The originals are already all over the internet. You're paying $12 for a bathroom reader and Illiad's art... although I much prefer Pete Abram's art to Illiad's.
am i the only one around here who nearly barfed at that story.
The first time that I heard of this guy was on an episode of Ripley's beleive it or not. Unfortuneately, I was sitting at hooters eating chicken wings at the time. I lost my appetite pretty quickly...
I think it's great that they can give the man back his face. I just wish they could give him back his eyesight or his sense of smell...
Unfortunately, this is a limited decision, but hopefully others (like WIPO!) would consider some of this ruling to be reasonable when deciding other domain name battles.
Remember that WIPO is a for-profit thing. They make their money off of people who choose them to arbitrate intellectual property issues. Therefore, its in their best interest to *always* decide for the plantiff rather than the defendant in IP disputes so that more plantiffs bring their cases to WIPO.
Indeed, this seems to be their business model, because something like 80% of WIPO cases are decided for the plantiff... complaint bringer... whatever.
It's a clear case of conflict of interests, but it continues nonetheless.
I have a CD binder full of anime fansubs that are not otherwise available in the United States, obtained from Usenet, IRC, and in a few cases, Morpheus.
Now some people will complain about anime, but I find it far superior to and more entertaining than NA television.
I was wondering... No, I was describing the typical.25" steel pin with a large plastic ball on the top that is the joystick for most games now. Most gamepads that have analogue controllers also but a 'knob' at the top of their joystick, like the thumb controller on the N64 game pad.
Along with the assortment of no-knob joysticks, it looks like the concept artists also envisioned several games with cranks, paddles, sliders, yokes, and HUGE FUCKING TRACKBALLS THE SIZE OF CANTELOPES!
I guess they were expecting lots of 'pong' type games where the only control was 'back and forth'.
It's funny, because the only one of these that's still really used is the trackball... I've got one attached to my PC right now, only the ball is way smaller. What joysticks we have *All* have knobs on the ends, unlike the old 2600 variety and they are usually significantly smaller than those pictured.
Although I don't watch them very often... once or twice a month... I really like shows like Battlebots, Robotica, and Junkyard wars because they trigger the same emotional response in children as pro-sports, and even faux-sports like Professional Wrestling.
Rather than be encouraged to spend all their time getting their bodies in peak/steroid-enhanced condition for the sport of their choice and then being completely burned out and unable to pursue any other line of work by the time they're an adult, kids are encouraged to learn mechanics, engineering, coding, and other tech skills that will benifit them later in life in professional or technical careers.
My vote is that we spend more time researching, and eventually travelling to the Jovan moons. The different moons all have different properties, such as minerals or interesting conditions, that might make them useful to humanity. Europa in particular might either contain its own sea-life or be a possible sanctuary for terran sea-life.
Verant should let players do what they like. Transferring the funds from one player to another isn't going to upset the economy of the game, and if after a year of playing I could make a couple hundred in cash on the side, so be it! Heck, I'd even declare it on taxes if I made enough. Why not?
While this may be a fault of the basic game design, there are finite game-play resources designed into EQ.
For example, a player finds that the Mega-Sword spawns in the Mega-Dungeon. If this item can be successfully sold on Ebay or Playerauctions.com without any possibility of intervention from Sony, then it encourages that player to do nothing but farm Mega-Dungeon to make money off Mega-Sword, keeping other players on that server from being able to try to get a Mega-Sword by fighting or an in-game trade rather than with real $$$.
There are only about 30, maybe 40 EQ servers. If more than just a few people get it into their head that it's okay to do this, then it ruins quite a bit of the game play for new EQ users, encouraging them to try one of Verant's competitors.
Now, this issue can be addressed by changing game play mechanics rather than filing lawsuits. Verant has already done this to a small degree by making many items... The Ghoulbane comes to mind... into 'No-Drop' items, incapable of being sold or traded. This is a rather
1. Say our farmer has previously looted a Mega-sword... Every time he loots this, or any other rare item, his chances of being able to loot that same rare item go down. Eventually it will no longer be worth his time to try to loot that item any more.
