Illegal copying is not a "victimless crime", not even when the manufacturer uses it to gain a monopoly (in that case, its obviously an act against competitors), such as Microsoft did/does.
Illegal copies are a direct competition to your sold copies. The word here is "competition"; copy-protection will only lower the value of your product in relation to the illegal copy even more and thus is futile.
And please refrain from using words like Piracy in that context.
How do you know if you have a pirated copy of Windows?
Well you don't. Because Pirates don't dabble with "illegal copying", they pirate bulk-freighters full of genuine Windows XP-packages in indonesia.
No, this is not funny. The Marisec-Report lists about 400 incidents every year: Reported Attacks. And this is why I object to that frivolous use of the word "piracy" by some content-industry for pure demagogic use (comparing illegal copying to armed robbery). --
I can add to that, that its not even a match on its own lower-end platform. I've had everything from Sparc 2 to Sparc 10 running on Linux, then an Ultra 1; and now I've got my E250 running on Linux. And as long as I don't have more than 64 CPUs, I won't even consider running Solaris. --
And what the hell am I going to do with that? Does it at least run in wine/cedega? Or does it look like this: - Half Live 2: 59$ - Windows: 250$ - Having to repartition harddisk: fuck you. Even the additional cost of windows (Microsoft-Tax), is very discouraging, but the general behaviour of said operating system raises the cost even more. I can't for instance just install windows on the third disk. --
Thinking again, if at some point I do choose to go abroad, I suspect I'll at least probe through the Linux community. That way I'll at least have some sort of local contact, wherever I go.
True. Plus the added benefit that most people in the linux-community will speak english very well.
Speaking of not-liked: Well, there's a lot of american culture which is very popular in the rest of the world. From clothes to movies to music to coca cola to *cough* fast-food (well, this one not with me;)).
I wouldn't see the unpopularity of the US as a general anti-americanism. Some things like your "political correctness" (no drinking in public, no smoking, no swearing and such) are met with complete astonishment, but as long as this remains your problem, you can at least count on some pity;)). --
Same with me. I wouldn't want to go to China, North Korea or the USA, or any other country where they can arrest you without warrant on some "suspicion of terrorism" or "possible enemy of the people"-paragraph. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of nice people and interesting sites and sights there, but with those dracconian laws? thanks but no thanks. --
You're so fucking kaputt. I didn't see any ads, thanks adblock, but crying out because of some not-even-naked mini-picture of some girl (as read in the follow-up-posts) is just about as crazy and bigot as it gets. Fucking hypocrits.
_I_ would mod you down for good, but as it is, there is no "-1 hypocrite" and neither a "-1 coward". --
I'm sorry, I don't get it. What has the evolution of the eye to do with some religious wacko-theory?
Is this a discussion among biologists trying to explain the development of the eye, as opposed to a discussion among historians or sociologists concerning myths of primitive cultures?
Sheesh. We really can talk about the latter, being a sociologist myself, but I don't see any point of bringing this into a biological discussion. It's not even worth mentioning in this context.
In fact, this raises of course another nice sociological question: why would anyone mention primitive myths and their supporters in a scientific debate not pertaining to said myths? What is the background of people doing this, and what does this say about the social context and the society at large in which this individuum exists? Interesting indeed.. --
At 9:45 last night, the Secret Service showed up on my mother's front door to talk to me about what I said about the President
Ah, I see, you've got yourself a Gestapo now. This sure fits nicely to the power to arrest someone without a case.
The question is, who is gonna liberate you from your Nazi-Führung in 10 years from now? --
Re:Reason why the Swiss are #1
on
Press freedom
·
· Score: 1
Neutral? Well, I'm not quite sure about that. It's not so much about "neutrality" but more about "not leaning out of the window too much" (for which, of course, your president Bush is specialist. But that's completely unrelated to the point, as is that I think you thus should apply a czech solution to this problem with that president of yours).
Also with the recent indymedia-hubbub I'd give switzerland a point more, giving it 1.5 and placing it at rank 11 (servers seized because maybe some swiss riot-undercover-cops would be uncovered? Come on! That's not a reason to go against freedom of the press, and being switzerland, there also is no danger to those cops, nobody is going to shoot these guys, they just can't work undercover anymore). --
Re:U.S. is way to high
on
Press freedom
·
· Score: 1
Well, the point is not only the "ability to do research without running into static" but also the "ability to publish without getting harrassed". And I think the latter is what draws the US down in that statistic. You can get lawsuited very easily if you manage to find out something some company does not like, or gag-ordered if you want to publish something not endorsed by some agency with an acronym. --
I bet more sales are made because people are impressed by "Now, with ColorStream!"
