You can already use MSN under Linux. There are multi-network chat clients (like Trillian for Windows) that do it.
And yeah, AOL's software would be handy to run.
I think AOL should port their software to Linux, perhaps putting the OS on the disk as well, so that people can buy a bare PC, stick the AOL disk in, and go.
I've worked as a programmer before, so I don't know how that fits into your theory.
What the job entails is writing development tools (network simulators, etc), install code, simple UI stuff, and test suites which I then had to execute.
I think the appropriate title for the job is "Junior Whipping Boy" and entails all the annoying stuff that the people with seniority don't want to do.
People don't have to be able to build a car to be responsible for making sure it's properly maintained. They're also expected to check that it's in proper condition before they drive. (Or did you not do that during your driving test?)
If your grandmother bought a product I think she could reasonably expect it to work as advertised. If on the other hand she picked it up for free, I think she'd have more responsibility.
Similarly, if you just rented a car I think you could expect the company would have maintained it. If you find a car sitting in a field with a "Free to good owner" sticker on the windshield, I think you need to be more careful that it's in working order before taking it on the highway.
Linux producers can only be held liable if they sell the software. That's the whole thing about sales acts. Good must be fit for the purpose they are sold.
As long as Linux remain a hobbyist project, with free software, it'll be safe. Even companies who sell service contracts are okay.
What wouldn't be okay would be if someone gave the software away and sold activation codes. That sort of thing has been rules (in other industries) to be the same as selling the primary product. (Giving cars away, selling the keys, etc.)
Does the Apache Foundation sell the Apache web server? Do they make promises about its fitness?
If so, then yes they should be liable.
If not, then no they shouldn't be liable.
The responsibilities are a lot greater once you sell a product compared to giving it away for free. Anything sold (EULA or not) is assumed to be fit for the advertised use, in this case webserving. If MS sold IIS and it didn't work you'd have a good case. If the Apache Foundation gave away Apache and it didn't work you couldn't sue because you didn't buy it or otherwise enter into a usage contract for it.
(Now, if they intentionally put a virus in it, you could sue, but that's something different.)
This isn't really much of a problem. I know nobody gives Joe Sixpack much credit, but I'm sure that after having seen a few different looking desktops (all in the MS line, from 95/2k/XP) that he could probably clue into clicking the little button in the bottom left corner, or double-clicking an icon that looks like a envelope and says 'E-Mail'.
In fact, I think the low-end users are going to be the first target. Not only do stores have a financial motive to provide Windows alternatives, but the low-end users don't expect much out of a computer they bought for the same price as a gaming console.
Actually I think the one place that Linux is ready for the mainstream is in cheap net-ready computers.
If you buy an office computer you want something that could run MS Office, or something close to it, likely.
If you buy a $300 computer at Wal-Mart for using the inner-net to talk to relatives, likely you don't care what it comes with as long as it does what's needed.
All it would have to do is have a browser, email client, few games, and a basic office suite (not a lot, just enough for balancing a home budget or writing a letter to the relatives), work with standard printers, and be able to save to floppies or CDRW.
The hardest part of that is the printers, many of which are becoming windows-only.
If I was setting up a relative with a cheap computer and I didn't want calls for support I'd put on Linux, run ext3 (keep it from dying if they unplug it), and set it to boot into X without a password where I'd have removed the icons for everything except the apps I mentioned.
Ideally I'd compile the kernel with the kernel-print messages disable, or use one of the boot-picture mods to hide them. That way they don't see anything confusing.
It's only if you have more sophisticated users who've used a computer (with Windows) and want exactly the same thing, where Linux has a hard time substituting. Linux may not be as friendly as WinXP but it's certainly better than Win95 and I know relatives who still use that. (Well, and 3.1, but they're really backwards.)
Have you checked out r3mix.net yet? It's a good place to start before a big encoding project.
Even if you use 320kbps MP3s, you can't get near CD quality unless you use certain encoders. (Use Lame, don't use AudioCatalyst.) And if you use a good encoder you can probably get all the quality you need at 192VBR.
Whatever you do, use VBR. That way whatever you encode doesn't use the full bandwidth for silence, and doesn't feel limited to that for the complex bits.
You may know all this already, but if you don't you'll be a lot happier to find out in the Cs than the Xs.
Multiplayer is 90% of the reason to buy a Blizzard game.
