But hey, I've got this great idea for a piece of mail software that ties everything in your addressbook to the time it arrives, and works out when you really should get around to emailing that person who you forgot to reply to.
Now... if this is an 'idea' 'based on the environment of ideas built from what came before', then please tell me where I can download my "idea" from, so I can make use of it?
Don't even bother. I've patented the ideas of "downloading mail". "storing addresses in an address book", and "recording times of arrivals". Even if you put these three things together to make some really cool software nobody thought of, it would still infringe on my patents.
And thats the parent's point. If I patent the basic idea of an email client, all developement in the email client world grinds to a halt, except for my say-so. And this is whats happening. A friend of mine made a start-up company about a year ago. He and some of his friends got together and thought "gee, lets do something cool" so they got together a list of 4 or 5 ideas for "cool new programs" that he had never seen and would have loved to have, and decided to get them checked out with a patent attourney. Over $10,000 in fees later, only one of those things on the list didn't have a patent covering it. Not that any of the other things exist, a year later, but hey, I'm sure someone's doing "a shitload of work" waiting for someone else to invent it so they can sue for their income. So these other 4 ideas? They'll sit there waiting as bait for the next stupid programmer to come along.
Computer Science isnt "how to use your computer". The concepts and techniques you learn are beyond any operating system.
Right. So Mr. Windows-Schooled sits down at his brand new job at Unixwerks, and goes to open up Visual C++, and... err... well... opens up pico and flounders around looking for the button to press to bring up the dialog editor.
Or more likely, he'll have skipped Unixwerks in the phone book and fired his resume straight off to WindowsRUs.
Personally, I don't care. If microsoft wants to flood the already saturated job market with even more Windows-Only people, it makes it easier for me to sell my Unix programming skills, at least until the Windows-Only people are so numerous that there are no more Unix jobs, everyone's switched to windows shops to take advantage of the dime-a-dozen nature of the programmers.
Also, how is such a device going to be regulated? Will it "know" what the speed limit is? How will it enforce it? If I'm on a highway where it's 65, and then it drops to 55 in a populated area (which is not at all uncommon), will it slam on the brakes until the car gets down to 55? That's a great way to get rear-ended.
Well, the sensors on the highway would tell you where its 65 and where its 55. As for being rear-ended, if the car behind you has their sensor disabled, they're going to be in a whole lot of trouble if they do rear end you. If they don't disable it, their car is going to be stopping as well.
As for speeding up to get out of dangerous situations, someone suggested a flexible limiter that allowed you to speed for N seconds at a time, and if theres a real emergency, you can disable the limiter, in which case you have to go to a service place to re-enable it and pay a fine if you don't have good documentation of why you disabled it (ie, hospital documentation or the like).
Malfunction is my #1 worry. Lawmakers tend to say "well, this is cool" but they don't think about what happens when something breaks. (They don't even like to think of this when making budgets... costs for repairs are always ignored in favor of the up-front costs and capabilities, with the wishful hope that it will never break). Thats the number 1 reason why I'd be against a system like the UK is proposing: If it screws up, how do you prove this? If the government is corrupt and has one in 1000 cars get detected as "speeding" whether or not it was or wasn't, how can you defend yourself?
I've been using the automatic update service at work, and last monday, it tells me that I have an important update to install to fix an RPC bug. (Yeah. *That* one. That was fixed a month before. Why hadn't automatic update gotten it before? At least our systems are behind a competent firewall) So I installed it. (It didn't require a reboot).
Tuesday morning, I come in and Automatic Update tells me I have an important update to install to fix the RPC bug. Again.
At least it only happened twice (hey! it should be Very Fixed now!), and just a month later (its like a fine wine, gets better with age). I still have faith in automatic update, its just buried in the mud out back along with my faith in the rest of humanity.
As for its pervasiveness, I'm sure everyone who does get their fixes hits yes and they install, but I recently noticed that I'm still at XP service pack 0... autoupdate won't download and install service packs for you.
