Perhaps it is because more people are familiar with C++ than Python, and by writing the AI and other game rules in C++ the Civ 4 team has made modders job easier.
I doubt it. Python is a whole lot easier to get into than C++ (and yes, I do multi platform C++ for a living), so if your primary goal is to enable easy modding then Python is the obvious choice. In fact, they seem to have made that choice for the majority of the interface and code.
But it probably would've been a bad choice for the AI, which is highly performance oriented/sensitive code. As anyone who's played Civ games (or other turn based games) knows, the end game bogs down. Not only for the player, but also for the computer, which has to calculate AI moves with increasing complexity and resources. Having an inefficient AI at the start of the game is no big deal. Having one at the end results in annoyed players.
And, as a slight aside -- complaining about memory allocation in C++ just means you aren't using the tools available! They already mentioned utilizing Boost, so why weren't they using the Boost shared_ptr classes? Wrap any pointers you may be using in them and you'll stop having to worry about new/delete or malloc/free issues. No, it's still not as simple as a true GC, but it's far better than the old ways.
Epic has done excellent with every UT release even though they have no irritating protection measures
Epic has had CD check copy protection on every single release of Unreal or Unreal Tournament. But that usually only lasts for the first couple of months -- at that point they remove it in a patch. And bravo to them for doing so. I suspect that most casual pirating (which is the only type that's stopped by CD checks) occurs in the first few weeks of a game being out. After that it's just a disservice to your actual customers. I do buy every game I play, and I'm tired of being treated like a crook.
That's the best part: modern CRTs almost never die. If anything, the electronics supporting them go a long way before the tube goes.
While technically true, the reality is that even though the CRT may not be dead it may be so dim that you wish it was. And compensating by pushing up the contrast and brightness just causes it to fade even faster.
I can't tell you how many old CRT monitors I've seen that were so dim that they should've been thrown in the trash. Mine's not there yet, but it won't be much longer I think.
Yes, but remember -- when it's a patent/copyright/other IP that you hate then it's evil and wrong. When it's something you like, when the IP expires then others "rip off" your hard work.
And I heartily disagree with the grandparent about the brightness factor of LCD/DLP -- my 46" DLP is visible in normal light conditions, in a well lit room. No, I can't see shit on it when the sun is shining directly on the screen, but I can't see shit on a CRT in those circumstances either.
And I suspect he was comparing apples to oranges anyway -- direct view CRT to projection LCD/DLP (since projection is the only way you can view DLP). Compare projection CRT and the LCD/DLP literally shine -- you need as dark a room as possible for projected CRT. Also, if you want much more than 36" diagonal you can't use direct view CRT -- the tubes are just too big, heavy, and expensive (IIRC, the largest direct view tube ever produced for home use was a 44" Mitsubishi).
Rather, they start from scratch every time. Re-inventing the wheel over and over...
Except that you're completely wrong. The Spirit/Opportunity rover design is a direct descendant from the Pathfinder design. And not only the rover, but the entire landing craft too (which practically didn't change from Pathfinder).
As for why we don't send a plethora of them? Because it would be pointless. The design is made to operate within a very tight equatorial band. Any more "tropical" and the solar panels won't get enough power on a daily basis. Forget polar exploration entirely. The sensors onboard the rovers, while a significant step up from Pathfinder, have pretty well reached their limits. Why should we spend several million dollars to just collect additional data points? Heck, that's largely what the rovers are doing at this point -- because they simply cannot get more detailed data with what the sensors they have. Sending additional rovers to the (exceptionally few) available landing spots isn't going to gain us very much. Revising the design again, adding newer sensors and more capabilities, however, could easily give us far better results for a similar amount of money.
And, finally, as for mass production... uh... no. The rovers were never designed to be mass produced. There are parts with such fine tolerances that it's not reasonable to mass produce them. Could you? Sure. But you'll spend more on setting up and fine tuning the process than you would in creating a couple of custom-made rovers. And it's pointless when you can be assured that you're not going to be making more than a few of a particular model. You don't think that race cars are made via mass production, or that the concept cars all the automakers produce are, do you?
Have you ever worked in a mass production environment? On the pre-implementation end? How long do you think it takes GM, Boeing, Intel, or anyone else in the business to setup an entirely new line? It's not as simple as you seem to think.
What should someone's UID have to do with the validity of what they post?
Wow, that flew totally over your head didn't it?
The great-grandparent was posting the truth. Slashdot is Rob's blog. Whining that it isn't is just an indication that you haven't been around that long and don't know what the site was started as.
Has it grown in scope? Certainly. But it's still Rob's blog. If you don't like that, you're welcome to setup your own site, or to simply use other sites that don't offend you so often. Heck, you can even block the apparantly incessant whining that CmdrTaco spews forth on his own site by blocking all stories posted by him.
I'm not sure why you think that The West Wing and others "fall under current Presidential Regulations that permit it's [sic] use". I have not seen anything indicating such. It could be, but then you end up with the situation where you have to justify giving them an exception but not The Onion. Particularly if SNL and The Daily Show have exceptions.