Battle.net is a good reason to NOT buy a Blizzard game, especially for games like Starcraft and Warcraft3 that aren't ongoing (Diablo 2) and don't require a persistent universe.
By going with Battle.net you get a whole bunch of jerks, cheating, lag, and a generally lousy experience.
Compare this to Quake3 where you can join any of a thousand servers, or create your own. You get to play with people you want, find a server that doesn't lag, and otherwise customize the experience.
That is such a scam. If the job you're doing would qualify for benefits if you worked full time, I think they should have to pay the fraction of benefits that you work for. (5/8ths in that example.)
That's how welfare works too. It pays a small sum, but often more than you'd make if you got a minimum wage job *and* paid out for a bus pass, new clothes, etc. But what you make comes out of a welfare check which means that you basically don't get ahead until you've got a job paying Welfare+$400/month or so.
IMHO they should take a slightly longer view and let people collect some welfare while working, to ease the transition. The first few months are the hardest, putting out for a lot of expenses and doing it while working 50hours (with travel time).
There isn't a lot of incentive for people to try if they think they'll make the same ammount and have to work for it. If people could collect welfare fully the first month, half the next, and a quarter the next, they'd be ahead a bit. Enough that they could perhaps make themselves more employable.
IMHO we should have more programs geared towards getting people a decent job so they don't end up back on welfare, instead of just paying the minimum per month and making it easy to sit on for life.
I've never collected unemployment (never been laid off from a salaried job) but I've heard it's hell to collect. You'd think they'd make it fairly easy, after all you did have a job, it's not like it's a complete handout.
But it's much easier to blame "crack mothers" for the welfare state rather than making changes which would get rid of it.
It really doesn't make sense. If they use CD Keys that are secure at all they could easily create a Key server and let people submit keys all day without losing security.
Look at Q3. There are many ways to play online with a valid key, but there haven't been any attacks against the keys directly.
I don't know specifically what they did, but I assume it's something like this.
Generate random number (as securely as possible) SHA1 the number (hash it) Write down the hash
Distribute the original number as a CD key, the game hashes this and sends the hash to the keyserver which checks that this hash is valid. The keygen then notes that for the next five minutes, the client's IP is allowed to play.
Servers check with the keyserver when a client tries to connect. If the keyserver says to allow them, they do. (A cracked server skips this step.)
There's pretty well no way for this to be compromised. (Well, as long as your original random numbers are random. But this is pretty easy, considering you can use physical devices, your choice of algorithms, etc, etc)
Blizzard could easily implement this. In fact, it's probably easier than having some special pattern of numbers that's secure. There's also no secret that they must keep (except the list of valid #s, and that doesn't have to sit online).
id Software makes money off of a game that's distributed with a server. They even built in CD Key checking (which is easy to disable, but they simply count on enough non-cheating admins.)
This totally blows Blizzard's claim that there's no way to do it out of the water. id is doing it and making a ton of money.
Furthermore, even if Blizzard might lose money, that shouldn't justify their controlling how people use a product that they've legally purchased. What's the real difference between making a Diablo2 mod that adds a new character race, and making a server?
Why should we care what they want us to do with the game? People say that if we don't want to play by their rules we shouldn't buy the game. Perhaps, if they stated their rules up front, we might not. But now they took our money, so shouldn't they play by our rules? Or at least not impose and unfairly on us?
Why shouldn't the cartoons be public domain now? The operas Chuck Jones borrowed from were.
If the cartoons were public domain at a reasonable time (fifty years after creation perhaps) you could have someone write an opera about a rabbit and a duck fighting over something, while people still remember Bugs and Daffy and their opera spoof.
As it is now, these things will be locked up till the end of time, denying access to popular culture to the artists of the future.
> Bottom line, if you don't like it, don't use it.
Try this one...
"Bottom line, if you aren't going to let people use it as they wish, don't sell it."
Now, I'm not saying you should give the game away, but once someone buys it, they should have the right to create software that interacts with it. The fact that the law is currently fucked (DMCA) doesn't mean that companies should have the right to dictate the use to which people put their product after the sale. If they want that level of control, let them sit in the store and sign lease agreements with customers...
It's been ruled illegal time and again, for a company to try to keep competition from making a part that'll fit their product.
To use the tired example of razors and blades; the idea is to give away the razor and make the money on the blades. But if someone makes a blade which fits your razor handle they get the best of both worlds, selling blades and not needing to give away handles. If the company handing out razors wants to stop this they can either make their blades better (or merely sound better) or they can change the mechanism, making the competitors product useless.
