Yes, there are options, but not having to rely upon an outside service for updating the content in your blog or gallery is what MovableType provides.
I agree that MovableType (and sixapart) should have the right to charge for their program. But going from free to crippled 70-600 dollar licenses is a bit of a shock to those of us who didn't see this coming.
Blogger or livejournal, etc are of course for people who don't want to get their hands dirty with setup and maintenance. It's a great service. But what happens if the service goes belly-up? Think mp3.com and the artists. While there's a great deal of minless drivel on many blogs, still others provide witty, insightful, funny, local, or even newsworthy content.
It's a shame that MovableType has deliberately alienated their community support and likely will end their own dominance over the weblog content management software.
For people starting out on weblogging, I agree that multiply, blogger, livejournal, or some such service is definitely worth a look.
For those of you already using MT and looking for alternatives, the ones that have been commonly mentioned in the past day may be worth checking out. For example, TextPattern, Drupal or Wordpress.
Don't like the free alternatives? MT's success came from community support. Do the same thing for these. Test them, report bugs, develop them, use them. Show MT that they're not the only game in town, just one of the most expensive.
You know, I swear that posts are going up faster and faster. I clicked, wrote a quick reply, and when I check, there are 6 other posts saying exactly the same thing as mine. That'll teach me to be baited in such a blatant way by a question that is so clearly not intended to be replied to.
Just so that I don't come off sounding rediculous or offtopic, let me say something that is original.
SCO as an organization didn't do this. One lazy person or group which was supposed to write documentation decided not to write their own. It may be that we can take this as a compliment to the Book of Webmin. It was so well written that SCO couldn't even improve upon it... wait... is that a compliment?
Because, if you RTFA you will notice the words "copyright infringement settlement." In other words, they took without authorization first, got caught, then paid.
How would a relational database filesystem layer, a bloated 3D interface graphics framework, and a new UI markup language (which Mozilla already has) help a web browser in the slightest?
Well, clearly it would make Firefox much faster... After all, who wants a fast-loading, low memory-footprint browser when we can have one that hooks up seamlessly with future Windows API's?
But seriously, this is a terrible sounding idea. If there are features that users think Firefox is missing in comparison to applications on Longhorn, the Mozilla programmers will put them in. Don't sell out to Microsoft so that Firefox can become the next Internet Explorer. It would dominate, but Microsoft would control it.
Somehow I suspect it would not prevent file sharing via that sort of method, but there are simpler methods out there. If you're sending it to a friend, why not just PGP encrypt the file and send it to them? Then no one would know what you're sending, and it's a heck of a lot more secure than steganography (see recent posts on/., other sites).
Just a thought - rather than asking everyone if the article covers units which incorporate DRM, you could READ the article.
That said, and so I'm not just being a typical/. poster, YES, the article mentions devices which use DRM.
I skimmed it, already owning a player, but for example the Sony NET/MD walkman incorporates DRM, and they even mention how it doesn't detract too much from the device features. For the MD walkmen (I own one), the DRM just prevents using the player as a portable hard drive for transferring music. Admittedly, this is a restriction. However, if all players incorporated this, I wouldn't see a HUGE problem with it. You have full control at your own computer which you'd use most of the time.
For transferring files (mp3 included), use a key drive or some such. The iRiver players (with a firmware upgrade) can funtion as USB mass storage and essentially become key drives with headphones.
In short, DRM doesn't ruin a player. I know it's the slashdot knee-jerk reaction, but I'm fine if the usability of my player is retained.
but of course you lose out on quality through this process. And this has questionable legality also - you're paying for unlimited burning. I don't see anything in my license agreement saying that I can or can't do what you describe.
