Turn your hand so your palm is facing you and your fingers are up.
Thrust your hand toward your forehead
When you hear a *smack*, say "Well DUH"
Next thing you know, Evian will come out and say that drinking tap water is a bad idea. Microsoft will say that running Linux is a bad idea. Just then, Harrison Ford will pop in to say "I've got a bad feeling about this..."
It's like that scene from Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail where they all look to the castle and say "Camelot". Then, just before the song and dance routine, Patsy mumbles: "it's only a model."
When a product is in Beta, devs get to deny everything. Well, even in final, they usually slither their way out, but that's not the point. At the end of the day, if the software breaks down, they just have to hire Patsy as their support agent to say: "it's only a beta."
Just think of the money being saved by not releasing final software. Could you imagine Microsoft coming along and reasing the final version of office? "Well," they'd say. "This really is it. We're really done now. You can't get any better than this." We wouldn't believe it.
Software is never finished. Programs go through a continious development cycle. If, at a point during the endless cycle, the product happens to co-incide with something the developer thinks people want, it gets released.
And, of course, no one really wants to support software anyway. I mean... except for those aftermarket guys... uh... consultants. Yeah. those guys. No, they only want to install it for you and then, when it breaks down, emit: "It's only a beta."
Releasing software as beta is just an admission that instead of finishing the job, they've done a good enough job and have now nipped off to the pub for a drink. Can you blame them for that?;)
And I would agree totally that the customer should have a right to try the product before purchasing. Like when you go to a bookstore, you can flip through the book a bit before reading it to see if you like the kind of writing.
The problem with "art" is the same problem with "games" in that the same product has a different effect on different people. Some love it, some loathe it.
Blatent mis-representation should be delt with and I would be a big proponent of game companies (and software companies) actually standing behind their products... Most of them do.
This isn't about crying "fraud", it's about people respecting the rights of authors. And it should be two-way - authors/companies respecting their clients.
This isn't about consumer activisim. It's about theft.
Why? What gives you the right to use that game/program/app/whatever without a license from the person/entity that created it?
It's all about the license.
"The basic fallacy is that profit is right. It is not. The value of a product in the free market is what the people will pay. We have laws to create monopolies so that products that people might not naturally value, like sports and books, can make a profit, but even these have to live within the basic rule: profit is not a right."
Wow. That is so backwards.
Yeah, profit is dictated by what the market will bear. You can't sell a gallon of water for $900 (yet) because no one will pay that much. However, no one can just take your jug off the shelf and pay $9.99 because that's not what you're asking for it.
In a "free market", both the buyer and seller have to come to an agreement on what the buyer will give the seller and what the seller will give the buyer. If there isn't an agreement then there is still that button called: NO SALE.
If you won't pay what the seller wants, that's fine. It's a free market. Go find someone else who is willing to sell you something of comproable value for less money.
"We have copyrights to provide the author an opportunity to make money. Licensing in an additional creation to maximize the opportunity by limiting the rights of the consumer."
A copyright says who owns the right to copy a work. A license outlines the terms that a copyright owner is "sharing" his or her rights to that work. You cannot sell/give a license something if you don't have the copyright or a license that gives you that right. You don't have the right to use software if you don't have a license for it. You don't have that right because the owner of the right hasn't given it to you.
"Probably the person who uploaded the game violated the license. For the person who download, the violation would likely only be copyright."
I will agree that there are differences between the person who downloads for their own use and the person who "trades" and "distributes" and even "sells". But, just because you aren't uploading, doesn't mean you've magically aquired the right to use that software.
"Unless the click through license is gospel, I see no reason for an end user to be liable merely for use."
Do you even understand the contention with "click-through" licenses?
The problem with them is that they are the only thing that grants you the right to use the software. Often, if you don't agree, you have no way to get your money back. There are times when you don't want the software - say if you had a pre-install of Windows and you wanted to install Linux - you want your money back. The contention with "click-throughs" is not a matter of the right to use even though you didn't get to see the license before, but that you have no way of returning the product if you don't accept the license.
In short: if you don't have a license with the software - game, app, whatever - you have no business using it. If you *think* you have a license - say you bought it from someone who sells warez - then that's a gray area where, if/when you find out you don't have a real license, you should stop using it. If you *know* you are using software without a license, then you are every bit as responsible as the person you downloaded it from.
"OTOH, the GPL, as we all know, exists to give users additional rights."
