The article refers to an anti-piracy advocate: Peter rejects the argument that, even if you eliminated piracy, software sales would not increase, at least in the business realm. "We believe that actually all of that number [of pirated copies] would have turned into [legally-bought] copies. Why would a copy be made and sitting on a computer if there was no intention to use it?"
Just because theres a copy of it sitting on a computer means its critical enough to warrant buying? That's absurd. Don't you think that if someone considered the software being downloaded to be critical they would do everything necessary to ensure that it can't be taken from them, including purchasing it? I can't think of a single firm that would refuse to purchase critical software for its employees, not doing so would be more likely to hurt than help them.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
That doesn't sound right...
on
EULA In Games
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· Score: 1
Have you ever put a Rainbow Six screenshot on your website? Can't do that. Can someone check on this? I think you can do that as long as you make it clear that the publisher owns the copyright to the image. How many publishers are actually going to care that you posted a screenshot of a great score? None, they just want to make sure that if your screenshot shows something really cool, that they can use it in an advertisement and you can't interfere. Have you ever paid to play Half-Life in a cyber-cafe? Can't do that.
Cybercafes buy special licenses from the publishers to use the games for commercial purposes. If you read the licenses, some of them even mention these type of licenses and how to get them. Have you ever relied on Age of Kings to land jet planes at a major airport? Don't do that. Please don't do that.
No comment. "Moreover, EULAs play an important role in curbing software piracy. [...]"
Yeah, tell that to the warez sites with 50 gigs of software free for pirate download.
And just my own 2 cents, has anyone ever noticed that the licenses say to take the software back if you don't agree with the license? Well, you've opened the software, so the store isn't suppose to accept it back. Sort of a Catch 22: "Agree to these terms or you wasted you money."
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
In a press conference today, Microsoft announced that it had patented its feces. Bill Gates presided over the gathering, and made it clear in no uncertain terms that any person or entity producing excrament similar to Microsoft Feces would be sued. "Microsoft innovated this concept just within the past week and rushed to patent it before any of the 'Open Feces' advocates could think of it" said Gates, he continued, "We really feel that consumers will be very impressed with Microsoft Feces, much more so than with their own, and due to the heavy production costs of Microsoft Feces, it must be sold for $80 a box." Gates speech was followed by several other speakers, mostly testimonials as to the quality of Microsoft Feces. Microsoft expects to release the product 2nd quarter of next year.
disclaimer: (just so I don't get sued too...) The preceding was completely made up.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
I read somewhere that the only thing that motivates human beings is selfishness. You might say, "Giving money to charity isn't selfish." Wrong. You give money to charity to feel good about youself or so others think well of you. The only argument I've heard that stands up against this is throwing yourself on a grenade, but even that is arguable, you could do it to make people think well of you, just posthumously. That being said, I think the fact of the matter is, we're all selfish, some just try to hide it more than others. After all, we're just animals, and how many animals do you see that will give up food to save another animal? Very few.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
Bush and Gore in the recent political debates agreed that the media was too graphic, however they disagreed on how. Gore, said that there was too much nudity in the media, Bush on the other hand, suggested there was too much violence. In other words, Gore thinks there's too much bush, and Bush thinks there's too much gore.:)
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
This seems to me to be yet another example of people reallizing that theirs careers and training are slowly being obsceleted by technology. This happens to everyone, stop whining, get on with your lives, and above all, ADAPT! When was the last time a human being, by hand, stripped the seeds from cotton? Probably before the invention of the cotton gin. You are only delaying inevitable, and the longer you delay, the more painful the fall will be. How many transcribers must have been put out of work when the printing press was invented? Technological growth is increasing at an exponential rate. It is impossible stop it. Instead of wasting time trying to, start adapting.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
Ah, the 13 year old boy who spends too much time playing computer games. That was me, five years ago; I'm presently majoring in Computer Science. I'd be willing to bet the reason he doesn't know anything about how the computer works is due to the fact that he's not interested or hasn't been challenged to find out. Until I got into programming (in a big way, in 10th grade) I really didn't have a clue either. Presently I have experience in 4 high level languages(in two of which, I am fluent).
Find out if the kid is interested in programming, if so, by all means, get him a BASIC or Perl compiler/interpretter and the O'Reilly book[s]. After he's done a bit of programming, show him some source code from the games he plays, that should hold his interest in computers for quite some time(not to mention he knows how the game behaves, and should be able to increase his knowledge of the language greatly from knowing the results of what hes looking at). If you want to show him hardware, allow him to take apart and reassemble the replaced computer. If he isn't interested, theres not much you can do except encourage or challenge him to find out; it's his life afterall, and he decides what to do with it.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
I wrote my high schools attendance software(Perl/ CGI). I did it for free, and was planning to release (under GPL of course)the source for any school system that wanted it, but the interest didn't seem to be there. At first I had about 3 local school systems looking at it but they apparently lost interest. As far as I know my high school is still using it.
Seems to me the lack of interest is the primary problem.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
the link points to localhost, I think that was an attempt to get someone to hose their own system. He'll have to be a lot more clever than that. Hmmmm... perhaps hes jealous of Nohican and {}?
