If by "research" you mean "check the Steam Store page", then yes, you do. Case in point:Anno 2070. Specifically says "3rd party DRM Solidshield Tages SAS 3 machine activation limit"
There are usually means of returning the game if you reject the EULA, or so I have heard. No one actually does this, of course, but legally speaking it is possible. You have to go to the game publisher to do so, not the retailer, so like I said, no one actually does.
Actually you can buy the game twice, you just get it as a gift to send to whatever account you please. I discovered that over Christmas when I forgot I already owned a game that was on sale... (it was only like $3, but I still felt like an idiot).
Exactly. Ubisoft just doesn't get it: anyone can make PC games, people aren't forced to buy the shovel-loads of crap they make, and you don't need a license from Nintendo/MS/Sony to do so. When they declared a while back they were going to stop making PC games because of piracy, they obviously thought that was a threat. In reality, no one gave a fuck, because there are other, better developers out there, and there always will be. Anyone who wants to can make a PC game, and a fun one at that (Terraria, Minecraft, Braid, etc). That cannot happen with the console: if a developer moves away from one, the platform suffers. PC gamers just shrug and go "meh."
Unfortunately, it is the lawyers themselves who have a disproportionate influence over the legal structure itself. They are also the only ones who would know how to fix it and every reason not to. Hence, our current problems.
However, when notified of malevolent behavior from an IP address you own, you should have some explanation for who/what may have been responsible. Which may be as simple as open WiFi or as complex as Russian and Chinese hackers. Or bad corporate policy.
Ah yes, but see, the "90%" have this magical thing called the "vote." You may have heard of it. As much as politicians love money, they love votes far far more.
On January 27, 2003 Chief UN Weapons Inspector Blix addressed the UN Security Council and stated "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance -- not even today -- of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace."[5] Blix went on to state that the Iraqi regime had allegedly misplaced "1,000 tonnes" of VX nerve agent—one of the most toxic ever developed.
So no, it wasn't the US politicians alone who believed those falsehoods. In fact it was precisely because of the UN weapons inspection programs, and Iraq's failure to comply properly, that led to the war.
Still, the potential for access and communication is there. There are always ways around the filter. More people online is almost always a better thing. Filters or not, the Internet gives people access to more information and the ability to better educate themselves. This is a good thing: not as good as it could be, but still good.
And to make money farming WoW gold, but that is a side "benefit", I guess.
Ah, this is a fairly recent development. I was looking at Wikipedia and some general references I've found on the web in the past, which were a year or two old. Note, though, that many of the companies chosen were not US companies, although some were, that most of the revenue is staying in Iraq, and that a lot of the oil is probably going to end up going to other nations (according to CNN). Still, my facts were dated and I retract that part of my post: thank you for pointing this out. Nevertheless, the US certainly has not greatly benefited oil wise from the invasion, especially not over the past 10 years, which was the point of my statement, and contrary to what you would expect had oil been the primary goal.
"wee"..."to" (instead of too)..."was an is"... and of course, Godwinning the thread. Yeah, looks like it deserves a troll moderation to me. Flamebait might be more accurate, but either way. Also, as the AC above me mentions, Taliban were official sponsors of Al Qaeda, so they did, in effect, attack the US. Don't know how the hell you could consider that part of what he said "indisputable." No one else does.
I'll just drop this little gem here. It is quite clear that either most everyone in the government was lying, or it was really believed that he could be a major threat. Al Gore even said in 2002 that he knew Saddam had stores of chemical and biological weapons. Now, whether certain parts of the government deceived other parts is an open question I won't get into, but Saddam himself was doing everything in his power to make it look like he was a threat. Every reasonable examination points to the government as a whole honestly believing he was a major threat in a region that possesses massive amounts of economic resources and in some cases nuclear weapons which could lead to catastrophic disaster should he ever choose to act.
In hindsight, of course, we know better (hence all the "Bush lied and just wanted the oil"... the oil we never actually got, of course: Iraq's production has gone down since the invasion). At the time? No one did. Whether the actions were justified even given what we thought we knew at the time: well, again, I won't get into that, as it is pretty messy. I will just say that retrospect offers amazingly clear vision.