FF8's Guardian Force summoning scenes weren't skippable because they were there for a reason... you're supposed to hit certain buttons repeatedly during them at certain times to trigger the Boost effect. Forgot what it was now, but I think holding down the Map button shows what button to hit and when to hit it. (YET another crazy button mashing puzzle type thing, that wasn't even documented and I discovered on accident while trying to get the animation to stop)
I've been thinking about this for a bit. Probably the number 1 reason I kept playing the MUD I was on in college, was because of the player-run quests. Anyone could take some time to prepare a quest, though the quests prepared by the heros and immortals tended to be more interesting and have better rewards since they could create special items and mobs. (Mortal quests typically tended to be quizzes or hide-and-seek games for random spare equipment)
In other words, player-generated content allowed the MUD to sustain its popularity. In the MMORPG world, it seems that many of the attempts to give players such "powers" have backfired, usually due to disgruntled players.
So I've been thinking... what if the game had "quest points". These could be earned by participating in a quest (not just by "winning" the quest, players would quickly tire). Players could then use these quest points in one of two ways.
First: expend quest points to create a quest of their own. Use a fairly high starting cost to make sure that players doing this have participated in enough quests to understand what they are doing in running one. That gets the player setup with a basic gofer quest (unique item is dropped somewhere in a given dungeon, find the item and win). More points can be spent to get special items created, special monsters created, or for enough points, a major plot inserted. (All of these are created by the player, and perhaps edited by the staff). Some restriction should be in place on # of simultaneous quests.
Second: after participating in a quest, a player can choose to donate quest points back to the player who created the quest. This will create a feedback system and allow the popular creators to host quests more often. To prevent people from hoarding quest points, establish limits where if they don't donate quest points to hosts, they will receive fewer and fewer points.
You could use donated quest points to establish a ranking scheme, where "newbie" hosts can only create certain types of quests until enough people have donated points to them for them to try for bigger quests.
Aside from this idea... the "Hero" idea from my MUD was pretty good incentive to keep playing and exploring. When you reached a high enough level you became a Hero and were given a few extra powers. However, as you gained levels, monsters would give less and less XP, discouraging people from fighting forever in one place, and requiring them to explore the area to learn more about it.
-Axelay (SNES) - Axelay II never came... damn Konami
Arr, that reminds me of the SNES version of Shadowrun. Maybe because I played it first or something, I liked it *so* much better than the Genesis version. I don't consider the Genesis version to be the promised sequel...
Ico has one of the most beautiful endings. It rocked. Too bad the US version had the replay mode yanked out of it, so you couldn't replay and understand what the hell everyone was saying.
Other good ones: Final Fantasy Tactics covered a lot of loose ends in its ending and tied a considerable amount together. Rhapsody had some interesting twists right at the end. I liked the music from Legend of Mana. I agree with the author, Final Fantasy 6's ending was perfectly done with wonderful music.
The most recent disappointment I've had is Suikoden 1, which I picked up used recently. It had 100+ characters, and all I get is a "where are they now" one sentence blurb for each.
Sorry, I don't have any software for doing it, I simply presented that as an option.
Looking around, I found a few options quickly though: Several for Linux are listed here. This page lists a ton for DivX movies: here
As for obtaining scripts and stuff, I am not sure where you would go about finding scripts in Spanish. If you or someone else is good at English->Spanish translation, you may be able to find a script at Script Club but you'll need to register for access, and many of the scripts there are either for older and lesser known titles or for the most popular recent shows, very little in the middle.
I would suggest asking on a forum like at AnimeSuki where an actual subtitler might see you.
If Microsoft is going to force me to use it, it needs to work better. I use it on my XP workstation at work since its behind a firewall and reasonably secure (nobody here has a laptop they bring in from outside). Yesterday I get to work and it tells me theres a "new" update. Its the DCOM fix (not that it tells you what it is anymore, but I can recognize the issue number now) a month late so I tell it to install. Today I get into work and it tells me theres a "new" update. Guess what it fixes? The same issue. Who wants to bet it will tell me to install the dcom patch again tomorrow?
This kind of service from an automatic system is inexcusable. If Microsoft can't figure out how to publish updates and "push" them out in a consistent and timely way, then they need better coders before they start requiring us to use this service.
The law observes rights for the following: 1) Trademark. 2) Patent 3) Copyright 4) Trade Secrets
If it is NOT one of those four, SCO can scream until they're blue in the face. Its obvious that 1) is out, Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. 2) is a matter of public record. If SCO held a patent being infringed, someone would have worked out which patent it was and fixed the code. 4) is only protected as long as its a secret. Publishing your own code in a kernel publicly denies you any rights to claim your code is a secret. I doubt that the courts would buy the claim that if they didn't tell anyone which code it was, it would still be a secret.
