cartel. This is fine so long as you believe that the purpose of the market is to be a market. If you want the market to be useful adjunct to society, giving each person an outlet for their skills and ideas as well as possibly providing society as a whole with some things which are too big for individuals to do themselves then you need regulation of some sort.
A classic example in the UK at the moment is the Post Office. The government is lining it up for privatisation but is currently unable to say why a private company would provide a postal service to remote islands or villages at a price people on pensions can afford. They are finding that, as a society, people are not keen on letting market forces decide who gets post and who doesn't.
If you're in the US it might be worth knowing that the UK Post Office is regarded as quite good but badly organised; I'm under the impression that the USPO is not so highly though of.
The American example has to be Microsoft. I remember Gates saying that he could see no reason why any other software company would be needed in his vision of the future. This is the same as saying that he wants every programmer in the world (such was the scale of this vision) to either work for him or not work at all. Regardless of free market ideals, this is not a situation I would be happy with and it's not because of who it is, the same situation would be intolerable if it was Ford or Sony.
Sometimes society has to flex its muscles and say "we don't care if it makes money; it has to be done".
TWW
However all of them have about as much relation to real societies with real people in them as Freud's theories of the mind: ie, bugger-all.
People just aren't like that and no large (300+) society based on such ideals has ever lasted more than a decade. There are (lots of) examples of societies where some people's work is treated thus, but there's always someone (Stalin, the Pharaoh or whoever) who quite clearly does own their own work and probably everybody else's to boot and has an army to engage nay-sayers in "Poli Sci debates".
TWW