2. Our farmer is in Mega-dungeon farming Mega-swords. Every time another player comes into the dungeon, another Mega-sword carrying monster spawns... preferrebly invisible or invulnerable to the farmer. Everyone gets their chance this way.
3. The more often our farmer loots a certain item, he stands a greater chance of incurring the wrath of the game-gods, who will reach down and death-touch him before he has a chance to loot again.
I recently spent a few weeks trying to persuade my company's marketing bimbo that no, we could not send unsolicited emails to potential customers.
I used the simple expedient of repeating the reasons against spam over and over again until they began to sink in. I even threatened legal action... ie: I told them that people were starting to successfully prosecute spammers for big money.
Even than, I had to answer the question... "Why would this be illegal? I get this kind of thing all the time."
The sad thing was, until I finally convinced the executive VP to bring the hammer down on the project, I was forced to compose graphical HTML-ized spam emails. Thank god they never saw the light of day.
This is really similiar to what Intel did with the original set of 80486sx's...
Of course we all know the difference between a 486 SX and DX was the fact that one did have an floating point co-processor and one didn't.
What is not bandied around so much... although it should be... is the fact that the SX and DX chips were structurally identical. The FP coprocessor was simply 'turned off' either on purpose or because it was non-functional on the SX chips. Co-processor chips for SX chips were in reality complete 486 DX chips that cirumvented the SX core.
Will this be the same case with the Yamhill? If it is, will there be a simple (Pencil-overclocking?) method for enabling the extra processing units?
I mean, it's very sad for the Linux desktop people, but I've always felt that Linux's real strength was as a low-midrange server 0S, which is what I use it for (quite profitably) both at work and at home.
Mostly, when I hear news like this, I want to tell people 'right tool for the right job'. Right now, the right tool for gaming is Windows. I wish it weren't so, but I also wish that the cheapest place to buy quality hand-tools wasn't Sears Roebuck.
Until the tools change... and this means an infrastructure change to Linux like any of the Wine-focused distros are harping... Windows will continue to be the best platform for games, just as MacOS continues to be the best platform for many multimedia tasks.
Rather than bemoaning YALCB (Yet Another Linux Company Bankruptcy...) contribute to projects like WINE and LindowsOS. Also, Linux GUI's and apps have all gone well past the point where they should be spending as much time on usability and compatibility as they do on technology development and application power:
Example: One of the complaints I hear most frequently from Windows users who switch over to a big name distro like Mandrake or RedHat complain about the speed of Gnome or KDE up against Windows GUI. The speed hit can be explained and fixed through several settings, program switches, and even kernel optimizations, but if I'm a Joe-Sixpack who doesn't wan't to support Microsoft, but sees this behavior and can't fix it easily, then I'm probably going to stay with Windows.
If you want Linux to be a gaming OS, it has to be just as easy to use and configure for everyone as the other gaming OS.
If the src is GPL'd, as it is in the one project, then they *don't* control it. Even if the maintainers religously police their particular network of connections, there's absolutely nothing to stop Joe Q. Hacker from downloading the code, changing a few variables or constants, and releasing 'Gnuster'.
Also, if you look at the 'Test' Server, Verant's beta production game server which has a siginificantly lower population than the other servers, you'll notice that the economy is much weaker than on an 'established' server.
Part of this is due to the ever-present threat of an item wipe or character wipe due to beta problem concerns. Part of it is becaue there is such a low population, barter and outright charity are more common.
For those who visit my website, you would know that I am a big fan of the Ranma 1/2 anime and manga. Recently, I had the opportunity to obtain a complete, free, fan-translated run of the manga in GIF format. Each page was its own image, and had to be read with a web browser or image viewer like IrfanView (free) or ACDSee (not free).