Nope. The GPL exists to take away rights just like any other license. The idea of the GPL is that if everyone has the "source" to a program then everyone will benifit. Thus, the GPL is a license that requires conformance to it's rules - just like any commercial license.
The only difference is that the GPL is more copy-friendly than commercial software (including games). But the GPL is certainly not a "free as in liberty" license. Not at all.
My GPL comment was directed towards posters, not the article.
My point was, or should have been, that the choice belongs with the developer. If they choose the GPL or a better OSS license, then users should abide by that licesne. If the developer chooses a commercial-style license, then customers should abide by that.
Of course, someone who takes software isn't a "customer" and doesn't have any "rights" with respect to the software in question.
If I spent time, energy and money creating something, why don't I have the right to say "if you want to enjoy the fruits of my labor you must pay me $50."
Is that so wrong? Is that terribly evil?
It's just a collection of monkeys who want something for nothing and will go to whatever ends to justify it.
Yeah yeah. There is a blurry line of what to call it. Theft, while not entirely descriptive of the crime, is pretty darn close. If the owner of something hasn't granted you the right to that something, then you have no business using it. You are benifiting from someone elses work without compensating them for it.
If this had been a story about how a company was redistributing a GPL'd program in binary form only, there would be countless posts from zealots crying bloody murder on the part of that evil entity. But an opinion about how taking software without permission is wrong yields retards who think they have some inherint right to whatever they lay their grubby hands on.
You know what might be really cool? If, instead of jamming, the device could communicate with cell-phones and force them into vibrate-only mode. Eg. the cell phone sends out a signal and the "jammer" responds and instructs the phone that this is a vibrate-only area. Communication with the cell phone network would not be interrupted and any activity wouldn't bother people. That would take care of ringing... and people talk through movies anyway - even without cellphones.
There could even be a "no conversation" signal to instruct the phone to not allow the user to converse. You could set it up so that the "jammer" would be able to recognize emergency cell phones (eg. doctor, fire fighter, etc) or calls to emergency numbers (eg. 911, local police, etc) and allow those but block all others. Of course, that might lead to privacy issues..
Oh wait. Nevermind what I just said. I'm off to the patent office.;)
I'm getting hundreds of these cute "you've got a virus" warning from mail servers around the world. They're all the same - We've found an infection in an email from you... except when you look at the headers of the original e-mail, it is plain as day that the e-mail never went through my mail server and just forged the e-mail address.
A header from the most recent example:
Received: from [200.223.39.59] (helo=writeopen.com)
by mailforward.freeparking.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.24)
id 1AlqLU-0007Hx-48
for brian@dwrees.co.uk; Wed, 28 Jan 2004 09:07:08 -0500
RAWR. I mean, seriously. RAWR. (writeopen.com is 69.0.209.130, btw).
I'm being flooded by this crap. I've managed to get a filter going that catches them, but it's still traffic that I have to endure. And I'm getting them from ISPs all over the planet. RAWR.
9th Affirmative Defense - IBM is a company full of poopy-heads and their defense is thus null and void. This affirms our liar-liar-pants-on-fire claim.
The next time you use the kill command to terminate a process, you could be charged with murder in the first degree.
Your honor. We have evidence that this user did willingly kill my client's child process id 1420 almost 3,412 seconds after it had been spawned. This offence was clearly malicious and the penalty must be the maximum allowable by the court. As punishment for his crime, we ask that he be forced to use Windows XP for the rest of his life.
IIRC, the patent deals with the seamless embedding of multimedia objects within hypermedia documents. In other words, using a plug-in to automatically display content on a web page.
I'm surprised that it's not like the open/run/cancel dialog you get if you click on an unregistered or blocked media type (eg..exe,.bin).
Something like:
Would you like to use to open the media that is embedded within this webpage?
[yes] [no] [select app from list]
* warning: selecting no may prevent the webpage from operating as intended and may omit crapware from spamming your screen.
Of course, they make YES default and it just becomes a case of hitting enter/space whenever it pops up. Another Win32 nuisance.
On a semi-related note, I'm no longer interested in FPS action games. The genre is oversaturated and there is nothing new, interesting, or even enjoyable anymore. Sorry, but that's what happens when you get everyone and his mother making, basically, the same game with different graphics. Oooh. Ahh.
