Actually, Pepsi DID clean-room Merchandise 7-X, Coca-Cola's "kernel" (as I'm sure that Coke has done with Pepsi's main formulae). At the time of the New Coke fiasco, if Coke didn't back off and decided to kill Coke based on Merchandise 7-X, Pepsi would have had a new brand on the market within weeks called Savannah Cola, which would have used Merchandise 7-X as the core of the formula.
This fact was admitted by one of the head honchos at Pepsi (I don't remember who it was; it wasn't Sculley, because he was long gone for Apple, and I don't think it was Kendall).
I think that the reason that there is the availability of movies and music (in the sheer volume that there is) is because of the availability of Broadband.
if anything, mp3s and movies came about because of the broadband explosion, not the other way around.
Oh, get real. How in the name of heaven do you explain the fact that broadband adoption in the US and number of people using Napster, when graphed, followed the same-shaped curve for Napster's life? Napster and now KaZaA are the killer apps for broadband. Always have been, always will be.
As for movies, I'd say the recent popularity of movie piracy came about because of a combination of cheap DVD-ROM drives and download-friendly codecs like DivX. It sure as hell didn't cause broadband adoption.
Your repeated attempts to bury your head in the sand on this issue are ridiculous.
Depending on the population. N=30 is considered sufficient for some statistical confidence tests. I've used N=30 as a quality control specialist in the meat industry to get results that are accepted by USDA as sufficient for establishing bacteriological control measures (at 95% confidence level).
OK, AOL would never let you play streamed Harry Potter movies on it, but you could use the web and run office applications, which would keep most of us happy. Wouldn't it?
Uh, no. I play games on my system too, so I'm hip-deep in Microsoft's pocket regardless.
That's what I hate about a lot of people here: their reflexive desire to impose their views of what the Net and computing should be all about on others. And isn't that what Doc's article really about? Free as in speech and free as in beer is nothing without free as in choice. And if I choose to run an MS operating system because the programs I want are on it and not on Linux, I get fried by the people here?
Linux Crunchies: Crispy Freedom Coating on the outside, creamy Luddite Filling on the inside.
No one said P2P doesn't have legit use. The RIAA is shutting down an ILLEGITIMATE BitTorrent site. They didn't shutdown the official BT site where RedHat ISO's are distributed.
Sounds like you never visited ByteMonsoon, torrentse.cx, or the newest victim, torrents.us. There IS a lot of legit software being listed on there. In fact, I'm bridging both worlds right now: two things that would get the MPAA pissed at me, and the three Mandrake 9.1 ISOs. All obtained from trackers listed at one of your "illegitimate" sites.
I wouldn't say I'm "down on it," but I don't think it's a magic talisman, either. Do we all really believe that the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/IDSA/SPA and other racketeering organizations aren't going to just get a residential cable modem or DSL account and run their bots on it?
Of course it's not a perfect solution. It isn't even that great of a solution (it does work better than you think for the same reason Open Source development works: lots of eyes looking at the problem from their own unique perspectives). But it does send a message to the **AAs that P2Pers aren't going to lay down just because they say "stop". And you can see that there are people willing and able to contribute to frustrating their draconian behavior.
The motives may not be the best, but the actions are something to praise.
I run PeerGuardian's list on my system (either with its standalone program or through using its list with Sygate Personal Firewall). I've contributed IP blocks to it as well. So, unlike the sanctimonious among/., I know what I'm talking about here.
What I can't understand is why so many people here seem to be down on it. Here is a project that's free as in beer, free as in speech, receiving a great number of contributions from a tech-savvy community, helping to maintain privacy rights, and is making a solid attempt to send a message to the **AAs. This sounds like something the Open Source community would jump on as an example of community action to solve a problem. The fact that K++ is offering it will increase participation among users.
(By the way, the list is not only being constantly updated, a number of times a day, but it's being continually scrutinized for bad or inappropriate ranges. Congrats to eremini, dingdongding, and c00kies2000 for some great work on getting rid of inappropriates and dupes.)
It's not perfect, but it's a good stopgap until a better solution can be found.
>>Some folks use Linux workstations to view graphic data sets. One can do lots of stuff with fast graphics besides blowing things up in games. Like viewing weather, aeronautical, and other kinds of simulations.
Yeah, a real common use, isn't it?
