It's always been my understanding of the law that it prevents taxes specific to the Internet. As in, you can't add an extra tax onto something just because it's an Internet/e-commerce purchase. It doesn't mean other taxes from the purchase (sales tax, use tax) aren't due on the item in question.
Now, other forms of speech are still assumed to be protected, but the protections on non-political speech may be trumped by other concerns, such as an intellectual property system that promotes investment in and development of new technology.
Which is a scary principle, in that it almost makes whistle-blowing un-protected speech... I know that whistle-blowing has its own legal protections, but without that protection it sounds as if it'd be iffy as to whether or not it would be protected speech given the court's decision. What's the threshold for "addressing a matter of public concern" or "contributing to public debate"? It's a slippery slope they've stepped on...
Have a reference to those interviews? According to this list of credits (scroll down the page some) Mastering on Vapor Trails was done by Howie Weinberg and Roger Lian. Lee (and Lifeson and Peart) are all credited as Engineers in addition to their performances.
White Wolf has always recognized this and tailored their games towards players who want hand-holding and lots of "atmospheric scene-setting" advice. At the same time, they also designed their games so anyone could play as creative a campaign as they wanted.
This is the exact conundrum most game companies find themselves in. Players run the gamut from "tell me everything about the setting" to "only give me a bare bones framework to build on" and so a game designer must walk a line between filling in details while still leaving room for creativity on the part of the players. The result is that the middle ground is satisfied, while the two ends complain about not-enough/too-much detail in the material.
they're bringing in a "new World of Darkness" in August 2004
One begins to wonder if they're going to do more continuity with their historical Vamp/Were/Mage material. The modern WoD has had quite a bit of re-fitting done to it as they've added new setting material.
Actually, the CoC d20 rules are pretty good; they don't really destroy the tone unless you/your group let them. (With the noted exception of level-based hit points; just use HP==(STR+CON)/2 and you're set.)
And I've seen other d20/OGL games be quite creative with the d20 mechanic - Mutants & Masterminds from Green Ronin Press does Superheroes quite well, ignoring some of the horrid legacy rules that AD&D has.
However, the D&D rules suck pretty badly for any tone of game other than Epic-Heroic Saga. Given that they still can't treat "hit points" consistently throughout the system, after 3.5 versions, I really don't expect D&D to improve any time soon, either.
What it comes down to is that while a given RPG system/mechanic does not prevent you from playing a particular theme or tone for a game, the system/mechanics can influence how players direct and develop their characters. D&D pretty much only has rules for building and refining the ultimate combat monster, thus reinforcing that style of play and pushing other styles to the side.
but this really seems more like you're paying them to broker a deal with the people who have, for the most part, completely fucked up the music industry for the last decade
Who, Apple? Plus, if you'd actually read CDBaby's terms, you'd realize that their terms are actually quite reasonable. You're not signing with a label, nor is CDBaby your exclusive distributor - they're only your exclusive distributor for on-line distribution, which you can terminate at 30 days notice. Seems pretty flexible to me...
If DnD is just hack and slash to you, fine, but it does not have to be.
You really nee [sic] to stop letting the system dictate how you play.
The way to advance your character in D&D is to gain Levels. The way to gain Levels is to acquire a set number of Experience Points. The defined mechanism in D&D for gaining Experience Points is to Kill Things.
How does this not, at the least, strongly influence how to play?
And before you say it, yes, I'm aware that a GM can award XP for other things, but it's not defined in the rules, so anyone looking at the rules sees a simple "Kill Things == Experience" relationship.
I would guess that WotC is going to move to a contract-based model with regards to their writers - pay-per-work as opposed to paying them salary. In the end the writers and WotC are more flexible in terms of their output.
I tend to agree with the above comments about the d20 system. While they improved some aspects (Feats, Skills), it's basically the same old recycled crap (Armor Class, Level-based Hit Points, Classes) from the previous editions. The system is heavily biased towards cinematic/high-fantasy games (i.e. characters with god-like abilities), and needs serious work to do anything else. I do think it's better than either 1st Ed. or 2nd Ed., though. To quote James Wallis, "I have enormous respect for what it's achieved in terms of dragging D&D's rules into the late 1980s [...]" Of course, the d20 rules were released only a couple years ago...:^)
You could probably roll your own rather quickly with the CGRemoteOperation API:/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.fra mework/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Headers/C GRemoteOperation.h
What this system allows is media-shifting (applicable under the AHRA and the Betamax scenarios) for personal use. Under the AHRA, you can still make custom compilations on digital media to give to your friends.
