On a related note, I've always wondered about music videos. The RIAA bitches and complains about music piracy because they say they can still sell the stuff on CD and thus they are being denied a profit (still, I wonder how many "Julie Lendon" CDs they've sold as of late). Music Videos are a different matter entirely. After about 3 months MTV and VH1 have pretty much forgotton all about them.... no one sells them save a few specialty stores and even then they are hard to find....
Guess I'm wondering why we seem to have this system that allows corporations to lock down a particular peice of material forever and day "just in case" in becomes valuable for basicly nothing.
There was a topic on here a whie a go about how technology makeith not a game.
Ok, so there's some bugs. Big deal, they're not terribly nasty ones, and if finishing the game in single player mode reduces your critter to slag, well then... just save before you do that.
On the whole this game RULES. It is highly addictive, very interactive, and always good for a laugh. Autosave is a bit of a bitch but you can turn that off.
Black and White, especialy if it goes open source, has the opportunity to be a foundation for strategy games in much the same way that quake and unreal have been foundations for first person shooters. Once the engine exists, there are many programmers who can turn this into hundreds of facinating games. Furthermore, it dosn't look like Lionhead has plans of abandoning htis game.... more stuff is coming, hell... there's even a room for that stuff in the temple!
Bottom line: BUY THIS GAME it is the first thing since Civilization to make it to the 5:00 am zome for me.... that's saying alot.
This is because they have large amounts of money that could, if MS persued, be taken away
This raises a question I've always had. MSFT makes truckloads of money because anyone who's been a loyal IBM/PC/MSFT user for a long time has bought a copy of Dos, A copy of Win 3.1, Win 95, probably 98 and likely 2000. MSFT makes so much money because people keep having to buy new licences. Nonetheless I still have a DOS 6.2 licence in a drawer somewhere.
So if MSFT goes into this whole fee based service thing.... won't audits like this hurt them badly in the long run? Once people are able to opt out of their licence agreement and once that decision has a financial impact on MSFT I think they'll start to see the error or their ways.
Of course by then it will be to late.... First ze computer market und zen ze Vorld! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH... uh... yea
A MSIE bug is very serious because it can compromise a huge number of individual hosts. Furthermore, people don't choose to run MSIE, they have to, or they just don't know that they are running it. And you can't remove MSIE from a windows machine.
Ok, I'm gonna be Captain Obvious here, but isn't this the crux of the problem? Fundamentaly, if you want to have a system that's compatable with Joe Sixpack's you've got to buy a MS product.
Because of this system, every PC out there built within the last 6 years has a copy of IE on it. Hell, you can't even get the damn icon off your desktop without going to rather a lot of trouble.
Many have touted the superiority of the IE browser over Netscape due to running speed. This is (of course) due to the fact that MS can look at the f&%*ing kernal! This does make optimization rather easy eh? As far as running speed and superiority of the product because of, I think this boils down to apples and oranges.
But back to the main point. So we've got all these PCs run by Joe Sixpack. MS puts a notice up on some obscure portion of their website and calls it a warning. (We won't get into the fact that this bug forces you to download a newer version of IE or switch to Netscape if you are running an unsupported browser.) What kind of responcibility is that?
MS has a responcibiility to protect its users from security holes. Put a hole like this in, say, a home security system, and they have to recall the damn thing. When the very functionality of the system is endangered and the user (or in this case the users data) is laied naked before the world that's a time for a RECALL OF THE PRODUCT. MS needs to take out adds on major television networks, this kind of data needs to be made available to the public in a widespread manner. Why is software any different than any other product? When it's hazardous it is the responcibility of the company to let the user know.
This has been another useless post from....
I think you can rest assured that most likely everybody involved had their tounges firmly in their cheeks. I mean come on under illness TBD now that was funny.
Are you kidding? The RIAA would have more than that on their hands. Think about it, the RIAA desides that the "evil commies" are taking all their profits away. So they go cry to Uncle Sam about it. Uncle Sam gives them a nickle (go by a real OS kid) and sends then on their way. Just when the RIAA steps outside the door though, every PAC, Special Interest Group, and Trade Union in the nation clubs them to death with lawyers. China is allready a haven for copyright infringement. The US has given China MFN status for YEARS. Furthermore, when/if China ever manages to get into the WTO we'll get to see how well copyright law holds up under international law. Hell, we aren't allowed to bitch at China about Human Rights violations (according to the WTO) I wonder if copyright is any different?
This kind of thing could keep international relations majors in buisness for the rest of their natural lives!
On a related but seemingly irrelevant sidetrack...
A few years ago I bought a copy of Corel 7.0 at my local University Bookstore (ah the joys of academic pricing). Over the course of moving in and out of dorms, however, the install met with a rather grisley fate (it looks like someone attacked it with a power sander). So anyhow, my hard drive goes the way of the Dodo and I get this new system. I can't install Corel 7 so I write corel and tell them I've got all three CDs in the Corel 7 set and that I'd like to exchange them from 3 readable CDs from the same set. Now I use CDs for backup and I'll tell you you're getting screwed if you pay more than $1 a CD... and that's for good brandname stuff in small quantites. Corel tells me they'll be happy to give me copies, provided I send in the old ones, along with $25.00 PER CD.
