Yeah, and the funny part is, if you read the guy's posts, you'll see he's bothered by the bandwidth drain since he's received so much media attention.
When I saw it on fuckedcompany a few days ago I thought: "Gee, and he's bummed about the hits he's getting and the drain on his server(s) now...(both of which died at one point)...wait til this story hits/."
And for the record, if we don't want to link to kpmg.com, why not register kpmg-sucks.com or kpmg-sues.com, or kpmgsux.com, all of which are available at the moment. kpmgsucks.com is already taken, but has no content yet...hmm. Perhaps the guy who owns that domain was/is an employee who had to sing that anthem too many times (i.e., once).
while Zork is getting the theif to do what you can't do yourself.
Ahh, Zork. I still fire up my Atari 1200 just to play Zork I every now -n- then just for the fun of it. This pdf as mentioned on slashdot about a year ago is an excellent read about the makings and breakings of Infocom.
I love those games. Spent many a sleepless night in front of that old Atari trying my damnedest to finish them. Went through Zork I,II,III to Enchanter, Sorceror, Infidel, Hitchhiker, Wishbringer, Spellbreaker, and Leather Goddesses of Phobos...but after the sale to Activision, I pretty much stopped buying the new games. I think perhaps LGOP was the last great text game they made.
I never did understand how the GUI games could compare. Now, I've played some good GUI games on PC and consoles and can certainly enjoy them, but you are absolutely correct. Nothing could ever compare to the imagery in my mind of the vast world of Zork. Not even at GeForce 3 levels.
If that's a condition of the sale, then they shouldn't sell you the upgrade unless you have 10.0
That's what the stupid CheckForOSX is supposed to be enforcing. So you don't have to bring your copy in to the store. I suppose they could make it a condition on selling that you have to return your old copy to the store so it can be properly destroyed...but then they don't require that because they're trying to make it easier for an honest person. Forgive the guy who [sold|gave] you the CD for assuming you were honest.
So if I used the CD for a coaster (also not the intended purpose) Apple wouldn't like that either?:)
Rest assured, they would not like it. It is their product. They want to see it used by as many people as possible. They want their market share to go up.
However, they would not know about it. And even if they did, would not likely send you a cease-and-desist letter because A) there is no restriction in the license to using the disc as a coaster, and B) they forgot to get their stooges to include that use as a restriction in the DMCA.
...Apple's license agreement, which you accepted upon purchasing a copy of the Software, specifically prohibits you from copying,
There may be an argument that they copied the CD, but posting instructions is not copying and so is not a violation of this part of the license
decompiling,
Nope...no decompiling going on here
reverse engineering,
This is not reverse engineering. In order to figure out how to do this, it seems all you have to do is poke around a bit. And Apple gives you the tools directly to do it. It's not like you have to have SoftICE or some-such to step through the thing to figure this out. This is simply using a feature of the software itself.
disassembling,
No disassembly going on here...move along.
modifying
Okay...now they've got 'em. Doing this may very well be legally considered modifying the software. Of course, I still want to know what constitutes modifying. If I simply turn [off|on] a feature using the menuing system or some other built-in facility of the OS, is that modifying? I think an argument may be made that if modifying the OS is illegal, then changing your desktop wallpaper as well as a number of other configuration tasks are rendered illegal as well. Hell, setting your TIME ZONE could be illegal!
or creating derivative works of the Software.
Well, burning it onto a CD after deleting that file may very well be creating a derivative work...but the whole point of this is: describing the actions on a website is not anything the license says you can't do. Putting up these instructions on the web may be a violation of the DMCA, but it is most definitely not a violation of the EULA.
Likewise, Apple sold me a CD. The CD is mine. The fact that they tossed a bonus OS on there is there problem, not mine.
But if a condition of the sale was that you have an already existing copy of 10.0, and you then use the CD to install without having a prior version of OS X, you are stealing. It's just the same as buying the "upgrade" version of Office and using a [cr|h]ack to get around the check for the preexisting version.