Id pushes technology. VALVe pushes Counter-Strike. Epic fights with Id and produces crap like Unreal 2 (or was that Legend? I don't care anyway). and 3dRealms pushes... other companies games. I always thought of 3DRealms as more of a publisher than a developer.
one point twenty-one jigawatts? That's almost a bolt of lightning by degrading metric standards.
On a more serious note, does the declining metre have anything to do with the rising Canadian dollar? And they say that Canada doesn't matter. Humbug, I say.:)
You are not your User ID. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are a geek. Welcome to the club; Geek Club.
The first rule of geek club is you do not talk about geek club. The second rule of geek club is that you do not talk about geek club. There is no third rule The fourth rule of geek club is that you find all Monty Python references funny beyond belief The fifth rule of geek club is noo poofdahs. the sixth rule of geek club is you do not whine about your user id
And in other, other news, GCC will no longer generate binaries because it's only purpose is to translate perfectly good source code into binary formats. Since binaries are not in the spirit of free software, GCC is the epitome of all things that plague the free software movement. Thus, only interpreted languages (where the source must be present for execution to happen) are allowed henceforth.;)
I rarely hear of artists (except the big M) complaining about file-sharing. I haven't heard many artists come forward saying "hey, that's not fair" or "hey, you're hurting us."
Instead, I hear the big music conglomerates shaking their heads saying "hey, you're cutting through our business model" and "hey, that's not fair." And, of course, when they first said "hey, you're hurting us" a few years back, their sales went up (for a time).
The obvious change is happening: consumers don't want to buy albums anymore - we want to buy songs. Individually. And once we have the song, we want to be able to shift it between mediums as we see fit. For a long time, music companies have gotten away with albums because it was the most conveniant way of selling a bunch of songs from a band. But the technology exists now to purchase songs on an individual level - and this scares them.
It scares the agencies because they can't try and re-sell the same songs on compilation CDs. It scares some artists because filler material won't cut it anymore. It scares anyone attached to the tired old business model of dictating to customers how music is to be enjoyed.
It really scares producers because where once a flavour-of-the-month artist could sell an entire album or two, the new methods would only allow them to sell that individual song. Heaven forbid that consumers have a right to pay for only what they want.
But what scares them most of all is that, in the "new economy", artists may no longer need big distribution companies to reach an audience. No, a band can strike up their own website and share their content globally without having to even pay for the servers - their listeners will do that for them. File sharing means that distribution companies no longer have a monopoly on distribution. And they are scared because their confortable monopoly is in danger. Real danger. And it's being decided, not in the court of litigation, but in the court of public opinion.
X86... The final frontier. These are the source codes to the operating system Linux. It's continuing mission, to explore strange kernel bugs, to seek out new applications and new platforms, to boldy code what no one has coded before!
Typically you would use proprietary formats to lock your users in to your solution. That is, what good is a file if you are unable to open it?
And while lock-in, tie-down, etc, is all well and good for business NOW, it is horrible for business in the future. What if the vendor goes out of business? What if the vendor no longer supports that app (and assume that you don't have a contract) - nothing short of a pre-signed service agreement could force the vendor to do anything about your obsolete files (although a good company would do it anyway to keep the client).
Tie-ins also keep your competitors from competiting on features. That is, if you have invested thousands (or even millions) on a particular solution, you'll probably think twice about moving to another solution if that means you loose all of your data.
I believe in giving clients access to source code for nothing simpler than letting them customize it to their absolute needs over time. Something like "here's the code, we're here if you need us (and it'll cost you) or you can do it yourself, have fun" - is much better than the closed way of "here's the program, if you need anything done we're here (and it'll cost you)."
But you must respect the IP in business. It's not nice to expose your blueprints to potential competitors. So if giving your code to your clients is not an option, an escrow service would be much nicer ("if we ever go out of business, you'll get the code") than simply abandoning the code to the annels of reverse-engineering.
Sorry for wasting your time, there was no point to this.
Every time I sign-up for something that is going to have some kind of recurrant billing, they give you a choice: billed statement, credit card, pre-authorized debit.
For pre-authorized debit they usually provide a form that you give a void cheque (so they can get the account info, I presume) and a signed statement authorizing withdrawls in a specific amount.
Credit card billing works much the same - they just apply the charge monthly and you approve it when you pay the statement (an unauthorized charge is still an unauthorized charge and you can, depending on the cc provider, dispute it).