Here's my point: you don't have to make every single story link back to Linux in some way just because this is Slashdot. This is a story that would primarily appeal to those of us who run Windows gaming rigs (yes, me among them). Personally, I want to see a good comparison between the FX5900 and the 9800 Pro because my video card will need to be updated for Half-Life 2 and Doom 3. This fulfilled that purpose nicely.
There are more of me and my type here than the crunchies will admit to.
>>Not to mention that they completely overlook the fact that ATI's Linux drivers provide only a fraction of the performance that the Windows ones do, while the nVidia drivers provide almost the exact same level of performance across the different platforms.
Be honest with yourself for once, crunchie: what's the reason most people would buy a new video card? Games. That's hardly Linux's strong point, is it?
Imagine: Disney pays the fee for "Steamboat Willie", but not for any other Mickey Mouse cartoons -- and then argues that all other Mickey Mouse cartoons are derivative works of "Steamboat Willie", and are naturally covered by the copyright on that work.
Then they're really fucked, because there were two Mickey Mouse cartoons made before "Steamboat Willie", and since those would be public domain, then there would be prior art issues. Or prior cel issues, as the case may be.
I am really sick and tired of people thinking that "Steamboat Willie" was Mickey's debut cartoon. No, it was his first sound cartoon (and it wasn't the first cartoon with sound either, in case you were wondering). You'd think that with all the people on/. bitching and moaning about the intricacies about what SCO might actually own and about what the real benchmarks are on the G5s, someone might do a little elementary research on something that is infinitely more important, like this.
Gordon B. Hinckley President The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints 50 West North Temple Street Salt Lake City, Utah 84150 http://www.lds.org
The Honorable Orrin Hatch 135 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 http://www.senate.gov/~hatch
Dear President Hinckley and Senator Hatch,
I am very, very sorry that we cannot come to an agreement to bridge the differences between us on this issue. However, as Senator Hatch's law stated directly, the importance of protecting ones' coprights is paramount over all other issues, and demands the highest priority.
I hope you understand that the actions we have taken and are about to take to protect oursevles in this matter, which follows the guidelines that Senator Hatch set out last year in his speech to the US Senate Judiciary Committee.
In my encyclical of last September, I made it perfectly clear that the Roman Catholic Church was unwilling to tolerate further theft of copyright and theft of concept regarding its well-known properties Jesus Christ (tm) and its variants and the various and sundry trademarked images and copyrighted concepts of the Passion, the Crucifixion, the Sermon on the Mount, etc. The encyclical, as you remember, gave sixty (60) days for all churches violating those copyrights and trademarks to accomplish a licensing deal with RCC.
Within that sixty-day period, I had received compliance on this issue with the Church of England, Church of Scotland, and numerous Protestant denominations. In fact, the discussions were quite fruitful, and I hope that Senator Hatch will be among the official United States delegation to the Reunification Mass at Westminster Abbey this autumn.
Also, as you know, after the sixty-day period was up, I released a follow-up encyclical giving a second warning, as Senator Hatch had provided for in the aforementioned discussion. After the second encyclical, most of the other holdouts, including the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches the various Baptist sects in the southern United States, and even J. K. Rowling, acknowledged our rights and made licensing deals.
The LDS Church, however, did not. The deadline for compliance passed on 15 June 2004, and thereforde, we will have to take the following actions:
1) Any religion following the precepts of the teachings of Jesus Christ (tm) will be required, as part of the licensing terms, to acknowledge that you no longer have any rights to use those teachings as part of your religious philosophy. Your people, should they not convert to a license-compliant religion, are damned to Hell, never to see the face of God.
2) All LDS temples will be destroyed by crack squadrons of Swiss Guards.
3) All copies of the Book Of Mormon will be seized and pulped. All copies of the Holy Bible not endorsed by a license-compliant religion will be seized and pulped. However, in the interest of compromise, we will allow you limited copyright use of Jesus Christ (tm) in the name of your religion.
4) No LDS service shall use any of RCC's trademarked phrases or any copyrighted concepts. Also, various Lutheran demoninations have requested that we act as a clearance house for their copyright on the serving of punch and cookies after services. On their behalf, we are denying your use of this as well.
5) Brigham Young University will be turned over to the Society of Jesus.
6) All intellectual property allegedly belonging to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir will be confiscated and, as a penalty, placed under permanent copyright of the RCC. The Choir itself will be retrained to sing Gregorian chants.
7) Donny Osmond shall be provided with a high-ranking Franciscan for a manager.
Any and all resistance to these measures will be dealt with in the highest of terms.