Several years ago I did quite a bit of work with Sonoluminsecence for my high school's science and engineering fair. Made it to the State science fair (anyone interested - the parent's tutorial is a great place to start). The bit I'm particularly interested in is the stream of bubbles being supplied to the flask. When we did our setup, we just used tap water and let the bubble form spontaneously (or in some cases visibly drawn downwards from the water's surface). Getting argon or some other gas artificially introduced is a great idea. I would just wonder how difficult is it to align the stream of bubbles. I'm a science nerd, but this idea is almost enough for me to dust off the old apparatus and try again with this innovation.
It's an interesting idea. The only complications I see are stabilizing the water sphere, mounting speakers or PZTs on the water sphere, and actually getting it in zero G. Upon further thought, the rewards as a result of having no flask seem to shrink in comparison to the problems posed by the above points. Good thinking though - It would be a neat experiment to have the ability to carry out.
You deserve a head exam. Think here - how many people really believe that the control system for the collider is housed on a machine that was compromised (and is thus exposed to the internet at large)? Admittedly, there's a chance, but no moron would set up a network in this way. And who believes there aren't HARDWARE issues that would prevent an explosion - maybe even safeguards? What a freakin thought, considering this is a US DOE site. And what is this toxic material? The collider is basically a bunch of metal. Not sure what he'd overload, but usually heavy atoms or light atoms are slammed together to see what happens and measure particle/energy emissions. Where's the toxic material and explosive? Oh, and what villages? They're 45 miles outside Chicago - not the smallest place. Don't worry though. Unless top quarks, CP violation experiments, and Boson experimentation threaten explosion, I think we're ok. Just try researching the subject. "fermilab" I'm feeling lucky gets you there.
I'm pretty sure this might change - MS may start using patents to bully people. They were discussing patenting the Office 2003 "XML" file format to prevent interaccessibility with other office suites (notably OpenOffice). This was previously discussed on this site - not sure if MS has decided to do it for sure, but it's clear they've got no qualms about being just as underhanded as Eolas.
I know from personal experience that a shared internet connection can be a real pain in the butt. I live in a privately managed, off-campus college apartment complex with a few hundred other college students. A large percentage of the residents here use KaZaA on their computers. The network connection is quite fast (multiple T-1, according to the management company) but during most peak times, you're lucky if you can get enough bandwidth to do DNS lookups. The point is, you really do affect the people around you with what you do. I can't fault the tech department for the management company - as far as I know, KaZaA is almost impossible to block at the router. If anyone knows differently, I'd love to know about it. One more suggestion: if you find yourself in a similar situation (a clogged residential network), I've found that having a DNS server on my computer work as my primary DNS speeds up your web surfing. Again, just be good neighbors and try to hold yourself back from hogging the entire residential pipe that you SHARE with your neighbors.
Actually, I think the comparison might be more accurate if instead of a contributor to a book suing Amazon or BN, the contributor sued the publisher of the book. A press company would certainly be more similar to RedHat, SuSe, etc. than a seller such as BN or CompUSA. Of course, because of bad press BN or CompUSA could stop selling the product, but that's another point. Admittedly, SCO needs to test this "approach" in court before they go after end users or the publishers/software companies with their FUD, but until then, they will continue being morons.
Are you under the impression that the bill of rights and constitution does not apply to foreigners in the United States? While deportation is commonly used to solve problems with foreigners breaking laws in the USA, even this process is not without due process. If the government decides not to deport but instead to prosecute, the rights outlined in the bill of rights and constitution extend to the accused. While President Bush has been asserting the power to prosecute foreigners outside the constitution, the power will likely be overturned when cooler heads prevail in Congress and the Supreme Court. Just as we look at Japanese detention camps during WWII with shame, I sincerely hope that one day we look back at the actions of this administration with the same shame. The president isn't God and universal rights are just that: universal. Don't get me wrong - it's not free speech to raise money to kill us. It's just that equal protection under the law is kind of fundamental in the USA, and we should respect that.
we wouldn't be in this situation. Shrub used the "fear card" America gave him after 9/11/01 to rip up parts of our constitution. IANAL, but how codified law can supplant the Law of the Land doesn't make sense to me. Anyone else?
