I can't recall seeing another site that listed a processing requirement. Is that legit?
Intel's Web site used to have a section that was "optimized for the Pentium III" (this was back when such a thing was new). It basically read the CPU ID to determine if you'd be allowed entrance, and used lots and lots of Flash.
It would be wrong of me to suggest that people are still reading that ID on their Web sites for some nefarious purpose, so I won't.
I'm amazed no one has mentioned the analogous DVD-CCA v. Pavlovich, in which The Bad Guys tried to sue someone in a California court, even though he'd never set foot in that state.
For the sake of completion, I'll point out that Woody Allen said, "Those who can't do, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym. And of course, those who couldn't do anything, I think, were assigned to our school."
Not necessarily. My job is to write code for use by my coworkers. I don't sell anything. In fact, I don't even hold the copyright to the code I've written: it's a "work for hire," so my employer holds the copyright. Neither I nor my employer sell this code, yet I manage to make a great deal of money doing this.
I fail to see why artists can't adopt the same model: if you want to get paid for producing something, get someone to hire you to produce it.
Not that I hope to defend EB's actions, but in the scenario the parent is describing, EB is the good-faith buyer, and therefore shouldn't have to give up what it bought.
My entire post hinges on the "if" I used; I thought that was pretty clear. I agree: I don't see this gaining serious traction anytime soon, but if it becomes popular, and people start to demand it, the patents become a serious issue. Thus, the patents are worth mentioning (which was the point I was trying to make).
No kidding. Gates came up w/it why would you be surprised he wouldn't want to protect his idea? No conspiracy here... Was the comment necessary?
Yes, it was. If this scheme (somehow) takes off, it means that FOSS SMTP servers can't implement it (at least in IP-friendly countries). That means Exchange becomes the de facto mail server. Those of us running *nix servers would like to know about this.
I really do not like how you have to play missions to open up parts of the city. This doesn't seem right.
Perhaps they could open the parts up after so much play time.
I agree that it's frustrating, but I can't agree with your solution.
Part of the reason for keeping parts of the city locked are to keep you from accessing certain vehicles during the early missions. If you could get your hands on a tank at the beginning of the game, where's the challenge?
Besides, as soon as you make it a time-lock feature, every gamer will just get into the habit of starting a new game at bed-time, letting it run while they sleep, and save once they wake up. Absolutely nothing bad happens to you when you're just standing around (a few places you might get mugged or something, but there's always some remote place you can get to).
Just get a card with a bogus name. That's what I do.
Seriously, this is the best way to go about it. I am curious, though, whether the leader of the free world appreciates all of those coupons for pizza and pop he's getting.
You have enough interest to understand the justification for antitrust law, but boredom must have set in before you learned about its practical consequences.
Probably. I only took ECON-201 in college, and that was a required course. Most everything I know about antitrust law I learned during the Microsoft trial in my downtime at work, which is to say, not a whole lot.
I'll read the links you provided (I almost missed that "price controls" was two links), and try to keep an open mind about where the stuff is trying to lead me (I remain skeptical, though).
Personally, I think the biggest problem with gung-ho, no-holds-barred capitalism (or any extremist position) is that all failures in the system are blamed on implementation; the notion that maybe the theory itself may be flawed is never seriously considered by its proponents. Consider communism as another example: it's a great idea, provided everything goes according to plan. Of course, it never does, so the question is which system is best able to handle the various hiccups that inevitably occur (and No, I'm not suggesting communism does this better than capitalism).
I would get rid of the cable TV service in a heartbeat if the tv and internet service could be seperate.
I have RoadRunner where I live, and they were happy to let me buy Internet access w/o cable. It's still too expensive, but it's currently the only broadband option I have.
The best part of all, though, is no contracts: I can drop the service at any time w/o penalty.
I don't understand how you can go into the record store, pay $20 for a Metallica CD and then come back later and say "these colluding SOBs fleeced me". If they were charging too much, why didn't you spend your $20 on a movie, Nintendo game, or concert ticket instead?
Because a movie, Nintendo game, or concert ticket is not a CD. The relevant market segment is CDs, remember?