Despite the fact that I already have it in a digital format, I continue to pay for the 'legitimate' release of Ranma 1/2 as it comes out, month by month, at $3.95 an issue.
When I want to re-read a story or figure out a particular reference for a fanstory, however, rather than reaching for the stack of manga... I pop in the CDR containing the digital versions. Not only is it easier for me to read than the text version, it's quicker, you don't have to hunt for issues, etc...
I've also recently obtained the 'Complete MAD Magazine,' which is a 7 CD set containing every issue of MAD magazine between the first issue in the 50's to around 1998 if I'm correct. True, some of them are dogs, especially the newer once. My old stack of MAD's hasn't been touched since, however.
If you have indexing of any kind, you can search on that. If not, you can search on filenames. While I think that the current e-book formats, all of which are burdened with copy-protection, are inherently flawed, they have a great deal on print books.
I especially like the PDB (Palm) format, which can be used with or without copy protection, and allows you to read books on your organizer. With the aid of a few utilities, said PDB files can be easily converted to HTML, Star, Word, or ASCII Text.
I don't think copy protected e-books will go over very well, but I *do* think that the e-book is only going to get more and more popular.
With our hosting change, our hosting expenses have also gone up dramatically. We don't really know where it will settle out at, but we are keeping our fingers crossed. Before people start asking, we will NOT be asking for donations or having a paypal donation button - MT will survive like any other good property, based on it's ability to sell a reasonable amount of merchandise. If you would like to support MT, please visit our store and buy some swag:)
Also note Scott Kurtz from PVP, who is selling original sketches for $300-$400 a pop on ebay.
And yes... people are up to the task of translating entire applications. There is a flourishing underground market in asia for subtitling un-released movies and translating video games. As a matter of fact, for most billingual people, it would probably be only one or two days work to translate every menu in photoshop if all they had to do was edit strings in a DLL.
Your comments on the matter are double-plus ungood. Verging crimethink. Big Brother is watching. Didn't you get the message during the two minutes of hate?
Crimethink? In EngSoc? I'll be good, I promise! Just don't bring the rats back!
Well, it's nice that someone besides me gets the reference. ^_^
Her Magesty's Secret Service sends in Austin Powers. Same with Goldfinger or Octopussy. MI6 sends in Bond, James Bond with some nifty gadgets, a cool car, and a budget-size box of condoms.
Why is it when the United States Corporate Interests are holding the world hostage by threatining to destroy a country economically if they don't meet our demands, it's Business as Usual?
I was going to say something about this, but was beaten to the punch. As I understandd it, olympic athletes are verbotten by the IOC from keeping any kind of public journal of their experiences at the Olympics.
Give me a map and compass, drop me into the Amazon Rainforest, and I will be lost immediately too. But that Crocodile Hunter guy on TV would figure out where he is, and start walking. Might take him a week, but he would find his way out, while I would still be trying to reboot the compass.
Crikey! If you look ovah here, you can see a primo example of the dread Linux Hacker. 'e's a dangerous brute, but ain't 'e bayutiful?!
I can get this close to 'im because I respect 'is terrortree. You're a notty hacker! Yes you are! He's a dangerous wonk, alright, but I'm okay because I'm a trained profeshun'al.
Let's all remember the the Linux Hacker is an endangud species. Paoching and biggah predatas like the fanged Microsoft encroach on 'is terrortree more and more each yeah. If we want to keep these bayutiful creatuhs around, we gotta protect 'em!
Slashdot Mirror
The originals are already all over the internet. You're paying $12 for a bathroom reader and Illiad's art... although I much prefer Pete Abram's art to Illiad's.
am i the only one around here who nearly barfed at that story.
The first time that I heard of this guy was on an episode of Ripley's beleive it or not. Unfortuneately, I was sitting at hooters eating chicken wings at the time. I lost my appetite pretty quickly...