There are limits to this though, if they change the design every six months customers will be annoyed because it'll be hard to buy blades for the razor they own, etc.
This is where Blizzard should be. If they don't like BNet emulators, they should get off their asses and code in something to stop it. If it gets too annoying and heavy handed, people will stop buying their products, perhaps sticking with the old products and an alternate network service.
Why should we bring in a law giving them more protection than any other industry, instead of making them win in the market?
And really, they don't need help here. BNet can't use the Blizzard trademark so Blizzard can easily distinguish themselves from copycats. And they can make a value-added service doing something a smaller collection of independant networks couldn't, they can offer better player screening (nobody wants to play with a person who throws games, or has an unfair ladder ranking) and run contests that are only available on their network.
If they do their job right, people will be drawn to their service. I mean, how much should it take for them to be able to out-glitz a project put together in someone's spare time? If they're afraid of the BNetd people maybe they should hire them.
But yeah, all it did was motivate me to crack it. The crack I ended up using was the one that came with the pirated version. The pirates didn't notice any inconvenience but the legit user...
I've since started cracking everything. I'll be damned if I'm going to dig through my binder to get the disk just to load a game. It'd be even worse if I kept the boxes, ugh.
I had a CD-ROM that Diablo II wouldn't read its copy protection from. Their answer was for me to buy a new CD-ROM. They could have refunded my money, or sent me an.exe without the copy protection or many other things. Nope.
So I downloaded a crack. Was the best solution anyways (if you could spare 2.5GB of drive space) because then I didn't need to put the disk in.
But anyways, the long and short of it is that Blizzard is like and large company and they don't give a shit about you, once you bought the game. Now, if software was returnable we might see something different.
There's no natural reason why copyrights exist. If you see a sunset you can paint it, so can I. But if I see picture you painted I can't copy it. Why do I (as a member of the government) grant you this boon? Why should I spend my tax money prosecuting people who make copies of your pictures? Because copyrights are supposed to help the creator ($$) and society (the ability to use those copyrighted works, down the road, for $$ now protecting the copyright).
Really, I think you should be thankful for any protection, instead of insisting that everyone foot the bill to support a monopoly for the creator and never get anything back.
These are essentially government granted monopolies, what justifies them being so long? Why should they be guaranteed to continue after the life of the creator?
I'd even support a longer term if the restrictions were lessened at some point. Perhaps 50 years complete protection, 20 years where derivative works are allowed, then thirty where only not-for-profit copying (Gutenberg, etc) is allowed. After 100, it's open for everything.
I think copyright should continue after an author's death, as long as that's within the duration, but I don't see why they should have the copyright extended as long as their life. It just doesn't make sense, in a world where everything else is good for a set period of time only.
I like the idea about abandonment. Another idea is that after 25 years, an author could have to file an application for free extension for another five years at a time. It'd automatically succeed, and it it wasn't after the last one expired, they'd lose the copyright and the ability to reregister it.
This would give the important immediate copyright (as soon as something is created) but require people to file if they wanted to keep it locked up forever. If they forget to register it can't be that imporant to them.
Most everything we do is derivative of the works of others. That's simply how people learn and are influenced.
While a direct rip-off, "The further adventures of Frodo" or similar, might not be very creative, pieces of older works can be used to great effect by skilled authors and especially musicians.
For an example in music, Carl Orf's "O Fortuna" was based on pieces of famous music and blended together to create something new. Later Apotheosis came along, borrowed heavily from Orf, and produced their own sogn, a techno rock version of "O Fortuna". Orf's estate sued them.
Now, it seems that it should have been fair, what goes around comes around, and all. But the copyrights are much longer now meaning that it gets harder to use anything contemporary.
Being that nobody exists, or existed in a bubble, but were shaped by the creativity of those around them, they should let their creativity shape the next generation as well. Seems only fair to me, as long as we ensure that they're also given a chance (though maybe not life + 75 years) to profit from their creativity directly.
Ditto on the formal education, but I try to read books on theory as well as practice, to make sure I understand why as well as what.
It's *always* served me well. I've never had a CPU or disk bound program that I couldn't speed up by a factor of five (or more) by something I found in an algorithms books. (Excepting perhaps, when I use an existing algorithm like SHA1 that I assume has already been fairly well written.)