3) is the last choice, and copyright infringement comes in two flavors: wholesale copying (which we obviously didn't do, as SCO code would require changes in order to compile in with the linux kernel) and "derivative work".
So, lets assume that there is "derivative work" in the kernel somewhere. This would require that someone read SCO's source code, and "translated" it into something that would run in Linux. (Note how none of the features cited as infringing are even supported in SCO's source code). So what would that mean for Linux? Well, according to Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 103 of our Copyright Law:
The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material. The copyright in such work is independent of, and does not affect or enlarge the scope, duration, ownership, or subsistence of, any copyright protection in the preexisting material
In other words, they cannot claim ownership to every piece of code in the world as they seem to be doing. Their threats that whatever "IP rights" they claim to have extend past their code in the kernel are completely baseless. And until they can point out what code, exactly, is infringing on the kernel and how, they can't get anywhere with the copyright allegation, nor can they claim extra damages for the time period we ignore them because they are acting in bad faith with respect to notifying us of our violations.
Sorry, I fell into the trap of over-generalization. Naturally, groups are all over the spectrum. Picking out which are which though is a little more difficult for me since I know very little Japanese myself, so I wind up relying on word of mouth and flagrant errors.
I do agree that actually buying all this anime would be prohibitively expensive. That point you made is extremely true.
Of course. This is why you don't buy all the anime. I pick and choose what DVDs to buy on a regular basis. Sure, I give preference to series I have seen and liked on fansubs, but I don't use my fansubs as an excuse not to buy and support a series I liked.
Think about it this way: BGC 2040 exists because US fans bought enough copies of the original that ADV went to the AIC and said "You know, BGC completely tanked over on your side of the ocean, but look, if you make us a new series, we'll sell it over here." And so they did, and somewhere in there, the idea of the US companies supporting Japanese animators was born. So, if you have a series you like, buy their DVDs. Encourage everyone to buy the DVDs. Just maybe, the Japanese company will say "gee, this is pretty popular over there, lets make another season." And so Big O season 2 was born (just in case you thought it was an isolated incident that wouldn't happen for your favorite series. While the Japanese economy continues to slump, expect this to happen more often).
As for your "totally wrong" translations, what are you comparing these to? Hopefully not the horrid engrish subs on some HK discs. The fansubs? Not translating a word because you can't think of a good way to do it is a cop-out. Throwing more subs on the screen to explain the word is great for an educational video, but would never fly on cartoon network. And thats when the college student with a couple of semesters of Japanese over what ever he's learned from watching other shows gets the translation correct... When I started getting into anime, the VHS fansub groups actually hired professional translators to do the work. The digisub generation has decided that doing it right isn't worth not being the first to the servers ("mass naked child events" ring a bell to any AnimeJunkies fans?)
Well, thats the end of my rant. If you're going to pirate a show thats SO GOOD and you don't think the US release will do it justice, buy the Japanese release. I've got several R2 DVDs. With a dvd-burner, a decent mpeg2 demuxer/muxer, a dvd sub generator, and a script you like you can make your own subtitled DVDs that will be much higher quality than any chinese subbed dvd or divxed-to-hell fansub.
I do, and while I know there won't be a second season for Kokoro Toshokan or Saishuu Heiki Kanojo, I am preordering the pilot DVD for the second season of another show (I won't mention it since I don't want to attract too many "anime is for pedos" trolls. You can figure out which series it is) and I'd like to think that I helped the second season become reality.
Before tech support people rant about the lack of knowledge of their users, remember that it isn't the user's job to be an expert in use of the software or hardware - but it is their job, and it is one they often fail at.
Before you rant about the guy who rammed your car, remember that it isn't the drivers job to be an expert at driving cars.
Whats the difference? An inexpertly driven car can cause property damage and loss of life. An inexpertly run computer causes frustration and can (through worms, viruses, etc) cause property damage.
Personally, I'm all for licensing computer users. Take a simple test that covers performing basic tasks, with an internet option covering attachment safety, child observation, and self-restraint when it comes to those pr0n sites. No license? You can't buy the computer. Sure, there are plenty of easy ways around it: Build one yourself or get a friend to build one for you or buy one used, but at least the first option means you probably have more clue than it would take to pass the test anyway.