I think it's great that they can give the man back his face. I just wish they could give him back his eyesight or his sense of smell...
Unfortunately, this is a limited decision, but hopefully others (like WIPO!) would consider some of this ruling to be reasonable when deciding other domain name battles.
Remember that WIPO is a for-profit thing. They make their money off of people who choose them to arbitrate intellectual property issues. Therefore, its in their best interest to *always* decide for the plantiff rather than the defendant in IP disputes so that more plantiffs bring their cases to WIPO.
Indeed, this seems to be their business model, because something like 80% of WIPO cases are decided for the plantiff... complaint bringer... whatever.
It's a clear case of conflict of interests, but it continues nonetheless.
I have a CD binder full of anime fansubs that are not otherwise available in the United States, obtained from Usenet, IRC, and in a few cases, Morpheus.
Now some people will complain about anime, but I find it far superior to and more entertaining than NA television.
I was wondering... No, I was describing the typical .25" steel pin with a large plastic ball on the top that is the joystick for most games now. Most gamepads that have analogue controllers also but a 'knob' at the top of their joystick, like the thumb controller on the N64 game pad.
Along with the assortment of no-knob joysticks, it looks like the concept artists also envisioned several games with cranks, paddles, sliders, yokes, and HUGE FUCKING TRACKBALLS THE SIZE OF CANTELOPES!
I guess they were expecting lots of 'pong' type games where the only control was 'back and forth'.
It's funny, because the only one of these that's still really used is the trackball... I've got one attached to my PC right now, only the ball is way smaller. What joysticks we have *All* have knobs on the ends, unlike the old 2600 variety and they are usually significantly smaller than those pictured.
Ergonomics isn't that new a science is it?
Although I don't watch them very often... once or twice a month... I really like shows like Battlebots, Robotica, and Junkyard wars because they trigger the same emotional response in children as pro-sports, and even faux-sports like Professional Wrestling.
Rather than be encouraged to spend all their time getting their bodies in peak/steroid-enhanced condition for the sport of their choice and then being completely burned out and unable to pursue any other line of work by the time they're an adult, kids are encouraged to learn mechanics, engineering, coding, and other tech skills that will benifit them later in life in professional or technical careers.
Ever since I added TCP/IP remote control capabilities to my Mindstorms web-cam robot, it's been trying to crawl up the intern's skirt...
The Jovans in Nadesico turned out to not really be Jovans though.... Ruri was one of them, IIRC.
My vote is that we spend more time researching, and eventually travelling to the Jovan moons. The different moons all have different properties, such as minerals or interesting conditions, that might make them useful to humanity. Europa in particular might either contain its own sea-life or be a possible sanctuary for terran sea-life.
Verant should let players do what they like. Transferring the funds from one player to another isn't going to upset the economy of the game, and if after a year of playing I could make a couple hundred in cash on the side, so be it! Heck, I'd even declare it on taxes if I made enough. Why not?
While this may be a fault of the basic game design, there are finite game-play resources designed into EQ.
For example, a player finds that the Mega-Sword spawns in the Mega-Dungeon. If this item can be successfully sold on Ebay or Playerauctions.com without any possibility of intervention from Sony, then it encourages that player to do nothing but farm Mega-Dungeon to make money off Mega-Sword, keeping other players on that server from being able to try to get a Mega-Sword by fighting or an in-game trade rather than with real $$$.
There are only about 30, maybe 40 EQ servers. If more than just a few people get it into their head that it's okay to do this, then it ruins quite a bit of the game play for new EQ users, encouraging them to try one of Verant's competitors.
Now, this issue can be addressed by changing game play mechanics rather than filing lawsuits. Verant has already done this to a small degree by making many items... The Ghoulbane comes to mind... into 'No-Drop' items, incapable of being sold or traded. This is a rather
1. Say our farmer has previously looted a Mega-sword... Every time he loots this, or any other rare item, his chances of being able to loot that same rare item go down. Eventually it will no longer be worth his time to try to loot that item any more.