However, what gets me thinking Apple is in the wrong here is that telling someone how to turn off the check is no more illegal than it is to tell you how to make your own cable descrambler out of parts from Radio Shack. It is not reverse engineering as it is simply using the tool they provide you. It is not [cr|h]acking.
You should be aware that Apple has never authorized you modify the Software.
It is this statement that has me confused. In today's modern OS world, what constitutes modifying the software? If I change my video driver, am I modifying the OS? If I dig into some menus and turn on some arcane feature of the OS (like enabling a console window for instance) am I violating the copyright, or taking advantage of a built-in feature? I think it's insane to say turning [off|on] a feature or deleting some executable that is not needed to run the OS is somehow in violation of copyright law.
And certainly just telling someone how to do it when I've not signed an NDA is only possibly violating the DMCA because it's an incredulously asinine law.
The biggest factor in the viability of a "gaming platform" would be the existance of games, no?
Perhaps I read this wrong, but it sounds like circular reasoning. Like saying we know the Pope is infallible because he says so which must be true because he's infallible.
The biggest factor in the viability of a gaming platform is Return On Investment (ROI). If I write a game that runs on Linux, I may sell 1,000 copies. If I write the same game that runs on Windows, I may sell 1,000,000 copies. There are simply more Windows systems in existence. And like it or not, for every 10 Linux users, perhaps two are actually BUYING software. When Mandrake et. al. can be downloaded and burned onto CD-Rs for only the cost of the bandwidth and a $0.50 CD-R, most users don't see much logic in buying retail.
Obviously, if a company feels it cannot get a positive ROI from an endeavor, it won't pursue it. But when determining what platform to develop for, the number of existing games is only a cursory note. Hell, a whole lot of games are being developed for XBox and there were no previously existing games to look to as proof of viability. Viability is strictly a matter of what ROI can be expected.
Re:It was good in the day
on
Lineo Frees CP/M
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Handled properly (with certain 3rd party tools like mark/rel, 4DOS, norton utilities, etc.), DOS could be almost enjoyable, but then the same can be said for Windows (gasp!)...
Oh, and DR-DOS was always better than MS-DOS, even with the Win 3.1 warnings of incomatibility...
Why is it that the television producers feel a need to "push the envelope" when it comes to profanity.
Because network television has lost a significant share of its audience to cable channels like HBO. When you're constantly seeing shows like The Sopranos and Sex and the City being raved about as the best shows on television and can watch your audience turning to them on your weekly ratings graphs, you naturaly realize that's the competition. You better beat them or you're out of the game.
Network TV producers feel they HAVE to compete with cable channels because they do. The question should be: What is the reason cable is stealing their audience away? Is it because they have more profanity and/or nudity? No. It's because they have better shows (see: "According to Jim", "Becker", "Emeril", need I go on???)
But then, TV producers aren't about making the best shows on TV, they're about making the most money. And profanity/nudity/sex are cheap, easy ways to fake people with short attention spans into thinking their shows are somehow better than they are.
And that's easy money.
Re:Hey, a review I agree with. On Slashdot!
on
Review: Harry Potter
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· Score: 1
My advice: Pee just before seeing this film.
I did. My advice: Pee first...and don't get the big drink.
Agreed on McGonagall, but Bebe Neuwirth isn't English is she? My only other complaint on the characters in the movie is that Dumbledore was too "done up" for my liking. I know it's a "to each his own" thing, but I envisioned Dumbledore as a much more spry, nimble looking wizard than that puffed-up, overdressed character in the movie.
Re:From the "Reminds me of this classic prose" guy
on
Review: Harry Potter
·
· Score: 1
Don't Merkin children know what a Philosopher's Stone is?
Perhaps to a literature major or someone who reads a lot of fiction and thereby has been exposed to greater works, the Harry Potter series is mediocre. But to many people who have not read a lot of other fantasy series, they are a welcome adventure. My son started reading them at the age of six. He is now nine and has read each of the four books at least a half-dozen times on his own. I'm not sure why.