I see so many people have posted about their popup-blocking experiences with two superb pieces of software: Mozilla Firebird and the Google Toolbar. Wonderful. It's great to see people using quality, useful software. Admittedly, the Google toolbar is in much wider general circulation than Mozilla Firebird, but this is a welcome trend nonetheless.
My question to you is this. Is ending popups a solution to anything? Everywhere we look, we see ads. I can't go to the john at a club without seeing ads posted over the urinals. In Tucson and many other cities, our public buses have giant printed ads covering their entire exterior. The internet is clearly no exception to the growing trend of in-your-face advertisement. Popups and site-ads are simply much cheaper to implement than print ads. Like it or not, internet advertising isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
And even if we don't click on the ad, in the real world we can't click on buses or the ads over urinals. The real goal of advertising is to change our attitudes about a product. Simply put, internet ads do that just fine. In fact, compared to print advertisement, internet advertisement may see increased success in the future. Targeted advertisements are much more interesting to me than general ads. Check the top inch of slashdot.org. See the ad? It's probably something that COULD be of interest to us as geeky, nerdy, techy, slashdot readers. And of course, that's the goal of advertisement. You've had your awareness about the company or product raised and you might even have imperceptibly changed your attitude about the company or product.
I know that pop-under ads were annoying, and thank goodness we've figured out how to deal with them, but ads have value in our society and I think in a discussion such as this, we need to acknowledge that fact. If I have a choice between static print ads and targeted internet ads, I choose the latter. As long as privacy is maintained, targeted ads simply have more value to me. They also have more value to the advertiser. Innovations will come and go, but advertisement is here to stay.
Now if someone could just figure out how to block those annoying Shockwave Flash ads that make noise and flash or scroll across the screen...
This seems obvious if you know just a little bit about how the Segway works. I know it's this "hip" invention, but if you're dumb enough to be riding it around and not notice that the battery is really low, you might just BREAK a hip. That said, despite being this yuppie-esque way to get around, the concept is pretty neat. I just know I wouldn't want to fall off this thing. Good for the CPSC, good for the consumer. Interesting story.
I don't know what your searches have been returning, but ever since I read about this and tried it for myself, I've had no problem finding the kazaa-lite links from a simple google search. I understand what everyone is talking about, but I have no problem myself. Besides pr0n and illegal mp3s, I very much understand the uses of p2p software like Kazaa. Hats off to SBC for at least trying to make the RIAA prove their case as a point of law. Hope it works.
In the meantime, if you want good, legal, high-quality indy (non-RIAA) mp3s, try http://www.dmusic.com. Nice stuff.
Imagine this: the voters get clean laser printout with their selections. The voters verify the selections and put them in the box. A week later, a recount is issued, and wow! No disputed ballots! It's all there in plain toner.
Ok, so we've established that something as simple as a computer-generated printout would be useful. I completely agree. The problem is that the voting machines are designed to be more than simple vote/print terminals. They maintain a database of votes which is the primary source of counting the votes. This database is vulnerable to compromise (As the article states, I believe). Fix the system so that the voting machines are secure and function as more than just reliable vote-printers. Secure machines + vote printers seems the ideal mechanism to vote in a country where we can't even punch paper correctly.
Is it too much to hope that our public officials will realize the potential for corruption, fix it (though any of the possible ideas which have been suggested on/.) and move on? True, paper and pen ballots are vulnerable to tampering and etc, but at least you can recount the ORIGINAL ballots as the voters filled them out. Electronic ballots lack such a safeguard. Unless of course we print out a paper-copy of the ballots to keep in a lock-box just in case the voting procedures are called into question. But then why not just use paper ballots in the first place??
