This means that if someone once made racist, paedophiliac, hateful, misogynic, androgynic, stupid, schizofrenic etc. remarks, this should not in any way be held against them when they later in life want to become a politician, teacher, babysitter, policeman etc. We will simply have to assume that people can change and restrict ourselves to looking at their most recent behaviour and opinions.
...or not. While people can become better educated, there's no good cure for pedophilia or schizophrenia. They are conditions which can be managed, but not cured.
Funny, I hunted down all my 10 year old Usenet postings, copied the substantial ones (that made sense on their own) into my web site's archive, and made the whole thing searchable.
The problem on Unix is that it is a time sharing operating system which people inexplicably use as a workstation operating system.
You seem to be unfamiliar with Unix's design history. While Bell Labs like to pretend that it was invented as a big time sharing OS, the truth is it was designed as an OS for a handful of guys to use on a PDP-7 right there in their lab.
Frankly, Richie, Thompson and Condon sharing a PDP-7 isn't conceptually far from mom, dad and the kids sharing a modern PC. Which is exactly why Unix has survived over the years.
Everything you say applies equally well to automobiles.
Requires knowledge? Check, you even have to pass a test. UI sucks? Check. Complicated? Check. Takes some getting used to? Check. Hardware replacements and upgrades very expensive? Check.
Government 'entwined with' corporations sounds more like socialism, although you could also argue that given big corporations' lobbying power, it looks like US democracy.
Kinda depends on whether the government controls the corporations or the corporations control the government. The former tends to be called Socialism, the latter tends to be called Fascism, more properly Corporatism.
"In 2006 former prisoner 'Manfred van H' received a suspended sentence of a year in prison and 300 hours of community service after printing 'Koran, der Heilige Qur'än' on toilet paper and distributing it to the media and mosques."
Is Henson the only person to ever have this happen to them? Has anyone had the same treatment for speaking out against christianity, islam, judaism, buddhism, etc?
Germany, on the other hand, found someone guilty of blasphemy and sent him to prison in 2006, and in 1994 a musical ridiculing the Catholic church was banned.
So yes, it happens all the time. The thing that's different about Scientology is the unscrupulous methods they are prepared to use to silence critics. To see how far they'll go, read about Operation Snow White.
You're lucky having something as sophisticated as dual monitors broken. On FireGL T2, the proprietary ATI drivers don't load textures properly. Programs like Second Life become a total mess and eventually lock up the system.
I've been studying FX since the announcement yesterday, and I think that Sun is overhyping it to the extreme.
No, really? Sun overhyping Java technology? Whatever next?
Anyone remember Jini, the incredible Java technology that was going to enable every device to talk to every other device? Or JXTA, the Java technology that's going to revolutionize P2P?
They just don't work for http: or https: URLs, on the fairly sensible grounds that they were never supposed to work in the first place according to the RFCs, and were a proprietary Microsoft extension.
"So now I have to spend an extra $900 to get a MacBook Pro instead of a MacBook? No way am I paying a grand to play your MMORPG."
My point is, go for the whole market, not just the few hardcore gamers who are prepared to drop a few hundred bucks extra on their machine just to be able to play bleeding-edge 3D games on it.
You refuse to use windows? That's your choice. Unfortunately, a large majority of people chose windwos. It's a significant effort for a developer to maintain/debug software for three different platforms. It's rarely cost effecient for them to expand their market a few percentage points.
I think I addressed that: the PC MMORPG market is saturated. The Mac market is not. You might be able to get a much bigger chunk of the Mac market than you can of the PC market.
You really can't spend an extra $50-100 for a decent ATI/NVIDIA card?
Where am I going to put that card in my laptop?/p.
Yeah. I thought San Andreas was the weakest GTA game. In Vice City it was worth wandering around exploring, because from time to time you'd find cool stuff. In San Andreas, most of the world was just empty scenery and buildings you couldn't enter.
I'd rather they spent more time on fleshing out the world and less on bleeding-edge graphics. Something the size of San Andreas but with the buildings more than textured boxes would be awesome.
Well, I haven't done any extensive market research, so I can't talk with any credibility about why other people aren't playing MMORPGs. I just know that I have broadband, I have all my computers and consoles connected to it, I play video games several times a week, yet I haven't played any online games except Animal Crossing and Clubhouse Games on the DS. I figure there must be other people kept away from MMORPGs for similar reasons to me.
Oh, and I forgot one:
8. Make it so you can play for a couple of hours a week and get somewhere and have fun. It seems like WoW requires way too big of a time investment.
In case any MMORPG developers are reading this, some suggestions:
1. Either make me pay a monthly fee, or make me pay for the client, not both. Charging for both makes it seem like you're not convinced I'll want to keep playing. By all means have a CD distributed in stores at a price that covers costs; it's just the phenomenon of paying $50 for the chance to pay another $10 that doesn't make sense.