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
How many sound minded consumers are going to pay $1000 for something, they may already know how to use, but is unstable, has no new software being written for it, and especially when they start hearing so many great things about "this linux thing". As for the $300 billion hit on the economy, yeah right. I honestly think the Linux community would see its finest hour if the price of Windows suddenly went through the roof. $80 is a small price to pay if you can use all your software on the OS, for $1000 you could buy [or download in most cases] replacement software.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
I had ADSL at home before I moved into my dorm room. I never had any problems with it, and was often able to transfer at 40-60 KBPS, at night it would peak at 80-100. FYI/comparison this was a 768KbPS up/384KbPS down line, available from Cincinnati Bell, they call the service ZoomTown, it costs $40 per month and with a 1 year service contract the equipment is free, hooking it into my home lan to distribute it among the systems was quite easy: a simple patch cable from the DSL modem to the hub did the trick, my pings in Half-Life were in the 50s on good servers, 30s on servers using the same ISP. Now if only I could get this over-shared OC-3 to that speed.:(
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
Does anyone else remember the days where 7 digit UINs where high and there were no add banners in the damn clients? I don't mind ad banners on web sites as much, they take up probably 2% of the viewable area, but these damn ads on ICQ are getting extremely annoying. AOL needs to cool its loins a bit on the ad banner spamming, I've never used AIM, partially for that reason, now they've put them in my precious ICQ. AARRGGGHHHH!
I wonder if I can find any ICQ98 versions out there...
AOL is too money hungry.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
I'm not going to trust any system whose code I can't see. They used the excuse that if the source were available people might be able to find holes in it, well wouldn't the same people be smart enough to use encryption to defeat it anyway? or did I miss the RSA cracking algorithm built into it.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
Among other cool gadgets over at ibutton.com, they have Java VMs built into rings, watches, keychains and other accessories. They're not unbearably expensive, surprizingly($100 in most cases). Cool stuff.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
It just occurred to me that the Napster and Carnivore debates have one similarity: Both are tools that have the potential to do things which are highly illegal, very easily, and secretly. Their difference, however, is that one is being issued by the government, the other the government is looking at shutting down. If Napster is shutdown for the reason that it can be used to commit crimes, shouldn't Carnivore be for the same reasons? The government is, afterall, subject to its own laws. Conversely, if Napster is upheld, could you create any tool that has a thread of legitimacy and be legally untouchable?
-DS
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
There was an article on slashdot several months ago that posed an interesting idea on this. I can't find it or I'd post a link. The idea basically was to have large libraries of.pad files on many different servers and XOR certain ones together to retrieve the desired data, so that any one server alone did not contain any useful data.
If anyone can find the story please post a link.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
Slashdot Mirror
Peter rejects the argument that, even if you eliminated piracy, software sales would not increase, at least in the business realm. "We believe that actually all of that number [of pirated copies] would have turned into [legally-bought] copies. Why would a copy be made and sitting on a computer if there was no intention to use it?"
Just because theres a copy of it sitting on a computer means its critical enough to warrant buying? That's absurd. Don't you think that if someone considered the software being downloaded to be critical they would do everything necessary to ensure that it can't be taken from them, including purchasing it? I can't think of a single firm that would refuse to purchase critical software for its employees, not doing so would be more likely to hurt than help them.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
Can someone check on this? I think you can do that as long as you make it clear that the publisher owns the copyright to the image. How many publishers are actually going to care that you posted a screenshot of a great score? None, they just want to make sure that if your screenshot shows something really cool, that they can use it in an advertisement and you can't interfere.
Have you ever paid to play Half-Life in a cyber-cafe? Can't do that.
Cybercafes buy special licenses from the publishers to use the games for commercial purposes. If you read the licenses, some of them even mention these type of licenses and how to get them.
Have you ever relied on Age of Kings to land jet planes at a major airport? Don't do that. Please don't do that.
No comment.
"Moreover, EULAs play an important role in curbing software piracy. [...]"
Yeah, tell that to the warez sites with 50 gigs of software free for pirate download.
And just my own 2 cents, has anyone ever noticed that the licenses say to take the software back if you don't agree with the license? Well, you've opened the software, so the store isn't suppose to accept it back. Sort of a Catch 22: "Agree to these terms or you wasted you money."
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
disclaimer: (just so I don't get sued too...) The preceding was completely made up.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
Find out if the kid is interested in programming, if so, by all means, get him a BASIC or Perl compiler/interpretter and the O'Reilly book[s]. After he's done a bit of programming, show him some source code from the games he plays, that should hold his interest in computers for quite some time(not to mention he knows how the game behaves, and should be able to increase his knowledge of the language greatly from knowing the results of what hes looking at). If you want to show him hardware, allow him to take apart and reassemble the replaced computer. If he isn't interested, theres not much you can do except encourage or challenge him to find out; it's his life afterall, and he decides what to do with it.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
Seems to me the lack of interest is the primary problem.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
-DS
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
"NASA" =~ s/N/MS/;
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
If anyone can find the story please post a link.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"