Damn..... so I installed The Gimp on my linux box and have resolved myself to deny Corel my hard earned cash in the future.
I just wanted to rant... sorry This has been another useless post from....
The truth is, people don't like to be tracked, at home, or at work (privacy, anyone?) We reluctantly accept the fact that we have to wear badges to work, and scan into locked doors, et cetera, but I do not want my employer to have the ability to determine my physical location every second of the workday
See, I'd qualify that. People don't like being tracked if it dosn't benefit them. Try to pass a law requiring GPS locators in cell phones and you'll have a war on your hands. Make nice nice and say it's really a measure that can allow you to be located if you've been in a car accident or some other dangerous altercation and no one (except us paranoid geeks) will even blink at it.
The fundamental difference is that you and I (and the majority of the Slashdot community) live in an environment where, for some reason or another, paranoia is rewarded, either by our peers or our employers (indirectly). Neal Stephenson does a good job with that concept in Cryptonomicon.
In the end though, we don't make up a substantial part of a voting block. So if "They" decide to really press this technology, there's little short of massed civil disobediance we can really do about it. On a corporate level it's a different story. Leave your "bat" in your cube. Clip your chip laiden ID to your coat and forget to take that with you to the bathroom. If even being in the system bothers you, just don't work there. This kind of thing has to be expensive as hell, not every corp can afford it.
Back to the basic point though. People like being tracked and monitored if they feel like they get something out of it. Why are websites that remember our personal information so successfull? Sure, it's a lesser manifestation of corporate tracking, but we --like-- that sort of personalization. The illusion that the computer remembers who we are and what we like and "cares" enough to make it that way (pretend you're a luser for a sec here ok?) makes the luser feel distinctive. It's a gimic, and it apeals to something deep within our psyche. It is, quite frankly, bunk... but it appeals to us anyhow.
Just be carefull before you say "the people won't stand for this" or "people don't like this" argument. In my experiance capitalism is a really good way for dealing with products no one likes. They don't sell and they die. If people really have as big a problem as you say with this the corporations that use it will flounder and die. The system will die with them and we'll all go home happy.
Honestly, I'd support the idea. I'm a 21 year old college student. I'm not to far from my childhood, and I can certainly agree with the lure of the Unknown. Kids love it, the fastest way to get a kid to shove beans up his nose is to tell him not to do it. That's just the nature of children... hell... it still works on me sometimes:-)
Point being that there are some things that parrents consider to be more threatening to their kids than others. Most parrents lock the liquer cabinet. Most parrents try to keep medication out of reach. This is not because they don't try to teach their kids not to get into these things, but just because it's not worth the risk NOT to lock these things down.
While it is not my personal opinion that violent video games fit into this category, it is the opinion of some people. If the extra cost is not prohibitive then by all means, this feature should be incorporated. No one says you have to use it.
I for one would put the system in place for my kids though (if I had any). I figgure, once they're smart enough to crack the code, they're mature enough to play the game. Think of it as an early geek training tool. If we're lucky they'll be trying to install Red Hat or (God be praised) Slackware on their X-box by the time they're 12:-)
It seems fairly clear that Napster's efforts to do "just enough" to get by aren't working. Measures like this can only delay the final stroke. It is safe to say, (IMNSHO) that Napster is pretty well screwed, it has served its purpose, and it is time to move on.
The struggle is and will continue to be, between market forces and governmental forces. Adam Smith tells us that demand varies inversely with price. Thus, at a price of 0 the demand is extraordinary, therefor if a product is offered for free, no one can compete.
The RIAA takes the opposing side of this, pushing the music industry away from perfect competition and towards a regulated market (with copyright laws as the regulators).
A market in perfect competition generates a given benefit to all consumers and producers in the market. The sum of these benefits is the benefit to the society as a whole. Remember that.
Now economic theory allows us to mathematicly show that price controls (which is what these copyright laws boil down to) are bad for a market. Anytime these controls are put in place some of the benefit to the customer and some of the benefit to the producer evaporates.
Now in the pefectly competitive market of MP3 music distribution prices have been forced to production costs (the hallmark of any perfectly competitive market). That means that the producer (ie whoever is suppling the MP3s) is gaining no benefit. But the benefit to the customer is huge, society as a whole benefits.
Unfortunately, Napster, while in the moral right (at least as far as society as a whole goes), is not in the legal right. It is thus appaulingly clear that Napster is going to die, it is only a matter of time. However, Napster has laied the foundation for a much more diverse and powerfull file sharing network to take its place. What we have seen is only the first of many legal battles. The next battleground won't be the courts however, it will be Congress. Get out there and vote. We Napster users could form the single most powerfull loby in US history if we get off our asses and try to change things. Price controls are no different than any other law passed by Congress, and they can be overturned.
It is my understanding that one must file for a trademark. It is also my understanding that Blizzard was awarded this trademark for the areas of video games and movies.
Consequently, while Blizzard dosn't own the title "Diablo" for, say, Spanish language demonology textbooks, they do own it in those two fields.
Because trademark only applies to certain areas, commonly used words can be used in many products. Imagine if every trademark granted covered every use of that word! Companies would be unable to gain a trademark on any pronouncable word, the courts simply wouldn't stand for it!