When did I state that Costco would pass additional savings back to the consumer? They are already cheaper because they provide less service.
btw "Get over yourself" isn't an insult. It simple means that you should try talking about a topic for once instead of sprinkling an insult in every paragraph. No matter how much revisionism you practice, you're the one throwing around insults. I merely said that you're trolling, which given your sig and your attitude is pretty well a given.
Your error in this comes when you continually attribute motives and lack of understanding to me, simply because I don't believe your conclusions. I'm sure that some benefits could come from handing over all your personal data to a store. I said that earlier. However I believe that it would be small, at best, and would be dwarfed by the savings from simply shopping at a cheaper store to begin with.
I don't believe you flunked logic 101, that would require taking the course. If you had, you'd notice that I never claimed that there is no benefit from extra information gathering, simply that it would be fairly minor and likely wouldn't be passed back to the consumer anyways.
You didn't disprove anything, because I didn't claim there wouldn't be any benefit to anyone. I claimed there'd be a very minimal benefit to the customers and that many like me who dislike meddlers peering into our life would simply ignore the percent or two of savings that it would represent. (At best, likely it wouldn't make any difference at all to the consumer.)
The burden of proof is not with me. I don't want stores gathering my personal information because I think they'd do something with it that I wouldn't like. I don't have to prove that they would (which would be impossible, because I'd have to know who would be doing it, etc) but simply that this is a probable and I'd want safeguards in place (or a very great reward) before I'd accept it.
Not that you claimed it wouldn't be abused or anything, you simply claimed that it would be a very large reward for the consumers who accepted this. That's what we disagree over.
However, because you keep trying to twist each paragraph into an insult I really can't take you seriously and this reinforces my earlier opinion of you, that you're a troll.
As you're starting to get tiresome, and have yet to prove anything other than that you think people would have to be real idiots for not agreeing with you, consider this thread to be done.
Slashdot Mirror
You can already use MSN under Linux. There are multi-network chat clients (like Trillian for Windows) that do it.
And yeah, AOL's software would be handy to run.
I think AOL should port their software to Linux, perhaps putting the OS on the disk as well, so that people can buy a bare PC, stick the AOL disk in, and go.
Perhaps.
I've worked as a programmer before, so I don't know how that fits into your theory.
What the job entails is writing development tools (network simulators, etc), install code, simple UI stuff, and test suites which I then had to execute.
I think the appropriate title for the job is "Junior Whipping Boy" and entails all the annoying stuff that the people with seniority don't want to do.
Nothing arrogant about that.
People don't have to be able to build a car to be responsible for making sure it's properly maintained. They're also expected to check that it's in proper condition before they drive. (Or did you not do that during your driving test?)
If your grandmother bought a product I think she could reasonably expect it to work as advertised. If on the other hand she picked it up for free, I think she'd have more responsibility.
Similarly, if you just rented a car I think you could expect the company would have maintained it. If you find a car sitting in a field with a "Free to good owner" sticker on the windshield, I think you need to be more careful that it's in working order before taking it on the highway.
How is that arrogant?
Linux producers can only be held liable if they sell the software. That's the whole thing about sales acts. Good must be fit for the purpose they are sold.
As long as Linux remain a hobbyist project, with free software, it'll be safe. Even companies who sell service contracts are okay.
What wouldn't be okay would be if someone gave the software away and sold activation codes. That sort of thing has been rules (in other industries) to be the same as selling the primary product. (Giving cars away, selling the keys, etc.)
Yawn.
Does the Apache Foundation sell the Apache web server? Do they make promises about its fitness?
If so, then yes they should be liable.
If not, then no they shouldn't be liable.
The responsibilities are a lot greater once you sell a product compared to giving it away for free. Anything sold (EULA or not) is assumed to be fit for the advertised use, in this case webserving. If MS sold IIS and it didn't work you'd have a good case. If the Apache Foundation gave away Apache and it didn't work you couldn't sue because you didn't buy it or otherwise enter into a usage contract for it.
(Now, if they intentionally put a virus in it, you could sue, but that's something different.)
This isn't really much of a problem. I know nobody gives Joe Sixpack much credit, but I'm sure that after having seen a few different looking desktops (all in the MS line, from 95/2k/XP) that he could probably clue into clicking the little button in the bottom left corner, or double-clicking an icon that looks like a envelope and says 'E-Mail'.