We apologize in advance for the inconvenience this will give you, but you put it upon yourselves by failing to respect copyright and trademark.
Yours in Christ,
His Holiness John Paul II CEO and COO, Roman Catholic Church, LLC http://www.vatican.va
Screw IBM. I'm calling the BSA out on my last two employers tomorrow. That'll teach them for 1) running Appgen, one of the worst POS excuses for an accounting software on Earth and 2) treating me like dirt.
Actually, I might end up leaving one employer alone. They're being migrated to Great Plains, and that's torture enough.
Hint: People on other countries don't exist for the sole purpose of serving us.
They may not exist for that purpose, but we Americans can sure make them exist for that purpose. Fortunately, given the conditions of some countries these days, "bombing them back to the Stone Age" doesn't take much effort. And afterward, the Pentagon can make sure that IPv6 standards are enforced in the new, compliant infrastructure.
I've been to Mexico, England, Finland, Russia and Latvia. People actualy have lives there, too. You'd be amazed.
Okay, I've lived in Germany, and been to England, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, and what is now the Czech Republic. They do have lives there, and I'll give you those. However, I work in (management in) the meat industry in Chicago, and let me assure you, if they have lives in Mexico, why the hell are all the Mexicans up here working in my plant?
Note to non-USians: I won't judge your country by your most outrageous people if you don't judge mine by ours. Deal?
Cool by me. But remember that a majority of us who voted didn't want our current "leaders" in office. Please, remember that. We'll try to change it next year.
Quite frankly, I can't wait for SCO to pull IBM's AIX license. My last two employers both used Appgen accounting software (runs on AIX), and neither have an IT department around to pull a switch of packages ASAP. Now, my last two employers didn't treat me very well. So, therefore, when SCO gives me the green light, I call up the BSA, who are stupid enough to fall for something like this. And in case they don't bust them for the AIX programs, there's always the twenty thousand or so bucks worth of pirated software I left on systems when I departed.
Thank you, SCO, for the ability to provide revenge from an unexpected quarter.
Actually, it was Dorothy's sister Vivian Dandridge who did So White's voice (the cartoon was "Coal Black", the character "So White"). And it's one of Clampett's best.
Glad to see that Brad Siegel's reverse Midas touch is working perfectly. For this we're losing Late Nite Black and White? First it got moved to Saturdays from Sundays, and now it's gone, replaced by some crap anime? And I thought Siegel was a complete Stallman when he let World Championship Wrestling die a very hideous public death on his watch as AOLTW's overseer. This takes the cake.
How nice that Chuck Jones and LNB&W die on the same day. Piss on history some more, why don't you? Screw anime, give me classic Warner Brothers!
Let's see if I remember my basic organic chemistry from twenty years ago. Methane is CH4, methanol CH3OH. CH4 plus H2O plus a little energy gives CH3OH plus H2. So you fart into water and hope that the energy that you use for the conversion doesn't blow up the hydrogen, something of great importance on a plane flight. Not to mention the possibility for a potential aesthetic disaster occuring if your intestinal condition isn't up to snuff...
Hell, just skip the middleman and just light your fart.
This might be true for you, and yes, 90% is hyperbole, however look at the system of the average Windows user. I would guess that, of the 'average' Windows users I know, there are a minimum of 10 system tray icons at any time (some have as many as 20). This was bad enough that Microsoft implemented the auto-hide feature in XPs system tray, so to say that nothing is wrong because you know how to manage your system doesn't mean that there is no problem.
Okay, I confess. I have twelve icons in my Quick Launch bar. However, except for Show Desktop, they're all there of my choosing. They're the eleven programs that I use most often, and nary a trace of Windows Media Player can be found (and when it does pop its ugly head up due to upgrades/whatever, right-click/delete is immediate). Some Windows users ARE smart enough to configure their own Quick Launch bar, you know, so don't paint us all with the same brush.
Ironically, one of those buttons happens to be for AudioGalaxy, but I always run AdAware the first thing after installing a file-sharing app, so no pernicious pests on this end, thank you.
I believe there's a level cap on the single player game at around 10th level.
It's actually an experience point cap, and if memory serves is something like 159000 EXPs with Tales of the Sword Coast installed.
