The Tick is one of the very rare superhero parodies I have ever liked. After 4 years working in comic book stores, I developed a deep loathing for Marvel and DC superhero blandness. This developed into a love of the alternative presses, Last gasp, Rip-Off, Dark Horse (sometimes) and especially the really underground small-press scene.
Often, people produced superhero spoofs, but most of the time these were weak and lacking in anything to distinguish them from the increasingly uninventive superhero market itself.
The Tick stands out from that crowd as an example of a comic book that truly rocked! What's more, the animated series was fantastic too:-)
Can they make it a hat-trick with a succcessful live action series?
What I have trouble fathoming is why VA-Linux would want to be associated with a site that currently appears to be crumbling at the seams due to the activity of its users.
As a long time/. reader I am dismayed at the current troll activity. What's worse is that I just cannnot see it going away.
If the troll activity continues, I cannot see VA allowing Slashdot to continue - let's face it, would you want your company associated with a site that consists about 30% of references to grits and Natalie Portman? I wouldn't.
Hmm, RH distributions don't *always* include the How-To's and stuff. The Publishers Edition, which is distribute with RedHat based books saves space by not including the How-To's (or I believe source-code, although there are clear notices that it is freely available).
I've had exactly the problem described at the start of this thread. Although I fortunately have Internet access from work, so I can get hold of what I need, but it can be a pain in the butt from home.
like the guys who nailed a million dollars to a board and set fire to it...
That would be the KLF then!
The followup was even better, for the last few years, they have been auctioning small sections of the film of that event at various shows they have done.
I was extremely tempted a while back to try and raid one of their events and "kidnap" the remains of their film and ransom it back to them... but laziness got the better of me:-)
Who says that the authorities don't have a sense of humour. Surely, packaging the source code that is contested in a case into public court documents so they can be spread freely around the whole world is one of the funniest hacks going.
I nominate this for Slashdot's Greatest Hacks of the 21st Century competition that will probably show up in 999 years or so:-)
Thank you "SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA "
If you read their actual Wireless Internet White Paper, they are intimating that any company that creates a WAP based site and has an income of over 1,000,000 USD will have to pay the licensing fee.
They are also extremely unclear as to how companies with lower turnovers will be affected - there is certainly no guarantee in their papers that there will be no license fee for general use by non-profits or low-profits.
Think it's not important? Where would the web be now if 5 years ago all the companies who wanted to start putting up sites had to pony up 20 G's first?
It may not hurt the MS's and RedHats of this world, but it's sure as hell going to hurt the development and uptake of WAP as a standard if the MSE's (Medium Sized Enterprises) can't get onto the playing field.
I too remember GEOS and have been using it even recently on my Nokia 9000 Comunicator.
However, as a developer of a non-profit wap site and a developers mailing list, I felt that I should write and let Geoworks know how many developers will feel about this action and how it could harm the both the development of WAP as a serious standard and their own reputation.
I encourage others to write (an email address is on the letter), but also encourage people to write a civil letter of complaint - or don't bother. We should all by now know the damage that letters of abuse can do.
This so called "reporter" is a menace and a proven liar. If you would like to read more about his so called journalistic coups, take a look at the very very good British newsletter Need To Know.
They have been covering his misreporting and his bumbling attempts to infiltrate direct action groups in the UK by "fakemailing" them for some time now.
Please, do not even consider believing a word that this buffoon says. How he still holds a post at the Times is quite beyond me.
The Hacker News Network has been asking much the same question. Anti Virus companies have been labelling some programs that allow remote undetected monitoring of a computer as virusses (e.g. BO2K) while other products released by "mainstream" software companies,(such as Softeyes) are not scanned for at all.
What makes an anti virus company label one program as a vrius, while another program with similar uses is unlabelled?
This is good news. Since the early 90's, when VR suddenly went from being the latest buzz to being a dirty word, any projects that have tried to investigate new advances in VR tech have either been doomed to budget failure, or have had to cloeak the project in other terms such as 3D visualisation, or such.
It takes someone like Carmack, who having completed 3 rounds of Quake (if you get my drift), have the time, inclination, clout and reasons to put some heavy duty effort into getting some real cool "3D visualisation" technology into the hands of Joe Schmuck (that's you and me:-).
.. either that or perhaps the militay will hand us some of it's offshoots:-)
Banner advertising, love it or hate it, is one way of getting people to link to your site and discover your product.
Banner advertisers offer all sorts of mechanisms for showing you how many click-thoughs you have had etc. How can you tell though if they are telling the truth? One way of checking is to use a different URL to your site from each advertising site.
Use a URL like this http://cookstour.org?slashdot
The ? marks the beginning of a query string and should not cause any problems in your pages unless you have a dynamic first page, expecting query string arguments. (In this case build your own tracker!)