No, they have budget issues because they doubled their state budget from 1998 to 2008, from $58 billion to $131 billion. Much of it on government employees, who often make/made triple digit salaries (sometimes $200,000).
California sees less return on federal dollars than is taken in taxes.
Really? You mean the government can't give out more money to the states than it takes in in taxes... oh right, I suppose it does that all the time.
California has a whopping 12.5% unemployment, and managed to double their state spending in 10 years. Let me repeat that: double, from 1998 to 2008. One does not have to be a conservative to realize that California has a spending problem. Everyone there realizes it. One of the highest tax rates in the country, and they still can't find enough money.
I'd be a little more generous. More like a 50% accuracy at the 100 year horizon: same as flipping a coin. All the questions are basically "will this happen or not." That far out, it really is just random chance whether they are right or wrong.
This is fine so long as Facebook only gives Politico the numerical results and not the actual information itself. TFA is a little skimpy on the details about who is actually running the analyzing tool: if it is Facebook, fine, but if Politico has access to the private data, that would be a problem.
Correction (meant to change but didn't): it is barium-137m, a radioactive isotope. Ba-137 is a stable non-radioactive isotope that ends the chain. Also, Cs-137 -> Ba-137m produces some beta radiation, Ba-137m -> Ba-137 produces gamma.
The article specifies Cesium. I assume this is Cesium (or Caesium)-137, half-life 30 years, or Cesium-134, half life 2 years. The decay chain is mostly to Ba-137 (half life 153 seconds), which emits gamma rays of 662keV. Cs-134 doesn't seem to have a description of the decay chain on wikipedia, and based on what I can see I would assume it is produced in much smaller quantities (i.e. not a major factor). Also, it is in the gravel used to make concrete: chances of airborne contamination are tiny. Finally, they just say the radiation inside is higher than outside (concrete is a radiation shield, so this is unusual), not how much. Seems like a pretty small problem: 1.62mSv/3 months is higher than you want but not incredibly dangerous or even incredibly high.
The phone was worth more than $5 dollars. Now it is two years old and the market is flooded with old feature phones which no one wants, it actually is worth about that. Simply for parts and materials, most likely, unless it is in really good shape or a really nice feature phone.
The follow up to your little hypothetical story is that the police examine the video footage of the automated fencing machine, see it was you, not him that sold the phone to it, and give you (or the hypothetical individual) 5-10 for identity theft (or whatever the hell framing someone for a crime falls under). Or compare fingerprints that the machine required. Either would be pretty easy to require (via face recognition or a thumb-scanner). In any case, they certainly wouldn't take the information the seller gives the machine as proof of identity in the case of a theft. Most criminals aren't that stupid, you could simply assume the information was fake in the case of a theft, barring other evidence, so that little problem would never appear.
Ok, I'm not a grammar nazi or anything and wouldn't normally even bring this up, but you are the second person in a row to use the word "tract", so at this point I can't just assume it is a typo. "Tract" refers to a section of land, a short work of literature (usually political or religious in nature), or a section of certain body parts (such as the intestinal tract). Also, it's a noun, not a verb. The word you and your parent poster are looking for is the verb "track", which means (in this case, it has lots of meanings) to record and follow the history and movements of.
Does this thing ever get stuck and how do they deal with it?
A bucketful of laxitives would be my guess.
More seriously, I imagine that would be a problem they will have to address. TFA is short on details, but it looks like so far they have only gotten to the "powering it" part, meaning this is at least a few years from practical deployment. Navigating the length of the intestine with all it's twists and turns will probably be a nightmare. TFA does mention that they use pills with cameras already, and those pass through just fine (probably not comfortably, but better than cancer). I imagine this will work similarly: i.e. swallowed, not inserted rectally, so it won't even have to swim downstream, just control it's speed and direction a bit.
Slashdot Mirror
If by "research" you mean "check the Steam Store page", then yes, you do. Case in point:Anno 2070. Specifically says "3rd party DRM Solidshield Tages SAS 3 machine activation limit"
Yes, I do love Steam.