However, there is a file that will completely disable it that you can throw in the Override folder (in fact, that file has been ported for all Infinity Engine games). It's small enough that I could have posted the exact contents of the BG1 cap remover here for a cut-and-paste job (it's just a standard text file); the problem was that Slashcode's "lameness filter" rejected it as having too many "special characters". Somehow, I knew that Slash was prejudiced against gaming. That's the real reason that, to paraphrase Imoen, Loki's taking the dirt nap.
I'm very happy that the legal problems have been wrangled out (and I'm even happier I predicted to gamer friends that it'd be Bruno's Bunch Of Happy Fascists who'd get the distro rights; yeah, obvious, since they own the AD&D computer game rights they bought from Hasbro). I'm really, really happy because I'm not wasting my time.
I decided a couple weeks ago that I'd actually do some prep for Neverwinter Nights by leading a character through BG1 and BG2 and importing it into NWN when I pick it up. So now I'm playing through BG1 with TeamBG's terrific Dark Side of the Sword Coast, and I already have BG2 prepped with The Darkest Day replacing Throne of Bhaal (sorry ending, which David Gaider and some of the other guys at Bioware have redone out of dissatisfaction as the Ascension mod). That should get me through to NWN quite nicely (and get me a damn powerful character from the get-go). My only regret is that I'm going to lose the ability to mutate the pantaloons.
I have no idea why this series is being knocked. As a role-player of over twenty years' standing, I think that the BG series is an admirable effort to bring a tabletop feel to a CRPG, which is where the Ultima series falls slightly short. And to the guy who said that he finished BG in forty hours, how about doing some of the side quests? Right now, I've put in over forty hours and am still in Chapter Three, with only about half the maps done.
The only difference is that I doubt Apple/Jobs will give them any more exclusives from now on.
Nah, Jobs still has a love-love relationship with Time. He revealed to them what his big surprise was at Boston '97 to get them to come down and take photos/do a story, and got the cover for his troubles, and got them to keep quiet about Bill and the US$150M until the event. Also, his ego is still fully stroked from when Time was ready to give him Man Of The Year but decided to give it to the personal computer instead (and still gave ol' Steve a huge sidebar in the article). He'll write it off as someone being almost as enthused over the new iLamp as he is and jumping the gun a little. No harm, no foul, and any pub is good pub, along with other cliches.
It has one dependency: spyware. BonziBuddy, ClickTilUWin, a couple others, plus the standard Gator/Office Companion, specifically. No choice on whether or not to install it other than Gator and Office Companion. And the crap isn't uninstalled when LimeWire is either. I don't mind companies looking for revenue streams, but I'll be damned if a program's going to leave stuff on my machine when uninstalled that it put there in the first place. At least BearShare puts all of its spyware in the "choice" category. Screw LimeWire, and thank God for AdAware. It got rid of whatever I didn't pick up.
Remember a few months ago when German lawyers went after the creator of KIllustrator? Adobe had no idea their overseas hired guns were going after this guy for alleged copyright violations (of course, this happened right at the beginning of l'affaire Dmitry, so it might have slipped through the memory hole). This sounds exactly like that, down to the fact that, as per German law, the alleged violator got slapped with the lawyer's bill for "preparing the paperwork". I have this strange feeling that Bruno and his band of corporate raiders have no idea this might be happening, and I'm certain that Sid Meier doesn't.
With CivI and CivII, the dialogue for the boxes was always included as plain text. I remember happily editing the intro dialogue to CivI to do parodies of various things (as did others; the Douglas Adams parody was incredibly popular in its time). I and others also edited some of the various dialogues, not only into foreign languages, but into certain statements that can't really be said in a family site like this one. What Infroggrames is doing is destroying an eleven-year-old tradition. Of course, Infogrames has a habit of doing that.
Civ fans form one of the most dedicated computer gaming communities around, rivaling Quake and Half-Life, not to mention with a great deal more history. If Infogrames wants to keep that fandom on their side to purchase more copies of Infogrames games, this isn't the way to do it.
Speaking for myself, my Win2K has never blue-screened, and has been seized-up-tight only by beta versions of Xxxxx.
I've had only one BSOD with Win2K (of course, I didn't run it until SP2 was out; I may be a non-tech-head, but I'm not stupid). That was due to a very strange conflict between Win2K, BearShare, and the brand of NIC I had in my system. I replaced the NIC, no problem. I've been impressed by 2K's stability after years of struggling with 3.1 and its successors. It's actually pleasing to work with, something I could never say about an MS OS before.
I've tried out RH and Mandrake for kicks, and I do like them (Mandrake 8 series does a great job with installs, and it's almost as painless as a Windows install). However, I haven't replaced Windows, and it's all due to software.