A statement billing procedure works by them sending you a bill and you paying that bill. It can be annoying because you'll get a bill every billing period, but so what?
"My brother was billed for over a year by a local Internet service provider via monthly withdrawals of ~$20 before he noticed."
Sorry, if you don't look at the charges on your statement... well.. one month - I can agree - WTF are they doing? BASTARDS! But if you let it go for a year, well... sorry.
1) they have to get your account info. This is an absolute necessity. However, regardless of what billing option you choose, you are going to hand this info over (unless you use a cc, I guess, but they could always charge the cc again).
2) they are supposed to obtain your approval for the recurring billing.
If someone tried to charge my account without approval and the bank released the money to them, I would go after the bank. The bank would likely (1) return the money and (2) sue the other party for fraud.
"Anybody with one of your personal checks and a little know-how can do the same thing."
Yes, that's called fraud. Identity theft works in a similar way: someone grabs your SSN and starts pretending to be you. They can do it; the system will let them; but it's still illegal.
"no system in place at this particular bank"
Then I would switch banks. I don't know about you, but it seems kind-of funny for the bank to be letting anyone withdrawl from an account simply because they have the account #.
Maybe you're right, but it doesn't seem trustworthy to me at all.
It's the same question that affects the banks: who pays who?
The bank offers the service of holding your money in a safe location so that you don't have to worry about losing it. The bank also provides money services that require a certain amount of trust - chequing, lines of credit, etc. You pay the bank for these services.
On the other hand, you are providing the bank a service too. You allow them to use your money (for many reasons) and, in exchange, the bank pays you for this service in interest (although, not very well).
A bank requires trust not only from those who bank with them but also with those third parties who interact with customers of the bank. A cheque (and credit cards, too) only works if everyone trusts that the bank system works (sure, you can overdraft on a cheque, but the bank will report that).
PayPal _is_ a bank by definition. They can skirt around the issue as much as they want to, but they are a bank. More importantly, they are a (or should be a) trust. That is, everyone _trusts_ that PayPal is honest to the core - that you can trust them to hold your money and provide the services that they offer in a legitatmite and honest way.
They are not a savings bank, however, and should not be required to fall under the same laws as a savings bank. They are not (should not) be required to provide insurance on deposits and they should be allowed to verify all transfers and 'money movement' at their discretion.
The abiword theft doesn't make sense - did this person steal a password or something? Did (s)he compromise the PayPal system in some way? If the former is true, PayPal would not, necessarily, be liable - the person who stole the password would be. If, however, there was a security compromise, then PayPal should be accountable for the money - they should put the money back and sue the thief.
--
I want to touch on something that I've read alot on sites like paypalsucks - the issue of PayPal "double-dipping" and taking funds without permission to settle accounts.
IF YOU ARE STUPID ENOUGH TO AUTHORIZE ANY COMPANY TO DIRECTLY WITHDRAWL / DEBIT MONEY FROM ANY OF YOUR ACCOUNTS THEN YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE.
Don't be so fucking stupid and ignorant as to give _ANY_ company the keys to your accounts. So what if you have to enter your credit card # on each transaction? Or send a cheque instead of allowing them to directly withdrawl from any bank account. Don't get me wrong, if PayPal takes your money without authorization then it's still wrong on their part - you just helped it along. By not authorizing them to save your information you catch them in a much tighter corner.
In the end, it's all about trust. If enough people stop trusting them then they will either fold up or mandate themselves under the same laws that control the banks.
Banning isn't the only reason they are implementing this. According to the FAQ,
"A major issue with [people finding/connecting through other gamebrowsers such as GameSpy, in-game-browsers, etc] is that users would frequently be playing on the GameArena servers whilst being almost totally unaware of the other services offered by GameArena, for example the files library, the ladders, GameCreate, the messageboards, and the statistics. "
I have a feeling that the real intention behind this is to make sure that their other services are promoted to people playing on their servers. I'm not going to argue if this is a good or bad thing, but I believe that it is the real reason behind the requirement.
I'd like to see this retard get de-listed from google completly. I'm sure the Google technolgists could find a way to simply drop petswarehouse.com from all search results.
Slashdot Mirror
IV: Luke, Han
V: Leia
VI: Han, 3PO, Leia
So, yeah, take your pick. But IIRC, Han says it in the first when they're being tractored into the deathstar.