Indeed. Even now, there are people trying to take analog video recordings that they have acquired and move them to a digital format for preservation. Plus, the (physical) space requirements of a CD/DVD are much less than a VHS tape. In addition, space-shifting MPEG-2 video to MPEG-4 so that you can carry several movies on a single DVD-ROM with you on your extended vacation (which currently would require you to fire up the old video encoding farm, but that's beside the point:) is prevented by the DMCA, but similar actions are allowed by the AHRA. And the MPAA's argument is that new technology development changes the game. Wasn't the same (or a very similar) argument made in the Betamax case? --
I think it was fairly stupid of apple to not ship at least cc and make with the beta, this prevents non-apple paying developers to actually port anything. -fintler
Of course, if you had taken the time to do a little research, you'd know that Apple has the tools publicly available through Darwin as well as their ADC program (online-only reg is free...). And there have been lots of non-apple non-paying developers porting things to Darwin. But you're just talking out of ignorance, weren't you?
--
Another thought. If an amount X of fossil fuels produces Y energy, how much energy does it require to extract, process, transport, store, etc. that amount X? The argument always seems to have the POV that the burning of fossil fuels, it costs nothing to produce said fuel in the first place. --
What is it about deposition which causes people to suffer from strange memory losses?
Attorney-client privelege. In the deposition, since it's a legal proceeding, he doesn't have to admit knowledge gained/imparted through his legal counsel. So throughout his deposition, all his "I don't know" translate to "I don't remember if anyone other than my lawyer(s) were the first to bring this up". Of course, in his op-ed pieces, he can spout whatever he's heard without legal context. That's the fun trick of legal testimony.
Remember, the Legal World and the Real World don't work the same way. --
The ".app" files are bundles, and they're a replacement for mulitple-fork files, since only HFS(+) supports two forks, and OS X supports POSIX VFS type file systems, which don't support two forks. The ".app" files (directory trees) can be moved to any fs without worrying about losing the resource fork... --
This question was asked multiple times at WWDC this past week. The answer given was that the Terminal.app would be included on a separate Developer CD, which wouldn't be included in the box you would buy at your local retailer, but you could get it (which would include the development tools) from Apple. Presumably you could download them all, as well (since most of them *are* GNU-based and part of the Darwin project, to boot). But the story itself is that MacOS X will include a full BSD environment, just no command line tool:). The BSD Support session on Friday was pretty cool and interesting, with part of the talk by Jordan Hubbard (of the FreeBSD Core team, for those who don't know). --
Generally, an increased audience (especially to a market that you normally can't reach) is something you WANT, not something you sue over...
It seems to me it's because there's no way for the TV stations to make money off the rebroadcasts: iCrave isn't paying them and they can't charge the advertisers for more ad time, since ad time is sold at rates based on a show's expected viewership (Neilson ratings).
(I haven't read the article - for some reason, lynx chokes on the URL...) --
A link from an old Slashdot story is a story in Wired. Basically, Iridium use(s|d) a frequency that "bled" into one frequently used by radio-astronomers to observe the cosmos. --
Quite possibly. IIRC, the hot fusion problem is one of efficiency, i.e. it's only returning something like 90+ percent of the energy used to start it (it's not self-sustaining yet). --
I saw Crow... he's the one that turned his head to say, "Shut up and watch the movie!" I almost fell off the couch laughing. But that happens quite a bit during Futurama...:) --
...as long as I don't run out of disk space. (Paraphrasing a comment I heard at a DC thinktank.) It was noted that storage requirements for geographic data (geologic, topographic, etc.) would require petabytes. Multiple petabytes. And a petabyte is 1000 terabytes (right?). And we're thinking 36GB hard drives and DVD-RAM drives have a lot of space... --
Carmack's first release was last week, MacOS X Server only. The Darwin-only version is in progress, since there're some Objective-C runtime issues. Heh. Dual monitors, one with Aqua, one with X, simple mouse movement between the two. *wipes drool off chin* --
Slashdot Mirror
It's always been my understanding of the law that it prevents taxes specific to the Internet. As in, you can't add an extra tax onto something just because it's an Internet/e-commerce purchase. It doesn't mean other taxes from the purchase (sales tax, use tax) aren't due on the item in question.