In fact, I think the low-end users are going to be the first target. Not only do stores have a financial motive to provide Windows alternatives, but the low-end users don't expect much out of a computer they bought for the same price as a gaming console.
Actually I think the one place that Linux is ready for the mainstream is in cheap net-ready computers.
If you buy an office computer you want something that could run MS Office, or something close to it, likely.
If you buy a $300 computer at Wal-Mart for using the inner-net to talk to relatives, likely you don't care what it comes with as long as it does what's needed.
All it would have to do is have a browser, email client, few games, and a basic office suite (not a lot, just enough for balancing a home budget or writing a letter to the relatives), work with standard printers, and be able to save to floppies or CDRW.
The hardest part of that is the printers, many of which are becoming windows-only.
If I was setting up a relative with a cheap computer and I didn't want calls for support I'd put on Linux, run ext3 (keep it from dying if they unplug it), and set it to boot into X without a password where I'd have removed the icons for everything except the apps I mentioned.
Ideally I'd compile the kernel with the kernel-print messages disable, or use one of the boot-picture mods to hide them. That way they don't see anything confusing.
It's only if you have more sophisticated users who've used a computer (with Windows) and want exactly the same thing, where Linux has a hard time substituting. Linux may not be as friendly as WinXP but it's certainly better than Win95 and I know relatives who still use that. (Well, and 3.1, but they're really backwards.)
Have you checked out r3mix.net yet? It's a good place to start before a big encoding project.
Even if you use 320kbps MP3s, you can't get near CD quality unless you use certain encoders. (Use Lame, don't use AudioCatalyst.) And if you use a good encoder you can probably get all the quality you need at 192VBR.
Whatever you do, use VBR. That way whatever you encode doesn't use the full bandwidth for silence, and doesn't feel limited to that for the complex bits.
You may know all this already, but if you don't you'll be a lot happier to find out in the Cs than the Xs.
Multiplayer is 90% of the reason to buy a Blizzard game.
Battle.net is a good reason to NOT buy a Blizzard game, especially for games like Starcraft and Warcraft3 that aren't ongoing (Diablo 2) and don't require a persistent universe.
By going with Battle.net you get a whole bunch of jerks, cheating, lag, and a generally lousy experience.
Compare this to Quake3 where you can join any of a thousand servers, or create your own. You get to play with people you want, find a server that doesn't lag, and otherwise customize the experience.
That is such a scam. If the job you're doing would qualify for benefits if you worked full time, I think they should have to pay the fraction of benefits that you work for. (5/8ths in that example.)
That's how welfare works too. It pays a small sum, but often more than you'd make if you got a minimum wage job *and* paid out for a bus pass, new clothes, etc. But what you make comes out of a welfare check which means that you basically don't get ahead until you've got a job paying Welfare+$400/month or so.
IMHO they should take a slightly longer view and let people collect some welfare while working, to ease the transition. The first few months are the hardest, putting out for a lot of expenses and doing it while working 50hours (with travel time).
There isn't a lot of incentive for people to try if they think they'll make the same ammount and have to work for it. If people could collect welfare fully the first month, half the next, and a quarter the next, they'd be ahead a bit. Enough that they could perhaps make themselves more employable.
IMHO we should have more programs geared towards getting people a decent job so they don't end up back on welfare, instead of just paying the minimum per month and making it easy to sit on for life.
I've never collected unemployment (never been laid off from a salaried job) but I've heard it's hell to collect. You'd think they'd make it fairly easy, after all you did have a job, it's not like it's a complete handout.
But it's much easier to blame "crack mothers" for the welfare state rather than making changes which would get rid of it.
Yawn, go away troll.
That EULA isn't valid because they didn't show it to me before I bought the software.
It really doesn't make sense. If they use CD Keys that are secure at all they could easily create a Key server and let people submit keys all day without losing security.
Look at Q3. There are many ways to play online with a valid key, but there haven't been any attacks against the keys directly.
I don't know specifically what they did, but I assume it's something like this.
Generate random number (as securely as possible)
SHA1 the number (hash it)
Write down the hash
Distribute the original number as a CD key, the game hashes this and sends the hash to the keyserver which checks that this hash is valid. The keygen then notes that for the next five minutes, the client's IP is allowed to play.
Servers check with the keyserver when a client tries to connect. If the keyserver says to allow them, they do. (A cracked server skips this step.)