So what does this do? Well those different querystring srguments will show up as different entry pages in your log files, allowing you to tally the agency's click-through figures against your own.
You can of course also use this technique for any time you place a link to your own pages and want to know where it came from.
I have had clients in doain battles (from both sides) a few times and it ha always been a fairly drawn out process. I would advise that you be prepared for a bit of a battle.
The interesting thing in this particular case is that your site pertains to your adversary! However, as you have had the domain for 3 years and have been using it in a legal manner, I would say you have a good case to continue using it.
It strikes me that the difficult situation here may be your ISP. I would recommend that you talk to them as well, outline the situation and find out what their policy is on such manners. They have less personal interest in this case and may well decide that they can no longer host your domain to avoid legal disputes. Try and convince them that you have a strong case and that it is in their interests to continue hosting the domain.
After that, I would talk to a lawyer - hopefully someone here will have suggestions for a good lawyer with domain issue experience in the States.
Finally, I would suggest that in my humble experience, these cases don't make it to court so very often. It's like Cease and Desist Orders, which can often be resolved out of court with little hassle, as long as both sides try and keep their heads.
I distinctly remember a game package (can you believe it) for the ZX81 called "Can O Worms" which had "adult" games.
Around the same time, there was definitely an adventure, which was a kind of text based "Leisure Suit Larry" type game, where the quote comes from.
I remember it so clearly because I was only about 11 at the time and I *really* wanted to get a look at those games, but only ever got a chance to read the reviews in Computer & Video Games.
Hmm, I just thought I would like to get my personal prediction onto/. now so that when I'm right I can link back to this and show people how clever I was:-)
I think it's gonna be a chip designed for use in laptop / palm size devices that will run (at least one) full-scale O/S. It will have in-built support for various communications protocols (in much the same way as MMX has support for various multimedia tricks right now) and the reprogrammability of the chip will allow for upgrading with further protocols in the future.
The potential dream use? A "tricorder" style device, basically a fully sized computer with instant always-on wireless access to the Internet.
Even if it's not this, can someone please get their asses in gear and make one g'dammit!
I tell you something that really bothers me about this - somehow I can't see Jerry Yang being really into the idea of broad software patents like this.
Does anyone have his email so folks can (politely) ask him about this policy? Maybe we can convince him to pledge to not use the patent, but hold it open for community use?
OK, I'm just wondering - how often are Yahoo going to be able to find out whether someone is using such a system? I mean, I could program a system to do that tomorrow - but unless I make the code available, nobody is gonna be any the wiser.
Of course - that is a real issue for the/.'s and other Open Source developers of the world, but for developers who are creating custom systems for clients, such a technique is surely impossible to detect.
Secondly - can they prosecute someone for using a program that contains such code, or does the patent only cover writing code to implement such a system in the first place?
Finally, can Yahoo use such a patent - originating in the US - against companies in other countries, or does the patent only cover US applications development?
Also intersting to note - Yahoo are currently being sued themselves over patent violation, Wired have the article.
I have actually seen the Chalmers 3D cube at an open day. I have to say that compared to some other VR type projects I have seen before, it wasn't so impressive. However, the idea of building a window manager for such a space is quite interesting.
It's certainly not somewhere one would want to work normally - it's no desktop computer replacement. However, imagine working on a project with a group of people - let's say an architectural project.
Now can you see the use of being able to work in a 3D space which it feels as though you are immersed in? Sure, this is not something which would be possible with the current implementation, it would need some specific applications for working in such an environment, plus some sort of control mechanism for people to affect the environment.
Other possible uses could include product mock-ups, collaborative work on molecular modelling, educational presentations and more.
While the cube wasn't so interesting as a plain VR app, it is REALLY interesting as a new possibility for immersive computing.
You are right of course, but don't you think that's a little implicit:-) I would hold that it is still possible to get around a system such as the australian government is trying to implement, but as I said in my original post, people will need to be bothered to do so.
Slashdot Mirror
I read that title wrong and was really looking forward to free hamburgers for everyone with Internet access.
Yeah, but just think how cool it probably looks *underneath* all that fur .
I can imagine stripping the fur and creating a kinds Terminator effect robocat.
Now there's a thought!
The Tick is one of the very rare superhero parodies I have ever liked. After 4 years working in comic book stores, I developed a deep loathing for Marvel and DC superhero blandness. This developed into a love of the alternative presses, Last gasp, Rip-Off, Dark Horse (sometimes) and especially the really underground small-press scene.
:-)
Often, people produced superhero spoofs, but most of the time these were weak and lacking in anything to distinguish them from the increasingly uninventive superhero market itself.