Actually, more salesmen are made. Since companies producing some technology want to sell this technology to salesmen, which in turn will sell it to either customers, or other salesmen, the companies aren't interested in advertising this technology in either a) terms a layman can understand or b) terms a technician can understand. This just isn't part of the picture. The picture are the resellers, which of course are salesmen...
Now this is even more insightful than the parent, right?;)) --
Which games? I've found that lack of support for a restriction mechanism usually means I can't play at all -- even with the original CD mounted. The only solution is to use a crack, or (better) use the native version of the same game (if it exists).
No support for copy-protection in the cedega-case means "does not work with that copy-protection", and not "does ignore copy-protection".
This means, I really DO have to use a crack for my legally bought games in order to be able to play them. Not funny. Sometimes I wish I had just downloaded them from somewhere; sometimes I do have to download them _in addition to the original_ because the crack is only included in some.iso-release. That's fucking sick. --
You'll be crying when they outlaw the mod-chips for your PC that enables you to run non-TCPA-compliant operating systems like Linux or *BSD.
Obviously, they're taking away your right to do whatever you see fit with your rightfully bought equipment (playstation) just because some company thinks its a solution for some problem that company has. Do you really think Sony (or insert your favourite other company or association, like Microsoft or the RIAA or the MPAA) should write your law? --
Making tools which might be used for illegal conduct illegal violates one of the pillars of a democratic justice-system: innocent unless proven guilty.
And no, there is fucking nothing else "fair and balanced" than to utterly condemn such a ruling. --
Security guy: anything as long as it's on an encrypted partition You nearly got me. "As long as it has no DRM". Yes; of course, on an encrypted partition;)). --
Ohmygod? And how is this IsDebuggerPresent set? I mean, could I write a debugger which does not set that? Or how is the kernel (or whatever kernel32.dll is) supposed to know a debugger is running? --
Actually, I think Bush is the most harmless part of it. Much more important is that Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Ridge and Cheney get thrown out. And Kissinger and Poindexter, and some more of those, wherever they may lurk. --
You get this wrong. There is not "somebody" who wants to rule the world. Its the US-Governement itself which is on the best way to do just that. And the best part of it, it mostly has to subdue only the rest of the world. The USA will fall anyway, with the all-new perl-harbour-9/11 paving the road for some Nazi-laws like the PATRIOT-act. You're already there. --
Well, "and his administration". Yes. Of course, they lied in the iran-contra-affair, and they lie now. Funny how the scum comes swimming up. Cheney, Poindexter, Ashcroft, Kissinger...
In fact, apart from some religious points of view, which seem to be his own, Bush seems to be more or less the sock-puppet of aforementionned spooks. And if the lies get repeated by your staff, and if you repeat them yourself often enough, you'll start believing them.. --
I'm just too lazy to cope with a system which does not do what I want, or on which I have to go great lengths until it does.
Installing Windows is a chore. I can't just copy my system onto a bigger drive; I can't just say that I want this and this software on it and it gets installed. Instead I need to install everything separately.
Keeping windows up-to-date is tedious. And all that booting needed for it sucks. I can't just do apt-get upgrade. Oh, and keeping third-party software up-to-date is another task.
I never know what new virus/worm I could get. And I'm much too lazy to occupy myself with something that completely unnecessary.
Tweaking the GUI until its useable (sloppy focus, cut&paste with the mouse and so on) is too time-consuming.
Copying user-preferences to another machine doesn't really work on Windows. And I don't see any use in configuring the same program twice.
Copying system-preferences neither. On Linux its also not perfect, but much better.
And in the end: I can do with linux what I need and what I want to do. Of course there is sometimes better software for the task available on another system, but the effort is just too big. And if I'm lucky, that better software works with some emulator.
Yes, dear slashdot-readers, contrary to your assumptions there are some parts of the world in which other languages than english are written.
I for one have a keyboard featuring keys labelled ö/é, ä/à and ü/è for writing german and french. And of course, the only way to get Ö/É, Ä/À or Ü/È is capslock.
Even better, with my capslock turned on I get a load of special characters like this:
@ØÆßÐK""
Cool eh? --
Re:The flagship...
on
D&D Is 30
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Runequest was another great, the first 'skills based' RPG with again a combat system that beat D&D both for realism and playability simultaneously.