Personally, the current idea of a paper record doesn't go far enough. Its not enough that the machine gives me a printout of the buttons I pressed, I want a unique ID (that isn't associated with me personally in anyway) and the ability to come back in a year and have the system tell me the way I voted. That will ensure that the system doesn't print out how I voted and then record whatever it feels like.
Yet even then, that doesn't tell me that the system didn't record my votes, and then the votes the programmer wanted it to. There simply is no way to guarantee anything in an election, regardless of how it is done. What keeps the current counters from counting my ballot the way they feel like? The fact that if theres a recount, someone else might get the job? Are there few enough counters that a little deception can get tracked to a specific person?
If 99% of the population says 1% can't do something they like that does effect the rest, even in a very minor way
Guess what: Not everything I do affects the rest of society. When I jack off in my room, God does not kill your kitten. My possession of pr0n does not make your children sprout horns or whatever the latest psychobabble bull is (By the way, I play unreal tournament, and despite what all these psycho[logist]s say, I don't camp on top of buildings blowing people's brains out and screaming "Head Shot!"). This can be applied to a lot of things that our representatives in our government thinks it needs to meddle in like homosexual marriage.
Obviously the community felt this was justified, or the community would be rallying against it.
Given the fact that a vast majority of Americans are apathetic weenies when it comes to politics, I don't see how you can provide any backup to this comment. I bet a majority of the community didn't even know there was an adult section of the comic book shop (it was a *section* not an entire store devoted to porn!). A considerable amount probably didn't even know the comic shop existed, and a significant portion probably didn't even open the newspaper on the day information about the store was published.
Even the republic our country runs on has been affected by this apathy, as "special interest groups" tell people who are either incapable of decisionmaking or just [a?]pathetic how to vote, think, and act. Of course, a majority of these special interests are more than happy to spread misinformation whenever it suits them.
This is made worse by the fact that entire groups of society are underrepresented (sometimes by choice) such as the "techy" population with their self-fulfilling prophecy that government is corrupt and won't represent them.
Here's a relevant question for you that has no extremes, no pornography, in fact, it deals with something very mundane: What color is your house? The houses in my subdivision are all an ugly shade of beige. Every single one of them. Because the majority got together and established a "homeowners' association" whose job it is to push the view of the majority onto the minority with fines, and if necessary, eviction. Now, everyone in the subdivision knows their houses are all ugly, but it is now impossible to be the first person to step forward and change the color of their house, because it would no longer match with the majority.
Now tell me, what constitutes obscenity? Not long ago, a bare ankle would have been obscenely pornographic. The public can reverse the trend of increased sexuality any time it wishes to enforce new mores, but to what end? And once it gets to the point where men and women are dressed head to toe to maintain "propriety", will it swing back again? What purpose does this serve except to make things I enjoy (my porn) illegal? And what happens when your wedding pictures become obscene because your wife's dress showed a little too much clevage?
Only when they haven't already decided on something.
The SCOTUS is always within its rights to change its mind. Thats all I'll say on whether the SCOTUS did right or wrong.
Admittedly its developed for Windows, but it uses SDL, and with just a bit of tweaking I had it compiled and running just fine on Linux. (You'll need to hunt down and compile the bulletML library as well as edit the provided Makefile to link against the appropriate lib*.so instead of the.dll's. It also doesn't "install", it expects to be run from the root of the directory created when you extract everything)
The music and the action in this game rocks. The artwork is way abstract, which makes it cool to look at. In my opinion the only thing that this game lacks is weapon upgrades.
What do you want to bet that nobody had heard of these patents until RIM was sued? If the patents expire in 2012 (and that was the most recent one!) then they must have had some of these patents for almost a decade. Patents on handhelds? Is Palm next now that they got the little guy?
Patents may be a necessary evil, but using "lets hide until Company X has a thriving market then sue them for zillions" as a moneymaking plan is more evil than necessary.
Slashdot Mirror
But hey, I've got this great idea for a piece of mail software that ties everything in your addressbook to the time it arrives, and works out when you really should get around to emailing that person who you forgot to reply to.