The Tick stands out from that crowd as an example of a comic book that truly rocked! What's more, the animated series was fantastic too
Can they make it a hat-trick with a succcessful live action series?
We'll have to wait and see.
What I have trouble fathoming is why VA-Linux would want to be associated with a site that currently appears to be crumbling at the seams due to the activity of its users.
/. reader I am dismayed at the current troll activity. What's worse is that I just cannnot see it going away.
As a long time
If the troll activity continues, I cannot see VA allowing Slashdot to continue - let's face it, would you want your company associated with a site that consists about 30% of references to grits and Natalie Portman? I wouldn't.
Just my 2 öre!
Hmm, RH distributions don't *always* include the How-To's and stuff. The Publishers Edition, which is distribute with RedHat based books saves space by not including the How-To's (or I believe source-code, although there are clear notices that it is freely available).
I've had exactly the problem described at the start of this thread. Although I fortunately have Internet access from work, so I can get hold of what I need, but it can be a pain in the butt from home.
like the guys who nailed a million dollars to a board and set fire to it...
:-)
That would be the KLF then!
The followup was even better, for the last few years, they have been auctioning small sections of the film of that event at various shows they have done.
I was extremely tempted a while back to try and raid one of their events and "kidnap" the remains of their film and ransom it back to them... but laziness got the better of me
Who says that the authorities don't have a sense of humour. Surely, packaging the source code that is contested in a case into public court documents so they can be spread freely around the whole world is one of the funniest hacks going.
:-)
I nominate this for Slashdot's Greatest Hacks of the 21st Century competition that will probably show up in 999 years or so
Thank you "SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA "
If you read their actual Wireless Internet White Paper, they are intimating that any company that creates a WAP based site and has an income of over 1,000,000 USD will have to pay the licensing fee.
They are also extremely unclear as to how companies with lower turnovers will be affected - there is certainly no guarantee in their papers that there will be no license fee for general use by non-profits or low-profits.
Think it's not important? Where would the web be now if 5 years ago all the companies who wanted to start putting up sites had to pony up 20 G's first?
It may not hurt the MS's and RedHats of this world, but it's sure as hell going to hurt the development and uptake of WAP as a standard if the MSE's (Medium Sized Enterprises) can't get onto the playing field.
Steve Cook
WapWarp
I too remember GEOS and have been using it even recently on my Nokia 9000 Comunicator.
However, as a developer of a non-profit wap site and a developers mailing list, I felt that I should write and let Geoworks know how many developers will feel about this action and how it could harm the both the development of WAP as a serious standard and their own reputation.
A copy of the letter can be found at http://wapwarp.com/geoworks
I encourage others to write (an email address is on the letter), but also encourage people to write a civil letter of complaint - or don't bother. We should all by now know the damage that letters of abuse can do.
According to a message on the "Toolkit" page of the site.
:-)
Expect the server to be Slashdotted into oblivion at about 11:00.01...
... and then watch out for all the messages from posters asking where the Linux versions are
This so called "reporter" is a menace and a proven liar. If you would like to read more about his so called journalistic coups, take a look at the very very good British newsletter Need To Know.
0 827.txt&line=52#l
0 820.txt&line=48#l
They have been covering his misreporting and his bumbling attempts to infiltrate direct action groups in the UK by "fakemailing" them for some time now.
Please, do not even consider believing a word that this buffoon says. How he still holds a post at the Times is quite beyond me.
http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=archive99/now
http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=archive99/now
The Hacker News Network has been asking much the same question. Anti Virus companies have been labelling some programs that allow remote undetected monitoring of a computer as virusses (e.g. BO2K) while other products released by "mainstream" software companies,(such as Softeyes) are not scanned for at all.
What makes an anti virus company label one program as a vrius, while another program with similar uses is unlabelled?
HNN ask the question at http://www.hackernews.com/orig/avind ustry.html
This is good news. Since the early 90's, when VR suddenly went from being the latest buzz to being a dirty word, any projects that have tried to investigate new advances in VR tech have either been doomed to budget failure, or have had to cloeak the project in other terms such as 3D visualisation, or such.
:-).
:-)
It takes someone like Carmack, who having completed 3 rounds of Quake (if you get my drift), have the time, inclination, clout and reasons to put some heavy duty effort into getting some real cool "3D visualisation" technology into the hands of Joe Schmuck (that's you and me
.. either that or perhaps the militay will hand us some of it's offshoots
Another site with the same idea is The Hunger Site
Visit and save a life!
Banner advertising, love it or hate it, is one way of getting people to link to your site and discover your product.
Banner advertisers offer all sorts of mechanisms for showing you how many click-thoughs you have had etc. How can you tell though if they are telling the truth? One way of checking is to use a different URL to your site from each advertising site.