But I have read them all once and do find them fun...what's wrong with a book just being fun to read. It doesn't have to be a prize winner just to be enjoyable. I kind of feel like a lot of the critics of the series are similar to movie critics who lambast stupid summer movies because they have no depth and are so predictable. But hey, fart jokes are funny. I don't know why, but people like movies like Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back! and they have a right to without people implying they are unsophisticated. So what?
I have read a lot of fiction, mostly during my teen years, but haven't read any new fiction (other than HP) for some time because I don't really have a lot of time for it. But the books remind me of how much I enjoyed Tolkien, Heinlein, et. al. And it's got me reading War of the Worlds to my son and buying him the Lord of the Rings series (as well as several other series I loved).
The HP books are an excellent entry point to get people who wouldn't otherwise be reading to realize it can be tons of fun.
The challenge is for parents to follow-up and show their kids that there's a whole world of other books out there, many of which are better.
Granted, that makes me a subversive, but it's also the reason why I prefer GNU/Linux to Microsoft.
Well, I have no idea what "GNU/Linux" is, but I like Linux. <g>
Paying a penny a page would be irritating for most of us in the western world, but it could effectively close off huge sections of the web to citizens of developing countries
Agreed. And then, how do you convert US$.01 to rupees, yen, rubles, etc? That could get pretty nasty. I think it's pretty ego-centric of the US to always think in terms like this...hmm, we use pennies, and we're all-important...blah blah...
The article really ticked me off. It mentions Google repeatedly, and then it basically says advertising doesn't work on the Internet. Hello??? McFly??! Google's advertising mechanism is very effective. THEY MAKE MONEY FROM IT AND THEY DON'T PISS OFF THIER USERS DOING SO.
The reason most advertising on the Internet doesn't work has nothing to do with it being "non-linear" and therefore "different" from TV and radio. Internet advertising doesn't work because the ad-makers SUCK. PERIOD.
Plus, if a site has something really worthwhile--to which there is no decent free alternative--people will sign up and pay the site directly for a subscription/membership. A la The Internet Chess Club (and others).
And as soon as the advertising "wizards" out there get their combined HEADS out of their combined ASSES, we might see some effective advertising on the Internet and thereby realize that ad revenue CAN support sites.
According to my squid logs, our office generates on average 5000 page hits per day. Considering it will not cache any asp, php, cgi, perl, python, etc. page as well as any page with the no-cache headers, the effectiveness at limiting actual page reads goes way down. So, we average 26% cache hit rate.
That means at this site alone (we have three others) we are actually loading an average of 3700 pages per day. At $.01 each page, that's $37/day, $185/week, $9620/yr for one site.
In other words: No, I won't pay $.01 per page for Internet content.
Besides, what is it with this freaking push for paying for content?! But for a few "premium" channels, TV doesn't work that way. Time and time again, people have shown their unwillingness to buy into these plans. People are willing to pay for ACCESS, not CONTENT. I don't pay $.01 per song I listen to on my radio...I don't pay $.01 per show I watch on TV...so why would I even begin to think paying $.01 every time I read the reg is acceptable?
I look at these screen shots and two things irritate me:
1. Why do game developers insist on rendering lens flare into every fscking game? Lens flare is bad. I still don't get why so many numskulls think it looks cool.
2. Even though the number of polygons keeps going up, so the size of the polygons can come down, so the detail can go up, it's still obviously a bunch of polygons.
Can someone explain to me why every freaking game does everything with polygons? Can't these "advanced" video processors render a freaking curve in real time? I mean, some things are round, human body parts (one would think) are better described with curves than a million tiny polygons.
I am not a game devloper and I know little of rendering. Is it just that curves are that much more processor intensive than drawing 31.25 million triangles per second?