Which is a scary principle, in that it almost makes whistle-blowing un-protected speech...
I know that whistle-blowing has its own legal protections, but without that protection it sounds as if it'd be iffy as to whether or not it would be protected speech given the court's decision. What's the threshold for "addressing a matter of public concern" or "contributing to public debate"? It's a slippery slope they've stepped on...
This is the exact conundrum most game companies find themselves in. Players run the gamut from "tell me everything about the setting" to "only give me a bare bones framework to build on" and so a game designer must walk a line between filling in details while still leaving room for creativity on the part of the players. The result is that the middle ground is satisfied, while the two ends complain about not-enough/too-much detail in the material.
Actually, the CoC d20 rules are pretty good; they don't really destroy the tone unless you/your group let them. (With the noted exception of level-based hit points; just use HP==(STR+CON)/2 and you're set.)
And I've seen other d20/OGL games be quite creative with the d20 mechanic - Mutants & Masterminds from Green Ronin Press does Superheroes quite well, ignoring some of the horrid legacy rules that AD&D has.
However, the D&D rules suck pretty badly for any tone of game other than Epic-Heroic Saga. Given that they still can't treat "hit points" consistently throughout the system, after 3.5 versions, I really don't expect D&D to improve any time soon, either.
What it comes down to is that while a given RPG system/mechanic does not prevent you from playing a particular theme or tone for a game, the system/mechanics can influence how players direct and develop their characters. D&D pretty much only has rules for building and refining the ultimate combat monster, thus reinforcing that style of play and pushing other styles to the side.
or, instead of the d20 trademark logo, they stick a picture of a 20-sided die somewhere prominent. Like the Everquest RPG did, IIRC.
but this really seems more like you're paying them to broker a deal with the people who have, for the most part, completely fucked up the music industry for the last decade
Who, Apple? Plus, if you'd actually read CDBaby's terms, you'd realize that their terms are actually quite reasonable. You're not signing with a label, nor is CDBaby your exclusive distributor - they're only your exclusive distributor for on-line distribution, which you can terminate at 30 days notice. Seems pretty flexible to me...
Actually, I think that they were simply shot down by the Martian Air Force...
If DnD is just hack and slash to you, fine, but it does not have to be.
You really nee [sic] to stop letting the system dictate how you play.
The way to advance your character in D&D is to gain Levels. The way to gain Levels is to acquire a set number of Experience Points. The defined mechanism in D&D for gaining Experience Points is to Kill Things.
How does this not, at the least, strongly influence how to play?
And before you say it, yes, I'm aware that a GM can award XP for other things, but it's not defined in the rules, so anyone looking at the rules sees a simple "Kill Things == Experience" relationship.
I would guess that WotC is going to move to a contract-based model with regards to their writers - pay-per-work as opposed to paying them salary. In the end the writers and WotC are more flexible in terms of their output. :^)
I tend to agree with the above comments about the d20 system. While they improved some aspects (Feats, Skills), it's basically the same old recycled crap (Armor Class, Level-based Hit Points, Classes) from the previous editions. The system is heavily biased towards cinematic/high-fantasy games (i.e. characters with god-like abilities), and needs serious work to do anything else. I do think it's better than either 1st Ed. or 2nd Ed., though. To quote James Wallis, "I have enormous respect for what it's achieved in terms of dragging D&D's rules into the late 1980s [...]" Of course, the d20 rules were released only a couple years ago...
You could probably roll your own rather quickly with the CGRemoteOperation API: /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.fra mework/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Headers/C GRemoteOperation.h
What this system allows is media-shifting (applicable under the AHRA and the Betamax scenarios) for personal use. Under the AHRA, you can still make custom compilations on digital media to give to your friends.