Next thing you know, Evian will come out and say that drinking tap water is a bad idea. Microsoft will say that running Linux is a bad idea. Just then, Harrison Ford will pop in to say "I've got a bad feeling about this..."
It's like that scene from Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail where they all look to the castle and say "Camelot". Then, just before the song and dance routine, Patsy mumbles: "it's only a model."
;)
When a product is in Beta, devs get to deny everything. Well, even in final, they usually slither their way out, but that's not the point. At the end of the day, if the software breaks down, they just have to hire Patsy as their support agent to say: "it's only a beta."
Just think of the money being saved by not releasing final software. Could you imagine Microsoft coming along and reasing the final version of office? "Well," they'd say. "This really is it. We're really done now. You can't get any better than this." We wouldn't believe it.
Software is never finished. Programs go through a continious development cycle. If, at a point during the endless cycle, the product happens to co-incide with something the developer thinks people want, it gets released.
And, of course, no one really wants to support software anyway. I mean... except for those aftermarket guys... uh... consultants. Yeah. those guys. No, they only want to install it for you and then, when it breaks down, emit: "It's only a beta."
Releasing software as beta is just an admission that instead of finishing the job, they've done a good enough job and have now nipped off to the pub for a drink. Can you blame them for that?
Of course there is fraud.
And I would agree totally that the customer should have a right to try the product before purchasing. Like when you go to a bookstore, you can flip through the book a bit before reading it to see if you like the kind of writing.
The problem with "art" is the same problem with "games" in that the same product has a different effect on different people. Some love it, some loathe it.
Blatent mis-representation should be delt with and I would be a big proponent of game companies (and software companies) actually standing behind their products... Most of them do.
This isn't about crying "fraud", it's about people respecting the rights of authors. And it should be two-way - authors/companies respecting their clients.
This isn't about consumer activisim. It's about theft.
"And the licensing is kind of a separate issue."
Why? What gives you the right to use that game/program/app/whatever without a license from the person/entity that created it?
It's all about the license.
"The basic fallacy is that profit is right. It is not. The value of a product in the free market is what the people will pay. We have laws to create monopolies so that products that people might not naturally value, like sports and books, can make a profit, but even these have to live within the basic rule: profit is not a right."
Wow. That is so backwards.
Yeah, profit is dictated by what the market will bear. You can't sell a gallon of water for $900 (yet) because no one will pay that much. However, no one can just take your jug off the shelf and pay $9.99 because that's not what you're asking for it.
In a "free market", both the buyer and seller have to come to an agreement on what the buyer will give the seller and what the seller will give the buyer. If there isn't an agreement then there is still that button called: NO SALE.
If you won't pay what the seller wants, that's fine. It's a free market. Go find someone else who is willing to sell you something of comproable value for less money.
"We have copyrights to provide the author an opportunity to make money. Licensing in an additional creation to maximize the opportunity by limiting the rights of the consumer."
A copyright says who owns the right to copy a work. A license outlines the terms that a copyright owner is "sharing" his or her rights to that work. You cannot sell/give a license something if you don't have the copyright or a license that gives you that right. You don't have the right to use software if you don't have a license for it. You don't have that right because the owner of the right hasn't given it to you.
"Probably the person who uploaded the game violated the license. For the person who download, the violation would likely only be copyright."
I will agree that there are differences between the person who downloads for their own use and the person who "trades" and "distributes" and even "sells". But, just because you aren't uploading, doesn't mean you've magically aquired the right to use that software.
"Unless the click through license is gospel, I see no reason for an end user to be liable merely for use."
Do you even understand the contention with "click-through" licenses?
The problem with them is that they are the only thing that grants you the right to use the software. Often, if you don't agree, you have no way to get your money back. There are times when you don't want the software - say if you had a pre-install of Windows and you wanted to install Linux - you want your money back. The contention with "click-throughs" is not a matter of the right to use even though you didn't get to see the license before, but that you have no way of returning the product if you don't accept the license.
In short: if you don't have a license with the software - game, app, whatever - you have no business using it. If you *think* you have a license - say you bought it from someone who sells warez - then that's a gray area where, if/when you find out you don't have a real license, you should stop using it. If you *know* you are using software without a license, then you are every bit as responsible as the person you downloaded it from.
"OTOH, the GPL, as we all know, exists to give users additional rights."