2. If you can't make the client free, make it transferable, so I can sell it if I decide I don't want to keep playing. There's no way I'm going to spend $50 on a game I may not even like, if I can't resell it to get back some of the cash.
3. Include Mac and Linux. I don't run Windows and won't run Windows. There are millions of us, and we have very few MMORPG choices right now, so it's an easier niche for you to get into than the more saturated Windows market.
4. Make it possible to play the entire game in cooperative mode. I have zero interest in deathmatches.
5. I prefer SF to fantasy, yet most RPGs are fantasy. I guess it's easier to artificially limit the players and work around plot issues when you have magic around and a lack of fast long distance transport and communication technologies.
6. Don't riddle the game with spyware and have an abusive EULA. Yeah, WoW got away with it, but that's no excuse.
7. Don't require bleeding-edge hardware. My next machine is probably going to be a laptop with Intel graphics.
Generally, the idea I'm presenting is to try and go for the potential players who are not being served at all by the current online gaming market, rather than to compete to steal customers who already have a choice of a half dozen games they could be playing. You know, try to be the Wii rather than the PS3.
But banning is not required. They are attempting to do something which is fundamentally imposible anyway.
Unfortunately, when the law tries to do something impossible, it often leads to collateral damage. Prohibition and drug prohibition are two other examples.
It is trivial to make program code dependent upon graphics which contain trademarked logos, or a UI which is trademarked.
For instance, suppose Apple took some GPL MP3/AAC playing code, added a UI to match that of the iPod, and released it as iTunes for Linux. They could do this and prohibit redistribution, because they have trademarked the appearance of the iPod. If you think it would be trivial to remove the entire UI without losing any functionality, well, you're not a programmer.
Thus the failure of the GPL to prevent trademark restrictions on use of program source *is* a loophole. It may not have been egregiously exploited yet the way the signed code TiVo loophole has, but the loophole is there.
Slashdot Mirror
So now I'm expected to pay $1000 to buy a PC to play games on, when I already have a Mac? Umm, I think I'll just stick to consoles, thanks.
Well, Ubuntu and OS X are replacing init...
...or not. While people can become better educated, there's no good cure for pedophilia or schizophrenia. They are conditions which can be managed, but not cured.
Funny, I hunted down all my 10 year old Usenet postings, copied the substantial ones (that made sense on their own) into my web site's archive, and made the whole thing searchable.
You seem to be unfamiliar with Unix's design history. While Bell Labs like to pretend that it was invented as a big time sharing OS, the truth is it was designed as an OS for a handful of guys to use on a PDP-7 right there in their lab.
Frankly, Richie, Thompson and Condon sharing a PDP-7 isn't conceptually far from mom, dad and the kids sharing a modern PC. Which is exactly why Unix has survived over the years.
Everything you say applies equally well to automobiles.
Requires knowledge? Check, you even have to pass a test.
UI sucks? Check.
Complicated? Check.
Takes some getting used to? Check.
Hardware replacements and upgrades very expensive? Check.
Yet they've seen very high adoption rates.
Kinda depends on whether the government controls the corporations or the corporations control the government. The former tends to be called Socialism, the latter tends to be called Fascism, more properly Corporatism.
Digital TV is fixing that problem. My TV needed a firmware upgrade applied by a TV repair man. Before that we had to reboot it every day.
(No, I'm not kidding, sadly. I predict that in 10 years' time, you'll be rebooting your toaster.)
Suspended sentence.
"In 2006 former prisoner 'Manfred van H' received a suspended sentence of a year in prison and 300 hours of community service after printing 'Koran, der Heilige Qur'än' on toilet paper and distributing it to the media and mosques."
http://www.caslon.com.au/blasphemyprofile5.htm
There are examples for Greece and Austria of actual jail sentences in recent years, so I think the point stands.
Salman Rushdie.
In the UK, John William Gott was the last person to be found guilty of blasphemy and sent to prison, that was in 1922.
Germany, on the other hand, found someone guilty of blasphemy and sent him to prison in 2006, and in 1994 a musical ridiculing the Catholic church was banned.
So yes, it happens all the time. The thing that's different about Scientology is the unscrupulous methods they are prepared to use to silence critics. To see how far they'll go, read about Operation Snow White.
You're lucky having something as sophisticated as dual monitors broken. On FireGL T2, the proprietary ATI drivers don't load textures properly. Programs like Second Life become a total mess and eventually lock up the system.
No, really? Sun overhyping Java technology? Whatever next?
Anyone remember Jini, the incredible Java technology that was going to enable every device to talk to every other device? Or JXTA, the Java technology that's going to revolutionize P2P?