Besides, people are slowly realizing that the RIAA's products are overpriced. That's why mass-scale piracy is happening. (I'm setting aside the whole issue of right vs. wrong about this; I'm just saying that charging more than the market will bear makes this sort of thing inevitable.)
It's like voting for Ralph Nader and then coming back later to sue him because you feel like you got gyped. You bought his pitch, you spent your vote, and if you don't like what it bought you (regardless of Nader's monopoly on credible ultra-progressive representation in the presidential race), you've got no one to blame but yourself - likewise for the crummy $20 Metallica album.
One more time: the problem is with producers intentionally lying to consumers. They represented themselves as being at a given price-point due to a combination of consumer demand bolstering prices and competition driving prices down. I cannot accept that as a standard business practice, and I cannot bring myself to feel sorry for the penalty they've brought upon themselves.
The problem with this is that it requires one to distribute binaries. There has to be a compromised binary compiler for this to work. The NSA isn't shipping any binaries; it's all source code.
Unless gcc was compromised a long time ago, this isn't likely to become a widespread problem.
The free market is built on the concept that the consumer has perfect knowledge of what's going on in the market. This is necessary so that consumers can flock to the best deal for whatever they're looking to spend their capital on. When producers collude to hide information from the consumers (in this case, creating the illusion that competition drove CD prices as low as they could go), it prevents consumers from making informed decisions. That means the free market will no longer operate correctly. Producers are being rewarded disproportionately for their efforts.
If the RIAA members want to cooperate on some aspects of their business (for example, lobbying Congress), I have no objection. It's when they hide their deals from the consumer in an effort to appear competitive that things turn sour.
Even that's not a guarantee. The biggest source of crap email for me is an endless stream of forwards from my father. I'm about ready to blacklist him.
Free POP3 access to Yahoo was disabled nearly two years ago in a misguided attempt to curb spam originating from Yahoo accounts. You may be thinking about Yahoo's ability to use POP access to retrieve email from other sites. The only people who can still download email straight from Yahoo pay for it in some way, usually with either a Yahoo Mail Plus account, or the "free" account they get by paying a partnered ISP (such as SBC/Yahoo DSL).
Slashdot Mirror
Intel's Web site used to have a section that was "optimized for the Pentium III" (this was back when such a thing was new). It basically read the CPU ID to determine if you'd be allowed entrance, and used lots and lots of Flash.
It would be wrong of me to suggest that people are still reading that ID on their Web sites for some nefarious purpose, so I won't.
I'm amazed no one has mentioned the analogous DVD-CCA v. Pavlovich, in which The Bad Guys tried to sue someone in a California court, even though he'd never set foot in that state.
For the sake of completion, I'll point out that Woody Allen said, "Those who can't do, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym. And of course, those who couldn't do anything, I think, were assigned to our school."
"Science is about questions that may never be answered; religion is about answers that may never be questioned."
(Sorry, I don't know the proper attribution.)
Not necessarily. My job is to write code for use by my coworkers. I don't sell anything. In fact, I don't even hold the copyright to the code I've written: it's a "work for hire," so my employer holds the copyright. Neither I nor my employer sell this code, yet I manage to make a great deal of money doing this.
I fail to see why artists can't adopt the same model: if you want to get paid for producing something, get someone to hire you to produce it.
Not that I hope to defend EB's actions, but in the scenario the parent is describing, EB is the good-faith buyer, and therefore shouldn't have to give up what it bought.
My entire post hinges on the "if" I used; I thought that was pretty clear. I agree: I don't see this gaining serious traction anytime soon, but if it becomes popular, and people start to demand it, the patents become a serious issue. Thus, the patents are worth mentioning (which was the point I was trying to make).
Yes, it was. If this scheme (somehow) takes off, it means that FOSS SMTP servers can't implement it (at least in IP-friendly countries). That means Exchange becomes the de facto mail server. Those of us running *nix servers would like to know about this.
So, what did HardOCP say that was incorrect?
I hope you don't think this is a counter-argument. It's a fact.
I agree that it's frustrating, but I can't agree with your solution.