:) is prevented by the DMCA, but similar actions are allowed by the AHRA. And the MPAA's argument is that new technology development changes the game. Wasn't the same (or a very similar) argument made in the Betamax case?
Indeed. Even now, there are people trying to take analog video recordings that they have acquired and move them to a digital format for preservation. Plus, the (physical) space requirements of a CD/DVD are much less than a VHS tape. In addition, space-shifting MPEG-2 video to MPEG-4 so that you can carry several movies on a single DVD-ROM with you on your extended vacation (which currently would require you to fire up the old video encoding farm, but that's beside the point
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but I don't see any free registration
It's right here, and it doesn't require any money. Or see one of the previous posts about access through the Darwin project.
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I think it was fairly stupid of apple to not ship at least cc and make with the beta, this prevents non-apple paying developers to actually port anything. -fintler
Of course, if you had taken the time to do a little research, you'd know that Apple has the tools publicly available through Darwin as well as their ADC program (online-only reg is free...). And there have been lots of non-apple non-paying developers porting things to Darwin. But you're just talking out of ignorance, weren't you?
--
Another thought. If an amount X of fossil fuels produces Y energy, how much energy does it require to extract, process, transport, store, etc. that amount X? The argument always seems to have the POV that the burning of fossil fuels, it costs nothing to produce said fuel in the first place.
--
What is it about deposition which causes people to suffer from strange memory losses?
Attorney-client privelege. In the deposition, since it's a legal proceeding, he doesn't have to admit knowledge gained/imparted through his legal counsel. So throughout his deposition, all his "I don't know" translate to "I don't remember if anyone other than my lawyer(s) were the first to bring this up". Of course, in his op-ed pieces, he can spout whatever he's heard without legal context. That's the fun trick of legal testimony.
Remember, the Legal World and the Real World don't work the same way.
--
The ".app" files are bundles, and they're a replacement for mulitple-fork files, since only HFS(+) supports two forks, and OS X supports POSIX VFS type file systems, which don't support two forks. The ".app" files (directory trees) can be moved to any fs without worrying about losing the resource fork...
--
This question was asked multiple times at WWDC this past week. The answer given was that the Terminal.app would be included on a separate Developer CD, which wouldn't be included in the box you would buy at your local retailer, but you could get it (which would include the development tools) from Apple. Presumably you could download them all, as well (since most of them *are* GNU-based and part of the Darwin project, to boot). But the story itself is that MacOS X will include a full BSD environment, just no command line tool :). The BSD Support session on Friday was pretty cool and interesting, with part of the talk by Jordan Hubbard (of the FreeBSD Core team, for those who don't know).
--
Generally, an increased audience (especially to a market that you normally can't reach) is something you WANT, not something you sue over...
It seems to me it's because there's no way for the TV stations to make money off the rebroadcasts: iCrave isn't paying them and they can't charge the advertisers for more ad time, since ad time is sold at rates based on a show's expected viewership (Neilson ratings).
(I haven't read the article - for some reason, lynx chokes on the URL...)
--
A link from an old Slashdot story is a story in Wired. Basically, Iridium use(s|d) a frequency that "bled" into one frequently used by radio-astronomers to observe the cosmos.
--
Quite possibly. IIRC, the hot fusion problem is one of efficiency, i.e. it's only returning something like 90+ percent of the energy used to start it (it's not self-sustaining yet).
--
I saw Crow... he's the one that turned his head to say, "Shut up and watch the movie!" I almost fell off the couch laughing. But that happens quite a bit during Futurama... :)
--
...as long as I don't run out of disk space. (Paraphrasing a comment I heard at a DC thinktank.)
It was noted that storage requirements for geographic data (geologic, topographic, etc.) would require petabytes. Multiple petabytes. And a petabyte is 1000 terabytes (right?). And we're thinking 36GB hard drives and DVD-RAM drives have a lot of space...
--
Carmack's first release was last week, MacOS X Server only. The Darwin-only version is in progress, since there're some Objective-C runtime issues. Heh. Dual monitors, one with Aqua, one with X, simple mouse movement between the two. *wipes drool off chin*
--