I thought of that after I submitted the post, but oh well. Yeah, the way it's phrased is a bit amusing, but does remind me of one of my friends that used to DM a lot. Female, muds, plays AD&D, programs... and actually quite attractive. Such an insanely rare combo. So, appropriate there... rofl. Now, if I can only find her number again... everyone takin' off to diff colleges is a bitch that way.:(
Played all three variants, although biased heavily in time and complexity towards the 2nd Ed rulesets. The 3rd seems WAY overly complex, but it could just be that I can still figure out whatever you'd need to roll in 2nd Ed rules after years and years without playing...;)
I can't really say we've ever really found too much limiting factors in 2nd Ed rules that we couldn't just think up a roll or just use common sense to figure out how the situation should be handled. Of course, sometimes opinions did differ, but it was just usually when someone just KNEW they were about to get smoked. lol
Well, I can only speak from a few years of experience. 10+ or so. I DID like Baldur's Gate, and BG2, and the TOB expansion (Haven't done the NWN bit yet). It's much better than most games out there, unless you cound one of my personal favorites, MUD's.;)
It's good, but compared to a good DnD game, *extremely* limited. Yeah, you can go out and drink yourself stupid and even get laid irl, but if you can get a descent group together with a good imagination (less common than you'd think), you can spend almost endless hours hanging out and bullshitting and playing. A DM that knows the various rules helps lubricate playing and keep the action going, but the primary thing is having fun and exploring... whatever you want. It's a genuinely good time if you can suspend disbelief and get into things. Just don't forget to have a life, and don't forget you really can't fly and jump off a cliff.:P
DnD has gotten slagged enough 'cause of mentally unbalanced people taking things too seriously...
Wow, I've seen 'em in quite a few places in Minnesota. Usually only in the small "mom and pop stores" and "head shops" though. I've seen 'em since CD Burners started getting popular and it was hardly worth the cost just to cover the media and time involved. Major companies (or at least companies with assets) would get sued into the ground, and know it. At least lately.
Assets = enough assets to recoup the investment of filing a lawsuit plus the potential cost of a court battle
Why not just go to the record store and buy the domestic version for $16?
Because, a lot of the time people go for import discs is because they have different versions of the songs, or different songs that haven't been released in the "domestic" version. Yet another reason mp3's and rips are popular, and is a legitimate (if slightly shoddy) way of boosting revenues for record companies.
And yes, mostly only "serious" fans buy imports, but there is often not enough information to make an informed decision on purchasing such imports because they are imports and thus, usually, hard to find.
Hope I didn't just create more confusion, 6 hours of sleep in 3 days...arg...
And yes, I know my grammar sucks, so sue me grammar nazi's.:P
And just to preempt, haven't you got anything better to do? After all, the whole purpose behind language is to be understood so as long as that happens, you need to get a life.
Sorry for the OTness there, realized my mistake after hitting "Submit" and didn't want to read the inevitable lame replies. Ain't that always the way? (laughs)
Arg, I'd prefer to believe that writers are those who's imaginations hasn't atrophied into non-existance, or someone who can at least tolerate other points of view, rather than drunken cranks, but...
Who am I to know, I'm only an amatuer, although I'm working on the drunk part...
Eh, it's a known problem with certain models of that drive I believe. Some plant screwed up, they were recalled numerous times. I've had three and know of 20-25 more...umm, what were they called, DLTA-3070's... not sure what the trade name was, but they've been running for two years or better damn near non-stop (my three anyway, with heavy disk access/usage and intermittant power cycling) and haven't had any problems yet...
Gah, to be totally honest, two *have* died, but they were both on the same system, and the guy that I put it together for is frighteningly abusive to hardware.
"Arg! Don't kick the server you (unintelligible)!!!"
Oh please, if you're sophisticated enough to use VOIP, chances are you can go to your "options" tab or whatever and just set a proxy or change your port. Now I'll admit that I don't use a lot of VOIP apps, but why would such a feature not exist? *shrugs*
There is language in Patriot that I have already cited that does what I stated. Look it up.
