It wasn't DNA encoded from the looks of it, it simply hid in the DNA of the carrier so it wouldn't be obviuos if he was scanned or checked in a general fashion.
Personally, I thought it was pretty cool. I don't recall off-hand ever seeing something like that in any of the other shows. That could be because they stopped using it since handheld scanners had gotten good enough to pick it up even in a cursory scan.
ack I'm getting a headache now trying to philosophize and generalize about the future/past and history/present. My tenses are going to get all screwy then...
My understanding of the whole klingon thing was that we had already met them (or why would we have humans that speak any klingon at all, or even recognize klingons) and did share some tech, etc. The last couple scenes from the show kinda confirmed that for me. So, on an essential level, the timeline might be a little curved, but not warped all over hell and back. As far as the look of the klingons, well, that's what people have come to expect. Besides, we could be far enough down the timeline that the klingons already did the gene engineering thing to themselves. I say that based on the very unfriendly attitude the old klingon gave to Archer towards the very end of the episode.
It could be that the creators/producers/Paramount/whoever decided that 'this' point in human history was where they wanted to start. I recall reading a book a couple years back where George Kirk was the FirstO on a new, experimental ship. After a tangle with the Romulans and everything working out ok in the end, George named the ship Enterprise and she sailed off into history as the first ship in the fleet (by the way, the book-ship had shields which they tested by ramming themselves into an asteroid at warp1). I figured that this series would roughly fit into the timeline and theme of that book, turns out I was mostly right. Replace romulans with klingons, replace G. Kirk with J. Archer and then change the story background. Result; Same story, different setting, still played well enough to be watchable.
For those of you who are complaining or providing somewhat negative comments on the special FX & the look and 'feel' of things, I have a simple comment myself:
In interviews before the show was even scheduled to air (aka months ago) roughly half the main actors and a few behind the scenes people were interviewed concerning various parts of the show and series. Their comments concerning the SFX and such can be summed up as follows:
The sfx and look seem to be better than TOS simply because they're using tech from the year 2000, not 1969, when filiming and editing and such. They're trying to keep the look and feel as simple and non-tech as they can get, but at the same time they want it to be visually appealing. So, no sham-icky models floating in front of a piece of black cardboard with holes in it and such. This is just the way the movie and tv industry is. I don't fault them at all for doing it either. I missed the first 40 minutes of the show due to a tuning glitch on behalf of my DVR (I'll watch the rebroadcast on Saturday), but I can say that I'm happy with what they have done for the series premiere. We all got to take some quick looks at a lot of stuff that's new to us, and I figure they'll expand on it all a whole bunch of it as time goes by since Trekkers are more-or-less geekish or geek-like by default. I liked it overall, but I'm reserving full judgement until I see 8 or 10 episodes. If it holds my interest for that long, then I can at least make an informed decision and more than likely say that I enjoy it enough to continue to watch however flawed the show, timeline, or sfx may be. If it doesn't, well then I'll know for sure to wait the generic 2 seasons for it to start getting good. Either way, don't judge a show buy it's initial episode, but do give it a little time to flesh out.
I'm glad to see that some companies are at least trying to accomplish new things and come out with new products given the state of our economy and markets and such. Even if people think it is overpriced or under-powered and what not that still doesn't degrade the fact that it is a relatively new product in a squishy market. Personally, I own a few hundred shares of SGI stock, but I'm still happy to see any tech comapny suck in their gut, tighten their belt and release a new product in this market. Makes me want to believe the tech markets will turn around sooner than people believe. Kudos to Sun for still working on new products and trying to generally improve things. Now, if Cray would follow suit, I'd be a happy man...
I lost interest in the empeg car player when SonicBlue (or whoever owns Rio) bought the system from the guys in England working outta their garage. I really, really wanted one, and at one was in dialog with them about support other formats besides mp3. But then Rio got a hold of it, made it look all pretty on the outside and just kinda spoiled my interest in the thing. I was gonna order one of the whoppin' huge ones (read: large hard drive), and I almost preordered it but ended up not having the cash available. After the Rio purchase, I stopped looking at them and instead looked at building my own the way I wanted it. Now I just don't bother. I don't have a radio or anything in my vehicle currently, and I actually have grown to like it that way.
So, Rio/SonicBlue saying they are gonna drop it doesn't really surprise me. I wouldn't be surprised if most folks that were going to buy one (past tense) changed their minds when the sale to Rio happened.