Nope. The GPL exists to take away rights just like any other license. The idea of the GPL is that if everyone has the "source" to a program then everyone will benifit. Thus, the GPL is a license that requires conformance to it's rules - just like any commercial license.
The only difference is that the GPL is more copy-friendly than commercial software (including games). But the GPL is certainly not a "free as in liberty" license. Not at all.
My GPL comment was directed towards posters, not the article.
My point was, or should have been, that the choice belongs with the developer. If they choose the GPL or a better OSS license, then users should abide by that licesne. If the developer chooses a commercial-style license, then customers should abide by that.
Of course, someone who takes software isn't a "customer" and doesn't have any "rights" with respect to the software in question.
If I spent time, energy and money creating something, why don't I have the right to say "if you want to enjoy the fruits of my labor you must pay me $50."
Is that so wrong? Is that terribly evil?
It's just a collection of monkeys who want something for nothing and will go to whatever ends to justify it.
Yeah yeah. There is a blurry line of what to call it. Theft, while not entirely descriptive of the crime, is pretty darn close. If the owner of something hasn't granted you the right to that something, then you have no business using it. You are benifiting from someone elses work without compensating them for it.
If this had been a story about how a company was redistributing a GPL'd program in binary form only, there would be countless posts from zealots crying bloody murder on the part of that evil entity. But an opinion about how taking software without permission is wrong yields retards who think they have some inherint right to whatever they lay their grubby hands on.
You know what might be really cool? If, instead of jamming, the device could communicate with cell-phones and force them into vibrate-only mode. Eg. the cell phone sends out a signal and the "jammer" responds and instructs the phone that this is a vibrate-only area. Communication with the cell phone network would not be interrupted and any activity wouldn't bother people. That would take care of ringing... and people talk through movies anyway - even without cellphones.
;)
There could even be a "no conversation" signal to instruct the phone to not allow the user to converse. You could set it up so that the "jammer" would be able to recognize emergency cell phones (eg. doctor, fire fighter, etc) or calls to emergency numbers (eg. 911, local police, etc) and allow those but block all others. Of course, that might lead to privacy issues..
Oh wait. Nevermind what I just said. I'm off to the patent office.
I'm getting hundreds of these cute "you've got a virus" warning from mail servers around the world. They're all the same - We've found an infection in an email from you... except when you look at the headers of the original e-mail, it is plain as day that the e-mail never went through my mail server and just forged the e-mail address.
A header from the most recent example:
Received: from [200.223.39.59] (helo=writeopen.com)
by mailforward.freeparking.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.24)
id 1AlqLU-0007Hx-48
for brian@dwrees.co.uk; Wed, 28 Jan 2004 09:07:08 -0500
RAWR. I mean, seriously. RAWR. (writeopen.com is 69.0.209.130, btw).
I'm being flooded by this crap. I've managed to get a filter going that catches them, but it's still traffic that I have to endure. And I'm getting them from ISPs all over the planet. RAWR.
9th Affirmative Defense - IBM is a company full of poopy-heads and their defense is thus null and void. This affirms our liar-liar-pants-on-fire claim.
The next time you use the kill command to terminate a process, you could be charged with murder in the first degree.
Your honor. We have evidence that this user did willingly kill my client's child process id 1420 almost 3,412 seconds after it had been spawned. This offence was clearly malicious and the penalty must be the maximum allowable by the court. As punishment for his crime, we ask that he be forced to use Windows XP for the rest of his life.
Next up: Suing keyboard manufacturers for including 2 components that circumvent their copy protection and, hence, violate the DMCA.
Following that keyboard manufacturers rename the Shift key to some weird symbol and everyone just calls it "the key formerly known as shift".
I'm surprised that it's not like the open/run/cancel dialog you get if you click on an unregistered or blocked media type (eg.
Something like:
Of course, they make YES default and it just becomes a case of hitting enter/space whenever it pops up. Another Win32 nuisance.
Bah, just install Mozilla.
http://www.shackspace.com/~verbatim@shackmail.com/ dnf.jpg
On a semi-related note, I'm no longer interested in FPS action games. The genre is oversaturated and there is nothing new, interesting, or even enjoyable anymore. Sorry, but that's what happens when you get everyone and his mother making, basically, the same game with different graphics. Oooh. Ahh.
Id pushes technology.
VALVe pushes Counter-Strike.
Epic fights with Id and produces crap like Unreal 2 (or was that Legend? I don't care anyway).
and 3dRealms pushes... other companies games. I always thought of 3DRealms as more of a publisher than a developer.