Anyway, one of the reasons that I hate laws such as this is because I've already been a victim of them once. I have an arrest for theft. *sighs* I was living with someone that made off with two $5 library books that I got, and she left with them. Unforuntately, I didn't realize this, so 2.5 years later, I was arrested, handcuffed and could have spent a few days in jail for this. But I chickened out and payed the $350 in accumulated fines because I wanted to sleep in my own bed, plus I couldn't either afford the time, or the money to defend myself. If I had *known* that I hadn't returned $10 worth of library materials, I would have promptly paid up for replacements. Happily. Anyone that steals from a public library...ought to be tought a lesson.
But this wasn't in the cards. Now I have an offical arrest for "theft" and will always come up on things like background checks. Never can I hold a gaming liscence, when a significant part of my income was generated from having one. And there are quite a few other things that can be skewed this way too, as I'm finding out.
It's easy to say that "You should have fought it, gotten a laywer, etc", but when you have to work the next day or else and can't afford to either miss work or defend yourself... You're screwed.
That's why I do investigate laws like these to see how the maximum wording of the law can be applied.
Because, if it can be applied in a certain way, it eventually will.
Whatever, if you don't want to provide sources that roughly correspond to what I've already posted, don't bother then. You're the one making claims that are so far unsubstantiated. And I agree, what I mentioned are very extreme examples of what could happen, but would be allowed under the language of the law. *shrugs*
One of my pet peeves though, is over-regulation and broad laws that get selectively reinforced... And I just see PATRIOT as one of those examples. Don't expect me to respond again unless you have some sources or are willing to actually debate. Thanks for your insights so far though.
Okay, please provide sources to the laws back in the '60's or '70's that talk about compiling DNA libraries of violent criminals without defining what "any crime of violence" is, or authorize nationwide roving wiretaps for phones or (possibly) internet activity without having to show relavance, or the presence of at least one form of oversight, or allows common carriers to hand over information voluntarily on the request of any federal officer without warrants, subpeonas or court orders.
Please post such sources if they exist, and be specific if you could (section, etc). I would be greatly interested if any such existed. Thanks!
Oh good grief... Look, I'm not going to quibble over terminology that doesn't matter. I just meant that saying that *anything* is %100 secure is just a load of poppycock. It makes the whole crypto community look bad. There are always ways, even if they're not known yet.
And yes, I know that the two examples of the "implementation" for the one time pad are pretty much the only ways to skew it...
Also, I didn't mean to be condesending, just thought you didn't know much about crypto since every cryptogeek and theorist I know is always very careful not to make blanket statements like that, since they are usually very aware that there is no such thing as a "perfect" cryptosystem. If it can be reversed at all into a decipherable message reliably and consistantly, it can be brute forced (in enough time), or weakened/broken by analysis, or both.
Then, with all due respect, you either need to look harder, or understand what some of those clauses do.
It took up more time to look that up and cite cases than was really worth it to me, but just in case you're not a troll, and just don't understand...
Look up:
SEC. 210. SCOPE OF SUBPOENAS FOR RECORDS OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS.
SEC. 211. CLARIFICATION OF SCOPE.
The wording of: SEC. 212. EMERGENCY DISCLOSURE OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND LIMB.
wording of: SEC. 503. DNA IDENTIFICATION OF TERRORISTS AND OTHER VIOLENT OFFENDERS.
And it goes on ad nauseum. These were *not* things that have been done before. At least, not that I know of to be honest, but I'll stick by the opinions of the friends I have and some others that I know that have legal degrees. I didn't know that accurate DNA comparisons and a majority of the public use internet was around forty years ago either. But that's just me... and a very brief sampling of examples, imho.
If you're interested, the full text is available here, I couldn't be bothered right now to try and find it at a.gov site, but politechbot is usually reliable.
That and you have to really have a reasonable legal understanding for terminoligy for a lot of this stuff too. Anyway, happy browsing... I'm off for some R&R and (I think) an actual date! Woot!