I imagine that the safety gain from the reduction in tailgating more than makes up for occasionally glancing at the MPG graph.
Username and password still work for ftp: URLs.
They just don't work for http: or https: URLs, on the fairly sensible grounds that they were never supposed to work in the first place according to the RFCs, and were a proprietary Microsoft extension.
"So now I have to spend an extra $900 to get a MacBook Pro instead of a MacBook? No way am I paying a grand to play your MMORPG."
My point is, go for the whole market, not just the few hardcore gamers who are prepared to drop a few hundred bucks extra on their machine just to be able to play bleeding-edge 3D games on it.
I think I addressed that: the PC MMORPG market is saturated. The Mac market is not. You might be able to get a much bigger chunk of the Mac market than you can of the PC market.
Where am I going to put that card in my laptop?/p.
Dude, I'm not talking about an old system.
I am talking about buying a brand new Mac which happens to use integrated graphics, as several of Apple's current models do.
Yeah. I thought San Andreas was the weakest GTA game. In Vice City it was worth wandering around exploring, because from time to time you'd find cool stuff. In San Andreas, most of the world was just empty scenery and buildings you couldn't enter.
I'd rather they spent more time on fleshing out the world and less on bleeding-edge graphics. Something the size of San Andreas but with the buildings more than textured boxes would be awesome.
I suspect I'm in the minority, though.
Well, I haven't done any extensive market research, so I can't talk with any credibility about why other people aren't playing MMORPGs. I just know that I have broadband, I have all my computers and consoles connected to it, I play video games several times a week, yet I haven't played any online games except Animal Crossing and Clubhouse Games on the DS. I figure there must be other people kept away from MMORPGs for similar reasons to me.
Oh, and I forgot one:
8. Make it so you can play for a couple of hours a week and get somewhere and have fun. It seems like WoW requires way too big of a time investment.
In case any MMORPG developers are reading this, some suggestions:
1. Either make me pay a monthly fee, or make me pay for the client, not both. Charging for both makes it seem like you're not convinced I'll want to keep playing. By all means have a CD distributed in stores at a price that covers costs; it's just the phenomenon of paying $50 for the chance to pay another $10 that doesn't make sense.
2. If you can't make the client free, make it transferable, so I can sell it if I decide I don't want to keep playing. There's no way I'm going to spend $50 on a game I may not even like, if I can't resell it to get back some of the cash.
3. Include Mac and Linux. I don't run Windows and won't run Windows. There are millions of us, and we have very few MMORPG choices right now, so it's an easier niche for you to get into than the more saturated Windows market.
4. Make it possible to play the entire game in cooperative mode. I have zero interest in deathmatches.
5. I prefer SF to fantasy, yet most RPGs are fantasy. I guess it's easier to artificially limit the players and work around plot issues when you have magic around and a lack of fast long distance transport and communication technologies.
6. Don't riddle the game with spyware and have an abusive EULA. Yeah, WoW got away with it, but that's no excuse.
7. Don't require bleeding-edge hardware. My next machine is probably going to be a laptop with Intel graphics.
Generally, the idea I'm presenting is to try and go for the potential players who are not being served at all by the current online gaming market, rather than to compete to steal customers who already have a choice of a half dozen games they could be playing. You know, try to be the Wii rather than the PS3.
Given that Ubuntu includes Mono by default, I'm almost certain it does include patented Microsoft technology. Does anyone seriously doubt that?
Unfortunately, when the law tries to do something impossible, it often leads to collateral damage. Prohibition and drug prohibition are two other examples.
That's nothing. IBM Lotus Sametime is 134MB on disk, and over a quarter GB of RAM.
Apparently users don't care about memory usage for IM software.
(Opinions mine, not necessarily IBM's.)
You're simply wrong. You can trademark the appearance of a UI; here's a link to one of Apple's trademark filings.
l e_filings_reveal_potential_ipod_redesigns.html
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/06/07/05/app
Go look up "trade dress".
I predict that it's only a matter of time before someone uses the trademark loophole in GPL v2 to make GPL code non-redistributable.
And again, it can be made arbitrarily hard to remove logos and brand names from software, if you have a mind to do so.
You are intentionally being obtuse.
It is trivial to make program code dependent upon graphics which contain trademarked logos, or a UI which is trademarked.
For instance, suppose Apple took some GPL MP3/AAC playing code, added a UI to match that of the iPod, and released it as iTunes for Linux. They could do this and prohibit redistribution, because they have trademarked the appearance of the iPod. If you think it would be trivial to remove the entire UI without losing any functionality, well, you're not a programmer.
Thus the failure of the GPL to prevent trademark restrictions on use of program source *is* a loophole. It may not have been egregiously exploited yet the way the signed code TiVo loophole has, but the loophole is there.