I run probably the only Linux machine on a residential LAN with a shared internet gateway. Since last week sometime, the virus has so infested the XP/2000 machines on the LAN that all my upstream requests are dreadfully slow. DNS queries and HTTP GET requests, etc. Downstream transfer speeds are just fine. This is the curse of the Slammer virus - 10 to 15 port scans per second per machine on a largely M$ LAN leads to practically no internet access. The sorts of users who refuse to update their machines even weeks after a virus advisory is issued are the bane of their LAN neighbors. How can you just not care that your machine is randomly shutting down with 60-second warnings?!?! So, Linux helps, but only in as much as I myself cannot become infected. Hopefully this will post...
Your grasp of physics is astonishing. Incorrect, but astonishing nonetheless. Suffice it to say: the cooling capacity of salt water is higher than fresh water (due mostly to lower freezing temperature of salt water. Melt fresh water into this (thus diluting it). I think the argument about changing the salt concentration of seawater is pretty much moot. There may be a case for the cold water from melted ice affecting global water currents (and thus weather systems), etc. I don't know enough about those subjects to say for sure one way or another.
This is one of the previous posts I was referring to. My real point is that the "economic model" needs to be implemented, and the makers of the games should be endorsing the concept wholeheartedly. It would be _very_ easy to impose a "usage fee" for each transaction in this game item marketplace which would cover operation costs and bring in additional revenue for the company. If integrity of the game is a sticking point, perhaps a split universe, of sorts could be created? One in which *SIGNED* traded items are allowed and another in which no items may be traded (stored on server-side DB files, etc). I can't say I'd pay for an item in an online game, but the idea behind the exchange (If run correctly) is intriguing to me.
This seems to be something that the online games are going to have to address quickly. As I recall from previous posts, they've made it against the rules to sell items, but is that really enforcable? Why not legalize and regulate the trading industry with items that are "signed" or somehow unique to prevent "duping" or other bugs? An auction system similar to ebay or a simple marketplace exchange would perform this service quite well.
It was George Washington who said "Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is a force, like fire, a dangerous servant and a terrible master." Just wanted to set the record straight.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, there are options, but not having to rely upon an outside service for updating the content in your blog or gallery is what MovableType provides.
I agree that MovableType (and sixapart) should have the right to charge for their program. But going from free to crippled 70-600 dollar licenses is a bit of a shock to those of us who didn't see this coming.
Blogger or livejournal, etc are of course for people who don't want to get their hands dirty with setup and maintenance. It's a great service. But what happens if the service goes belly-up? Think mp3.com and the artists. While there's a great deal of minless drivel on many blogs, still others provide witty, insightful, funny, local, or even newsworthy content.
It's a shame that MovableType has deliberately alienated their community support and likely will end their own dominance over the weblog content management software.
For people starting out on weblogging, I agree that multiply, blogger, livejournal, or some such service is definitely worth a look.
For those of you already using MT and looking for alternatives, the ones that have been commonly mentioned in the past day may be worth checking out. For example, TextPattern, Drupal or Wordpress.
Don't like the free alternatives? MT's success came from community support. Do the same thing for these. Test them, report bugs, develop them, use them. Show MT that they're not the only game in town, just one of the most expensive.
You know, I swear that posts are going up faster and faster. I clicked, wrote a quick reply, and when I check, there are 6 other posts saying exactly the same thing as mine.
That'll teach me to be baited in such a blatant way by a question that is so clearly not intended to be replied to.
Just so that I don't come off sounding rediculous or offtopic, let me say something that is original.
SCO as an organization didn't do this. One lazy person or group which was supposed to write documentation decided not to write their own. It may be that we can take this as a compliment to the Book of Webmin. It was so well written that SCO couldn't even improve upon it... wait... is that a compliment?
Because, if you RTFA you will notice the words "copyright infringement settlement." In other words, they took without authorization first, got caught, then paid.
Well, clearly it would make Firefox much faster... After all, who wants a fast-loading, low memory-footprint browser when we can have one that hooks up seamlessly with future Windows API's?