Blizzard will win this case. I'd be shocked if they lost. The relevant part, that so many have ignored, is the area specific nature of these trademarks. You can make all the Diablo brand toilet paper you want, Bilzzard won't give a damn (pun intended)
"We are moving into a post-capitalsociety, where the only thing of worth is the posession of knowledge and the spread of ideas."
So you think that someday wealth will be determined by the ownership or possession of intelectual abstracts, which, due to monopolistic controls, will have an inherently overinflated value?
The District Court concluded that noncommercial home use recording of material broadcast over the public airwaves was a fair use of copyrighted works and did not constitute copyright infringement. It emphasized the fact that the material was broadcast free to the public at large, the noncommercial character of the use, and the private character of the activity conducted entirely within the home. Moreover, the court found that the purpose of this use served the public interest in increasing access to television programming, an interest that "is consistent with the First Amendment policy of providing the fullest possible access to information through the public airwaves
So on one hand we take television broadcasts. It's legal to record these things, so long as they are used for private showings.
What about video rentals? Do those shops pay an IP licencing fee (beyond the purchace of the actual movie)?
.
We have in the other hand the radio. A smiliar method of broadcasting data over the airwaves. We record it on tapes (the difference between a CD and a Tape being irrelevant in this case). It is legal for me to tape songs off the radio to listen to them. It is legal for me to tape songs for my friends. But if I obtain the same data, for the same price (free) over the internet its suddenly illegal?
So we have an extant model allowing the copying of broadcast materials (netcast ~ broadcast). And we have a model allowing the distribution of copyright material FOR PROFIT by a corporation (probably without paying any fees).
Honestly, I don't understand why the rulings have been going against Napster. This has been another useless post from....
Admitedly we Americans have this idea that it is our universal right to tell you, your brother, and everyone else exactly what we think when we think it. It's protected under the First Ammendment we say. And we are right
We start a buisness, make our fortune, become successfull. We fight our way up the social ladder with the tools of innovation and capitalism. We feel it is our right to do so, and we are right.
We value our freedoms, we fight bitterly when our governemnt tries to encroach on them, to take away our right to do something that we value. We expect our government to fear and respect the will of the people. And we are right
But we are not the only country, the only people on earth. We feel it is our right to send tapes of Baywatch to Saudi Arabia. We stop short of recognising the Saudi Government's right of forbiding the use of those tapes. We look at our capitalist system and try to give it to other nations that they may prosper and grow like we did. But we stop short of granting them the right to make their own choice as to weather to accecpt or reject that system.
America has fought hard to get where she is today. Through the lubrication of blood, sweat and tears she has clawed her way to a position of prominance. Of course, now she's got no idea of what to do with herself.
The United States finds itself thrust into the position of the last remaining superpower (some would say global hegemon) with no agenda as per ususal. Yes, we will attempt to impose our system on the rest of the world. Yes we will screw up, yes we will make our mistakes. It's a strange thing, to be a government, responcible for the "free world," with no one, in particular (citizens or otherwise) that wants you around.
There was a fossilized dino heart that someone put in an MRI or some such imaging device. It turned out ot have a four chambered heart, which implies that dinos are warm blooded.
Which doesn't tell us anything worth a pair of dingos kidneys. Even accecpting the theory that dinos were warm blooded, you've still got a several hundred ton chunk of dino to feed.
So when a several thousand ton chunk of rock slams into the earth at speeds aproching R23 (see HHGTTG Chap 34 for explanation of the R unit of velocity) you've got to assume that its going to dispurse a fair amount of energy. Waves of fire spreading over whole continents, a sudden ice age, lots of snow, dark skies for 30 years, you know, real wrath of God type stuff.
Anyhow, so what I'm getting at here is that what probably killed off our large perhistoric friends wasn't the cold climate, it was the fact that the cold climate wiped out some insane portion of all the plant species on earth. No plant life = no large herbavores. No large herbavoes = No large carnisores. And in no time flat the dino population is down to pretty much nill.
And if you like Michael Critton the little ones survive and turn into birds.
But then... I could be completely wrong.
This has been another useless post from....
Re:Open Source will change our civilisation.
on
Rebel Code
·
· Score: 1
So the book is free for download and published under the GPL right?
Damn..... This has been another useless post from....
I know no one is still reading this but what the hell.
The idea that Napster can keep you from buring their MP3s to CD and/or prevent your from distributing them is fundamentaly flawed.
1.) Even assuming that they manage to get the on-the-fly encryption running this chains the MP3 to a specific platform. Namely the one that Napster writes (and I'll bet double or nothing they're stupid enough to use a secret algorithm type cypher rather than a key based one).
2.) Chained to a system or no, I can still pipe my audio stream out of my computer and into something else. That something else can be a CD-R, a tape deck, pretty damn near anything.
3.) So lets assume they do that thing Cinemax used to do where you can't record the broadcast (how did they do that?). Ok, so I can't pipe it directly into a recording device anymore. Of course, I can pipe it into speakers (otherwise what would be the point?). Consequently, I can record, on some other device the speaker output. Sure, it's not the best solution in the world, but it works.
I've said it once, I'll say it again. It's economics. As long as there is a cheeper way to do something/get something people will do it. The RIAA said it best "You can't compete with free"
Between Adam Smith and a few industrias computer geeks, these people are doomed.