There's pretty well no way for this to be compromised. (Well, as long as your original random numbers are random. But this is pretty easy, considering you can use physical devices, your choice of algorithms, etc, etc)
Blizzard could easily implement this. In fact, it's probably easier than having some special pattern of numbers that's secure. There's also no secret that they must keep (except the list of valid #s, and that doesn't have to sit online).
So really, no, it doesn't make a lot of sense.
id Software makes money off of a game that's distributed with a server. They even built in CD Key checking (which is easy to disable, but they simply count on enough non-cheating admins.)
This totally blows Blizzard's claim that there's no way to do it out of the water. id is doing it and making a ton of money.
Furthermore, even if Blizzard might lose money, that shouldn't justify their controlling how people use a product that they've legally purchased. What's the real difference between making a Diablo2 mod that adds a new character race, and making a server?
Why should we care what they want us to do with the game? People say that if we don't want to play by their rules we shouldn't buy the game. Perhaps, if they stated their rules up front, we might not. But now they took our money, so shouldn't they play by our rules? Or at least not impose and unfairly on us?
Why shouldn't the cartoons be public domain now? The operas Chuck Jones borrowed from were.
If the cartoons were public domain at a reasonable time (fifty years after creation perhaps) you could have someone write an opera about a rabbit and a duck fighting over something, while people still remember Bugs and Daffy and their opera spoof.
As it is now, these things will be locked up till the end of time, denying access to popular culture to the artists of the future.
> Bottom line, if you don't like it, don't use it.
Try this one...
"Bottom line, if you aren't going to let people use it as they wish, don't sell it."
Now, I'm not saying you should give the game away, but once someone buys it, they should have the right to create software that interacts with it. The fact that the law is currently fucked (DMCA) doesn't mean that companies should have the right to dictate the use to which people put their product after the sale. If they want that level of control, let them sit in the store and sign lease agreements with customers...
It's been ruled illegal time and again, for a company to try to keep competition from making a part that'll fit their product.
To use the tired example of razors and blades; the idea is to give away the razor and make the money on the blades. But if someone makes a blade which fits your razor handle they get the best of both worlds, selling blades and not needing to give away handles. If the company handing out razors wants to stop this they can either make their blades better (or merely sound better) or they can change the mechanism, making the competitors product useless.
There are limits to this though, if they change the design every six months customers will be annoyed because it'll be hard to buy blades for the razor they own, etc.
This is where Blizzard should be. If they don't like BNet emulators, they should get off their asses and code in something to stop it. If it gets too annoying and heavy handed, people will stop buying their products, perhaps sticking with the old products and an alternate network service.
Why should we bring in a law giving them more protection than any other industry, instead of making them win in the market?
And really, they don't need help here. BNet can't use the Blizzard trademark so Blizzard can easily distinguish themselves from copycats. And they can make a value-added service doing something a smaller collection of independant networks couldn't, they can offer better player screening (nobody wants to play with a person who throws games, or has an unfair ladder ranking) and run contests that are only available on their network.
If they do their job right, people will be drawn to their service. I mean, how much should it take for them to be able to out-glitz a project put together in someone's spare time? If they're afraid of the BNetd people maybe they should hire them.
No idea. I traded the game to a friend later.
But yeah, all it did was motivate me to crack it. The crack I ended up using was the one that came with the pirated version. The pirates didn't notice any inconvenience but the legit user...
I've since started cracking everything. I'll be damned if I'm going to dig through my binder to get the disk just to load a game. It'd be even worse if I kept the boxes, ugh.
Can you post some details?
I'll go look as well, but if I can't find anything...
Bullshit.
.exe without the copy protection or many other things. Nope.
I had a CD-ROM that Diablo II wouldn't read its copy protection from. Their answer was for me to buy a new CD-ROM. They could have refunded my money, or sent me an
So I downloaded a crack. Was the best solution anyways (if you could spare 2.5GB of drive space) because then I didn't need to put the disk in.
But anyways, the long and short of it is that Blizzard is like and large company and they don't give a shit about you, once you bought the game. Now, if software was returnable we might see something different.
There's no natural reason why copyrights exist. If you see a sunset you can paint it, so can I. But if I see picture you painted I can't copy it. Why do I (as a member of the government) grant you this boon? Why should I spend my tax money prosecuting people who make copies of your pictures? Because copyrights are supposed to help the creator ($$) and society (the ability to use those copyrighted works, down the road, for $$ now protecting the copyright).