But seriously, this is a terrible sounding idea. If there are features that users think Firefox is missing in comparison to applications on Longhorn, the Mozilla programmers will put them in. Don't sell out to Microsoft so that Firefox can become the next Internet Explorer. It would dominate, but Microsoft would control it.
Perhaps you mean Steganography?
/., other sites).
Somehow I suspect it would not prevent file sharing via that sort of method, but there are simpler methods out there. If you're sending it to a friend, why not just PGP encrypt the file and send it to them? Then no one would know what you're sending, and it's a heck of a lot more secure than steganography (see recent posts on
Just a thought - rather than asking everyone if the article covers units which incorporate DRM, you could READ the article.
/. poster, YES, the article mentions devices which use DRM.
That said, and so I'm not just being a typical
I skimmed it, already owning a player, but for example the Sony NET/MD walkman incorporates DRM, and they even mention how it doesn't detract too much from the device features. For the MD walkmen (I own one), the DRM just prevents using the player as a portable hard drive for transferring music. Admittedly, this is a restriction. However, if all players incorporated this, I wouldn't see a HUGE problem with it. You have full control at your own computer which you'd use most of the time.
For transferring files (mp3 included), use a key drive or some such. The iRiver players (with a firmware upgrade) can funtion as USB mass storage and essentially become key drives with headphones.
In short, DRM doesn't ruin a player. I know it's the slashdot knee-jerk reaction, but I'm fine if the usability of my player is retained.
but of course you lose out on quality through this process. And this has questionable legality also - you're paying for unlimited burning. I don't see anything in my license agreement saying that I can or can't do what you describe.
Several years ago I did quite a bit of work with Sonoluminsecence for my high school's science and engineering fair. Made it to the State science fair (anyone interested - the parent's tutorial is a great place to start).
The bit I'm particularly interested in is the stream of bubbles being supplied to the flask. When we did our setup, we just used tap water and let the bubble form spontaneously (or in some cases visibly drawn downwards from the water's surface). Getting argon or some other gas artificially introduced is a great idea. I would just wonder how difficult is it to align the stream of bubbles.
I'm a science nerd, but this idea is almost enough for me to dust off the old apparatus and try again with this innovation.
It's an interesting idea. The only complications I see are stabilizing the water sphere, mounting speakers or PZTs on the water sphere, and actually getting it in zero G.
Upon further thought, the rewards as a result of having no flask seem to shrink in comparison to the problems posed by the above points. Good thinking though - It would be a neat experiment to have the ability to carry out.
You deserve a head exam. Think here - how many people really believe that the control system for the collider is housed on a machine that was compromised (and is thus exposed to the internet at large)? Admittedly, there's a chance, but no moron would set up a network in this way. And who believes there aren't HARDWARE issues that would prevent an explosion - maybe even safeguards? What a freakin thought, considering this is a US DOE site. And what is this toxic material? The collider is basically a bunch of metal. Not sure what he'd overload, but usually heavy atoms or light atoms are slammed together to see what happens and measure particle/energy emissions. Where's the toxic material and explosive?
Oh, and what villages? They're 45 miles outside Chicago - not the smallest place. Don't worry though. Unless top quarks, CP violation experiments, and Boson experimentation threaten explosion, I think we're ok. Just try researching the subject. "fermilab" I'm feeling lucky gets you there.
I'm pretty sure this might change - MS may start using patents to bully people. They were discussing patenting the Office 2003 "XML" file format to prevent interaccessibility with other office suites (notably OpenOffice).
This was previously discussed on this site - not sure if MS has decided to do it for sure, but it's clear they've got no qualms about being just as underhanded as Eolas.
I know from personal experience that a shared internet connection can be a real pain in the butt. I live in a privately managed, off-campus college apartment complex with a few hundred other college students. A large percentage of the residents here use KaZaA on their computers. The network connection is quite fast (multiple T-1, according to the management company) but during most peak times, you're lucky if you can get enough bandwidth to do DNS lookups. The point is, you really do affect the people around you with what you do.