I've got to disagree with you here. I've been waiting for a long time for a Starcraft-like game that has meaningful cooperative multiplayer scenarios
Point. At the same time, I think that games should avoid pitching themselves as a mainly multiplayer game. Sure, Quake3 is the exception to this rule, but for the most part broadband is simply not pervasive enough to really allow massively multiplayer games to live up to their full potential. I'd prefer to see a really solid single player base with multiplayer added as a feature as opposed to a multiplayer base game with single player modes added as an afterthought. As the gaming creedo espoused above states, the only hardware you should assume your user has is the basics. Internet service, indespensible as it is, may not be available to the full audiance, and I don't feel that what they get out of the game should have to suffer because of that.
It's not 3d Accelerators that ruin games, it's game designers who ruin games
Argh. I have so much homework to do... nonetheless, some things are more important, like game theory. Now then...
Civilization. Awsome game. I loved it. Still love it. The best thing about it was/is the fact that the basic concept is portable. So when Civilization II came out, it was still very close to Civ I (leaving balance issues aside, I'm not getting into that).
Fast forward to 2001.
Ok. Here's what I fail to grasp. Lets say I take the origional Civ I, or Civ (value) game engine. Now I slap some really pretty 3d graphics on there with exquisitly modeled units and cities etc. I make it Civ v.Eyecandy. Now, asside from being unorigional work (we'll ignore that point for now) this version is just as good as the origional. But it's also got pretty graphics, which, if designed properly will make gameplay easier to understand and will decrease eyestrain by making the player work less to figgure out if that unit is a phallanx or a fighter.
My point -- Is the use of pretty 3d graphics necessarily a bad thing in a game? Can't a create an innovative game that sitll uses Necromancers, Wizards, Orcs, Trolls, Goblins, and whatever else I want? Is is really fair to say that use of these words and images is responcible for the so called decline of games as of late?
On the contrary. The quality of a game is the responcibility of one and only only person/thing. The design team. If they allow orcs wizards, 3d accelerators etc to hamper their ability to build a playable and fun game that is their own damn fault.
I for one have been pretty happy with most of the games I've played as of late. But then, I'm the type that holds off on the purchace until about a year after release date....
Speaking of which.... Alice sounds interesting... anyone know anything about that?
They should mandate the memorization of this phrase before anyone can publish a game. Plot is good, interactivity is good, action is good. All of these are wonderfull qualities for a game. None of them can stand alone as the basic premice for a game.
Quake 3 (In single player mode) -- Plot? What plot? Sure, there is this completely basic storyline that you don't even notice in the game until you get to the end level. Even Doom had more plot. Plot is an integral part of the game. It makes the player belive, even for just a second, that his actions matter in some wider scheme.
I should note that plot is almost totaly unecessary in multiplayer games. Interaction with real people is far more convincing than a computer can be... right Mr Turing?
Myst -- No action to speak of. Now, I'm going to get flamed by Myst fans for saying this, but Myst was really lacking in the "Fun" department at times. By relying so heavily on problem solving and plot, myst offered no outlet for the stress involved in not being able to solve the problem. I wanted to let loose with a rocket launcher on those seagulls more than once. By making the game so cinimatic and slow paced, Myst gave up a good portion of its potential audiance and apeal.
Interactivity -- Balders gate was listed as the example for this above. I agree, a universe that is to interactive, where the player "picks up anything that's not nailed down... just in case" is poorly designed.
So my conclusion is this. Moderation. There needs to be a basis for your game. That basis can be in action, plot, or interactivity. That depends entirely on what kind of game you're making. But your game also needs aspects of the other two. Further, no single element should be taken to far. Action taken to far (eg Action Quake) becomes painfully real. We don't want to see the hero die from a leg wound. That's not FUN. Plot, when to overarching, leaves the player feeling dwarfed and insignificant. Final Fantasy is guilty of this at times, it becomes very clear that your actions don't matter at all, all you have to do is survive and "destiny" will make sure you end up in the right place. Interactivity, at to great a scale, is also pointless. Sure, your character can play with everything, but what is he supposed to DO?
Diverging plot lines, maybe only three or four, but as many as 15, are an asset to a game. Building in the ability to change and manipulate the environement, even if it is without meaning, is always a plus and adds depth to the illusion of reality. Finaly, action is necessary in almost every game. We play games to escape from our world, to do things we can't do in real life, since most gamers are men and most men do have these irrational violent impulses (I know I do) action (and often violence) is a necessary asset for a game. Besides, blowing stuff up is fun.
So what is this ARM processor anyhow? I read through the story and can't seem to find any description of what, exactly, this thing DOES. The post sounds like it involves automotive technologies, but they said it runs applications. What are we talking about here? It's hard to get a grasp of what this means until we have that information. Anyone?
Slashdot Mirror
On a related note, I've always wondered about music videos. The RIAA bitches and complains about music piracy because they say they can still sell the stuff on CD and thus they are being denied a profit (still, I wonder how many "Julie Lendon" CDs they've sold as of late). Music Videos are a different matter entirely. After about 3 months MTV and VH1 have pretty much forgotton all about them.... no one sells them save a few specialty stores and even then they are hard to find....
Guess I'm wondering why we seem to have this system that allows corporations to lock down a particular peice of material forever and day "just in case" in becomes valuable for basicly nothing.
This has been another useless post from....