Now... if this is an 'idea' 'based on the environment of ideas built from what came before', then please tell me where I can download my "idea" from, so I can make use of it?
Don't even bother. I've patented the ideas of "downloading mail". "storing addresses in an address book", and "recording times of arrivals". Even if you put these three things together to make some really cool software nobody thought of, it would still infringe on my patents.
And thats the parent's point. If I patent the basic idea of an email client, all developement in the email client world grinds to a halt, except for my say-so. And this is whats happening. A friend of mine made a start-up company about a year ago. He and some of his friends got together and thought "gee, lets do something cool" so they got together a list of 4 or 5 ideas for "cool new programs" that he had never seen and would have loved to have, and decided to get them checked out with a patent attourney. Over $10,000 in fees later, only one of those things on the list didn't have a patent covering it. Not that any of the other things exist, a year later, but hey, I'm sure someone's doing "a shitload of work" waiting for someone else to invent it so they can sue for their income. So these other 4 ideas? They'll sit there waiting as bait for the next stupid programmer to come along.
Please send $699 to our licensing department in Utah. Thanks for your support!
Computer Science isnt "how to use your computer". The concepts and techniques you learn are beyond any operating system.
Right. So Mr. Windows-Schooled sits down at his brand new job at Unixwerks, and goes to open up Visual C++, and... err... well... opens up pico and flounders around looking for the button to press to bring up the dialog editor.
Or more likely, he'll have skipped Unixwerks in the phone book and fired his resume straight off to WindowsRUs.
Personally, I don't care. If microsoft wants to flood the already saturated job market with even more Windows-Only people, it makes it easier for me to sell my Unix programming skills, at least until the Windows-Only people are so numerous that there are no more Unix jobs, everyone's switched to windows shops to take advantage of the dime-a-dozen nature of the programmers.
Also, how is such a device going to be regulated? Will it "know" what the speed limit is? How will it enforce it? If I'm on a highway where it's 65, and then it drops to 55 in a populated area (which is not at all uncommon), will it slam on the brakes until the car gets down to 55? That's a great way to get rear-ended.
Well, the sensors on the highway would tell you where its 65 and where its 55. As for being rear-ended, if the car behind you has their sensor disabled, they're going to be in a whole lot of trouble if they do rear end you. If they don't disable it, their car is going to be stopping as well.
As for speeding up to get out of dangerous situations, someone suggested a flexible limiter that allowed you to speed for N seconds at a time, and if theres a real emergency, you can disable the limiter, in which case you have to go to a service place to re-enable it and pay a fine if you don't have good documentation of why you disabled it (ie, hospital documentation or the like).
Malfunction is my #1 worry. Lawmakers tend to say "well, this is cool" but they don't think about what happens when something breaks. (They don't even like to think of this when making budgets... costs for repairs are always ignored in favor of the up-front costs and capabilities, with the wishful hope that it will never break). Thats the number 1 reason why I'd be against a system like the UK is proposing: If it screws up, how do you prove this? If the government is corrupt and has one in 1000 cars get detected as "speeding" whether or not it was or wasn't, how can you defend yourself?
I've been using the automatic update service at work, and last monday, it tells me that I have an important update to install to fix an RPC bug. (Yeah. *That* one. That was fixed a month before. Why hadn't automatic update gotten it before? At least our systems are behind a competent firewall) So I installed it. (It didn't require a reboot).
Tuesday morning, I come in and Automatic Update tells me I have an important update to install to fix the RPC bug. Again.
At least it only happened twice (hey! it should be Very Fixed now!), and just a month later (its like a fine wine, gets better with age). I still have faith in automatic update, its just buried in the mud out back along with my faith in the rest of humanity.
As for its pervasiveness, I'm sure everyone who does get their fixes hits yes and they install, but I recently noticed that I'm still at XP service pack 0... autoupdate won't download and install service packs for you.
FF8's Guardian Force summoning scenes weren't skippable because they were there for a reason... you're supposed to hit certain buttons repeatedly during them at certain times to trigger the Boost effect. Forgot what it was now, but I think holding down the Map button shows what button to hit and when to hit it. (YET another crazy button mashing puzzle type thing, that wasn't even documented and I discovered on accident while trying to get the animation to stop)
Will these LED bulbs fit into a normal light bulb socket?