This is temporary. Check the company's long range plans. They are in a distribution agreement with Disney for only so long, and only so many films. What else could they do to get their first few films out? As soon as the Disney deal is up, they can go independent, hook up with DreamWorks (doubtful), or whatever. I just hope they don't re-up with the big D. I'd like to see them have enough capital and expertise to manage the entire process on their own.
"And isn't sanity really just a one trick pony anyway? I mean if all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh oooh oooh, the sky is the limit!" - The Tick.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, and the funny part is, if you read the guy's posts, you'll see he's bothered by the bandwidth drain since he's received so much media attention.
/."
When I saw it on fuckedcompany a few days ago I thought: "Gee, and he's bummed about the hits he's getting and the drain on his server(s) now...(both of which died at one point)...wait til this story hits
And for the record, if we don't want to link to kpmg.com, why not register kpmg-sucks.com or kpmg-sues.com, or kpmgsux.com, all of which are available at the moment. kpmgsucks.com is already taken, but has no content yet...hmm. Perhaps the guy who owns that domain was/is an employee who had to sing that anthem too many times (i.e., once).
Ahh, Zork. I still fire up my Atari 1200 just to play Zork I every now -n- then just for the fun of it. This pdf as mentioned on slashdot about a year ago is an excellent read about the makings and breakings of Infocom.
I love those games. Spent many a sleepless night in front of that old Atari trying my damnedest to finish them. Went through Zork I,II,III to Enchanter, Sorceror, Infidel, Hitchhiker, Wishbringer, Spellbreaker, and Leather Goddesses of Phobos...but after the sale to Activision, I pretty much stopped buying the new games. I think perhaps LGOP was the last great text game they made.
I never did understand how the GUI games could compare. Now, I've played some good GUI games on PC and consoles and can certainly enjoy them, but you are absolutely correct. Nothing could ever compare to the imagery in my mind of the vast world of Zork. Not even at GeForce 3 levels.
Your sword has begun to glow very brightly.
If it's small, light, and made of durable materials...it'll withstand quite a beating and still work. (Think Tonka.)
I won't buy one until it can send e-mail.
That's what the stupid CheckForOSX is supposed to be enforcing. So you don't have to bring your copy in to the store. I suppose they could make it a condition on selling that you have to return your old copy to the store so it can be properly destroyed...but then they don't require that because they're trying to make it easier for an honest person. Forgive the guy who [sold|gave] you the CD for assuming you were honest.
What's wrong with <A HREF="url" TARGET="_blank"> ?
Rest assured, they would not like it. It is their product. They want to see it used by as many people as possible. They want their market share to go up.
However, they would not know about it. And even if they did, would not likely send you a cease-and-desist letter because A) there is no restriction in the license to using the disc as a coaster, and B) they forgot to get their stooges to include that use as a restriction in the DMCA.
There may be an argument that they copied the CD, but posting instructions is not copying and so is not a violation of this part of the license
Nope...no decompiling going on here
This is not reverse engineering. In order to figure out how to do this, it seems all you have to do is poke around a bit. And Apple gives you the tools directly to do it. It's not like you have to have SoftICE or some-such to step through the thing to figure this out. This is simply using a feature of the software itself.
No disassembly going on here...move along.
Okay...now they've got 'em. Doing this may very well be legally considered modifying the software. Of course, I still want to know what constitutes modifying. If I simply turn [off|on] a feature using the menuing system or some other built-in facility of the OS, is that modifying? I think an argument may be made that if modifying the OS is illegal, then changing your desktop wallpaper as well as a number of other configuration tasks are rendered illegal as well. Hell, setting your TIME ZONE could be illegal!
Well, burning it onto a CD after deleting that file may very well be creating a derivative work...but the whole point of this is: describing the actions on a website is not anything the license says you can't do. Putting up these instructions on the web may be a violation of the DMCA, but it is most definitely not a violation of the EULA.
Actually following the instructions probably is.
But if a condition of the sale was that you have an already existing copy of 10.0, and you then use the CD to install without having a prior version of OS X, you are stealing. It's just the same as buying the "upgrade" version of Office and using a [cr|h]ack to get around the check for the preexisting version.