That's my nickel and two dimes.
one point twenty-one jigawatts?
:)
That's almost a bolt of lightning by degrading metric standards.
On a more serious note, does the declining metre have anything to do with the rising Canadian dollar? And they say that Canada doesn't matter. Humbug, I say.
You are not your User ID.
You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.
You are a geek.
Welcome to the club; Geek Club.
The first rule of geek club is you do not talk about geek club.
The second rule of geek club is that you do not talk about geek club.
There is no third rule
The fourth rule of geek club is that you find all Monty Python references funny beyond belief
The fifth rule of geek club is noo poofdahs.
the sixth rule of geek club is you do not whine about your user id
And in other, other news, GCC will no longer generate binaries because it's only purpose is to translate perfectly good source code into binary formats. Since binaries are not in the spirit of free software, GCC is the epitome of all things that plague the free software movement. Thus, only interpreted languages (where the source must be present for execution to happen) are allowed henceforth. ;)
Quit trying to bring facts, logic, and common sense into the equation.
:)
Besides, 92.8% of all statistics are meaningless. 42.5% of all people know that.
I rarely hear of artists (except the big M) complaining about file-sharing. I haven't heard many artists come forward saying "hey, that's not fair" or "hey, you're hurting us."
:P
Instead, I hear the big music conglomerates shaking their heads saying "hey, you're cutting through our business model" and "hey, that's not fair." And, of course, when they first said "hey, you're hurting us" a few years back, their sales went up (for a time).
The obvious change is happening: consumers don't want to buy albums anymore - we want to buy songs. Individually. And once we have the song, we want to be able to shift it between mediums as we see fit. For a long time, music companies have gotten away with albums because it was the most conveniant way of selling a bunch of songs from a band. But the technology exists now to purchase songs on an individual level - and this scares them.
It scares the agencies because they can't try and re-sell the same songs on compilation CDs. It scares some artists because filler material won't cut it anymore. It scares anyone attached to the tired old business model of dictating to customers how music is to be enjoyed.
It really scares producers because where once a flavour-of-the-month artist could sell an entire album or two, the new methods would only allow them to sell that individual song. Heaven forbid that consumers have a right to pay for only what they want.
But what scares them most of all is that, in the "new economy", artists may no longer need big distribution companies to reach an audience. No, a band can strike up their own website and share their content globally without having to even pay for the servers - their listeners will do that for them. File sharing means that distribution companies no longer have a monopoly on distribution. And they are scared because their confortable monopoly is in danger. Real danger. And it's being decided, not in the court of litigation, but in the court of public opinion.
And they're loosing. And they're scared.
X86... The final frontier.
These are the source codes to the operating system Linux.
It's continuing mission,
to explore strange kernel bugs,
to seek out new applications and new platforms,
to boldy code what no one has coded before!
Linux OS: The Next Generation...
(urge to kill... rising...)
Typically you would use proprietary formats to lock your users in to your solution. That is, what good is a file if you are unable to open it?
And while lock-in, tie-down, etc, is all well and good for business NOW, it is horrible for business in the future. What if the vendor goes out of business? What if the vendor no longer supports that app (and assume that you don't have a contract) - nothing short of a pre-signed service agreement could force the vendor to do anything about your obsolete files (although a good company would do it anyway to keep the client).
Tie-ins also keep your competitors from competiting on features. That is, if you have invested thousands (or even millions) on a particular solution, you'll probably think twice about moving to another solution if that means you loose all of your data.
I believe in giving clients access to source code for nothing simpler than letting them customize it to their absolute needs over time. Something like "here's the code, we're here if you need us (and it'll cost you) or you can do it yourself, have fun" - is much better than the closed way of "here's the program, if you need anything done we're here (and it'll cost you)."
But you must respect the IP in business. It's not nice to expose your blueprints to potential competitors. So if giving your code to your clients is not an option, an escrow service would be much nicer ("if we ever go out of business, you'll get the code") than simply abandoning the code to the annels of reverse-engineering.
Sorry for wasting your time, there was no point to this.
Really?
Every time I sign-up for something that is going to have some kind of recurrant billing, they give you a choice: billed statement, credit card, pre-authorized debit.
For pre-authorized debit they usually provide a form that you give a void cheque (so they can get the account info, I presume) and a signed statement authorizing withdrawls in a specific amount.