What is this coughy you drink? It sounds harmful to one's health.
I've been thinking about this for a bit. Probably the number 1 reason I kept playing the MUD I was on in college, was because of the player-run quests. Anyone could take some time to prepare a quest, though the quests prepared by the heros and immortals tended to be more interesting and have better rewards since they could create special items and mobs. (Mortal quests typically tended to be quizzes or hide-and-seek games for random spare equipment)
In other words, player-generated content allowed the MUD to sustain its popularity. In the MMORPG world, it seems that many of the attempts to give players such "powers" have backfired, usually due to disgruntled players.
So I've been thinking... what if the game had "quest points". These could be earned by participating in a quest (not just by "winning" the quest, players would quickly tire). Players could then use these quest points in one of two ways.
First: expend quest points to create a quest of their own. Use a fairly high starting cost to make sure that players doing this have participated in enough quests to understand what they are doing in running one. That gets the player setup with a basic gofer quest (unique item is dropped somewhere in a given dungeon, find the item and win). More points can be spent to get special items created, special monsters created, or for enough points, a major plot inserted. (All of these are created by the player, and perhaps edited by the staff). Some restriction should be in place on # of simultaneous quests.
Second: after participating in a quest, a player can choose to donate quest points back to the player who created the quest. This will create a feedback system and allow the popular creators to host quests more often. To prevent people from hoarding quest points, establish limits where if they don't donate quest points to hosts, they will receive fewer and fewer points.
You could use donated quest points to establish a ranking scheme, where "newbie" hosts can only create certain types of quests until enough people have donated points to them for them to try for bigger quests.
Aside from this idea... the "Hero" idea from my MUD was pretty good incentive to keep playing and exploring. When you reached a high enough level you became a Hero and were given a few extra powers. However, as you gained levels, monsters would give less and less XP, discouraging people from fighting forever in one place, and requiring them to explore the area to learn more about it.
Yeah. I ran around trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to do, and then I found it ;)
We'd just be outsourcing all the development to other, cheaper countries...
-Axelay (SNES) - Axelay II never came... damn Konami
Arr, that reminds me of the SNES version of Shadowrun. Maybe because I played it first or something, I liked it *so* much better than the Genesis version. I don't consider the Genesis version to be the promised sequel...
Ico has one of the most beautiful endings. It rocked. Too bad the US version had the replay mode yanked out of it, so you couldn't replay and understand what the hell everyone was saying.
Other good ones: Final Fantasy Tactics covered a lot of loose ends in its ending and tied a considerable amount together. Rhapsody had some interesting twists right at the end. I liked the music from Legend of Mana. I agree with the author, Final Fantasy 6's ending was perfectly done with wonderful music.
The most recent disappointment I've had is Suikoden 1, which I picked up used recently. It had 100+ characters, and all I get is a "where are they now" one sentence blurb for each.
Sorry, I don't have any software for doing it, I simply presented that as an option.
Looking around, I found a few options quickly though: Several for Linux are listed here. This page lists a ton for DivX movies: here
As for obtaining scripts and stuff, I am not sure where you would go about finding scripts in Spanish. If you or someone else is good at English->Spanish translation, you may be able to find a script at Script Club but you'll need to register for access, and many of the scripts there are either for older and lesser known titles or for the most popular recent shows, very little in the middle.
I would suggest asking on a forum like at AnimeSuki where an actual subtitler might see you.
If Microsoft is going to force me to use it, it needs to work better. I use it on my XP workstation at work since its behind a firewall and reasonably secure (nobody here has a laptop they bring in from outside). Yesterday I get to work and it tells me theres a "new" update. Its the DCOM fix (not that it tells you what it is anymore, but I can recognize the issue number now) a month late so I tell it to install. Today I get into work and it tells me theres a "new" update. Guess what it fixes? The same issue. Who wants to bet it will tell me to install the dcom patch again tomorrow?
This kind of service from an automatic system is inexcusable. If Microsoft can't figure out how to publish updates and "push" them out in a consistent and timely way, then they need better coders before they start requiring us to use this service.
There. Is. No. Such. Thing. As. "IP". "rights".
The law observes rights for the following:
1) Trademark.