2. Our farmer is in Mega-dungeon farming Mega-swords. Every time another player comes into the dungeon, another Mega-sword carrying monster spawns... preferrebly invisible or invulnerable to the farmer. Everyone gets their chance this way.
3. The more often our farmer loots a certain item, he stands a greater chance of incurring the wrath of the game-gods, who will reach down and death-touch him before he has a chance to loot again.
If we need to have negative moderation on /., how bout a 'Doesn't get it' moderation to get rid of posts like the one above?
I recently spent a few weeks trying to persuade my company's marketing bimbo that no, we could not send unsolicited emails to potential customers.
I used the simple expedient of repeating the reasons against spam over and over again until they began to sink in. I even threatened legal action... ie: I told them that people were starting to successfully prosecute spammers for big money.
Even than, I had to answer the question... "Why would this be illegal? I get this kind of thing all the time."
The sad thing was, until I finally convinced the executive VP to bring the hammer down on the project, I was forced to compose graphical HTML-ized spam emails. Thank god they never saw the light of day.
This is really similiar to what Intel did with the original set of 80486sx's...
Of course we all know the difference between a 486 SX and DX was the fact that one did have an floating point co-processor and one didn't.
What is not bandied around so much... although it should be... is the fact that the SX and DX chips were structurally identical. The FP coprocessor was simply 'turned off' either on purpose or because it was non-functional on the SX chips. Co-processor chips for SX chips were in reality complete 486 DX chips that cirumvented the SX core.
Will this be the same case with the Yamhill? If it is, will there be a simple (Pencil-overclocking?) method for enabling the extra processing units?
I doubt it.
I mean, it's very sad for the Linux desktop people, but I've always felt that Linux's real strength was as a low-midrange server 0S, which is what I use it for (quite profitably) both at work and at home.
Mostly, when I hear news like this, I want to tell people 'right tool for the right job'. Right now, the right tool for gaming is Windows. I wish it weren't so, but I also wish that the cheapest place to buy quality hand-tools wasn't Sears Roebuck.
Until the tools change... and this means an infrastructure change to Linux like any of the Wine-focused distros are harping... Windows will continue to be the best platform for games, just as MacOS continues to be the best platform for many multimedia tasks.
Rather than bemoaning YALCB (Yet Another Linux Company Bankruptcy...) contribute to projects like WINE and LindowsOS. Also, Linux GUI's and apps have all gone well past the point where they should be spending as much time on usability and compatibility as they do on technology development and application power:
Example: One of the complaints I hear most frequently from Windows users who switch over to a big name distro like Mandrake or RedHat complain about the speed of Gnome or KDE up against Windows GUI. The speed hit can be explained and fixed through several settings, program switches, and even kernel optimizations, but if I'm a Joe-Sixpack who doesn't wan't to support Microsoft, but sees this behavior and can't fix it easily, then I'm probably going to stay with Windows.
If you want Linux to be a gaming OS, it has to be just as easy to use and configure for everyone as the other gaming OS.
If the src is GPL'd, as it is in the one project, then they *don't* control it. Even if the maintainers religously police their particular network of connections, there's absolutely nothing to stop Joe Q. Hacker from downloading the code, changing a few variables or constants, and releasing 'Gnuster'.
Also, if you look at the 'Test' Server, Verant's beta production game server which has a siginificantly lower population than the other servers, you'll notice that the economy is much weaker than on an 'established' server.
Part of this is due to the ever-present threat of an item wipe or character wipe due to beta problem concerns. Part of it is becaue there is such a low population, barter and outright charity are more common.
I don't really agree with you.
For those who visit my website, you would know that I am a big fan of the Ranma 1/2 anime and manga. Recently, I had the opportunity to obtain a complete, free, fan-translated run of the manga in GIF format. Each page was its own image, and had to be read with a web browser or image viewer like IrfanView (free) or ACDSee (not free).