There are usually means of returning the game if you reject the EULA, or so I have heard. No one actually does this, of course, but legally speaking it is possible. You have to go to the game publisher to do so, not the retailer, so like I said, no one actually does.
Actually you can buy the game twice, you just get it as a gift to send to whatever account you please. I discovered that over Christmas when I forgot I already owned a game that was on sale... (it was only like $3, but I still felt like an idiot).
Exactly. Ubisoft just doesn't get it: anyone can make PC games, people aren't forced to buy the shovel-loads of crap they make, and you don't need a license from Nintendo/MS/Sony to do so. When they declared a while back they were going to stop making PC games because of piracy, they obviously thought that was a threat. In reality, no one gave a fuck, because there are other, better developers out there, and there always will be. Anyone who wants to can make a PC game, and a fun one at that (Terraria, Minecraft, Braid, etc). That cannot happen with the console: if a developer moves away from one, the platform suffers. PC gamers just shrug and go "meh."
DRM on the console won't interfere with my ability to do other things that aren't related to games.
You mean like installing Linux?
Unfortunately, it is the lawyers themselves who have a disproportionate influence over the legal structure itself. They are also the only ones who would know how to fix it and every reason not to. Hence, our current problems.
No, it does not identify you.
However, when notified of malevolent behavior from an IP address you own, you should have some explanation for who/what may have been responsible. Which may be as simple as open WiFi or as complex as Russian and Chinese hackers. Or bad corporate policy.
The slides talked about firefox 12.
I honestly thought this was a joke for a few minutes, till I checked the slides myself.
Ah yes, but see, the "90%" have this magical thing called the "vote." You may have heard of it. As much as politicians love money, they love votes far far more.
Now, if only people actually realized this.
On January 27, 2003 Chief UN Weapons Inspector Blix addressed the UN Security Council and stated "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance -- not even today -- of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace."[5] Blix went on to state that the Iraqi regime had allegedly misplaced "1,000 tonnes" of VX nerve agent—one of the most toxic ever developed.
Wikipedia.
So no, it wasn't the US politicians alone who believed those falsehoods. In fact it was precisely because of the UN weapons inspection programs, and Iraq's failure to comply properly, that led to the war.
Still, the potential for access and communication is there. There are always ways around the filter. More people online is almost always a better thing. Filters or not, the Internet gives people access to more information and the ability to better educate themselves. This is a good thing: not as good as it could be, but still good.
And to make money farming WoW gold, but that is a side "benefit", I guess.
Ah, this is a fairly recent development. I was looking at Wikipedia and some general references I've found on the web in the past, which were a year or two old. Note, though, that many of the companies chosen were not US companies, although some were, that most of the revenue is staying in Iraq, and that a lot of the oil is probably going to end up going to other nations (according to CNN). Still, my facts were dated and I retract that part of my post: thank you for pointing this out. Nevertheless, the US certainly has not greatly benefited oil wise from the invasion, especially not over the past 10 years, which was the point of my statement, and contrary to what you would expect had oil been the primary goal.
"wee"..."to" (instead of too)..."was an is"... and of course, Godwinning the thread. Yeah, looks like it deserves a troll moderation to me. Flamebait might be more accurate, but either way. Also, as the AC above me mentions, Taliban were official sponsors of Al Qaeda, so they did, in effect, attack the US. Don't know how the hell you could consider that part of what he said "indisputable." No one else does.
I'll just drop this little gem here. It is quite clear that either most everyone in the government was lying, or it was really believed that he could be a major threat. Al Gore even said in 2002 that he knew Saddam had stores of chemical and biological weapons. Now, whether certain parts of the government deceived other parts is an open question I won't get into, but Saddam himself was doing everything in his power to make it look like he was a threat. Every reasonable examination points to the government as a whole honestly believing he was a major threat in a region that possesses massive amounts of economic resources and in some cases nuclear weapons which could lead to catastrophic disaster should he ever choose to act.
