The civil liberties violations in the US do not even compare, except by idiots.
Double amputees shouldn't complain about their situation! They've still got half their limbs, and they should be DAMNED THANKFUL for that!! At least they're not quadruple amputees, right?
In fact, we should be GRATEFUL to Bush and Ashcroft that they're only chopping ONE of our limbs off by using 'material witness' procedures to lock some of us up without due process.
There's an idiot here, and it's you. Regardless how bad things are in any other country, we need to fight tooth and nail at ANY attempt to make things worse here in OUR country, no matter how comparitively small they may seem.
Open source is about developers. It's generally not about users. And this misunderstanding is producing a lot of discontent.
It's also the reason open source is having trouble gaining a foothold on the desktop. Most people are users, not developers.
The best solution I've seen so far is where open source projects have some kind of "user advocate" on the team, who can communicate with the developers to ensure that the products ends up as something that's not only useful and usable by other developers, but by typical users as well. I'd like to see more projects adopt this kind of strategy.
Your computer wasn't invented specifically to do illegal things.
You mean like execute IBM BIOS functions without having a licensed IBM BIOS chip???
(Yes, I know that's not illegal, but aren't the circumstances surrounding gaming hardware emulation pretty much the same as the circumstances of reverse-engineering the BIOS?)
3.) The manufacturer of a gun involved in a murder cannot be held responsible for what somebody elects to do with it.
Explain why courts have, over and over again, upheld lawsuits against gun manufacturers alleging that they have some amount of liability for gun-related deaths.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying the law as it currently exists in many jurisdictions allows such questions to be raised in the courts.
Great, but I still wonder how long it will last until they get nailed for making a better product than the original:)
It's not a Gameboy though. It's an entirely different platform, one which GB emulation software has been ported to.
As for "better" product, let's drop this and an official Gameboy from 4ft up and see which one still works afterward...:)
DRM in the GBA games will surely be here soon to force only a real GBA handheld can play the games.
The original Gameboy hardware (and possibly later versions too) had bootstrap code that compared a bitmap of the Nintendo(TM) logo in hardware to a bitmap on the cart, and if they weren't identical, the cartridge's code would not be run. So in order to release GB software without breaking the law, developers had to get Nintendo's permission to put their logo into their ROM.
That's as close to the DRM scheme you fear as anything, and it's been around for fifteen years now.
Where's the insight in parent comment? All I see is the same "big media wants to fuck us, all DRM is evil, blah blah blah", but nothing to support those claims.
BTW: Was it McBLT or McDLT....I find references to both and I can't remember...
'Twas McDLT. The sandwich packaged in the dual-clamshell in order to "keep the hot side hot, and the cool side cool."
There may have been an item called 'McBLT' also, but it was not contemporary to the McDonald's Menu Song promotion.
I also remember school yard tales that if you could recite the entire song to the counterperson at a McDonald's, they would give you a coupon for free food (most likely for a single free apple pie or similar).
Remember when McD's Apple Pies were deep-fried, instead of baked like they are now? Those were the straight shizzle. There's a 'Kennedy Fried Chicken' around here that serves fried pies like that and they're still the straight shizzle.
Isn't MPEG-4 (whether it's MS's WM9 implementation or any other) optimized to use efficient compression and minimize file size, making it more appropriate for restricted-bandwidth situations and streaming media than it is for a large-format, super-high-bandwidth setup like a movie theater?
When I go to the theater, I want to best possible picture quality. To me, this means using low-loss compression, or even no compression at all.
Its a shame even linux kernel developers can not get jobs today because they have no cs degree
I agree that a CS degree is of limited use if you're pursuing a career in system administration or desktop support, but if you want to be a kernel hacker I would damn well hope you've learned good, tested-and-true design philosophy from somewhere -- and in most cases, the place people learn that is in a college CS program.
Another piece of advice to young people without degrees who are looking for good jobs: brush up those communication skills. If I were an HR manager I wouldn't give a second look to a cover letter containing poor spelling and grammar.
What Pharmboy is describing it not "pay-for-placement results". The ads he's buying don't appear in the search results listings. They appear off to the side or in a space below the masthead, and in either case they're clearly marked as 'Sponsored Links.'
In other words, they are not search results. They're just ads.
At the same time, I'm disappointed that he, and anyone involved in new media advertising, still looks at conversions as an indicator of how effective an ad is. Few people ever click-through on an ad they see and make an immediate purchase. Expectations for web ads ought to be no greater than any other kind of print or broadcast ad; it's not an opportunity to make a quick sale, just an opportunity to spread the word about what you're selling. Impressions are what matter.
The spin that gets put on the articles [by/. editors] is just absolutely ridiculous.
While I absolutely agree with you, and I'm a proponent of the "Michael, will you please shut the fuck up" movement, there is a distinct difference between objective news outlets like, say, CNN and the LA Times, and special-interest weblogs like Slashdot or Fark. Because of the nature of the audience at a place like this, a certain subjectivity is to be expected.