And it may be that an exception will be granted and this will all be over nothing -- which I think would be the smart move by the administration.
Satire is protected only under copyright and trademark law as "Fair Use". Since the seals are protected under separate laws, the Satire defense is likely to not hold water.
Yes, but then that goes up against the 1st Ammendment, which doesn't care if the speech in question is regarding IP or not (and at least the IP rules have a basis in Article I, Section 7; the regulation on the Seals do not, except through interpretation of the same (particularly regarding "To regulate commerce with foreign nations" or "To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States" -- both are stretches).
As you say, it's not cut and dried. But the Supreme Court has a long history of protecting satire and political satire -- c.f. FCC v. Pacifica, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Hustler v. Falwell, and others.
From the Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music case (thanks Findlaw), Judge Souter's opinion (for an unanimous ruling) included the following: "[p]arody's humor, or in any event its comment, necessarily springs from recognizable allusion to its object through distorted imitation. Its art lies in the tension between a known original and its parodic twin. When parody takes aim at a particular original work, the parody must be able to 'conjure up' at least enough of that original to make the object of its critical wit recognizable."
And note that the law does not just prevent identical copies of the Seal, but of any likeness.
You are entirely correct, in large part because the government cannot hold copyright. Or a trademark. Or a patent. IP law does not come into play here.
it is a matter of CRIMINAL law
It's also a matter of the 1st Ammendment, particularly as it relates to political satire. The Supreme Court has been pretty clear on that issue -- not only is satire protected free speech, but political satire is given the widest berth. This could certainly be viewed as an attempt to suppress that free speech, and I doubt the high court would allow it.
And this is particularly true if The Onion can show that they are being singled out here. That shouldn't be hard. Unless the WH or AG office sent C&D letters to every other prominent media outlet that uses the Seal (or a likeness thereof -- note that it doesn't have to be identical) then The Onion can show that they are being targeted specifically. Did NBC (The West Wing, Saturday Night Live), ABC (Commander in Chief), Fox (24), and Comedy Central (The Daily Show) receive letters, or do they have pre-exisiting allowances to use the seal? What about the movie studios that have produced movies such as Air Force One, Independance Day, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, or any other movie that involves the President, the VP, or either house of Congress and shows the appropriate seal?
No, I think that if The Onion was to go to court on this that the eventual ruling would be clearly on their side.
I'm not running insane resolution either. I typically run 1280x960, no AA.
Which is already higher than current consoles can manage, and roughly equivalent/higher than the next gen consoles (1080i = 1920x1080 @30fps (or 1920x540 @60fps), 720p = 1280x720 @60fps).
And a 6600GT is under $140 now, not $200 like the GP suggested.
For an entire PC that outspecs a PS2/GC/Xbox you'd pay under $300.
The games that are "pushing" your 6600GT will be pushing the new gen of consoles as well -- they have drastically less CPU power (but have GPUs roughly equivalent to a low end 7800 series card). Their main advantages are a locked configuration (easier to optimize for) and a relatively low res output device (even at HD resolutions).
I didn't. Loved Civ I and II, but did not like AC or CivIII. I'm holding off on Civ IV because of that.
Re:What's the point of these Q&A sessions?
on
Sid Meier Responds
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Oh yeah...
The world of warcraft repsonses left out any of the linux questions.
The WoW responses also left out any useful content.
Re:What's the point of these Q&A sessions?
on
Sid Meier Responds
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I clicked the link in this story's write up and didn't notice it was for the other interview
Yeah, that got me too... I started getting suspicious when not one of the questions appeared in the interview at all. Further research on the submitters showed the issue. If I'd been more attentive I would've realized the problem a whole lot sooner.
Re:What's the point of these Q&A sessions?
on
Sid Meier Responds
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The most popular questions from the slashdot comments don't get picked.
Really? Every single one of the questions asked was rated to +5. Maybe your most popular question didn't get picked, but your statement is baseless.
There were 61 comments rated to +5 on the original story (note -- it's not the one that's linked to in the post; that links to the "Ask CivIV Devs" which in turn links to the proper story). They can only submit 10 questions to be answered (and hey, where'd #8 go?) -- submitting much more than that isn't reasonable. Can you imagine if you'd agreed to answer 10 questions and got a list of 60+ and were told "just answer the 10 you like"? If I was in that situation I'd answer precisely zero -- because you clearly don't understand what the hell your job is as an interviewer.
For the second game developer interview in a row +5 modded questions about linux ports of the games have been posted and ignored.
Uh, frankly, the answer is blindingly obvious. Even id Software, which provides Linux ports, has stated that it doesn't make financial sense. And their codebase is "relatively" easy to port because it's not completely tied to DirectX.
Really, I do want to know what happened to question #8. We got jipped an answer! And maybe it'd even be the one to make you happy.
You can ride and bike or walk listening to music from an iPod but you can't do those things with video.
It's illegal to wear headphones on a bike in many municipalities, and potentially stupid to do while walking. (For exactly the same reasons why it's illegal in some places to wear headphones or watch a video while driving).