It's possible but unlikely that two different programs, even with duplicate backgrounds & books & learning, would write almost line for line duplicate code. This mostly comes down to how each person thinks, what shortcuts or programming tricks each person knows, etc.
Back in the day when I used to write a lot of stuff in basic for Apple II systems, we'd have races or games. 2 or 3 guys would be given a simple task to code and 5 minutes to do it. The guy with the shortest time & shortest code that met the objectives won. I won about 40% of the time simply cause I couldn't think 'small' enough. I'd write 16 or 20 lines of code, a buddy of mine almost always had 12 or less for the same job. He and I learned together from the same books and software and such, but it all came down to how each of us think, how each individual goes about problem solving.
So, could two people almost duplicate the same code at the same time? Yes, sure. Is it likely to happen? Not really. I'm not saying it's impossible, just highly improbable. So understanding that, I'd agree that the code was used without giving credit where credit was due. I've read the comments about the phone book and stuff, but the yellow pages doesn't have a copyright on it. From what I understand, this code did and under license that copyright notice has to be included with the code. It doesn't have to be mentioned or anything, but the file simply needs to exist on the cd or hard drive or whatever with the code. Simple. Why they chose not to include it is anyone's guess.
Before you comment, I've read through all the info presented at battlebots.org:
I can understand The TV show wanting the domain name, and I can understand this guy not wanting to give it up, and I can see why he shouldn't have to. But, why did he register his site as battlebots.org when the word 'battle' seems to have nothing to do with the services he provides? I could easily see ircbots.org or something akin to that, but why battlebots.org? None of the info presented on the site (battlebots.org) seems to tell me why it has this name. Further, if the guy already runs a shell service on another domain anme, why not just take the $70, transfer services to the other name and live with it?
I like to fight the good fight, and this will be a good fight, but I also only take up fights that I think I have a chance of winning. If this were me, I'd transfer the name and pray daily that they don't try to sue me anyway.
I run my own site and services on a little network at home, and I must say that before I registered for a domain name I did so serious research (about 4 months worth) on all of the names I was considering. I ended up picking one that I did like, though it is kinda long, because there is nothing else on or off the net that resembles it in name or form anywhere. The TV show in question here has existed for 3 or 4 years now. So yes, this guy did register his domain before the name was trademarked, but the name existed before he ever registered the name. Paradox? That would be for a judge to decide.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess most readers don't understand that most readers submit the stories and info to the site, not a select team of reporters and editors...
It wasn't DNA encoded from the looks of it, it simply hid in the DNA of the carrier so it wouldn't be obviuos if he was scanned or checked in a general fashion.
Personally, I thought it was pretty cool. I don't recall off-hand ever seeing something like that in any of the other shows. That could be because they stopped using it since handheld scanners had gotten good enough to pick it up even in a cursory scan.
ack I'm getting a headache now trying to philosophize and generalize about the future/past and history/present. My tenses are going to get all screwy then...
My understanding of the whole klingon thing was that we had already met them (or why would we have humans that speak any klingon at all, or even recognize klingons) and did share some tech, etc. The last couple scenes from the show kinda confirmed that for me. So, on an essential level, the timeline might be a little curved, but not warped all over hell and back. As far as the look of the klingons, well, that's what people have come to expect. Besides, we could be far enough down the timeline that the klingons already did the gene engineering thing to themselves. I say that based on the very unfriendly attitude the old klingon gave to Archer towards the very end of the episode.
It could be that the creators/producers/Paramount/whoever decided that 'this' point in human history was where they wanted to start. I recall reading a book a couple years back where George Kirk was the FirstO on a new, experimental ship. After a tangle with the Romulans and everything working out ok in the end, George named the ship Enterprise and she sailed off into history as the first ship in the fleet (by the way, the book-ship had shields which they tested by ramming themselves into an asteroid at warp1). I figured that this series would roughly fit into the timeline and theme of that book, turns out I was mostly right. Replace romulans with klingons, replace G. Kirk with J. Archer and then change the story background. Result; Same story, different setting, still played well enough to be watchable.