There was a topic on here a whie a go about how technology makeith not a game.
Ok, so there's some bugs. Big deal, they're not terribly nasty ones, and if finishing the game in single player mode reduces your critter to slag, well then... just save before you do that.
On the whole this game RULES. It is highly addictive, very interactive, and always good for a laugh. Autosave is a bit of a bitch but you can turn that off.
Black and White, especialy if it goes open source, has the opportunity to be a foundation for strategy games in much the same way that quake and unreal have been foundations for first person shooters. Once the engine exists, there are many programmers who can turn this into hundreds of facinating games. Furthermore, it dosn't look like Lionhead has plans of abandoning htis game.... more stuff is coming, hell... there's even a room for that stuff in the temple!
Bottom line: BUY THIS GAME it is the first thing since Civilization to make it to the 5:00 am zome for me.... that's saying alot.
This has been another useless post from....
This is because they have large amounts of money that could, if MS persued, be taken away
This raises a question I've always had. MSFT makes truckloads of money because anyone who's been a loyal IBM/PC/MSFT user for a long time has bought a copy of Dos, A copy of Win 3.1, Win 95, probably 98 and likely 2000. MSFT makes so much money because people keep having to buy new licences. Nonetheless I still have a DOS 6.2 licence in a drawer somewhere.
So if MSFT goes into this whole fee based service thing.... won't audits like this hurt them badly in the long run? Once people are able to opt out of their licence agreement and once that decision has a financial impact on MSFT I think they'll start to see the error or their ways.
Of course by then it will be to late.... First ze computer market und zen ze Vorld! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH... uh... yea
This has been another useless post from....
A MSIE bug is very serious because it can compromise a huge number of individual hosts. Furthermore, people don't choose to run MSIE, they have to, or they just don't know that they are running it. And you can't remove MSIE from a windows machine.
Ok, I'm gonna be Captain Obvious here, but isn't this the crux of the problem? Fundamentaly, if you want to have a system that's compatable with Joe Sixpack's you've got to buy a MS product.
Because of this system, every PC out there built within the last 6 years has a copy of IE on it. Hell, you can't even get the damn icon off your desktop without going to rather a lot of trouble.
Many have touted the superiority of the IE browser over Netscape due to running speed. This is (of course) due to the fact that MS can look at the f&%*ing kernal! This does make optimization rather easy eh? As far as running speed and superiority of the product because of, I think this boils down to apples and oranges.
But back to the main point. So we've got all these PCs run by Joe Sixpack. MS puts a notice up on some obscure portion of their website and calls it a warning. (We won't get into the fact that this bug forces you to download a newer version of IE or switch to Netscape if you are running an unsupported browser.) What kind of responcibility is that?
MS has a responcibiility to protect its users from security holes. Put a hole like this in, say, a home security system, and they have to recall the damn thing. When the very functionality of the system is endangered and the user (or in this case the users data) is laied naked before the world that's a time for a RECALL OF THE PRODUCT. MS needs to take out adds on major television networks, this kind of data needs to be made available to the public in a widespread manner. Why is software any different than any other product? When it's hazardous it is the responcibility of the company to let the user know.
This has been another useless post from....
I think you can rest assured that most likely everybody involved had their tounges firmly in their cheeks. I mean come on under illness TBD now that was funny.
Not really....
Three Words: Van Allan Belts (sp?)
This has been another useless post from....
Are you kidding? The RIAA would have more than that on their hands. Think about it, the RIAA desides that the "evil commies" are taking all their profits away. So they go cry to Uncle Sam about it. Uncle Sam gives them a nickle (go by a real OS kid) and sends then on their way. Just when the RIAA steps outside the door though, every PAC, Special Interest Group, and Trade Union in the nation clubs them to death with lawyers. China is allready a haven for copyright infringement. The US has given China MFN status for YEARS. Furthermore, when/if China ever manages to get into the WTO we'll get to see how well copyright law holds up under international law. Hell, we aren't allowed to bitch at China about Human Rights violations (according to the WTO) I wonder if copyright is any different?
This kind of thing could keep international relations majors in buisness for the rest of their natural lives!
This has been another useless post from....
On a related but seemingly irrelevant sidetrack...
A few years ago I bought a copy of Corel 7.0 at my local University Bookstore (ah the joys of academic pricing). Over the course of moving in and out of dorms, however, the install met with a rather grisley fate (it looks like someone attacked it with a power sander). So anyhow, my hard drive goes the way of the Dodo and I get this new system. I can't install Corel 7 so I write corel and tell them I've got all three CDs in the Corel 7 set and that I'd like to exchange them from 3 readable CDs from the same set. Now I use CDs for backup and I'll tell you you're getting screwed if you pay more than $1 a CD... and that's for good brandname stuff in small quantites. Corel tells me they'll be happy to give me copies, provided I send in the old ones, along with $25.00 PER CD.
Damn..... so I installed The Gimp on my linux box and have resolved myself to deny Corel my hard earned cash in the future.
I just wanted to rant... sorry
This has been another useless post from....