Beyond that, it's certainly possible to watch video while walking (you can read while walking after all), it just increases the stupidity factor.
I guess you could watch a video while biking too, but you may as well change your name to "roadkill" first.
That is definitely a Flash problem. That exact behavior is exhibited on all platforms (Linux, Windows, Mac), in all browsers (take your pick), in various Flash versions.
The fun thing is that it doesn't happen all the time, even for a given platform/OS/browser/flash combination.
My guess is that they have a race condition somewhere deep in the code. It's been around since at least Flash v5, and persists to this day.
Thankfully in Firefox we have the Flashblock extension available, so it's not such a huge problem.
For all we know it could be something Microsoft is causing.
Actually, I suspect it's something Macromedia (Adobe now I guess) is causing... yeah, the Flash plugin.
I see a dramatic rise in memory usage once I hit a page that uses Flash. I've never seen it eat as much memory as you describe -- on my work PC it usually hovers around 120M of memory (out of 1GB), regardless of how many tabs I have open.
Instead of writing patches, why not just re-write the vulnerable code so that it works, and release a new version, not a patch?
Huh? That makes absolutely no sense. They don't just write a stopgap fix -- they do rewrite the code that has a bug or security vulnerability. And to date they haven't ever released a patch -- every single update has been a full reinstall of the browser (which is absurd, and is finally being fixed in 1.5). Finally, it simply doesn't matter if you issue a new "version" or a "patch". They have the exact same effect -- to completely replace the affected code.
Re:How do you do a character literal?
on
Vim 6.4 Released
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Ok, your question has been answered... here's mine.
Why on earth does ^F end visual mode in vim on Windows? This happens in both vim and gvim (I have 6.3 installed at the moment, but it's happened in previous versions too).
This is annoying and completely different from *nix behavior. I've read various help pages, looked through mswin.vim, etc. and can't figure out why this happens. There's no mention of it in the visual mode help pages.
Not everyone needs the same set of features in their database product. Some people want something that is very lightweight and fast.
Agreed. If you're not going to use feature X, Y, or Z then there's no point in buying a product that has it over one that doesn't. Just be damn sure that you won't ever need those features though -- if you discover that you do then you may be in for a world of hurt.
That said, the free RDBMS's are covering 90-95% of most people's needs at this point. If you need non-relational, or much more advanced replication/scalability capabilities then you're much better off sticking with the "big boys".
Other people want bulletproof "unbreakable" databases
The one nit I wanted to pick -- sorry, but a bulletproof "unbreakable" database is not an optional feature. If the database backend isn't solid and reliable then you should not use it for anything beyond toy programs or data. I believe MySQL long ago put data corruption issues behind it, so I'm not slamming them, but data loss (or rather, non-data loss) isn't something you should ever consider optional.
Yes, you still have to backup, archive, etc. your data, no matter what vendor you use. But that should be for disaster recovery scenarios and hardware failure only -- not for "oh fuck, a bug ate my db". Or, even worse, "What do you mean the database has been corrupted for the past 3 months?".
You should't be affraid of a little competition, as it is good for the entire market.
You say that merely because you aren't king. King's generally disagree with the idea.:)
However, there's one little problem --- how the hell do you turn it?
This is listed as a "problem" by the folks developing it.
Actually, however, there's a much bigger problem. Presuming that you have the sensor facing away from the sun (if you don't, then you face even bigger issues), then the 50k km spacing leads to the two objects being in separate orbits. The sensor will travel around the sun at a slightly faster rate than the shield, which means you have to adjust orbits on a pretty frequent basis. This becomes less and less of a problem the further away from the sun you are (and being further away has its own advantages too), but it's still an issue no matter what.
Keeping the entire thing in alignment is a huge problem -- even if you ignore needing to turn it (which you certainly will; it may be a pinhole camera, but the longer the exposure time the better the picture -- if you can pivot the entire thing continuously that is).
There's a PDF on this project that may contain more info, but my copy of Acrobat (6.0) declines to render the entire thing (or the PDF is junk, dunno which).
There's also an article on Astrobio.net that gives little more detail than the CU link... but it does have links to other sources that may be informative. Really though, this concept seems to be in such an infancy stage that "simple" questions like "so how do you turn it?" haven't been answered yet (in fact, in this NASA link how to keep the two craft in alignment is listed as a "main technological hurdle").
It's not about whether or not you can purchase it, whether or not you can put it wherever the hell you want, etc. It's about whether or not your spouse/SO/visiting relatives/friends can use the damned thing without a manual, cheat sheet, or 15 minutes of instructions from you.
That's what it's all about. Nothing more, nothing less. Frankly, I don't want to be the only one who can power-up the AV system and set the DVR to play show X, or show the weather, or play music, or to use the DVD player instead. Which is why I have a TiVo w/ Galleon and a nice programmable remote. It means mere mortals can do things with the system when I want to be downstairs on my computer, doing work around the house, or when I'm not home.