Part of the reason for keeping parts of the city locked are to keep you from accessing certain vehicles during the early missions. If you could get your hands on a tank at the beginning of the game, where's the challenge?
Besides, as soon as you make it a time-lock feature, every gamer will just get into the habit of starting a new game at bed-time, letting it run while they sleep, and save once they wake up. Absolutely nothing bad happens to you when you're just standing around (a few places you might get mugged or something, but there's always some remote place you can get to).
So... your boss does have the right to know who you voted for?
Seriously, this is the best way to go about it. I am curious, though, whether the leader of the free world appreciates all of those coupons for pizza and pop he's getting.
/doing my part to reduce the federal deficit
The Kroger where I used to shop charged approximately one dollar for a two-liter bottle of Coke or Pepsi prior to implementing their loyalty card.
Now, the same two-liter bottle of name-brand soda costs $1.50 (or 99 cents with the Kroger Plus card). You "saved" 51 cents using their card.
Probably. I only took ECON-201 in college, and that was a required course. Most everything I know about antitrust law I learned during the Microsoft trial in my downtime at work, which is to say, not a whole lot.
I'll read the links you provided (I almost missed that "price controls" was two links), and try to keep an open mind about where the stuff is trying to lead me (I remain skeptical, though).
Personally, I think the biggest problem with gung-ho, no-holds-barred capitalism (or any extremist position) is that all failures in the system are blamed on implementation; the notion that maybe the theory itself may be flawed is never seriously considered by its proponents. Consider communism as another example: it's a great idea, provided everything goes according to plan. Of course, it never does, so the question is which system is best able to handle the various hiccups that inevitably occur (and No, I'm not suggesting communism does this better than capitalism).
I'm getting bored with this discussion, so I'm just going to link to another post that explains this better than I can: Post.
In closing, it's nice to see that if nothing else, at least we both agree that Metallica's music is crap.
I have RoadRunner where I live, and they were happy to let me buy Internet access w/o cable. It's still too expensive, but it's currently the only broadband option I have.
The best part of all, though, is no contracts: I can drop the service at any time w/o penalty.
Because a movie, Nintendo game, or concert ticket is not a CD. The relevant market segment is CDs, remember?
Besides, people are slowly realizing that the RIAA's products are overpriced. That's why mass-scale piracy is happening. (I'm setting aside the whole issue of right vs. wrong about this; I'm just saying that charging more than the market will bear makes this sort of thing inevitable.)
One more time: the problem is with producers intentionally lying to consumers. They represented themselves as being at a given price-point due to a combination of consumer demand bolstering prices and competition driving prices down. I cannot accept that as a standard business practice, and I cannot bring myself to feel sorry for the penalty they've brought upon themselves.
click
"Ooh, sweet Flash intro..."
Something isn't right about that...
The problem with this is that it requires one to distribute binaries. There has to be a compromised binary compiler for this to work. The NSA isn't shipping any binaries; it's all source code.
Unless gcc was compromised a long time ago, this isn't likely to become a widespread problem.
Isn't that in conflict with how the GPL works?
Even back in the Apple ][ days when you had no choice in the matter?
The free market is built on the concept that the consumer has perfect knowledge of what's going on in the market. This is necessary so that consumers can flock to the best deal for whatever they're looking to spend their capital on. When producers collude to hide information from the consumers (in this case, creating the illusion that competition drove CD prices as low as they could go), it prevents consumers from making informed decisions. That means the free market will no longer operate correctly. Producers are being rewarded disproportionately for their efforts.
If the RIAA members want to cooperate on some aspects of their business (for example, lobbying Congress), I have no objection. It's when they hide their deals from the consumer in an effort to appear competitive that things turn sour.
Even that's not a guarantee. The biggest source of crap email for me is an endless stream of forwards from my father. I'm about ready to blacklist him.
Free POP3 access to Yahoo was disabled nearly two years ago in a misguided attempt to curb spam originating from Yahoo accounts. You may be thinking about Yahoo's ability to use POP access to retrieve email from other sites. The only people who can still download email straight from Yahoo pay for it in some way, usually with either a Yahoo Mail Plus account, or the "free" account they get by paying a partnered ISP (such as SBC/Yahoo DSL).