Use a URL like this http://cookstour.org?slashdot
The ? marks the beginning of a query string and should not cause any problems in your pages unless you have a dynamic first page, expecting query string arguments. (In this case build your own tracker!)
So what does this do? Well those different querystring srguments will show up as different entry pages in your log files, allowing you to tally the agency's click-through figures against your own.
You can of course also use this technique for any time you place a link to your own pages and want to know where it came from.
Hope this little tip helps.
... Size of a dime eh? Why can't they make these babies the size of a 12" vinyl album and give us some REAL storage power :-)
I have had clients in doain battles (from both sides) a few times and it ha always been a fairly drawn out process. I would advise that you be prepared for a bit of a battle.
The interesting thing in this particular case is that your site pertains to your adversary! However, as you have had the domain for 3 years and have been using it in a legal manner, I would say you have a good case to continue using it.
It strikes me that the difficult situation here may be your ISP. I would recommend that you talk to them as well, outline the situation and find out what their policy is on such manners. They have less personal interest in this case and may well decide that they can no longer host your domain to avoid legal disputes. Try and convince them that you have a strong case and that it is in their interests to continue hosting the domain.
After that, I would talk to a lawyer - hopefully someone here will have suggestions for a good lawyer with domain issue experience in the States.
Finally, I would suggest that in my humble experience, these cases don't make it to court so very often. It's like Cease and Desist Orders, which can often be resolved out of court with little hassle, as long as both sides try and keep their heads.
Good luck!
Naaah - serious man!
I distinctly remember a game package (can you believe it) for the ZX81 called "Can O Worms" which had "adult" games.
Around the same time, there was definitely an adventure, which was a kind of text based "Leisure Suit Larry" type game, where the quote comes from.
I remember it so clearly because I was only about 11 at the time and I *really* wanted to get a look at those games, but only ever got a chance to read the reviews in Computer & Video Games.
Hmm, I just thought I would like to get my personal prediction onto /. now so that when I'm right I can link back to this and show people how clever I was :-)
I think it's gonna be a chip designed for use in laptop / palm size devices that will run (at least one) full-scale O/S. It will have in-built support for various communications protocols (in much the same way as MMX has support for various multimedia tricks right now) and the reprogrammability of the chip will allow for upgrading with further protocols in the future.
The potential dream use? A "tricorder" style device, basically a fully sized computer with instant always-on wireless access to the Internet.
Even if it's not this, can someone please get their asses in gear and make one g'dammit!
That reminds me of an old joke that was in an early adult adventure game on the Sinclair ZX81 -
There was a dirty toilet in a pub and if you read the walls the graffiti said
"Computer programmers PEEK before they POKE".
... I never did understand that
... The title says it all!
Thank you Slashdot - I'll be making sure everyone on my mailing list gets to see this.
And personally, I will be taking some time out to think some of those points through more deeply.
What a great link.
I tell you something that really bothers me about this - somehow I can't see Jerry Yang being really into the idea of broad software patents like this.
Does anyone have his email so folks can (politely) ask him about this policy? Maybe we can convince him to pledge to not use the patent, but hold it open for community use?
OK, I'm just wondering - how often are Yahoo going to be able to find out whether someone is using such a system? I mean, I could program a system to do that tomorrow - but unless I make the code available, nobody is gonna be any the wiser.
/.'s and other Open Source developers of the world, but for developers who are creating custom systems for clients, such a technique is surely impossible to detect.
Of course - that is a real issue for the
Secondly - can they prosecute someone for using a program that contains such code, or does the patent only cover writing code to implement such a system in the first place?
Finally, can Yahoo use such a patent - originating in the US - against companies in other countries, or does the patent only cover US applications development?
Also intersting to note - Yahoo are currently being sued themselves over patent violation, Wired have the article.
I have actually seen the Chalmers 3D cube at an open day. I have to say that compared to some other VR type projects I have seen before, it wasn't so impressive. However, the idea of building a window manager for such a space is quite interesting.
It's certainly not somewhere one would want to work normally - it's no desktop computer replacement. However, imagine working on a project with a group of people - let's say an architectural project.
Now can you see the use of being able to work in a 3D space which it feels as though you are immersed in? Sure, this is not something which would be possible with the current implementation, it would need some specific applications for working in such an environment, plus some sort of control mechanism for people to affect the environment.
Other possible uses could include product mock-ups, collaborative work on molecular modelling, educational presentations and more.
While the cube wasn't so interesting as a plain VR app, it is REALLY interesting as a new possibility for immersive computing.
... as long as people can be bothered to do so.
:-) I would hold that it is still possible to get around a system such as the australian government is trying to implement, but as I said in my original post, people will need to be bothered to do so.
You are right of course, but don't you think that's a little implicit