Below is a list of the Congresspeople and their districts. If you're not in one of their districts, you can still do things though. In particular, if your Congressional rep sits on the Telecomm and Internet Subcommittee or the House Energy and Commerce committee then contact them and tell them to vote it down in committee and why. If it's voted down in committee then it's unlikely to ever reach the floor and dies right there. Yay.
And you can also contact your Congressperson and tell them that if the bill should come to the house floor that you object to it (and why), and would like to see them vote against it and support their constituants instead of the MPAA. You know -- to do their job.
Now the list (from the parent post and the House Member list): Charles Pickering -- Mississippi, 3rd Edolphus Towns -- New York, 10th John Shimkus -- Illinois, 19th George Radnovich -- California, 19th Mike Ferguson -- New Jersey, 7th Marsha Blackburn -- Tennessee, 7th Mary Bono -- California, 45th (good bloody luck) Bart Gordon -- Tennessee, 6th Joe Terry -- Don't know! There's a Lee Terry (Nebraska, 2nd) and Terry Everett (Alabama, 2nd) though. Ed Whitfield -- Kentucky, 1st Bobby Rush -- Illinois, 1st Vito Fossella -- New York, 13th Elliot L. Engel -- New York, 17th John B. Shadegg -- Arizona, 3rd Albert Russell Wynn -- Maryland, 4th Michael F. Doyle -- Pennsylvania, 14th Charles A. Gonzalez -- Texas, 20th Charles F. Bass -- New Hampshire, 2nd John Sullivan -- Oklahoma, 1st Frank Pallone, Jr. -- New Jersey, 6th
Don't ask me which party. I've always found that a pain in the ass to figure out.
And thanks to the parent poster, since the link in the article wouldn't come up for me.
Which is exactly the presumption that causes most friendly fire incidents. Communication is incomplete, people get lost, go into the wrong areas, there are always civilians around, etc.
Could the government turn out some fully automated Predators right now? Almost certainly. But I think they know it would be a bad idea to do so, especially given the rather weak onboard intelligence. AFAIK, the Predators were never designed to be completely autonomous anyway, and were always made to have some degree of human intervention (if only plotting route points).
Imagine an armored vehicle that can recognize friend or foe.
Given that humans have enough problems doing that (friendly fire incidents anyone?), I think you can forget about a completely autonomous armed vehicle for quite some time. Even the Hellfire armed Predators require a human for fire control... it's just that the human can be on the other side of the planet (and often is).
But the civillian benefits are going to be cool too. For instance, screw magnets imbedded in roads, etc. Just use the roads we have now and tell the vehicle where you want to go.
Uh... maybe in a decade or two. The software used on these vehicles is tuned toward one specific set of conditions -- uninhabited desert. They have little to no software for dealing with moving objects, much less dozens or hundreds of moving objects. And when you start talking about street or freeway driving then you have a bunch of other issues that come up -- having to deal with animals or people darting into the street, dealing with other vehicles doing stupid things (either because the human at the wheel did something foolish or because that 18-wheeler just lost a tire and driving through the debris is a really bad idea), etc.
Oh, and then there's the minor issue that a lot of the technology being used (LIDAR, etc) aren't reliable much above 20 mph -- at higher speeds you cannot crunch the data fast enough to rely on them for object detection and collision avoidance. So unless you're excited about driving everywhere at 20 mph, you better hope that GM, Ford, etc. solve the highway driving problem. Even if it does involve implanting magnets in the roadway.
There are several factors here. First and formost, the vehicles are more capable. The software is vastly better and the hardware is somewhat improved. Did you think that they've been sitting around doing nothing for the past 17 months? They've been working on improvements since the last challenge, and they've spent a lot more time actually testing their vehicles in desert terrain.
There are some people who say that this year's course is far easier than last year's. I don't know myself -- I'm not involved with any of the teams and I don't have detailed knowledge of the courses. But there has been some commentary by those involved to this effect, as well as from bystanders. One huge difference is that the most difficult part of the course (Beer Bottle Pass, a narrow road with a steep drop off on one side) was at the end of the course this year, while the equivalent part was near the start last year. Stanford's leader is quoted as saying something to the effect that if they'd inverted last year's course then a lot of cars would've gone much further, even if none of them finished. The complete lack of media attention last year may have been one reason why DARPA swapped the course around -- it's rather anti-climactic to write about a race where the best racer hardly even got off the finish line and leads to the kind of stories DARPA really doesn't want to see (waste of taxpayer money, will never work, etc.).
In any case, given that less than 25% of the vehicles finished, I'd hardly say that it was a trivial thing to do. It's still amazing. Congrats to those who did, and to all of those who participated for that matter -- it's quite an accomplishment, even if there's a long way to go still before this is really usable in a real world environment.
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Perhaps it is because more people are familiar with C++ than Python, and by writing the AI and other game rules in C++ the Civ 4 team has made modders job easier.
I doubt it. Python is a whole lot easier to get into than C++ (and yes, I do multi platform C++ for a living), so if your primary goal is to enable easy modding then Python is the obvious choice. In fact, they seem to have made that choice for the majority of the interface and code.