Really, I think you should be thankful for any protection, instead of insisting that everyone foot the bill to support a monopoly for the creator and never get anything back.
I'd say 50 for a corporation, or a person. Tops.
These are essentially government granted monopolies, what justifies them being so long? Why should they be guaranteed to continue after the life of the creator?
I'd even support a longer term if the restrictions were lessened at some point. Perhaps 50 years complete protection, 20 years where derivative works are allowed, then thirty where only not-for-profit copying (Gutenberg, etc) is allowed. After 100, it's open for everything.
I think copyright should continue after an author's death, as long as that's within the duration, but I don't see why they should have the copyright extended as long as their life. It just doesn't make sense, in a world where everything else is good for a set period of time only.
I like the idea about abandonment. Another idea is that after 25 years, an author could have to file an application for free extension for another five years at a time. It'd automatically succeed, and it it wasn't after the last one expired, they'd lose the copyright and the ability to reregister it.
This would give the important immediate copyright (as soon as something is created) but require people to file if they wanted to keep it locked up forever. If they forget to register it can't be that imporant to them.
Most everything we do is derivative of the works of others. That's simply how people learn and are influenced.
While a direct rip-off, "The further adventures of Frodo" or similar, might not be very creative, pieces of older works can be used to great effect by skilled authors and especially musicians.
For an example in music, Carl Orf's "O Fortuna" was based on pieces of famous music and blended together to create something new. Later Apotheosis came along, borrowed heavily from Orf, and produced their own sogn, a techno rock version of "O Fortuna". Orf's estate sued them.
Now, it seems that it should have been fair, what goes around comes around, and all. But the copyrights are much longer now meaning that it gets harder to use anything contemporary.
Being that nobody exists, or existed in a bubble, but were shaped by the creativity of those around them, they should let their creativity shape the next generation as well. Seems only fair to me, as long as we ensure that they're also given a chance (though maybe not life + 75 years) to profit from their creativity directly.
I assume it'd only respond to a tilt on the pedals, more weight applied to the front than the back.
That'd be how that woman in the picture can lean her upper body over and rest of the scooter without it moving, because her legs are vertical.
Ditto on the formal education, but I try to read books on theory as well as practice, to make sure I understand why as well as what.
It's *always* served me well. I've never had a CPU or disk bound program that I couldn't speed up by a factor of five (or more) by something I found in an algorithms books. (Excepting perhaps, when I use an existing algorithm like SHA1 that I assume has already been fairly well written.)
When did I state that Costco would pass additional savings back to the consumer? They are already cheaper because they provide less service.
btw "Get over yourself" isn't an insult. It simple means that you should try talking about a topic for once instead of sprinkling an insult in every paragraph. No matter how much revisionism you practice, you're the one throwing around insults. I merely said that you're trolling, which given your sig and your attitude is pretty well a given.
Your error in this comes when you continually attribute motives and lack of understanding to me, simply because I don't believe your conclusions. I'm sure that some benefits could come from handing over all your personal data to a store. I said that earlier. However I believe that it would be small, at best, and would be dwarfed by the savings from simply shopping at a cheaper store to begin with.
I don't believe you flunked logic 101, that would require taking the course. If you had, you'd notice that I never claimed that there is no benefit from extra information gathering, simply that it would be fairly minor and likely wouldn't be passed back to the consumer anyways.
You didn't disprove anything, because I didn't claim there wouldn't be any benefit to anyone. I claimed there'd be a very minimal benefit to the customers and that many like me who dislike meddlers peering into our life would simply ignore the percent or two of savings that it would represent. (At best, likely it wouldn't make any difference at all to the consumer.)
The burden of proof is not with me. I don't want stores gathering my personal information because I think they'd do something with it that I wouldn't like. I don't have to prove that they would (which would be impossible, because I'd have to know who would be doing it, etc) but simply that this is a probable and I'd want safeguards in place (or a very great reward) before I'd accept it.
Not that you claimed it wouldn't be abused or anything, you simply claimed that it would be a very large reward for the consumers who accepted this. That's what we disagree over.
However, because you keep trying to twist each paragraph into an insult I really can't take you seriously and this reinforces my earlier opinion of you, that you're a troll.
As you're starting to get tiresome, and have yet to prove anything other than that you think people would have to be real idiots for not agreeing with you, consider this thread to be done.