The fact is that tech-focused types are often blind to the needs of users who aren't there. I'm a power user (custom machine with frequent hardware upgrades), but I'm not a techhead. I don't know how to code, and I don't have time to learn. I prefer a painless solution to installing hardware drivers and software. I want my drivers to be available at the time I'm doing an install, not having to search for them endlessly; if the company hasn't produced them, I'd have to pray that someone's decided to write one, which doesn't make me feel very secure. I'm comfortable working with a command line inside of a pseudo-*nix environment (being an old Amigoid), but I prefer a good, solid GUI for time purposes and simplicity. The time and frustration that I would experience from your typical Linux installation is counterproductive to me. And there's still the issue of the fact that my games and Word (which I need specifically; do you know how many recruiters ask for Word-formatted resumes?) won't run.
Don't get me wrong. The Open Source movement is laudable. However, the people involved are causing the movement's crown jewel to lose ground even as they're gaining market share. That was the whole thrust of the article. The thing that needs to be broken is the "by techies, for techies" mentality in order for Linux to gain desktop presence. The Open Source movement is actually a Closed Priesthood right now, and if you aren't one of the initiated, you're left out of the Mystery.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Pepsi DID clean-room Merchandise 7-X, Coca-Cola's "kernel" (as I'm sure that Coke has done with Pepsi's main formulae). At the time of the New Coke fiasco, if Coke didn't back off and decided to kill Coke based on Merchandise 7-X, Pepsi would have had a new brand on the market within weeks called Savannah Cola, which would have used Merchandise 7-X as the core of the formula.
This fact was admitted by one of the head honchos at Pepsi (I don't remember who it was; it wasn't Sculley, because he was long gone for Apple, and I don't think it was Kendall).
Oh, get real. How in the name of heaven do you explain the fact that broadband adoption in the US and number of people using Napster, when graphed, followed the same-shaped curve for Napster's life? Napster and now KaZaA are the killer apps for broadband. Always have been, always will be.
As for movies, I'd say the recent popularity of movie piracy came about because of a combination of cheap DVD-ROM drives and download-friendly codecs like DivX. It sure as hell didn't cause broadband adoption.
Your repeated attempts to bury your head in the sand on this issue are ridiculous.
TS
Depending on the population. N=30 is considered sufficient for some statistical confidence tests. I've used N=30 as a quality control specialist in the meat industry to get results that are accepted by USDA as sufficient for establishing bacteriological control measures (at 95% confidence level).
Uh, no. I play games on my system too, so I'm hip-deep in Microsoft's pocket regardless.
That's what I hate about a lot of people here: their reflexive desire to impose their views of what the Net and computing should be all about on others. And isn't that what Doc's article really about? Free as in speech and free as in beer is nothing without free as in choice. And if I choose to run an MS operating system because the programs I want are on it and not on Linux, I get fried by the people here?
Linux Crunchies: Crispy Freedom Coating on the outside, creamy Luddite Filling on the inside.
Sounds like you never visited ByteMonsoon, torrentse.cx, or the newest victim, torrents.us. There IS a lot of legit software being listed on there. In fact, I'm bridging both worlds right now: two things that would get the MPAA pissed at me, and the three Mandrake 9.1 ISOs. All obtained from trackers listed at one of your "illegitimate" sites.
Slashdot: Land of Sanctimonious Crunchies.
Of course it's not a perfect solution. It isn't even that great of a solution (it does work better than you think for the same reason Open Source development works: lots of eyes looking at the problem from their own unique perspectives). But it does send a message to the **AAs that P2Pers aren't going to lay down just because they say "stop". And you can see that there are people willing and able to contribute to frustrating their draconian behavior.
The motives may not be the best, but the actions are something to praise.
I run PeerGuardian's list on my system (either with its standalone program or through using its list with Sygate Personal Firewall). I've contributed IP blocks to it as well. So, unlike the sanctimonious among /., I know what I'm talking about here.
What I can't understand is why so many people here seem to be down on it. Here is a project that's free as in beer, free as in speech, receiving a great number of contributions from a tech-savvy community, helping to maintain privacy rights, and is making a solid attempt to send a message to the **AAs. This sounds like something the Open Source community would jump on as an example of community action to solve a problem. The fact that K++ is offering it will increase participation among users.