But it probably would've been a bad choice for the AI, which is highly performance oriented/sensitive code. As anyone who's played Civ games (or other turn based games) knows, the end game bogs down. Not only for the player, but also for the computer, which has to calculate AI moves with increasing complexity and resources. Having an inefficient AI at the start of the game is no big deal. Having one at the end results in annoyed players.
And, as a slight aside -- complaining about memory allocation in C++ just means you aren't using the tools available! They already mentioned utilizing Boost, so why weren't they using the Boost shared_ptr classes? Wrap any pointers you may be using in them and you'll stop having to worry about new/delete or malloc/free issues. No, it's still not as simple as a true GC, but it's far better than the old ways.
Epic has done excellent with every UT release even though they have no irritating protection measures
Epic has had CD check copy protection on every single release of Unreal or Unreal Tournament. But that usually only lasts for the first couple of months -- at that point they remove it in a patch. And bravo to them for doing so. I suspect that most casual pirating (which is the only type that's stopped by CD checks) occurs in the first few weeks of a game being out. After that it's just a disservice to your actual customers. I do buy every game I play, and I'm tired of being treated like a crook.
That's the best part: modern CRTs almost never die. If anything, the electronics supporting them go a long way before the tube goes.
While technically true, the reality is that even though the CRT may not be dead it may be so dim that you wish it was. And compensating by pushing up the contrast and brightness just causes it to fade even faster.
I can't tell you how many old CRT monitors I've seen that were so dim that they should've been thrown in the trash. Mine's not there yet, but it won't be much longer I think.
Now, my desk is another story. I have a CRT for my computer there too but when that goes, the LCD cometh ...
Man, I keep pseudo-hoping that my Viewsonic 21PS will die. Maybe then I could justify buying an LCD.
Except that I have two spare VS 19" CRTs sitting around. Sigh.
Maybe my toddler will figure out a way to trash them for me...
Didn't the patent on Trintron expire?
Yes, but remember -- when it's a patent/copyright/other IP that you hate then it's evil and wrong. When it's something you like, when the IP expires then others "rip off" your hard work.
And I heartily disagree with the grandparent about the brightness factor of LCD/DLP -- my 46" DLP is visible in normal light conditions, in a well lit room. No, I can't see shit on it when the sun is shining directly on the screen, but I can't see shit on a CRT in those circumstances either.
And I suspect he was comparing apples to oranges anyway -- direct view CRT to projection LCD/DLP (since projection is the only way you can view DLP). Compare projection CRT and the LCD/DLP literally shine -- you need as dark a room as possible for projected CRT. Also, if you want much more than 36" diagonal you can't use direct view CRT -- the tubes are just too big, heavy, and expensive (IIRC, the largest direct view tube ever produced for home use was a 44" Mitsubishi).
Rather, they start from scratch every time. Re-inventing the wheel over and over...
Except that you're completely wrong. The Spirit/Opportunity rover design is a direct descendant from the Pathfinder design. And not only the rover, but the entire landing craft too (which practically didn't change from Pathfinder).
As for why we don't send a plethora of them? Because it would be pointless. The design is made to operate within a very tight equatorial band. Any more "tropical" and the solar panels won't get enough power on a daily basis. Forget polar exploration entirely. The sensors onboard the rovers, while a significant step up from Pathfinder, have pretty well reached their limits. Why should we spend several million dollars to just collect additional data points? Heck, that's largely what the rovers are doing at this point -- because they simply cannot get more detailed data with what the sensors they have. Sending additional rovers to the (exceptionally few) available landing spots isn't going to gain us very much. Revising the design again, adding newer sensors and more capabilities, however, could easily give us far better results for a similar amount of money.
And, finally, as for mass production... uh... no. The rovers were never designed to be mass produced. There are parts with such fine tolerances that it's not reasonable to mass produce them. Could you? Sure. But you'll spend more on setting up and fine tuning the process than you would in creating a couple of custom-made rovers. And it's pointless when you can be assured that you're not going to be making more than a few of a particular model. You don't think that race cars are made via mass production, or that the concept cars all the automakers produce are, do you?
Have you ever worked in a mass production environment? On the pre-implementation end? How long do you think it takes GM, Boeing, Intel, or anyone else in the business to setup an entirely new line? It's not as simple as you seem to think.
What should someone's UID have to do with the validity of what they post?
Wow, that flew totally over your head didn't it?
The great-grandparent was posting the truth. Slashdot is Rob's blog. Whining that it isn't is just an indication that you haven't been around that long and don't know what the site was started as.
Has it grown in scope? Certainly. But it's still Rob's blog. If you don't like that, you're welcome to setup your own site, or to simply use other sites that don't offend you so often. Heck, you can even block the apparantly incessant whining that CmdrTaco spews forth on his own site by blocking all stories posted by him.
The current answers seem to be Yes, Yes, and No.