Credit card billing works much the same - they just apply the charge monthly and you approve it when you pay the statement (an unauthorized charge is still an unauthorized charge and you can, depending on the cc provider, dispute it).
A statement billing procedure works by them sending you a bill and you paying that bill. It can be annoying because you'll get a bill every billing period, but so what?
"My brother was billed for over a year by a local Internet service provider via monthly withdrawals of ~$20 before he noticed."
Sorry, if you don't look at the charges on your statement... well.. one month - I can agree - WTF are they doing? BASTARDS! But if you let it go for a year, well... sorry.
1) they have to get your account info. This is an absolute necessity. However, regardless of what billing option you choose, you are going to hand this info over (unless you use a cc, I guess, but they could always charge the cc again).
2) they are supposed to obtain your approval for the recurring billing.
If someone tried to charge my account without approval and the bank released the money to them, I would go after the bank. The bank would likely (1) return the money and (2) sue the other party for fraud.
"Anybody with one of your personal checks and a little know-how can do the same thing."
Yes, that's called fraud. Identity theft works in a similar way: someone grabs your SSN and starts pretending to be you. They can do it; the system will let them; but it's still illegal.
"no system in place at this particular bank"
Then I would switch banks. I don't know about you, but it seems kind-of funny for the bank to be letting anyone withdrawl from an account simply because they have the account #.
Maybe you're right, but it doesn't seem trustworthy to me at all.
It's the same question that affects the banks: who pays who?
The bank offers the service of holding your money in a safe location so that you don't have to worry about losing it. The bank also provides money services that require a certain amount of trust - chequing, lines of credit, etc. You pay the bank for these services.
On the other hand, you are providing the bank a service too. You allow them to use your money (for many reasons) and, in exchange, the bank pays you for this service in interest (although, not very well).
A bank requires trust not only from those who bank with them but also with those third parties who interact with customers of the bank. A cheque (and credit cards, too) only works if everyone trusts that the bank system works (sure, you can overdraft on a cheque, but the bank will report that).
PayPal _is_ a bank by definition. They can skirt around the issue as much as they want to, but they are a bank. More importantly, they are a (or should be a) trust. That is, everyone _trusts_ that PayPal is honest to the core - that you can trust them to hold your money and provide the services that they offer in a legitatmite and honest way.
They are not a savings bank, however, and should not be required to fall under the same laws as a savings bank. They are not (should not) be required to provide insurance on deposits and they should be allowed to verify all transfers and 'money movement' at their discretion.
The abiword theft doesn't make sense - did this person steal a password or something? Did (s)he compromise the PayPal system in some way? If the former is true, PayPal would not, necessarily, be liable - the person who stole the password would be. If, however, there was a security compromise, then PayPal should be accountable for the money - they should put the money back and sue the thief.
--
I want to touch on something that I've read alot on sites like paypalsucks - the issue of PayPal "double-dipping" and taking funds without permission to settle accounts.
IF YOU ARE STUPID ENOUGH TO AUTHORIZE ANY COMPANY TO DIRECTLY WITHDRAWL / DEBIT MONEY FROM ANY OF YOUR ACCOUNTS THEN YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE.
Don't be so fucking stupid and ignorant as to give _ANY_ company the keys to your accounts. So what if you have to enter your credit card # on each transaction? Or send a cheque instead of allowing them to directly withdrawl from any bank account. Don't get me wrong, if PayPal takes your money without authorization then it's still wrong on their part - you just helped it along. By not authorizing them to save your information you catch them in a much tighter corner.
In the end, it's all about trust. If enough people stop trusting them then they will either fold up or mandate themselves under the same laws that control the banks.
Banning isn't the only reason they are implementing this. According to the FAQ,
"A major issue with [people finding/connecting through other gamebrowsers such as GameSpy, in-game-browsers, etc] is that users would frequently be playing on the GameArena servers whilst being almost totally unaware of the other services offered by GameArena, for example the files library, the ladders, GameCreate, the messageboards, and the statistics. "
I have a feeling that the real intention behind this is to make sure that their other services are promoted to people playing on their servers. I'm not going to argue if this is a good or bad thing, but I believe that it is the real reason behind the requirement.
I'd like to see this retard get de-listed from google completly. I'm sure the Google technolgists could find a way to simply drop petswarehouse.com from all search results.
That would show him.