The truth is, people don't like to be tracked, at home, or at work (privacy, anyone?) We reluctantly accept the fact that we have to wear badges to work, and scan into locked doors, et cetera, but I do not want my employer to have the ability to determine my physical location every second of the workday
See, I'd qualify that. People don't like being tracked if it dosn't benefit them. Try to pass a law requiring GPS locators in cell phones and you'll have a war on your hands. Make nice nice and say it's really a measure that can allow you to be located if you've been in a car accident or some other dangerous altercation and no one (except us paranoid geeks) will even blink at it.
The fundamental difference is that you and I (and the majority of the Slashdot community) live in an environment where, for some reason or another, paranoia is rewarded, either by our peers or our employers (indirectly). Neal Stephenson does a good job with that concept in Cryptonomicon.
In the end though, we don't make up a substantial part of a voting block. So if "They" decide to really press this technology, there's little short of massed civil disobediance we can really do about it. On a corporate level it's a different story. Leave your "bat" in your cube. Clip your chip laiden ID to your coat and forget to take that with you to the bathroom. If even being in the system bothers you, just don't work there. This kind of thing has to be expensive as hell, not every corp can afford it.
Back to the basic point though. People like being tracked and monitored if they feel like they get something out of it. Why are websites that remember our personal information so successfull? Sure, it's a lesser manifestation of corporate tracking, but we --like-- that sort of personalization. The illusion that the computer remembers who we are and what we like and "cares" enough to make it that way (pretend you're a luser for a sec here ok?) makes the luser feel distinctive. It's a gimic, and it apeals to something deep within our psyche. It is, quite frankly, bunk... but it appeals to us anyhow.
Just be carefull before you say "the people won't stand for this" or "people don't like this" argument. In my experiance capitalism is a really good way for dealing with products no one likes. They don't sell and they die. If people really have as big a problem as you say with this the corporations that use it will flounder and die. The system will die with them and we'll all go home happy.
Ok... I'll shut up now.
This has been another useless post from....
Damn.... that's harsh man....
This has been another useless post from....
Honestly, I'd support the idea. I'm a 21 year old college student. I'm not to far from my childhood, and I can certainly agree with the lure of the Unknown. Kids love it, the fastest way to get a kid to shove beans up his nose is to tell him not to do it. That's just the nature of children... hell... it still works on me sometimes :-)
:-)
Point being that there are some things that parrents consider to be more threatening to their kids than others. Most parrents lock the liquer cabinet. Most parrents try to keep medication out of reach. This is not because they don't try to teach their kids not to get into these things, but just because it's not worth the risk NOT to lock these things down.
While it is not my personal opinion that violent video games fit into this category, it is the opinion of some people. If the extra cost is not prohibitive then by all means, this feature should be incorporated. No one says you have to use it.
I for one would put the system in place for my kids though (if I had any). I figgure, once they're smart enough to crack the code, they're mature enough to play the game. Think of it as an early geek training tool. If we're lucky they'll be trying to install Red Hat or (God be praised) Slackware on their X-box by the time they're 12
This has been another useless post from....
It seems fairly clear that Napster's efforts to do "just enough" to get by aren't working. Measures like this can only delay the final stroke. It is safe to say, (IMNSHO) that Napster is pretty well screwed, it has served its purpose, and it is time to move on.
The struggle is and will continue to be, between market forces and governmental forces. Adam Smith tells us that demand varies inversely with price. Thus, at a price of 0 the demand is extraordinary, therefor if a product is offered for free, no one can compete.
The RIAA takes the opposing side of this, pushing the music industry away from perfect competition and towards a regulated market (with copyright laws as the regulators).
A market in perfect competition generates a given benefit to all consumers and producers in the market. The sum of these benefits is the benefit to the society as a whole. Remember that.
Now economic theory allows us to mathematicly show that price controls (which is what these copyright laws boil down to) are bad for a market. Anytime these controls are put in place some of the benefit to the customer and some of the benefit to the producer evaporates.
Now in the pefectly competitive market of MP3 music distribution prices have been forced to production costs (the hallmark of any perfectly competitive market). That means that the producer (ie whoever is suppling the MP3s) is gaining no benefit. But the benefit to the customer is huge, society as a whole benefits.
Unfortunately, Napster, while in the moral right (at least as far as society as a whole goes), is not in the legal right. It is thus appaulingly clear that Napster is going to die, it is only a matter of time. However, Napster has laied the foundation for a much more diverse and powerfull file sharing network to take its place. What we have seen is only the first of many legal battles. The next battleground won't be the courts however, it will be Congress. Get out there and vote. We Napster users could form the single most powerfull loby in US history if we get off our asses and try to change things. Price controls are no different than any other law passed by Congress, and they can be overturned.
This has been another useless post from....
It is my understanding that one must file for a trademark. It is also my understanding that Blizzard was awarded this trademark for the areas of video games and movies.
Consequently, while Blizzard dosn't own the title "Diablo" for, say, Spanish language demonology textbooks, they do own it in those two fields.
Because trademark only applies to certain areas, commonly used words can be used in many products. Imagine if every trademark granted covered every use of that word! Companies would be unable to gain a trademark on any pronouncable word, the courts simply wouldn't stand for it!
Blizzard will win this case. I'd be shocked if they lost. The relevant part, that so many have ignored, is the area specific nature of these trademarks. You can make all the Diablo brand toilet paper you want, Bilzzard won't give a damn (pun intended)
This has been another useless post from....
Retraction -- (and yes I hit preview first, I just didn't READ it)
:-)
Weight should be mass in the above
This has been another useless post from....