I'm not sure why you think that The West Wing and others "fall under current Presidential Regulations that permit it's [sic] use". I have not seen anything indicating such. It could be, but then you end up with the situation where you have to justify giving them an exception but not The Onion. Particularly if SNL and The Daily Show have exceptions.
And it may be that an exception will be granted and this will all be over nothing -- which I think would be the smart move by the administration.
Satire is protected only under copyright and trademark law as "Fair Use". Since the seals are protected under separate laws, the Satire defense is likely to not hold water.
Yes, but then that goes up against the 1st Ammendment, which doesn't care if the speech in question is regarding IP or not (and at least the IP rules have a basis in Article I, Section 7; the regulation on the Seals do not, except through interpretation of the same (particularly regarding "To regulate commerce with foreign nations" or "To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States" -- both are stretches).
As you say, it's not cut and dried. But the Supreme Court has a long history of protecting satire and political satire -- c.f. FCC v. Pacifica, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Hustler v. Falwell, and others.
From the Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music case (thanks Findlaw), Judge Souter's opinion (for an unanimous ruling) included the following: "[p]arody's humor, or in any event its comment, necessarily springs from recognizable allusion to its object through distorted imitation. Its art lies in the tension between a known original and its parodic twin. When parody takes aim at a particular original work, the parody must be able to 'conjure up' at least enough of that original to make the object of its critical wit recognizable."
And note that the law does not just prevent identical copies of the Seal, but of any likeness.
This is NOT a matter of copyright law
You are entirely correct, in large part because the government cannot hold copyright. Or a trademark. Or a patent. IP law does not come into play here.
it is a matter of CRIMINAL law
It's also a matter of the 1st Ammendment, particularly as it relates to political satire. The Supreme Court has been pretty clear on that issue -- not only is satire protected free speech, but political satire is given the widest berth. This could certainly be viewed as an attempt to suppress that free speech, and I doubt the high court would allow it.
And this is particularly true if The Onion can show that they are being singled out here. That shouldn't be hard. Unless the WH or AG office sent C&D letters to every other prominent media outlet that uses the Seal (or a likeness thereof -- note that it doesn't have to be identical) then The Onion can show that they are being targeted specifically. Did NBC (The West Wing, Saturday Night Live), ABC (Commander in Chief), Fox (24), and Comedy Central (The Daily Show) receive letters, or do they have pre-exisiting allowances to use the seal? What about the movie studios that have produced movies such as Air Force One, Independance Day, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, or any other movie that involves the President, the VP, or either house of Congress and shows the appropriate seal?
No, I think that if The Onion was to go to court on this that the eventual ruling would be clearly on their side.
I'm not running insane resolution either. I typically run 1280x960, no AA.
Which is already higher than current consoles can manage, and roughly equivalent/higher than the next gen consoles (1080i = 1920x1080 @30fps (or 1920x540 @60fps), 720p = 1280x720 @60fps).
And a 6600GT is under $140 now, not $200 like the GP suggested.
For an entire PC that outspecs a PS2/GC/Xbox you'd pay under $300.
The games that are "pushing" your 6600GT will be pushing the new gen of consoles as well -- they have drastically less CPU power (but have GPUs roughly equivalent to a low end 7800 series card). Their main advantages are a locked configuration (easier to optimize for) and a relatively low res output device (even at HD resolutions).
Everybody who tried it loved it.
I didn't. Loved Civ I and II, but did not like AC or CivIII. I'm holding off on Civ IV because of that.
Oh yeah...
The world of warcraft repsonses left out any of the linux questions.
The WoW responses also left out any useful content.
I clicked the link in this story's write up and didn't notice it was for the other interview
Yeah, that got me too... I started getting suspicious when not one of the questions appeared in the interview at all. Further research on the submitters showed the issue. If I'd been more attentive I would've realized the problem a whole lot sooner.
The most popular questions from the slashdot comments don't get picked.
Really? Every single one of the questions asked was rated to +5. Maybe your most popular question didn't get picked, but your statement is baseless.
There were 61 comments rated to +5 on the original story (note -- it's not the one that's linked to in the post; that links to the "Ask CivIV Devs" which in turn links to the proper story). They can only submit 10 questions to be answered (and hey, where'd #8 go?) -- submitting much more than that isn't reasonable. Can you imagine if you'd agreed to answer 10 questions and got a list of 60+ and were told "just answer the 10 you like"? If I was in that situation I'd answer precisely zero -- because you clearly don't understand what the hell your job is as an interviewer.
For the second game developer interview in a row +5 modded questions about linux ports of the games have been posted and ignored.
Uh, frankly, the answer is blindingly obvious. Even id Software, which provides Linux ports, has stated that it doesn't make financial sense. And their codebase is "relatively" easy to port because it's not completely tied to DirectX.
Really, I do want to know what happened to question #8. We got jipped an answer! And maybe it'd even be the one to make you happy.
You can ride and bike or walk listening to music from an iPod but you can't do those things with video.
It's illegal to wear headphones on a bike in many municipalities, and potentially stupid to do while walking. (For exactly the same reasons why it's illegal in some places to wear headphones or watch a video while driving).