Sorry, every cryptosystem (pretty much by definition) has weaknesses. Spouting that any cryptosystem is %100 secure is just plain silly. There are a few good books on applied cryptography out there, some even in libraries. They're worth a read.
Actually, you can do that with trillian anyway if you just setup logging to a fairly secure network share and just have the server crypt it transparently. Easy enough...
Well, I happen to work for an international goods provider company doing mostly tech-support stuff in one of their callcenters. Guess what? Ads do work.
Every major city we operate in has it's own 800 (or 888 or whatever) number that corresponds *just* to add spots run in those cities. It's even directly wired to the hard-phones at the call center rep's desk so he knows where people are calling in from just in case the software detection doesn't work right. (and it doesn't all the time - switching bug that needs to get fixed soon)
If you spent *one* hour in that callcenter, you'd know ad spots work.
Nope, if a sig isn't there, well, it's just not there.
I believe the standard assumption is that if the sig and the message don't correspond, you should consider the entire message as tainted. So, I believe, you are *much* better off knowing that the message is tainted than not knowing anything at all. All information means something.
That'd be the logical way that I would see it anway, please excuse me if I'm missing something...
Oh, and why tie things to a MAC? Why do you want specific hardware dependancy on what should be a purely software approach to preserve portability across the same operating hardware? It's just one more extra piece of information you don't really need, or in my case want, even encrypted.
Yeah, I've done process serving, and used to laugh (on the inside) at people that would think you had to hand them a subpeona or something silly like that. The courts realized a long time ago that you couldn't actually force someone to accept a delivery, so it's a "best effort" type of thing now, at least in my state (MN), and you won't win any points with the Judge if you waste his time this way...lol.
Actually, I could easily name twenty people just among my friends and family that do this. It's not that uncommon to want to listen to your whole collection, from anywhere in your house, without having to lug around a hundred or so CD's, is it?
Slashdot Mirror
I thought of that after I submitted the post, but oh well. Yeah, the way it's phrased is a bit amusing, but does remind me of one of my friends that used to DM a lot. Female, muds, plays AD&D, programs... and actually quite attractive. Such an insanely rare combo. So, appropriate there... rofl. Now, if I can only find her number again... everyone takin' off to diff colleges is a bitch that way. :(
Played all three variants, although biased heavily in time and complexity towards the 2nd Ed rulesets. The 3rd seems WAY overly complex, but it could just be that I can still figure out whatever you'd need to roll in 2nd Ed rules after years and years without playing... ;)
I can't really say we've ever really found too much limiting factors in 2nd Ed rules that we couldn't just think up a roll or just use common sense to figure out how the situation should be handled. Of course, sometimes opinions did differ, but it was just usually when someone just KNEW they were about to get smoked. lol
Well, I can only speak from a few years of experience. 10+ or so. I DID like Baldur's Gate, and BG2, and the TOB expansion (Haven't done the NWN bit yet). It's much better than most games out there, unless you cound one of my personal favorites, MUD's. ;)
:P
It's good, but compared to a good DnD game, *extremely* limited. Yeah, you can go out and drink yourself stupid and even get laid irl, but if you can get a descent group together with a good imagination (less common than you'd think), you can spend almost endless hours hanging out and bullshitting and playing. A DM that knows the various rules helps lubricate playing and keep the action going, but the primary thing is having fun and exploring... whatever you want. It's a genuinely good time if you can suspend disbelief and get into things. Just don't forget to have a life, and don't forget you really can't fly and jump off a cliff.
DnD has gotten slagged enough 'cause of mentally unbalanced people taking things too seriously...
Parent AC post a RIAA member perhaps? lol Jeez, talk about being trolled. Just thought I'd try and help the people that fear clicking through. ;)
Assets = enough assets to recoup the investment of filing a lawsuit plus the potential cost of a court battle
Because, a lot of the time people go for import discs is because they have different versions of the songs, or different songs that haven't been released in the "domestic" version. Yet another reason mp3's and rips are popular, and is a legitimate (if slightly shoddy) way of boosting revenues for record companies.