And proving that they have mass would help us account for a lot of the 'missing' or 'dark' matter that we think should exist.
Back in 1998 there was an announcement that some scientists in Japan had determined that neutrinos do indeed have weight.
Has anyone seen anything more recent on this topic?
This has been another useless post from....
"We are moving into a post-capitalsociety, where the only thing of worth is the posession of knowledge and the spread of ideas."
So you think that someday wealth will be determined by the ownership or possession of intelectual abstracts, which, due to monopolistic controls, will have an inherently overinflated value?
Do you work for the RIAA or something?
This has been another useless post from....
The District Court concluded that noncommercial home use recording of material broadcast over the public airwaves was a fair use of copyrighted works and did not constitute copyright infringement. It emphasized the fact that the material was broadcast free to the public at large, the noncommercial character of the use, and the private character of the activity conducted entirely within the home. Moreover, the court found that the purpose of this use served the public interest in increasing access to television programming, an interest that "is consistent with the First Amendment policy of providing the fullest possible access to information through the public airwaves
So on one hand we take television broadcasts. It's legal to record these things, so long as they are used for private showings.
What about video rentals? Do those shops pay an IP licencing fee (beyond the purchace of the actual movie)?
. We have in the other hand the radio. A smiliar method of broadcasting data over the airwaves. We record it on tapes (the difference between a CD and a Tape being irrelevant in this case). It is legal for me to tape songs off the radio to listen to them. It is legal for me to tape songs for my friends. But if I obtain the same data, for the same price (free) over the internet its suddenly illegal?
So we have an extant model allowing the copying of broadcast materials (netcast ~ broadcast). And we have a model allowing the distribution of copyright material FOR PROFIT by a corporation (probably without paying any fees).
Honestly, I don't understand why the rulings have been going against Napster.
This has been another useless post from....
Censorship. Both Cultural and Political.
Admitedly we Americans have this idea that it is our universal right to tell you, your brother, and everyone else exactly what we think when we think it. It's protected under the First Ammendment we say. And we are right
We start a buisness, make our fortune, become successfull. We fight our way up the social ladder with the tools of innovation and capitalism. We feel it is our right to do so, and we are right.
We value our freedoms, we fight bitterly when our governemnt tries to encroach on them, to take away our right to do something that we value. We expect our government to fear and respect the will of the people. And we are right
But we are not the only country, the only people on earth. We feel it is our right to send tapes of Baywatch to Saudi Arabia. We stop short of recognising the Saudi Government's right of forbiding the use of those tapes. We look at our capitalist system and try to give it to other nations that they may prosper and grow like we did. But we stop short of granting them the right to make their own choice as to weather to accecpt or reject that system.
America has fought hard to get where she is today. Through the lubrication of blood, sweat and tears she has clawed her way to a position of prominance. Of course, now she's got no idea of what to do with herself.
The United States finds itself thrust into the position of the last remaining superpower (some would say global hegemon) with no agenda as per ususal. Yes, we will attempt to impose our system on the rest of the world. Yes we will screw up, yes we will make our mistakes. It's a strange thing, to be a government, responcible for the "free world," with no one, in particular (citizens or otherwise) that wants you around.
This has been another useless post from....
There was a fossilized dino heart that someone put in an MRI or some such imaging device. It turned out ot have a four chambered heart, which implies that dinos are warm blooded.
Which doesn't tell us anything worth a pair of dingos kidneys. Even accecpting the theory that dinos were warm blooded, you've still got a several hundred ton chunk of dino to feed.
So when a several thousand ton chunk of rock slams into the earth at speeds aproching R23 (see HHGTTG Chap 34 for explanation of the R unit of velocity) you've got to assume that its going to dispurse a fair amount of energy. Waves of fire spreading over whole continents, a sudden ice age, lots of snow, dark skies for 30 years, you know, real wrath of God type stuff.
Anyhow, so what I'm getting at here is that what probably killed off our large perhistoric friends wasn't the cold climate, it was the fact that the cold climate wiped out some insane portion of all the plant species on earth. No plant life = no large herbavores. No large herbavoes = No large carnisores. And in no time flat the dino population is down to pretty much nill.
And if you like Michael Critton the little ones survive and turn into birds.
But then... I could be completely wrong.
This has been another useless post from....
So the book is free for download and published under the GPL right?
Damn.....
This has been another useless post from....
I know no one is still reading this but what the hell.
The idea that Napster can keep you from buring their MP3s to CD and/or prevent your from distributing them is fundamentaly flawed.
1.) Even assuming that they manage to get the on-the-fly encryption running this chains the MP3 to a specific platform. Namely the one that Napster writes (and I'll bet double or nothing they're stupid enough to use a secret algorithm type cypher rather than a key based one).
2.) Chained to a system or no, I can still pipe my audio stream out of my computer and into something else. That something else can be a CD-R, a tape deck, pretty damn near anything.
3.) So lets assume they do that thing Cinemax used to do where you can't record the broadcast (how did they do that?). Ok, so I can't pipe it directly into a recording device anymore. Of course, I can pipe it into speakers (otherwise what would be the point?). Consequently, I can record, on some other device the speaker output. Sure, it's not the best solution in the world, but it works.