Can't stress that enough. D&D up to and including D20 v3.5 has just lousy, miserable rules. Actually they shouldn't even be called rules, they should be called "exceptions".
That's why I play RuneQuest and BRP-games (Call of Cthulhu, Ringworld, Elfquest, Nephilim, Stormbringer and Elric).
--
Slashdot Mirror
Illegal copying is not a "victimless crime", not even when the manufacturer uses it to gain a monopoly (in that case, its obviously an act against competitors), such as Microsoft did/does.
Illegal copies are a direct competition to your sold copies. The word here is "competition"; copy-protection will only lower the value of your product in relation to the illegal copy even more and thus is futile.
And please refrain from using words like Piracy in that context.
There I was, browsing through this thinking "hah, I'll trump that with blacksmith/knifemaker/leatherworker/silversmith"
Well, I sew. Clothes, 9th to 16th Century.
comes with my hobby of running around in Medieval Clothes and Armour at LARPs, Fairs and Museums.
--
How do you know if you have a pirated copy of Windows?
Well you don't. Because Pirates don't dabble with "illegal copying", they pirate bulk-freighters full of genuine Windows XP-packages in indonesia.
No, this is not funny. The Marisec-Report lists about 400 incidents every year: Reported Attacks. And this is why I object to that frivolous use of the word "piracy" by some content-industry for pure demagogic use (comparing illegal copying to armed robbery).
--
Valve making a game playing in a future police-state, controlling the player in a police-state like fashion through Steam?
--
I can add to that, that its not even a match on its own lower-end platform. I've had everything from Sparc 2 to Sparc 10 running on Linux, then an Ultra 1; and now I've got my E250 running on Linux. And as long as I don't have more than 64 CPUs, I won't even consider running Solaris.
--
And what the hell am I going to do with that? Does it at least run in wine/cedega? Or does it look like this:
- Half Live 2: 59$
- Windows: 250$
- Having to repartition harddisk: fuck you.
Even the additional cost of windows (Microsoft-Tax), is very discouraging, but the general behaviour of said operating system raises the cost even more. I can't for instance just install windows on the third disk.
--
Thinking again, if at some point I do choose to go abroad, I suspect I'll at least probe through the Linux community. That way I'll at least have some sort of local contact, wherever I go.
;)).
;)).
True. Plus the added benefit that most people in the linux-community will speak english very well.
Speaking of not-liked: Well, there's a lot of american culture which is very popular in the rest of the world. From clothes to movies to music to coca cola to *cough* fast-food (well, this one not with me
I wouldn't see the unpopularity of the US as a general anti-americanism. Some things like your "political correctness" (no drinking in public, no smoking, no swearing and such) are met with complete astonishment, but as long as this remains your problem, you can at least count on some pity
--
Same with me. I wouldn't want to go to China, North Korea or the USA, or any other country where they can arrest you without warrant on some "suspicion of terrorism" or "possible enemy of the people"-paragraph. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of nice people and interesting sites and sights there, but with those dracconian laws? thanks but no thanks.
--
You're so fucking kaputt. I didn't see any ads, thanks adblock, but crying out because of some not-even-naked mini-picture of some girl (as read in the follow-up-posts) is just about as crazy and bigot as it gets. Fucking hypocrits.
_I_ would mod you down for good, but as it is, there is no "-1 hypocrite" and neither a "-1 coward".
--
I'm sorry, I don't get it. What has the evolution of the eye to do with some religious wacko-theory?
Is this a discussion among biologists trying to explain the development of the eye, as opposed to a discussion among historians or sociologists concerning myths of primitive cultures?
Sheesh. We really can talk about the latter, being a sociologist myself, but I don't see any point of bringing this into a biological discussion. It's not even worth mentioning in this context.
In fact, this raises of course another nice sociological question: why would anyone mention primitive myths and their supporters in a scientific debate not pertaining to said myths? What is the background of people doing this, and what does this say about the social context and the society at large in which this individuum exists? Interesting indeed..
--
At 9:45 last night, the Secret Service showed up on my mother's front door to talk to me about what I said about the President
Ah, I see, you've got yourself a Gestapo now. This sure fits nicely to the power to arrest someone without a case.
The question is, who is gonna liberate you from your Nazi-Führung in 10 years from now?