And yes, mostly only "serious" fans buy imports, but there is often not enough information to make an informed decision on purchasing such imports because they are imports and thus, usually, hard to find.
Hope I didn't just create more confusion, 6 hours of sleep in 3 days...arg...
Either that or a big ass electro-magnet. It tends to save on clean up. :P
And yes, I know my grammar sucks, so sue me grammar nazi's. :P
And just to preempt, haven't you got anything better to do? After all, the whole purpose behind language is to be understood so as long as that happens, you need to get a life.
Sorry for the OTness there, realized my mistake after hitting "Submit" and didn't want to read the inevitable lame replies. Ain't that always the way? (laughs)
Arg, I'd prefer to believe that writers are those who's imaginations hasn't atrophied into non-existance, or someone who can at least tolerate other points of view, rather than drunken cranks, but...
Who am I to know, I'm only an amatuer, although I'm working on the drunk part...
Eh, it's a known problem with certain models of that drive I believe. Some plant screwed up, they were recalled numerous times. I've had three and know of 20-25 more...umm, what were they called, DLTA-3070's... not sure what the trade name was, but they've been running for two years or better damn near non-stop (my three anyway, with heavy disk access/usage and intermittant power cycling) and haven't had any problems yet...
Gah, to be totally honest, two *have* died, but they were both on the same system, and the guy that I put it together for is frighteningly abusive to hardware.
"Arg! Don't kick the server you (unintelligible)!!!"
Some people...
Oh please, if you're sophisticated enough to use VOIP, chances are you can go to your "options" tab or whatever and just set a proxy or change your port.
Now I'll admit that I don't use a lot of VOIP apps, but why would such a feature not exist? *shrugs*
Sometimes I have to wonder if people in general are really this silly, or if they're all just trolls...
Your time will come...
There is language in Patriot that I have already cited that does what I stated. Look it up.
Anyway, one of the reasons that I hate laws such as this is because I've already been a victim of them once. I have an arrest for theft. *sighs* I was living with someone that made off with two $5 library books that I got, and she left with them. Unforuntately, I didn't realize this, so 2.5 years later, I was arrested, handcuffed and could have spent a few days in jail for this. But I chickened out and payed the $350 in accumulated fines because I wanted to sleep in my own bed, plus I couldn't either afford the time, or the money to defend myself. If I had *known* that I hadn't returned $10 worth of library materials, I would have promptly paid up for replacements. Happily. Anyone that steals from a public library...ought to be tought a lesson.
But this wasn't in the cards. Now I have an offical arrest for "theft" and will always come up on things like background checks. Never can I hold a gaming liscence, when a significant part of my income was generated from having one. And there are quite a few other things that can be skewed this way too, as I'm finding out.
It's easy to say that "You should have fought it, gotten a laywer, etc", but when you have to work the next day or else and can't afford to either miss work or defend yourself... You're screwed.
That's why I do investigate laws like these to see how the maximum wording of the law can be applied.
Because, if it can be applied in a certain way, it eventually will.
Ahhhh, I've been trolled again....
Whatever, if you don't want to provide sources that roughly correspond to what I've already posted, don't bother then. You're the one making claims that are so far unsubstantiated. And I agree, what I mentioned are very extreme examples of what could happen, but would be allowed under the language of the law. *shrugs*
One of my pet peeves though, is over-regulation and broad laws that get selectively reinforced... And I just see PATRIOT as one of those examples. Don't expect me to respond again unless you have some sources or are willing to actually debate. Thanks for your insights so far though.
Okay, please provide sources to the laws back in the '60's or '70's that talk about compiling DNA libraries of violent criminals without defining what "any crime of violence" is, or authorize nationwide roving wiretaps for phones or (possibly) internet activity without having to show relavance, or the presence of at least one form of oversight, or allows common carriers to hand over information voluntarily on the request of any federal officer without warrants, subpeonas or court orders.