Despite the fact that I already have it in a digital format, I continue to pay for the 'legitimate' release of Ranma 1/2 as it comes out, month by month, at $3.95 an issue.
When I want to re-read a story or figure out a particular reference for a fanstory, however, rather than reaching for the stack of manga... I pop in the CDR containing the digital versions. Not only is it easier for me to read than the text version, it's quicker, you don't have to hunt for issues, etc...
I've also recently obtained the 'Complete MAD Magazine,' which is a 7 CD set containing every issue of MAD magazine between the first issue in the 50's to around 1998 if I'm correct. True, some of them are dogs, especially the newer once. My old stack of MAD's hasn't been touched since, however.
If you have indexing of any kind, you can search on that. If not, you can search on filenames. While I think that the current e-book formats, all of which are burdened with copy-protection, are inherently flawed, they have a great deal on print books.
I especially like the PDB (Palm) format, which can be used with or without copy protection, and allows you to read books on your organizer. With the aid of a few utilities, said PDB files can be easily converted to HTML, Star, Word, or ASCII Text.
I don't think copy protected e-books will go over very well, but I *do* think that the e-book is only going to get more and more popular.
Quoth Piro from MegaTokyo:
:)
With our hosting change, our hosting expenses have also gone up dramatically. We don't really know where it will settle out at, but we are keeping our fingers crossed. Before people start asking, we will NOT be asking for donations or having a paypal donation button - MT will survive like any other good property, based on it's ability to sell a reasonable amount of merchandise. If you would like to support MT, please visit our store and buy some swag
Also note Scott Kurtz from PVP, who is selling original sketches for $300-$400 a pop on ebay.
And yes... people are up to the task of translating entire applications. There is a flourishing underground market in asia for subtitling un-released movies and translating video games. As a matter of fact, for most billingual people, it would probably be only one or two days work to translate every menu in photoshop if all they had to do was edit strings in a DLL.
Your comments on the matter are double-plus ungood. Verging crimethink. Big Brother is watching. Didn't you get the message during the two minutes of hate?
Crimethink? In EngSoc? I'll be good, I promise! Just don't bring the rats back!
Well, it's nice that someone besides me gets the reference. ^_^
Her Magesty's Secret Service sends in Austin Powers. Same with Goldfinger or Octopussy. MI6 sends in Bond, James Bond with some nifty gadgets, a cool car, and a budget-size box of condoms.
Why is it when the United States Corporate Interests are holding the world hostage by threatining to destroy a country economically if they don't meet our demands, it's Business as Usual?
Where's Powers? Where's Bond?
The movies have lied to me.
Mod Parent Up.
I was going to say something about this, but was beaten to the punch. As I understandd it, olympic athletes are verbotten by the IOC from keeping any kind of public journal of their experiences at the Olympics.
I wrote a rant mentioning this after the 2000 olympics in Sydney... http://www.furinkan.net/rant/olympics.html
Advanced Math Textbook +
Computer +
Low-level programming skills =
High Grade Encryption... Anywhere in the world.
Give me a map and compass, drop me into the Amazon Rainforest, and I will be lost immediately too. But that Crocodile Hunter guy on TV would figure out where he is, and start walking. Might take him a week, but he would find his way out, while I would still be trying to reboot the compass.
Crikey! If you look ovah here, you can see a primo example of the dread Linux Hacker. 'e's a dangerous brute, but ain't 'e bayutiful?!
I can get this close to 'im because I respect 'is terrortree. You're a notty hacker! Yes you are! He's a dangerous wonk, alright, but I'm okay because I'm a trained profeshun'al.
Let's all remember the the Linux Hacker is an endangud species. Paoching and biggah predatas like the fanged Microsoft encroach on 'is terrortree more and more each yeah. If we want to keep these bayutiful creatuhs around, we gotta protect 'em!