Beyond that, it's certainly possible to watch video while walking (you can read while walking after all), it just increases the stupidity factor.
I guess you could watch a video while biking too, but you may as well change your name to "roadkill" first.
Sometimes flash ads in Opera will eat 100% CPU
That is definitely a Flash problem. That exact behavior is exhibited on all platforms (Linux, Windows, Mac), in all browsers (take your pick), in various Flash versions.
The fun thing is that it doesn't happen all the time, even for a given platform/OS/browser/flash combination.
My guess is that they have a race condition somewhere deep in the code. It's been around since at least Flash v5, and persists to this day.
Thankfully in Firefox we have the Flashblock extension available, so it's not such a huge problem.
For all we know it could be something Microsoft is causing.
Actually, I suspect it's something Macromedia (Adobe now I guess) is causing... yeah, the Flash plugin.
I see a dramatic rise in memory usage once I hit a page that uses Flash. I've never seen it eat as much memory as you describe -- on my work PC it usually hovers around 120M of memory (out of 1GB), regardless of how many tabs I have open.
Instead of writing patches, why not just re-write the vulnerable code so that it works, and release a new version, not a patch?
Huh? That makes absolutely no sense. They don't just write a stopgap fix -- they do rewrite the code that has a bug or security vulnerability. And to date they haven't ever released a patch -- every single update has been a full reinstall of the browser (which is absurd, and is finally being fixed in 1.5). Finally, it simply doesn't matter if you issue a new "version" or a "patch". They have the exact same effect -- to completely replace the affected code.
Ok, your question has been answered... here's mine.
Why on earth does ^F end visual mode in vim on Windows? This happens in both vim and gvim (I have 6.3 installed at the moment, but it's happened in previous versions too).
This is annoying and completely different from *nix behavior. I've read various help pages, looked through mswin.vim, etc. and can't figure out why this happens. There's no mention of it in the visual mode help pages.
Anyone?
Not everyone needs the same set of features in their database product. Some people want something that is very lightweight and fast.
:)
Agreed. If you're not going to use feature X, Y, or Z then there's no point in buying a product that has it over one that doesn't. Just be damn sure that you won't ever need those features though -- if you discover that you do then you may be in for a world of hurt.
That said, the free RDBMS's are covering 90-95% of most people's needs at this point. If you need non-relational, or much more advanced replication/scalability capabilities then you're much better off sticking with the "big boys".
Other people want bulletproof "unbreakable" databases
The one nit I wanted to pick -- sorry, but a bulletproof "unbreakable" database is not an optional feature. If the database backend isn't solid and reliable then you should not use it for anything beyond toy programs or data. I believe MySQL long ago put data corruption issues behind it, so I'm not slamming them, but data loss (or rather, non-data loss) isn't something you should ever consider optional.
Yes, you still have to backup, archive, etc. your data, no matter what vendor you use. But that should be for disaster recovery scenarios and hardware failure only -- not for "oh fuck, a bug ate my db". Or, even worse, "What do you mean the database has been corrupted for the past 3 months?".
You should't be affraid of a little competition, as it is good for the entire market.
You say that merely because you aren't king. King's generally disagree with the idea.
However, there's one little problem --- how the hell do you turn it?
This is listed as a "problem" by the folks developing it.
Actually, however, there's a much bigger problem. Presuming that you have the sensor facing away from the sun (if you don't, then you face even bigger issues), then the 50k km spacing leads to the two objects being in separate orbits. The sensor will travel around the sun at a slightly faster rate than the shield, which means you have to adjust orbits on a pretty frequent basis. This becomes less and less of a problem the further away from the sun you are (and being further away has its own advantages too), but it's still an issue no matter what.
Keeping the entire thing in alignment is a huge problem -- even if you ignore needing to turn it (which you certainly will; it may be a pinhole camera, but the longer the exposure time the better the picture -- if you can pivot the entire thing continuously that is).
The NAIC website has a smidgen more info on it -- namely that there were four other research projects funded as well.
There's a PDF on this project that may contain more info, but my copy of Acrobat (6.0) declines to render the entire thing (or the PDF is junk, dunno which).
There's also an article on Astrobio.net that gives little more detail than the CU link... but it does have links to other sources that may be informative. Really though, this concept seems to be in such an infancy stage that "simple" questions like "so how do you turn it?" haven't been answered yet (in fact, in this NASA link how to keep the two craft in alignment is listed as a "main technological hurdle").
Maybe you'd prefer "Spousal Usability Factor" (or Wife UF if you're sexist).
It's not about whether or not you can purchase it, whether or not you can put it wherever the hell you want, etc. It's about whether or not your spouse/SO/visiting relatives/friends can use the damned thing without a manual, cheat sheet, or 15 minutes of instructions from you.
That's what it's all about. Nothing more, nothing less. Frankly, I don't want to be the only one who can power-up the AV system and set the DVR to play show X, or show the weather, or play music, or to use the DVD player instead. Which is why I have a TiVo w/ Galleon and a nice programmable remote. It means mere mortals can do things with the system when I want to be downstairs on my computer, doing work around the house, or when I'm not home.