In hindsight, of course, we know better (hence all the "Bush lied and just wanted the oil"... the oil we never actually got, of course: Iraq's production has gone down since the invasion). At the time? No one did. Whether the actions were justified even given what we thought we knew at the time: well, again, I won't get into that, as it is pretty messy. I will just say that retrospect offers amazingly clear vision.
No, they have budget issues because they doubled their state budget from 1998 to 2008, from $58 billion to $131 billion. Much of it on government employees, who often make/made triple digit salaries (sometimes $200,000).
California sees less return on federal dollars than is taken in taxes.
Really? You mean the government can't give out more money to the states than it takes in in taxes... oh right, I suppose it does that all the time.
California has a whopping 12.5% unemployment, and managed to double their state spending in 10 years. Let me repeat that: double, from 1998 to 2008. One does not have to be a conservative to realize that California has a spending problem. Everyone there realizes it. One of the highest tax rates in the country, and they still can't find enough money.
I'd be a little more generous. More like a 50% accuracy at the 100 year horizon: same as flipping a coin. All the questions are basically "will this happen or not." That far out, it really is just random chance whether they are right or wrong.
Ah, thanks. Facebook has the data either way, so I don't really see this being a privacy problem. So long as they do it right, of course.
This is fine so long as Facebook only gives Politico the numerical results and not the actual information itself. TFA is a little skimpy on the details about who is actually running the analyzing tool: if it is Facebook, fine, but if Politico has access to the private data, that would be a problem.
Correction (meant to change but didn't): it is barium-137m, a radioactive isotope. Ba-137 is a stable non-radioactive isotope that ends the chain. Also, Cs-137 -> Ba-137m produces some beta radiation, Ba-137m -> Ba-137 produces gamma.
The article specifies Cesium. I assume this is Cesium (or Caesium)-137, half-life 30 years, or Cesium-134, half life 2 years. The decay chain is mostly to Ba-137 (half life 153 seconds), which emits gamma rays of 662keV. Cs-134 doesn't seem to have a description of the decay chain on wikipedia, and based on what I can see I would assume it is produced in much smaller quantities (i.e. not a major factor). Also, it is in the gravel used to make concrete: chances of airborne contamination are tiny. Finally, they just say the radiation inside is higher than outside (concrete is a radiation shield, so this is unusual), not how much. Seems like a pretty small problem: 1.62mSv/3 months is higher than you want but not incredibly dangerous or even incredibly high.
The phone was worth more than $5 dollars. Now it is two years old and the market is flooded with old feature phones which no one wants, it actually is worth about that. Simply for parts and materials, most likely, unless it is in really good shape or a really nice feature phone.
The follow up to your little hypothetical story is that the police examine the video footage of the automated fencing machine, see it was you, not him that sold the phone to it, and give you (or the hypothetical individual) 5-10 for identity theft (or whatever the hell framing someone for a crime falls under). Or compare fingerprints that the machine required. Either would be pretty easy to require (via face recognition or a thumb-scanner). In any case, they certainly wouldn't take the information the seller gives the machine as proof of identity in the case of a theft. Most criminals aren't that stupid, you could simply assume the information was fake in the case of a theft, barring other evidence, so that little problem would never appear.
Ok, I'm not a grammar nazi or anything and wouldn't normally even bring this up, but you are the second person in a row to use the word "tract", so at this point I can't just assume it is a typo. "Tract" refers to a section of land, a short work of literature (usually political or religious in nature), or a section of certain body parts (such as the intestinal tract). Also, it's a noun, not a verb. The word you and your parent poster are looking for is the verb "track", which means (in this case, it has lots of meanings) to record and follow the history and movements of.
Does this thing ever get stuck and how do they deal with it?
A bucketful of laxitives would be my guess.
More seriously, I imagine that would be a problem they will have to address. TFA is short on details, but it looks like so far they have only gotten to the "powering it" part, meaning this is at least a few years from practical deployment. Navigating the length of the intestine with all it's twists and turns will probably be a nightmare. TFA does mention that they use pills with cameras already, and those pass through just fine (probably not comfortably, but better than cancer). I imagine this will work similarly: i.e. swallowed, not inserted rectally, so it won't even have to swim downstream, just control it's speed and direction a bit.