However, what gets me thinking Apple is in the wrong here is that telling someone how to turn off the check is no more illegal than it is to tell you how to make your own cable descrambler out of parts from Radio Shack. It is not reverse engineering as it is simply using the tool they provide you. It is not [cr|h]acking.
It is this statement that has me confused. In today's modern OS world, what constitutes modifying the software? If I change my video driver, am I modifying the OS? If I dig into some menus and turn on some arcane feature of the OS (like enabling a console window for instance) am I violating the copyright, or taking advantage of a built-in feature? I think it's insane to say turning [off|on] a feature or deleting some executable that is not needed to run the OS is somehow in violation of copyright law.
And certainly just telling someone how to do it when I've not signed an NDA is only possibly violating the DMCA because it's an incredulously asinine law.
Which is why, as those in our respective circles of influence, we must spread the word that there ARE other choices. Like F-Prot and Sophos.
Perhaps I read this wrong, but it sounds like circular reasoning. Like saying we know the Pope is infallible because he says so which must be true because he's infallible.
The biggest factor in the viability of a gaming platform is Return On Investment (ROI). If I write a game that runs on Linux, I may sell 1,000 copies. If I write the same game that runs on Windows, I may sell 1,000,000 copies. There are simply more Windows systems in existence. And like it or not, for every 10 Linux users, perhaps two are actually BUYING software. When Mandrake et. al. can be downloaded and burned onto CD-Rs for only the cost of the bandwidth and a $0.50 CD-R, most users don't see much logic in buying retail.
Obviously, if a company feels it cannot get a positive ROI from an endeavor, it won't pursue it. But when determining what platform to develop for, the number of existing games is only a cursory note. Hell, a whole lot of games are being developed for XBox and there were no previously existing games to look to as proof of viability. Viability is strictly a matter of what ROI can be expected.
No. DOS was never stable.
C:\>TSR1.COM
C:\>TSR2.COM
C:\>TSR1.COM
---crash---
Handled properly (with certain 3rd party tools like mark/rel, 4DOS, norton utilities, etc.), DOS could be almost enjoyable, but then the same can be said for Windows (gasp!)...
Oh, and DR-DOS was always better than MS-DOS, even with the Win 3.1 warnings of incomatibility...
Because network television has lost a significant share of its audience to cable channels like HBO. When you're constantly seeing shows like The Sopranos and Sex and the City being raved about as the best shows on television and can watch your audience turning to them on your weekly ratings graphs, you naturaly realize that's the competition. You better beat them or you're out of the game.
Network TV producers feel they HAVE to compete with cable channels because they do. The question should be: What is the reason cable is stealing their audience away? Is it because they have more profanity and/or nudity? No. It's because they have better shows (see: "According to Jim", "Becker", "Emeril", need I go on???)
But then, TV producers aren't about making the best shows on TV, they're about making the most money. And profanity/nudity/sex are cheap, easy ways to fake people with short attention spans into thinking their shows are somehow better than they are.
And that's easy money.
I did. My advice: Pee first...and don't get the big drink.
Agreed on McGonagall, but Bebe Neuwirth isn't English is she? My only other complaint on the characters in the movie is that Dumbledore was too "done up" for my liking. I know it's a "to each his own" thing, but I envisioned Dumbledore as a much more spry, nimble looking wizard than that puffed-up, overdressed character in the movie.
Nietzche was a philosopher!
Perhaps to a literature major or someone who reads a lot of fiction and thereby has been exposed to greater works, the Harry Potter series is mediocre. But to many people who have not read a lot of other fantasy series, they are a welcome adventure. My son started reading them at the age of six. He is now nine and has read each of the four books at least a half-dozen times on his own. I'm not sure why.
But I have read them all once and do find them fun...what's wrong with a book just being fun to read. It doesn't have to be a prize winner just to be enjoyable. I kind of feel like a lot of the critics of the series are similar to movie critics who lambast stupid summer movies because they have no depth and are so predictable. But hey, fart jokes are funny. I don't know why, but people like movies like Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back! and they have a right to without people implying they are unsophisticated. So what?