(By the way, the list is not only being constantly updated, a number of times a day, but it's being continually scrutinized for bad or inappropriate ranges. Congrats to eremini, dingdongding, and c00kies2000 for some great work on getting rid of inappropriates and dupes.)
It's not perfect, but it's a good stopgap until a better solution can be found.
The Spie
>>Some folks use Linux workstations to view graphic data sets. One can do lots of stuff with fast graphics besides blowing things up in games. Like viewing weather, aeronautical, and other kinds of simulations.
Yeah, a real common use, isn't it?
Here's my point: you don't have to make every single story link back to Linux in some way just because this is Slashdot. This is a story that would primarily appeal to those of us who run Windows gaming rigs (yes, me among them). Personally, I want to see a good comparison between the FX5900 and the 9800 Pro because my video card will need to be updated for Half-Life 2 and Doom 3. This fulfilled that purpose nicely.
There are more of me and my type here than the crunchies will admit to.
>>Not to mention that they completely overlook the fact that ATI's Linux drivers provide only a fraction of the performance that the Windows ones do, while the nVidia drivers provide almost the exact same level of performance across the different platforms.
Be honest with yourself for once, crunchie: what's the reason most people would buy a new video card? Games. That's hardly Linux's strong point, is it?
Then they're really fucked, because there were two Mickey Mouse cartoons made before "Steamboat Willie", and since those would be public domain, then there would be prior art issues. Or prior cel issues, as the case may be.
I am really sick and tired of people thinking that "Steamboat Willie" was Mickey's debut cartoon. No, it was his first sound cartoon (and it wasn't the first cartoon with sound either, in case you were wondering). You'd think that with all the people on /. bitching and moaning about the intricacies about what SCO might actually own and about what the real benchmarks are on the G5s, someone might do a little elementary research on something that is infinitely more important, like this.
18 June 2004
Gordon B. Hinckley
President
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
50 West North Temple Street
Salt Lake City, Utah 84150
http://www.lds.org
The Honorable Orrin Hatch
135 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
http://www.senate.gov/~hatch
Dear President Hinckley and Senator Hatch,
I am very, very sorry that we cannot come to an agreement to bridge the differences between us on this issue. However, as Senator Hatch's law stated directly, the importance of protecting ones' coprights is paramount over all other issues, and demands the highest priority.
I hope you understand that the actions we have taken and are about to take to protect oursevles in this matter, which follows the guidelines that Senator Hatch set out last year in his speech to the US Senate Judiciary Committee.
In my encyclical of last September, I made it perfectly clear that the Roman Catholic Church was unwilling to tolerate further theft of copyright and theft of concept regarding its well-known properties Jesus Christ (tm) and its variants and the various and sundry trademarked images and copyrighted concepts of the Passion, the Crucifixion, the Sermon on the Mount, etc. The encyclical, as you remember, gave sixty (60) days for all churches violating those copyrights and trademarks to accomplish a licensing deal with RCC.
Within that sixty-day period, I had received compliance on this issue with the Church of England, Church of Scotland, and numerous Protestant denominations. In fact, the discussions were quite fruitful, and I hope that Senator Hatch will be among the official United States delegation to the Reunification Mass at Westminster Abbey this autumn.
Also, as you know, after the sixty-day period was up, I released a follow-up encyclical giving a second warning, as Senator Hatch had provided for in the aforementioned discussion. After the second encyclical, most of the other holdouts, including the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches the various Baptist sects in the southern United States, and even J. K. Rowling, acknowledged our rights and made licensing deals.
The LDS Church, however, did not. The deadline for compliance passed on 15 June 2004, and thereforde, we will have to take the following actions:
1) Any religion following the precepts of the teachings of Jesus Christ (tm) will be required, as part of the licensing terms, to acknowledge that you no longer have any rights to use those teachings as part of your religious philosophy. Your people, should they not convert to a license-compliant religion, are damned to Hell, never to see the face of God.
2) All LDS temples will be destroyed by crack squadrons of Swiss Guards.
3) All copies of the Book Of Mormon will be seized and pulped. All copies of the Holy Bible not endorsed by a license-compliant religion will be seized and pulped. However, in the interest of compromise, we will allow you limited copyright use of Jesus Christ (tm) in the name of your religion.
4) No LDS service shall use any of RCC's trademarked phrases or any copyrighted concepts. Also, various Lutheran demoninations have requested that we act as a clearance house for their copyright on the serving of punch and cookies after services. On their behalf, we are denying your use of this as well.