I can't fault the tech department for the management company - as far as I know, KaZaA is almost impossible to block at the router. If anyone knows differently, I'd love to know about it.
One more suggestion: if you find yourself in a similar situation (a clogged residential network), I've found that having a DNS server on my computer work as my primary DNS speeds up your web surfing.
Again, just be good neighbors and try to hold yourself back from hogging the entire residential pipe that you SHARE with your neighbors.
Actually, I think the comparison might be more accurate if instead of a contributor to a book suing Amazon or BN, the contributor sued the publisher of the book. A press company would certainly be more similar to RedHat, SuSe, etc. than a seller such as BN or CompUSA. Of course, because of bad press BN or CompUSA could stop selling the product, but that's another point.
Admittedly, SCO needs to test this "approach" in court before they go after end users or the publishers/software companies with their FUD, but until then, they will continue being morons.
Are you under the impression that the bill of rights and constitution does not apply to foreigners in the United States? While deportation is commonly used to solve problems with foreigners breaking laws in the USA, even this process is not without due process. If the government decides not to deport but instead to prosecute, the rights outlined in the bill of rights and constitution extend to the accused. While President Bush has been asserting the power to prosecute foreigners outside the constitution, the power will likely be overturned when cooler heads prevail in Congress and the Supreme Court. Just as we look at Japanese detention camps during WWII with shame, I sincerely hope that one day we look back at the actions of this administration with the same shame. The president isn't God and universal rights are just that: universal.
Don't get me wrong - it's not free speech to raise money to kill us. It's just that equal protection under the law is kind of fundamental in the USA, and we should respect that.
we wouldn't be in this situation. Shrub used the "fear card" America gave him after 9/11/01 to rip up parts of our constitution. IANAL, but how codified law can supplant the Law of the Land doesn't make sense to me. Anyone else?
I see so many people have posted about their popup-blocking experiences with two superb pieces of software: Mozilla Firebird and the Google Toolbar. Wonderful. It's great to see people using quality, useful software. Admittedly, the Google toolbar is in much wider general circulation than Mozilla Firebird, but this is a welcome trend nonetheless.
My question to you is this. Is ending popups a solution to anything? Everywhere we look, we see ads. I can't go to the john at a club without seeing ads posted over the urinals. In Tucson and many other cities, our public buses have giant printed ads covering their entire exterior. The internet is clearly no exception to the growing trend of in-your-face advertisement. Popups and site-ads are simply much cheaper to implement than print ads. Like it or not, internet advertising isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
And even if we don't click on the ad, in the real world we can't click on buses or the ads over urinals. The real goal of advertising is to change our attitudes about a product. Simply put, internet ads do that just fine. In fact, compared to print advertisement, internet advertisement may see increased success in the future. Targeted advertisements are much more interesting to me than general ads. Check the top inch of slashdot.org. See the ad? It's probably something that COULD be of interest to us as geeky, nerdy, techy, slashdot readers. And of course, that's the goal of advertisement. You've had your awareness about the company or product raised and you might even have imperceptibly changed your attitude about the company or product.
I know that pop-under ads were annoying, and thank goodness we've figured out how to deal with them, but ads have value in our society and I think in a discussion such as this, we need to acknowledge that fact. If I have a choice between static print ads and targeted internet ads, I choose the latter. As long as privacy is maintained, targeted ads simply have more value to me. They also have more value to the advertiser. Innovations will come and go, but advertisement is here to stay.
Now if someone could just figure out how to block those annoying Shockwave Flash ads that make noise and flash or scroll across the screen...
This seems obvious if you know just a little bit about how the Segway works. I know it's this "hip" invention, but if you're dumb enough to be riding it around and not notice that the battery is really low, you might just BREAK a hip.