I've said it once, I'll say it again. It's economics. As long as there is a cheeper way to do something/get something people will do it. The RIAA said it best "You can't compete with free"
Between Adam Smith and a few industrias computer geeks, these people are doomed.
This has been another useless post from....
I've got to disagree with you here. I've been waiting for a long time for a Starcraft-like game that has meaningful cooperative multiplayer scenarios
Point. At the same time, I think that games should avoid pitching themselves as a mainly multiplayer game. Sure, Quake3 is the exception to this rule, but for the most part broadband is simply not pervasive enough to really allow massively multiplayer games to live up to their full potential. I'd prefer to see a really solid single player base with multiplayer added as a feature as opposed to a multiplayer base game with single player modes added as an afterthought. As the gaming creedo espoused above states, the only hardware you should assume your user has is the basics. Internet service, indespensible as it is, may not be available to the full audiance, and I don't feel that what they get out of the game should have to suffer because of that.
This has been another useless post from....
It's not 3d Accelerators that ruin games, it's game designers who ruin games
Argh. I have so much homework to do... nonetheless, some things are more important, like game theory. Now then...
Civilization. Awsome game. I loved it. Still love it. The best thing about it was/is the fact that the basic concept is portable. So when Civilization II came out, it was still very close to Civ I (leaving balance issues aside, I'm not getting into that).
Fast forward to 2001.
Ok. Here's what I fail to grasp. Lets say I take the origional Civ I, or Civ (value) game engine. Now I slap some really pretty 3d graphics on there with exquisitly modeled units and cities etc. I make it Civ v.Eyecandy. Now, asside from being unorigional work (we'll ignore that point for now) this version is just as good as the origional. But it's also got pretty graphics, which, if designed properly will make gameplay easier to understand and will decrease eyestrain by making the player work less to figgure out if that unit is a phallanx or a fighter.
My point -- Is the use of pretty 3d graphics necessarily a bad thing in a game? Can't a create an innovative game that sitll uses Necromancers, Wizards, Orcs, Trolls, Goblins, and whatever else I want? Is is really fair to say that use of these words and images is responcible for the so called decline of games as of late?
On the contrary. The quality of a game is the responcibility of one and only only person/thing. The design team. If they allow orcs wizards, 3d accelerators etc to hamper their ability to build a playable and fun game that is their own damn fault.
I for one have been pretty happy with most of the games I've played as of late. But then, I'm the type that holds off on the purchace until about a year after release date....
Speaking of which.... Alice sounds interesting... anyone know anything about that?
This has been another useless post from....
Moderation in all things
They should mandate the memorization of this phrase before anyone can publish a game. Plot is good, interactivity is good, action is good. All of these are wonderfull qualities for a game. None of them can stand alone as the basic premice for a game.
Quake 3 (In single player mode) -- Plot? What plot? Sure, there is this completely basic storyline that you don't even notice in the game until you get to the end level. Even Doom had more plot. Plot is an integral part of the game. It makes the player belive, even for just a second, that his actions matter in some wider scheme.
I should note that plot is almost totaly unecessary in multiplayer games. Interaction with real people is far more convincing than a computer can be... right Mr Turing?
Myst -- No action to speak of. Now, I'm going to get flamed by Myst fans for saying this, but Myst was really lacking in the "Fun" department at times. By relying so heavily on problem solving and plot, myst offered no outlet for the stress involved in not being able to solve the problem. I wanted to let loose with a rocket launcher on those seagulls more than once. By making the game so cinimatic and slow paced, Myst gave up a good portion of its potential audiance and apeal.
Interactivity -- Balders gate was listed as the example for this above. I agree, a universe that is to interactive, where the player "picks up anything that's not nailed down... just in case" is poorly designed.
So my conclusion is this. Moderation. There needs to be a basis for your game. That basis can be in action, plot, or interactivity. That depends entirely on what kind of game you're making. But your game also needs aspects of the other two. Further, no single element should be taken to far. Action taken to far (eg Action Quake) becomes painfully real. We don't want to see the hero die from a leg wound. That's not FUN. Plot, when to overarching, leaves the player feeling dwarfed and insignificant. Final Fantasy is guilty of this at times, it becomes very clear that your actions don't matter at all, all you have to do is survive and "destiny" will make sure you end up in the right place. Interactivity, at to great a scale, is also pointless. Sure, your character can play with everything, but what is he supposed to DO?
Diverging plot lines, maybe only three or four, but as many as 15, are an asset to a game. Building in the ability to change and manipulate the environement, even if it is without meaning, is always a plus and adds depth to the illusion of reality. Finaly, action is necessary in almost every game. We play games to escape from our world, to do things we can't do in real life, since most gamers are men and most men do have these irrational violent impulses (I know I do) action (and often violence) is a necessary asset for a game. Besides, blowing stuff up is fun.
This has been another useless post from....
| Only if one defines "better workstation" to mean
:-)
| a workstation where clicking on the wrong thing
| can lead to infection. No thanks, I'll pass
You mean the install button?
This has been another useless post from....
So what is this ARM processor anyhow? I read through the story and can't seem to find any description of what, exactly, this thing DOES. The post sounds like it involves automotive technologies, but they said it runs applications. What are we talking about here? It's hard to get a grasp of what this means until we have that information. Anyone?
This has been another useless post from....