Please post such sources if they exist, and be specific if you could (section, etc). I would be greatly interested if any such existed. Thanks!
Oh good grief... Look, I'm not going to quibble over terminology that doesn't matter. I just meant that saying that *anything* is %100 secure is just a load of poppycock. It makes the whole crypto community look bad. There are always ways, even if they're not known yet.
And yes, I know that the two examples of the "implementation" for the one time pad are pretty much the only ways to skew it...
Also, I didn't mean to be condesending, just thought you didn't know much about crypto since every cryptogeek and theorist I know is always very careful not to make blanket statements like that, since they are usually very aware that there is no such thing as a "perfect" cryptosystem. If it can be reversed at all into a decipherable message reliably and consistantly, it can be brute forced (in enough time), or weakened/broken by analysis, or both.
Then, with all due respect, you either need to look harder, or understand what some of those clauses do.
.gov site, but politechbot is usually reliable.
It took up more time to look that up and cite cases than was really worth it to me, but just in case you're not a troll, and just don't understand...
Look up:
SEC. 210. SCOPE OF SUBPOENAS FOR RECORDS OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS.
SEC. 211. CLARIFICATION OF SCOPE.
The wording of: SEC. 212. EMERGENCY DISCLOSURE OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND LIMB.
wording of: SEC. 503. DNA IDENTIFICATION OF TERRORISTS AND OTHER VIOLENT OFFENDERS.
And it goes on ad nauseum. These were *not* things that have been done before. At least, not that I know of to be honest, but I'll stick by the opinions of the friends I have and some others that I know that have legal degrees. I didn't know that accurate DNA comparisons and a majority of the public use internet was around forty years ago either. But that's just me... and a very brief sampling of examples, imho.
If you're interested, the full text is available here, I couldn't be bothered right now to try and find it at a
That and you have to really have a reasonable legal understanding for terminoligy for a lot of this stuff too. Anyway, happy browsing... I'm off for some R&R and (I think) an actual date! Woot!
Read up on the so-called "PATRIOT" act...
Sorry, every cryptosystem (pretty much by definition) has weaknesses. Spouting that any cryptosystem is %100 secure is just plain silly. There are a few good books on applied cryptography out there, some even in libraries. They're worth a read.
Actually, you can do that with trillian anyway if you just setup logging to a fairly secure network share and just have the server crypt it transparently. Easy enough...
Well, I happen to work for an international goods provider company doing mostly tech-support stuff in one of their callcenters. Guess what? Ads do work.
Every major city we operate in has it's own 800 (or 888 or whatever) number that corresponds *just* to add spots run in those cities. It's even directly wired to the hard-phones at the call center rep's desk so he knows where people are calling in from just in case the software detection doesn't work right. (and it doesn't all the time - switching bug that needs to get fixed soon)
If you spent *one* hour in that callcenter, you'd know ad spots work.
Nope, if a sig isn't there, well, it's just not there.
I believe the standard assumption is that if the sig and the message don't correspond, you should consider the entire message as tainted. So, I believe, you are *much* better off knowing that the message is tainted than not knowing anything at all. All information means something.
That'd be the logical way that I would see it anway, please excuse me if I'm missing something...
Oh, and why tie things to a MAC? Why do you want specific hardware dependancy on what should be a purely software approach to preserve portability across the same operating hardware? It's just one more extra piece of information you don't really need, or in my case want, even encrypted.
Yeah, I've done process serving, and used to laugh (on the inside) at people that would think you had to hand them a subpeona or something silly like that. The courts realized a long time ago that you couldn't actually force someone to accept a delivery, so it's a "best effort" type of thing now, at least in my state (MN), and you won't win any points with the Judge if you waste his time this way...lol.
Actually, I could easily name twenty people just among my friends and family that do this. It's not that uncommon to want to listen to your whole collection, from anywhere in your house, without having to lug around a hundred or so CD's, is it?