2) Patent
3) Copyright
4) Trade Secrets
If it is NOT one of those four, SCO can scream until they're blue in the face. Its obvious that 1) is out, Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. 2) is a matter of public record. If SCO held a patent being infringed, someone would have worked out which patent it was and fixed the code. 4) is only protected as long as its a secret. Publishing your own code in a kernel publicly denies you any rights to claim your code is a secret. I doubt that the courts would buy the claim that if they didn't tell anyone which code it was, it would still be a secret.
3) is the last choice, and copyright infringement comes in two flavors: wholesale copying (which we obviously didn't do, as SCO code would require changes in order to compile in with the linux kernel) and "derivative work".
So, lets assume that there is "derivative work" in the kernel somewhere. This would require that someone read SCO's source code, and "translated" it into something that would run in Linux. (Note how none of the features cited as infringing are even supported in SCO's source code). So what would that mean for Linux? Well, according to Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 103 of our Copyright Law:
In other words, they cannot claim ownership to every piece of code in the world as they seem to be doing. Their threats that whatever "IP rights" they claim to have extend past their code in the kernel are completely baseless. And until they can point out what code, exactly, is infringing on the kernel and how, they can't get anywhere with the copyright allegation, nor can they claim extra damages for the time period we ignore them because they are acting in bad faith with respect to notifying us of our violations.
Sorry, I fell into the trap of over-generalization. Naturally, groups are all over the spectrum. Picking out which are which though is a little more difficult for me since I know very little Japanese myself, so I wind up relying on word of mouth and flagrant errors.
I do agree that actually buying all this anime would be prohibitively expensive. That point you made is extremely true.
Of course. This is why you don't buy all the anime. I pick and choose what DVDs to buy on a regular basis. Sure, I give preference to series I have seen and liked on fansubs, but I don't use my fansubs as an excuse not to buy and support a series I liked.
Think about it this way: BGC 2040 exists because US fans bought enough copies of the original that ADV went to the AIC and said "You know, BGC completely tanked over on your side of the ocean, but look, if you make us a new series, we'll sell it over here." And so they did, and somewhere in there, the idea of the US companies supporting Japanese animators was born. So, if you have a series you like, buy their DVDs. Encourage everyone to buy the DVDs. Just maybe, the Japanese company will say "gee, this is pretty popular over there, lets make another season." And so Big O season 2 was born (just in case you thought it was an isolated incident that wouldn't happen for your favorite series. While the Japanese economy continues to slump, expect this to happen more often).
As for your "totally wrong" translations, what are you comparing these to? Hopefully not the horrid engrish subs on some HK discs. The fansubs? Not translating a word because you can't think of a good way to do it is a cop-out. Throwing more subs on the screen to explain the word is great for an educational video, but would never fly on cartoon network. And thats when the college student with a couple of semesters of Japanese over what ever he's learned from watching other shows gets the translation correct... When I started getting into anime, the VHS fansub groups actually hired professional translators to do the work. The digisub generation has decided that doing it right isn't worth not being the first to the servers ("mass naked child events" ring a bell to any AnimeJunkies fans?)
Well, thats the end of my rant. If you're going to pirate a show thats SO GOOD and you don't think the US release will do it justice, buy the Japanese release. I've got several R2 DVDs. With a dvd-burner, a decent mpeg2 demuxer/muxer, a dvd sub generator, and a script you like you can make your own subtitled DVDs that will be much higher quality than any chinese subbed dvd or divxed-to-hell fansub.
I do, and while I know there won't be a second season for Kokoro Toshokan or Saishuu Heiki Kanojo, I am preordering the pilot DVD for the second season of another show (I won't mention it since I don't want to attract too many "anime is for pedos" trolls. You can figure out which series it is) and I'd like to think that I helped the second season become reality.
They have one contract with an artist, and produce unlimited copies of songs for sale.
Obviously, getting Linux on there will take a hack, of course.
Before tech support people rant about the lack of knowledge of their users, remember that it isn't the user's job to be an expert in use of the software or hardware - but it is their job, and it is one they often fail at.
Before you rant about the guy who rammed your car, remember that it isn't the drivers job to be an expert at driving cars.
Whats the difference? An inexpertly driven car can cause property damage and loss of life. An inexpertly run computer causes frustration and can (through worms, viruses, etc) cause property damage.