5) Brigham Young University will be turned over to the Society of Jesus.
6) All intellectual property allegedly belonging to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir will be confiscated and, as a penalty, placed under permanent copyright of the RCC. The Choir itself will be retrained to sing Gregorian chants.
7) Donny Osmond shall be provided with a high-ranking Franciscan for a manager.
Any and all resistance to these measures will be dealt with in the highest of terms.
We apologize in advance for the inconvenience this will give you, but you put it upon yourselves by failing to respect copyright and trademark.
Yours in Christ,
His Holiness John Paul II
CEO and COO, Roman Catholic Church, LLC
http://www.vatican.va
Screw IBM. I'm calling the BSA out on my last two employers tomorrow. That'll teach them for 1) running Appgen, one of the worst POS excuses for an accounting software on Earth and 2) treating me like dirt.
Actually, I might end up leaving one employer alone. They're being migrated to Great Plains, and that's torture enough.
They may not exist for that purpose, but we Americans can sure make them exist for that purpose. Fortunately, given the conditions of some countries these days, "bombing them back to the Stone Age" doesn't take much effort. And afterward, the Pentagon can make sure that IPv6 standards are enforced in the new, compliant infrastructure.
I've been to Mexico, England, Finland, Russia and Latvia. People actualy have lives there, too. You'd be amazed.
Okay, I've lived in Germany, and been to England, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, and what is now the Czech Republic. They do have lives there, and I'll give you those. However, I work in (management in) the meat industry in Chicago, and let me assure you, if they have lives in Mexico, why the hell are all the Mexicans up here working in my plant?
Note to non-USians: I won't judge your country by your most outrageous people if you don't judge mine by ours. Deal?
Cool by me. But remember that a majority of us who voted didn't want our current "leaders" in office. Please, remember that. We'll try to change it next year.
Quite frankly, I can't wait for SCO to pull IBM's AIX license. My last two employers both used Appgen accounting software (runs on AIX), and neither have an IT department around to pull a switch of packages ASAP. Now, my last two employers didn't treat me very well. So, therefore, when SCO gives me the green light, I call up the BSA, who are stupid enough to fall for something like this. And in case they don't bust them for the AIX programs, there's always the twenty thousand or so bucks worth of pirated software I left on systems when I departed.
Thank you, SCO, for the ability to provide revenge from an unexpected quarter.
Actually, it was Dorothy's sister Vivian Dandridge who did So White's voice (the cartoon was "Coal Black", the character "So White"). And it's one of Clampett's best.
How nice that Chuck Jones and LNB&W die on the same day. Piss on history some more, why don't you? Screw anime, give me classic Warner Brothers!
Let's see if I remember my basic organic chemistry from twenty years ago. Methane is CH4, methanol CH3OH. CH4 plus H2O plus a little energy gives CH3OH plus H2. So you fart into water and hope that the energy that you use for the conversion doesn't blow up the hydrogen, something of great importance on a plane flight. Not to mention the possibility for a potential aesthetic disaster occuring if your intestinal condition isn't up to snuff...
Hell, just skip the middleman and just light your fart.
Okay, I confess. I have twelve icons in my Quick Launch bar. However, except for Show Desktop, they're all there of my choosing. They're the eleven programs that I use most often, and nary a trace of Windows Media Player can be found (and when it does pop its ugly head up due to upgrades/whatever, right-click/delete is immediate). Some Windows users ARE smart enough to configure their own Quick Launch bar, you know, so don't paint us all with the same brush.
Ironically, one of those buttons happens to be for AudioGalaxy, but I always run AdAware the first thing after installing a file-sharing app, so no pernicious pests on this end, thank you.
It's actually an experience point cap, and if memory serves is something like 159000 EXPs with Tales of the Sword Coast installed.
However, there is a file that will completely disable it that you can throw in the Override folder (in fact, that file has been ported for all Infinity Engine games). It's small enough that I could have posted the exact contents of the BG1 cap remover here for a cut-and-paste job (it's just a standard text file); the problem was that Slashcode's "lameness filter" rejected it as having too many "special characters". Somehow, I knew that Slash was prejudiced against gaming. That's the real reason that, to paraphrase Imoen, Loki's taking the dirt nap.
That being said, this site does show promise.