Below is a list of the Congresspeople and their districts. If you're not in one of their districts, you can still do things though. In particular, if your Congressional rep sits on the Telecomm and Internet Subcommittee or the House Energy and Commerce committee then contact them and tell them to vote it down in committee and why. If it's voted down in committee then it's unlikely to ever reach the floor and dies right there. Yay.
And you can also contact your Congressperson and tell them that if the bill should come to the house floor that you object to it (and why), and would like to see them vote against it and support their constituants instead of the MPAA. You know -- to do their job.
Now the list (from the parent post and the House Member list):
Charles Pickering -- Mississippi, 3rd
Edolphus Towns -- New York, 10th
John Shimkus -- Illinois, 19th
George Radnovich -- California, 19th
Mike Ferguson -- New Jersey, 7th
Marsha Blackburn -- Tennessee, 7th
Mary Bono -- California, 45th (good bloody luck)
Bart Gordon -- Tennessee, 6th
Joe Terry -- Don't know! There's a Lee Terry (Nebraska, 2nd) and Terry Everett (Alabama, 2nd) though.
Ed Whitfield -- Kentucky, 1st
Bobby Rush -- Illinois, 1st
Vito Fossella -- New York, 13th
Elliot L. Engel -- New York, 17th
John B. Shadegg -- Arizona, 3rd
Albert Russell Wynn -- Maryland, 4th
Michael F. Doyle -- Pennsylvania, 14th
Charles A. Gonzalez -- Texas, 20th
Charles F. Bass -- New Hampshire, 2nd
John Sullivan -- Oklahoma, 1st
Frank Pallone, Jr. -- New Jersey, 6th
Don't ask me which party. I've always found that a pain in the ass to figure out.
And thanks to the parent poster, since the link in the article wouldn't come up for me.
say in some area where no "friendlies" were
Which is exactly the presumption that causes most friendly fire incidents. Communication is incomplete, people get lost, go into the wrong areas, there are always civilians around, etc.
Could the government turn out some fully automated Predators right now? Almost certainly. But I think they know it would be a bad idea to do so, especially given the rather weak onboard intelligence. AFAIK, the Predators were never designed to be completely autonomous anyway, and were always made to have some degree of human intervention (if only plotting route points).
Imagine an armored vehicle that can recognize friend or foe.
Given that humans have enough problems doing that (friendly fire incidents anyone?), I think you can forget about a completely autonomous armed vehicle for quite some time. Even the Hellfire armed Predators require a human for fire control... it's just that the human can be on the other side of the planet (and often is).
But the civillian benefits are going to be cool too. For instance, screw magnets imbedded in roads, etc. Just use the roads we have now and tell the vehicle where you want to go.
Uh... maybe in a decade or two. The software used on these vehicles is tuned toward one specific set of conditions -- uninhabited desert. They have little to no software for dealing with moving objects, much less dozens or hundreds of moving objects. And when you start talking about street or freeway driving then you have a bunch of other issues that come up -- having to deal with animals or people darting into the street, dealing with other vehicles doing stupid things (either because the human at the wheel did something foolish or because that 18-wheeler just lost a tire and driving through the debris is a really bad idea), etc.
Oh, and then there's the minor issue that a lot of the technology being used (LIDAR, etc) aren't reliable much above 20 mph -- at higher speeds you cannot crunch the data fast enough to rely on them for object detection and collision avoidance. So unless you're excited about driving everywhere at 20 mph, you better hope that GM, Ford, etc. solve the highway driving problem. Even if it does involve implanting magnets in the roadway.
There are several factors here. First and formost, the vehicles are more capable. The software is vastly better and the hardware is somewhat improved. Did you think that they've been sitting around doing nothing for the past 17 months? They've been working on improvements since the last challenge, and they've spent a lot more time actually testing their vehicles in desert terrain.
There are some people who say that this year's course is far easier than last year's. I don't know myself -- I'm not involved with any of the teams and I don't have detailed knowledge of the courses. But there has been some commentary by those involved to this effect, as well as from bystanders. One huge difference is that the most difficult part of the course (Beer Bottle Pass, a narrow road with a steep drop off on one side) was at the end of the course this year, while the equivalent part was near the start last year. Stanford's leader is quoted as saying something to the effect that if they'd inverted last year's course then a lot of cars would've gone much further, even if none of them finished. The complete lack of media attention last year may have been one reason why DARPA swapped the course around -- it's rather anti-climactic to write about a race where the best racer hardly even got off the finish line and leads to the kind of stories DARPA really doesn't want to see (waste of taxpayer money, will never work, etc.).
In any case, given that less than 25% of the vehicles finished, I'd hardly say that it was a trivial thing to do. It's still amazing. Congrats to those who did, and to all of those who participated for that matter -- it's quite an accomplishment, even if there's a long way to go still before this is really usable in a real world environment.