Personally, I'm all for licensing computer users. Take a simple test that covers performing basic tasks, with an internet option covering attachment safety, child observation, and self-restraint when it comes to those pr0n sites. No license? You can't buy the computer. Sure, there are plenty of easy ways around it: Build one yourself or get a friend to build one for you or buy one used, but at least the first option means you probably have more clue than it would take to pass the test anyway.
Personally, the current idea of a paper record doesn't go far enough. Its not enough that the machine gives me a printout of the buttons I pressed, I want a unique ID (that isn't associated with me personally in anyway) and the ability to come back in a year and have the system tell me the way I voted. That will ensure that the system doesn't print out how I voted and then record whatever it feels like.
Yet even then, that doesn't tell me that the system didn't record my votes, and then the votes the programmer wanted it to. There simply is no way to guarantee anything in an election, regardless of how it is done. What keeps the current counters from counting my ballot the way they feel like? The fact that if theres a recount, someone else might get the job? Are there few enough counters that a little deception can get tracked to a specific person?
If 99% of the population says 1% can't do something they like that does effect the rest, even in a very minor way
Guess what: Not everything I do affects the rest of society. When I jack off in my room, God does not kill your kitten. My possession of pr0n does not make your children sprout horns or whatever the latest psychobabble bull is (By the way, I play unreal tournament, and despite what all these psycho[logist]s say, I don't camp on top of buildings blowing people's brains out and screaming "Head Shot!"). This can be applied to a lot of things that our representatives in our government thinks it needs to meddle in like homosexual marriage.
Obviously the community felt this was justified, or the community would be rallying against it.
Given the fact that a vast majority of Americans are apathetic weenies when it comes to politics, I don't see how you can provide any backup to this comment. I bet a majority of the community didn't even know there was an adult section of the comic book shop (it was a *section* not an entire store devoted to porn!). A considerable amount probably didn't even know the comic shop existed, and a significant portion probably didn't even open the newspaper on the day information about the store was published.
Even the republic our country runs on has been affected by this apathy, as "special interest groups" tell people who are either incapable of decisionmaking or just [a?]pathetic how to vote, think, and act. Of course, a majority of these special interests are more than happy to spread misinformation whenever it suits them.
This is made worse by the fact that entire groups of society are underrepresented (sometimes by choice) such as the "techy" population with their self-fulfilling prophecy that government is corrupt and won't represent them.
Here's a relevant question for you that has no extremes, no pornography, in fact, it deals with something very mundane: What color is your house? The houses in my subdivision are all an ugly shade of beige. Every single one of them. Because the majority got together and established a "homeowners' association" whose job it is to push the view of the majority onto the minority with fines, and if necessary, eviction. Now, everyone in the subdivision knows their houses are all ugly, but it is now impossible to be the first person to step forward and change the color of their house, because it would no longer match with the majority.
Now tell me, what constitutes obscenity? Not long ago, a bare ankle would have been obscenely pornographic. The public can reverse the trend of increased sexuality any time it wishes to enforce new mores, but to what end? And once it gets to the point where men and women are dressed head to toe to maintain "propriety", will it swing back again? What purpose does this serve except to make things I enjoy (my porn) illegal? And what happens when your wedding pictures become obscene because your wife's dress showed a little too much clevage?
Only when they haven't already decided on something.
The SCOTUS is always within its rights to change its mind. Thats all I'll say on whether the SCOTUS did right or wrong.
Noiz2SA
.dll's. It also doesn't "install", it expects to be run from the root of the directory created when you extract everything)
Admittedly its developed for Windows, but it uses SDL, and with just a bit of tweaking I had it compiled and running just fine on Linux. (You'll need to hunt down and compile the bulletML library as well as edit the provided Makefile to link against the appropriate lib*.so instead of the
The music and the action in this game rocks. The artwork is way abstract, which makes it cool to look at. In my opinion the only thing that this game lacks is weapon upgrades.
What do you want to bet that nobody had heard of these patents until RIM was sued? If the patents expire in 2012 (and that was the most recent one!) then they must have had some of these patents for almost a decade. Patents on handhelds? Is Palm next now that they got the little guy?
Patents may be a necessary evil, but using "lets hide until Company X has a thriving market then sue them for zillions" as a moneymaking plan is more evil than necessary.