I decided a couple weeks ago that I'd actually do some prep for Neverwinter Nights by leading a character through BG1 and BG2 and importing it into NWN when I pick it up. So now I'm playing through BG1 with TeamBG's terrific Dark Side of the Sword Coast , and I already have BG2 prepped with The Darkest Day replacing Throne of Bhaal (sorry ending, which David Gaider and some of the other guys at Bioware have redone out of dissatisfaction as the Ascension mod). That should get me through to NWN quite nicely (and get me a damn powerful character from the get-go). My only regret is that I'm going to lose the ability to mutate the pantaloons.
I have no idea why this series is being knocked. As a role-player of over twenty years' standing, I think that the BG series is an admirable effort to bring a tabletop feel to a CRPG, which is where the Ultima series falls slightly short. And to the guy who said that he finished BG in forty hours, how about doing some of the side quests? Right now, I've put in over forty hours and am still in Chapter Three, with only about half the maps done.
Bring on Neverwinter Nights.
Why does Microsoft saying they're going to focus on security remind me of the US government talking about campaign finance reform?
Nah, Jobs still has a love-love relationship with Time. He revealed to them what his big surprise was at Boston '97 to get them to come down and take photos/do a story, and got the cover for his troubles, and got them to keep quiet about Bill and the US$150M until the event. Also, his ego is still fully stroked from when Time was ready to give him Man Of The Year but decided to give it to the personal computer instead (and still gave ol' Steve a huge sidebar in the article). He'll write it off as someone being almost as enthused over the new iLamp as he is and jumping the gun a little. No harm, no foul, and any pub is good pub, along with other cliches.
- Being without a sig has no bearing on my life.
It has one dependency: spyware. BonziBuddy, ClickTilUWin, a couple others, plus the standard Gator/Office Companion, specifically. No choice on whether or not to install it other than Gator and Office Companion. And the crap isn't uninstalled when LimeWire is either. I don't mind companies looking for revenue streams, but I'll be damned if a program's going to leave stuff on my machine when uninstalled that it put there in the first place. At least BearShare puts all of its spyware in the "choice" category. Screw LimeWire, and thank God for AdAware. It got rid of whatever I didn't pick up.
With CivI and CivII, the dialogue for the boxes was always included as plain text. I remember happily editing the intro dialogue to CivI to do parodies of various things (as did others; the Douglas Adams parody was incredibly popular in its time). I and others also edited some of the various dialogues, not only into foreign languages, but into certain statements that can't really be said in a family site like this one. What Infroggrames is doing is destroying an eleven-year-old tradition. Of course, Infogrames has a habit of doing that.
Civ fans form one of the most dedicated computer gaming communities around, rivaling Quake and Half-Life, not to mention with a great deal more history. If Infogrames wants to keep that fandom on their side to purchase more copies of Infogrames games, this isn't the way to do it.
I've had only one BSOD with Win2K (of course, I didn't run it until SP2 was out; I may be a non-tech-head, but I'm not stupid). That was due to a very strange conflict between Win2K, BearShare, and the brand of NIC I had in my system. I replaced the NIC, no problem. I've been impressed by 2K's stability after years of struggling with 3.1 and its successors. It's actually pleasing to work with, something I could never say about an MS OS before.
I've tried out RH and Mandrake for kicks, and I do like them (Mandrake 8 series does a great job with installs, and it's almost as painless as a Windows install). However, I haven't replaced Windows, and it's all due to software.
The fact is that tech-focused types are often blind to the needs of users who aren't there. I'm a power user (custom machine with frequent hardware upgrades), but I'm not a techhead. I don't know how to code, and I don't have time to learn. I prefer a painless solution to installing hardware drivers and software. I want my drivers to be available at the time I'm doing an install, not having to search for them endlessly; if the company hasn't produced them, I'd have to pray that someone's decided to write one, which doesn't make me feel very secure. I'm comfortable working with a command line inside of a pseudo-*nix environment (being an old Amigoid), but I prefer a good, solid GUI for time purposes and simplicity. The time and frustration that I would experience from your typical Linux installation is counterproductive to me. And there's still the issue of the fact that my games and Word (which I need specifically; do you know how many recruiters ask for Word-formatted resumes?) won't run.
Don't get me wrong. The Open Source movement is laudable. However, the people involved are causing the movement's crown jewel to lose ground even as they're gaining market share. That was the whole thrust of the article. The thing that needs to be broken is the "by techies, for techies" mentality in order for Linux to gain desktop presence. The Open Source movement is actually a Closed Priesthood right now, and if you aren't one of the initiated, you're left out of the Mystery.
The Spie