That said, despite being this yuppie-esque way to get around, the concept is pretty neat. I just know I wouldn't want to fall off this thing. Good for the CPSC, good for the consumer. Interesting story.
I don't know what your searches have been returning, but ever since I read about this and tried it for myself, I've had no problem finding the kazaa-lite links from a simple google search. I understand what everyone is talking about, but I have no problem myself. Besides pr0n and illegal mp3s, I very much understand the uses of p2p software like Kazaa. Hats off to SBC for at least trying to make the RIAA prove their case as a point of law. Hope it works.
In the meantime, if you want good, legal, high-quality indy (non-RIAA) mp3s, try http://www.dmusic.com. Nice stuff.
Imagine this: the voters get clean laser printout with their selections. The voters verify the selections and put them in the box. A week later, a recount is issued, and wow! No disputed ballots! It's all there in plain toner.
Ok, so we've established that something as simple as a computer-generated printout would be useful. I completely agree. The problem is that the voting machines are designed to be more than simple vote/print terminals. They maintain a database of votes which is the primary source of counting the votes. This database is vulnerable to compromise (As the article states, I believe). Fix the system so that the voting machines are secure and function as more than just reliable vote-printers. Secure machines + vote printers seems the ideal mechanism to vote in a country where we can't even punch paper correctly.
Is it too much to hope that our public officials will realize the potential for corruption, fix it (though any of the possible ideas which have been suggested on /.) and move on?
True, paper and pen ballots are vulnerable to tampering and etc, but at least you can recount the ORIGINAL ballots as the voters filled them out. Electronic ballots lack such a safeguard. Unless of course we print out a paper-copy of the ballots to keep in a lock-box just in case the voting procedures are called into question. But then why not just use paper ballots in the first place??
I run probably the only Linux machine on a residential LAN with a shared internet gateway. Since last week sometime, the virus has so infested the XP/2000 machines on the LAN that all my upstream requests are dreadfully slow. DNS queries and HTTP GET requests, etc. Downstream transfer speeds are just fine. This is the curse of the Slammer virus - 10 to 15 port scans per second per machine on a largely M$ LAN leads to practically no internet access. The sorts of users who refuse to update their machines even weeks after a virus advisory is issued are the bane of their LAN neighbors. How can you just not care that your machine is randomly shutting down with 60-second warnings?!?!
So, Linux helps, but only in as much as I myself cannot become infected.
Hopefully this will post...
Your grasp of physics is astonishing. Incorrect, but astonishing nonetheless.
Suffice it to say: the cooling capacity of salt water is higher than fresh water (due mostly to lower freezing temperature of salt water. Melt fresh water into this (thus diluting it). I think the argument about changing the salt concentration of seawater is pretty much moot. There may be a case for the cold water from melted ice affecting global water currents (and thus weather systems), etc. I don't know enough about those subjects to say for sure one way or another.
This is one of the previous posts I was referring to. My real point is that the "economic model" needs to be implemented, and the makers of the games should be endorsing the concept wholeheartedly. It would be _very_ easy to impose a "usage fee" for each transaction in this game item marketplace which would cover operation costs and bring in additional revenue for the company.
If integrity of the game is a sticking point, perhaps a split universe, of sorts could be created? One in which *SIGNED* traded items are allowed and another in which no items may be traded (stored on server-side DB files, etc).
I can't say I'd pay for an item in an online game, but the idea behind the exchange (If run correctly) is intriguing to me.
This seems to be something that the online games are going to have to address quickly. As I recall from previous posts, they've made it against the rules to sell items, but is that really enforcable? Why not legalize and regulate the trading industry with items that are "signed" or somehow unique to prevent "duping" or other bugs? An auction system similar to ebay or a simple marketplace exchange would perform this service quite well.
It was George Washington who said "Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is a force, like fire, a dangerous servant and a terrible master."
Just wanted to set the record straight.