Newspapers have had an editorial page going back to the days when they wore their partisan politics on their mastheads. There's certainly room for people's opinions in the news media, as long as they are presented appropriately; compositing two photos together and trying to pass it off as a verite image of something that actually happened is not excusable.
.NET server was renamed Windows 2003 because it was confusing people like you.
You say that as if it's his fault there was confusion. For a while there Microsoft was slapping the ".NET" moniker on half of their development projects, whether it was a smart decision or not(they had done the same with the "Active-" prefix a couple years earlier).
And the new name doesn't make it any better. Now Windows 98, 2000, and 2003 are all from different product lines -- a home desktop OS, a professional-tier desktop OS, and an enterprise server OS. How does that make any sense?
Re:If Ars Technica is so concerned about usability
on
A Better Finder?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"There's a reason books and newspapers are printed in black print on a white background: THE LESS BLACK ON A PAGE, THE LESS INK REQUIRED AND THUS THE CHEAPER IT IS TO PRINT."
No court in this country will recognize Norwegian law.
There's no direct precedent, but if the relevant tenets of Norwegian and American law are similar enough, the argument could be made that the American courts should come to the same decision that the Norwegian courts did, as the legal reasoning would be the same...
"Objecting to the application of the law" is not equal to "objecting to the law."
The argument here is that "the way the law has been used is inconsistent with the way the law was written." There is no discussion about whether the way the law was written is good or bad, thus it's a debate for the courts and not the legislators.
Slashdot Mirror
The civil liberties violations in the US do not even compare, except by idiots.
Double amputees shouldn't complain about their situation! They've still got half their limbs, and they should be DAMNED THANKFUL for that!! At least they're not quadruple amputees, right?
In fact, we should be GRATEFUL to Bush and Ashcroft that they're only chopping ONE of our limbs off by using 'material witness' procedures to lock some of us up without due process.
There's an idiot here, and it's you. Regardless how bad things are in any other country, we need to fight tooth and nail at ANY attempt to make things worse here in OUR country, no matter how comparitively small they may seem.
Open source is about developers. It's generally not about users. And this misunderstanding is producing a lot of discontent.
It's also the reason open source is having trouble gaining a foothold on the desktop. Most people are users, not developers.
The best solution I've seen so far is where open source projects have some kind of "user advocate" on the team, who can communicate with the developers to ensure that the products ends up as something that's not only useful and usable by other developers, but by typical users as well. I'd like to see more projects adopt this kind of strategy.
I [...] have nothing whatsoever to fear from "freedom hating terrorists".
Yeah, that's what most Americans thought to themselves on September 10.
How are you going to feel when a terrorist group aims its sights on YOU? Don't assume it will never happen.
On a cartridge game, you do not have the right to make a copy (even a backup.)
bzzzzt.
The sole acceptable purpose for a backup of software is so that the original can be restored if it becomes corrupted.
bzzzzt.
You know, your arguments would be more credible if you were actually familiar with any of the law you're attempting to interpret.
I bet there is some legalesse that states it is illegal to use that ROM on anything but the intended system though.
Nintendo's lawyers don't decide what is illegal. Lawmakers and courts do.
Time-shifting and format-shifting are both legitimate cases where copyright law permits a user to make a copy of a work.
From the absolute beginning, this product was created to play pirated roms.
Prove it.
You can't, and neither can anyone who tries to prosecute the manufacturers.
When "everyone else" is missing your point, it probably means that your point doesn't have any merit to begin with...
Your computer wasn't invented specifically to do illegal things.
You mean like execute IBM BIOS functions without having a licensed IBM BIOS chip???
(Yes, I know that's not illegal, but aren't the circumstances surrounding gaming hardware emulation pretty much the same as the circumstances of reverse-engineering the BIOS?)
3.) The manufacturer of a gun involved in a murder cannot be held responsible for what somebody elects to do with it.
Explain why courts have, over and over again, upheld lawsuits against gun manufacturers alleging that they have some amount of liability for gun-related deaths.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying the law as it currently exists in many jurisdictions allows such questions to be raised in the courts.
In the court of law, you cannot say "I know what you think"
No, but you can propose that any reasonable person would come to a certain conclusion. That happens all the time.
Great, but I still wonder how long it will last until they get nailed for making a better product than the original :)
:)
It's not a Gameboy though. It's an entirely different platform, one which GB emulation software has been ported to.
As for "better" product, let's drop this and an official Gameboy from 4ft up and see which one still works afterward...
DRM in the GBA games will surely be here soon to force only a real GBA handheld can play the games.
The original Gameboy hardware (and possibly later versions too) had bootstrap code that compared a bitmap of the Nintendo(TM) logo in hardware to a bitmap on the cart, and if they weren't identical, the cartridge's code would not be run. So in order to release GB software without breaking the law, developers had to get Nintendo's permission to put their logo into their ROM.
That's as close to the DRM scheme you fear as anything, and it's been around for fifteen years now.
It has shoulder buttons too... just like the GBA.
So any game that was ported from SNES to GBA would also be playable on this device.