--
Neutral? Well, I'm not quite sure about that. It's not so much about "neutrality" but more about "not leaning out of the window too much" (for which, of course, your president Bush is specialist. But that's completely unrelated to the point, as is that I think you thus should apply a czech solution to this problem with that president of yours).
Also with the recent indymedia-hubbub I'd give switzerland a point more, giving it 1.5 and placing it at rank 11 (servers seized because maybe some swiss riot-undercover-cops would be uncovered? Come on! That's not a reason to go against freedom of the press, and being switzerland, there also is no danger to those cops, nobody is going to shoot these guys, they just can't work undercover anymore).
--
Well, the point is not only the "ability to do research without running into static" but also the "ability to publish without getting harrassed". And I think the latter is what draws the US down in that statistic. You can get lawsuited very easily if you manage to find out something some company does not like, or gag-ordered if you want to publish something not endorsed by some agency with an acronym.
--
I bet more sales are made because people are impressed by "Now, with ColorStream!"
;))
Actually, more salesmen are made. Since companies producing some technology want to sell this technology to salesmen, which in turn will sell it to either customers, or other salesmen, the companies aren't interested in advertising this technology in either a) terms a layman can understand or b) terms a technician can understand. This just isn't part of the picture. The picture are the resellers, which of course are salesmen...
Now this is even more insightful than the parent, right?
--
Which games? I've found that lack of support for a restriction mechanism usually means I can't play at all -- even with the original CD mounted. The only solution is to use a crack, or (better) use the native version of the same game (if it exists).
.iso-release. That's fucking sick.
No support for copy-protection in the cedega-case means "does not work with that copy-protection", and not "does ignore copy-protection".
This means, I really DO have to use a crack for my legally bought games in order to be able to play them. Not funny. Sometimes I wish I had just downloaded them from somewhere; sometimes I do have to download them _in addition to the original_ because the crack is only included in some
--
You'll be crying when they outlaw the mod-chips for your PC that enables you to run non-TCPA-compliant operating systems like Linux or *BSD.
Obviously, they're taking away your right to do whatever you see fit with your rightfully bought equipment (playstation) just because some company thinks its a solution for some problem that company has. Do you really think Sony (or insert your favourite other company or association, like Microsoft or the RIAA or the MPAA) should write your law?
--
You're a prick.
Making tools which might be used for illegal conduct illegal violates one of the pillars of a democratic justice-system: innocent unless proven guilty.
And no, there is fucking nothing else "fair and balanced" than to utterly condemn such a ruling.
--
Security guy: anything as long as it's on an encrypted partition ;)).
You nearly got me. "As long as it has no DRM". Yes; of course, on an encrypted partition
--
Ohmygod? And how is this IsDebuggerPresent set? I mean, could I write a debugger which does not set that? Or how is the kernel (or whatever kernel32.dll is) supposed to know a debugger is running?
--
Actually, I think Bush is the most harmless part of it. Much more important is that Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Ridge and Cheney get thrown out. And Kissinger and Poindexter, and some more of those, wherever they may lurk.
--
You get this wrong. There is not "somebody" who wants to rule the world. Its the US-Governement itself which is on the best way to do just that. And the best part of it, it mostly has to subdue only the rest of the world. The USA will fall anyway, with the all-new perl-harbour-9/11 paving the road for some Nazi-laws like the PATRIOT-act. You're already there.
--
Well, "and his administration". Yes. Of course, they lied in the iran-contra-affair, and they lie now. Funny how the scum comes swimming up. Cheney, Poindexter, Ashcroft, Kissinger...
In fact, apart from some religious points of view, which seem to be his own, Bush seems to be more or less the sock-puppet of aforementionned spooks. And if the lies get repeated by your staff, and if you repeat them yourself often enough, you'll start believing them..
--
--
Yes, dear slashdot-readers, contrary to your assumptions there are some parts of the world in which other languages than english are written.
I for one have a keyboard featuring keys labelled ö/é, ä/à and ü/è for writing german and french. And of course, the only way to get Ö/É, Ä/À or Ü/È is capslock.
Even better, with my capslock turned on I get a load of special characters like this:
@ØÆßÐK""
Cool eh?
--
Can't stress that enough. D&D up to and including D20 v3.5 has just lousy, miserable rules. Actually they shouldn't even be called rules, they should be called "exceptions".
That's why I play RuneQuest and BRP-games (Call of Cthulhu, Ringworld, Elfquest, Nephilim, Stormbringer and Elric).
--