I have read a lot of fiction, mostly during my teen years, but haven't read any new fiction (other than HP) for some time because I don't really have a lot of time for it. But the books remind me of how much I enjoyed Tolkien, Heinlein, et. al. And it's got me reading War of the Worlds to my son and buying him the Lord of the Rings series (as well as several other series I loved).
The HP books are an excellent entry point to get people who wouldn't otherwise be reading to realize it can be tons of fun.
The challenge is for parents to follow-up and show their kids that there's a whole world of other books out there, many of which are better.
Well, I have no idea what "GNU/Linux" is, but I like Linux. <g>
Agreed. And then, how do you convert US$.01 to rupees, yen, rubles, etc? That could get pretty nasty. I think it's pretty ego-centric of the US to always think in terms like this...hmm, we use pennies, and we're all-important...blah blah...
funny, interesting, insightful...mod up please
And another thing...
The article really ticked me off. It mentions Google repeatedly, and then it basically says advertising doesn't work on the Internet. Hello??? McFly??! Google's advertising mechanism is very effective. THEY MAKE MONEY FROM IT AND THEY DON'T PISS OFF THIER USERS DOING SO.
The reason most advertising on the Internet doesn't work has nothing to do with it being "non-linear" and therefore "different" from TV and radio. Internet advertising doesn't work because the ad-makers SUCK. PERIOD.
Plus, if a site has something really worthwhile--to which there is no decent free alternative--people will sign up and pay the site directly for a subscription/membership. A la The Internet Chess Club (and others).
And as soon as the advertising "wizards" out there get their combined HEADS out of their combined ASSES, we might see some effective advertising on the Internet and thereby realize that ad revenue CAN support sites.
How about this for expensive:
According to my squid logs, our office generates on average 5000 page hits per day. Considering it will not cache any asp, php, cgi, perl, python, etc. page as well as any page with the no-cache headers, the effectiveness at limiting actual page reads goes way down. So, we average 26% cache hit rate.
That means at this site alone (we have three others) we are actually loading an average of 3700 pages per day. At $.01 each page, that's $37/day, $185/week, $9620/yr for one site.
In other words: No, I won't pay $.01 per page for Internet content.
Besides, what is it with this freaking push for paying for content?! But for a few "premium" channels, TV doesn't work that way. Time and time again, people have shown their unwillingness to buy into these plans. People are willing to pay for ACCESS, not CONTENT. I don't pay $.01 per song I listen to on my radio...I don't pay $.01 per show I watch on TV...so why would I even begin to think paying $.01 every time I read the reg is acceptable?
I look at these screen shots and two things irritate me:
1. Why do game developers insist on rendering lens flare into every fscking game? Lens flare is bad. I still don't get why so many numskulls think it looks cool.
2. Even though the number of polygons keeps going up, so the size of the polygons can come down, so the detail can go up, it's still obviously a bunch of polygons.
Can someone explain to me why every freaking game does everything with polygons? Can't these "advanced" video processors render a freaking curve in real time? I mean, some things are round, human body parts (one would think) are better described with curves than a million tiny polygons.
I am not a game devloper and I know little of rendering. Is it just that curves are that much more processor intensive than drawing 31.25 million triangles per second?
I just found this link which makes it more obvious that Pixar != Disney.
This is temporary. Check the company's long range plans. They are in a distribution agreement with Disney for only so long, and only so many films. What else could they do to get their first few films out? As soon as the Disney deal is up, they can go independent, hook up with DreamWorks (doubtful), or whatever. I just hope they don't re-up with the big D. I'd like to see them have enough capital and expertise to manage the entire process on their own.
"And isn't sanity really just a one trick pony anyway? I mean if all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh oooh oooh, the sky is the limit!" - The Tick.
Not that it's relevant, but it's a great quote.