Where's the insight in parent comment? All I see is the same "big media wants to fuck us, all DRM is evil, blah blah blah", but nothing to support those claims.
This is karma whoring, plain and simple.
BTW: Was it McBLT or McDLT....I find references to both and I can't remember...
'Twas McDLT. The sandwich packaged in the dual-clamshell in order to "keep the hot side hot, and the cool side cool."
There may have been an item called 'McBLT' also, but it was not contemporary to the McDonald's Menu Song promotion.
I also remember school yard tales that if you could recite the entire song to the counterperson at a McDonald's, they would give you a coupon for free food (most likely for a single free apple pie or similar).
Remember when McD's Apple Pies were deep-fried, instead of baked like they are now? Those were the straight shizzle. There's a 'Kennedy Fried Chicken' around here that serves fried pies like that and they're still the straight shizzle.
How much further off-topic can I get here?
Isn't MPEG-4 (whether it's MS's WM9 implementation or any other) optimized to use efficient compression and minimize file size, making it more appropriate for restricted-bandwidth situations and streaming media than it is for a large-format, super-high-bandwidth setup like a movie theater?
When I go to the theater, I want to best possible picture quality. To me, this means using low-loss compression, or even no compression at all.
"No, it's not a pay phone, it's a CELLULAR PHONE!"
-the only scene from "That '80s Show" that anyone has ever seen.
Larry Ellison has about zero credibility.
I agree. As far as sci-fi predictions go, Larry is currently in second place among famous people with the last name Ellison.
Sometimes I think even Jerry Pournelle understands the tech industry better than LE.
Its a shame even linux kernel developers can not get jobs today because they have no cs degree
I agree that a CS degree is of limited use if you're pursuing a career in system administration or desktop support, but if you want to be a kernel hacker I would damn well hope you've learned good, tested-and-true design philosophy from somewhere -- and in most cases, the place people learn that is in a college CS program.
Another piece of advice to young people without degrees who are looking for good jobs: brush up those communication skills. If I were an HR manager I wouldn't give a second look to a cover letter containing poor spelling and grammar.
What Pharmboy is describing it not "pay-for-placement results". The ads he's buying don't appear in the search results listings. They appear off to the side or in a space below the masthead, and in either case they're clearly marked as 'Sponsored Links.'
In other words, they are not search results. They're just ads.
At the same time, I'm disappointed that he, and anyone involved in new media advertising, still looks at conversions as an indicator of how effective an ad is. Few people ever click-through on an ad they see and make an immediate purchase. Expectations for web ads ought to be no greater than any other kind of print or broadcast ad; it's not an opportunity to make a quick sale, just an opportunity to spread the word about what you're selling. Impressions are what matter.
when that image of O.J. Simpson was burned out to make him look really evil
It's a sad commentary that "really dark-skinned" is considered synonymous with "really evil" by anybody.
The spin that gets put on the articles [by /. editors] is just absolutely ridiculous.
While I absolutely agree with you, and I'm a proponent of the "Michael, will you please shut the fuck up" movement, there is a distinct difference between objective news outlets like, say, CNN and the LA Times, and special-interest weblogs like Slashdot or Fark. Because of the nature of the audience at a place like this, a certain subjectivity is to be expected.
Newspapers have had an editorial page going back to the days when they wore their partisan politics on their mastheads. There's certainly room for people's opinions in the news media, as long as they are presented appropriately; compositing two photos together and trying to pass it off as a verite image of something that actually happened is not excusable.
.NET server was renamed Windows 2003 because it was confusing people like you.
You say that as if it's his fault there was confusion. For a while there Microsoft was slapping the ".NET" moniker on half of their development projects, whether it was a smart decision or not(they had done the same with the "Active-" prefix a couple years earlier).
And the new name doesn't make it any better. Now Windows 98, 2000, and 2003 are all from different product lines -- a home desktop OS, a professional-tier desktop OS, and an enterprise server OS. How does that make any sense?
"There's a reason books and newspapers are printed in black print on a white background: THE LESS BLACK ON A PAGE, THE LESS INK REQUIRED AND THUS THE CHEAPER IT IS TO PRINT."
Fixed your post.
No court in this country will recognize Norwegian law.
There's no direct precedent, but if the relevant tenets of Norwegian and American law are similar enough, the argument could be made that the American courts should come to the same decision that the Norwegian courts did, as the legal reasoning would be the same...
IANAL.
"Objecting to the application of the law" is not equal to "objecting to the law."
The argument here is that "the way the law has been used is inconsistent with the way the law was written." There is no discussion about whether the way the law was written is good or bad, thus it's a debate for the courts and not the legislators.
If they took an economics course they would realize that the demand for a movie is very elastic
Insightful comment there, AC. I'm sure that there's not a single person in all of Hollywood that has ever taken an Economics course.
Hollywood likes to use the $3 billion figure because it's BIG and AWESOME. They know exactly what they're doing when they cite a number like that.
I'm just disappointed that the media isn't doing more to question those numbers.