For those of you who are complaining or providing somewhat negative comments on the special FX & the look and 'feel' of things, I have a simple comment myself:
In interviews before the show was even scheduled to air (aka months ago) roughly half the main actors and a few behind the scenes people were interviewed concerning various parts of the show and series. Their comments concerning the SFX and such can be summed up as follows:
The sfx and look seem to be better than TOS simply because they're using tech from the year 2000, not 1969, when filiming and editing and such. They're trying to keep the look and feel as simple and non-tech as they can get, but at the same time they want it to be visually appealing. So, no sham-icky models floating in front of a piece of black cardboard with holes in it and such. This is just the way the movie and tv industry is. I don't fault them at all for doing it either. I missed the first 40 minutes of the show due to a tuning glitch on behalf of my DVR (I'll watch the rebroadcast on Saturday), but I can say that I'm happy with what they have done for the series premiere. We all got to take some quick looks at a lot of stuff that's new to us, and I figure they'll expand on it all a whole bunch of it as time goes by since Trekkers are more-or-less geekish or geek-like by default. I liked it overall, but I'm reserving full judgement until I see 8 or 10 episodes. If it holds my interest for that long, then I can at least make an informed decision and more than likely say that I enjoy it enough to continue to watch however flawed the show, timeline, or sfx may be. If it doesn't, well then I'll know for sure to wait the generic 2 seasons for it to start getting good. Either way, don't judge a show buy it's initial episode, but do give it a little time to flesh out.
Or just go to http://www.mini-dish-affiliates.com/t.asp?id=3887 and get a DirecTV system for free+shipping (like $15 or so). Worked fer me.
I'm glad to see that some companies are at least trying to accomplish new things and come out with new products given the state of our economy and markets and such. Even if people think it is overpriced or under-powered and what not that still doesn't degrade the fact that it is a relatively new product in a squishy market. Personally, I own a few hundred shares of SGI stock, but I'm still happy to see any tech comapny suck in their gut, tighten their belt and release a new product in this market. Makes me want to believe the tech markets will turn around sooner than people believe. Kudos to Sun for still working on new products and trying to generally improve things. Now, if Cray would follow suit, I'd be a happy man...
I lost interest in the empeg car player when SonicBlue (or whoever owns Rio) bought the system from the guys in England working outta their garage. I really, really wanted one, and at one was in dialog with them about support other formats besides mp3. But then Rio got a hold of it, made it look all pretty on the outside and just kinda spoiled my interest in the thing. I was gonna order one of the whoppin' huge ones (read: large hard drive), and I almost preordered it but ended up not having the cash available. After the Rio purchase, I stopped looking at them and instead looked at building my own the way I wanted it. Now I just don't bother. I don't have a radio or anything in my vehicle currently, and I actually have grown to like it that way.
So, Rio/SonicBlue saying they are gonna drop it doesn't really surprise me. I wouldn't be surprised if most folks that were going to buy one (past tense) changed their minds when the sale to Rio happened.
my 2 cents
Back in the day when I used to write a lot of stuff in basic for Apple II systems, we'd have races or games. 2 or 3 guys would be given a simple task to code and 5 minutes to do it. The guy with the shortest time & shortest code that met the objectives won. I won about 40% of the time simply cause I couldn't think 'small' enough. I'd write 16 or 20 lines of code, a buddy of mine almost always had 12 or less for the same job. He and I learned together from the same books and software and such, but it all came down to how each of us think, how each individual goes about problem solving.
So, could two people almost duplicate the same code at the same time? Yes, sure. Is it likely to happen? Not really. I'm not saying it's impossible, just highly improbable.
So understanding that, I'd agree that the code was used without giving credit where credit was due. I've read the comments about the phone book and stuff, but the yellow pages doesn't have a copyright on it. From what I understand, this code did and under license that copyright notice has to be included with the code. It doesn't have to be mentioned or anything, but the file simply needs to exist on the cd or hard drive or whatever with the code. Simple. Why they chose not to include it is anyone's guess.
I can understand The TV show wanting the domain name, and I can understand this guy not wanting to give it up, and I can see why he shouldn't have to. But, why did he register his site as battlebots.org when the word 'battle' seems to have nothing to do with the services he provides? I could easily see ircbots.org or something akin to that, but why battlebots.org? None of the info presented on the site (battlebots.org) seems to tell me why it has this name. Further, if the guy already runs a shell service on another domain anme, why not just take the $70, transfer services to the other name and live with it?
I like to fight the good fight, and this will be a good fight, but I also only take up fights that I think I have a chance of winning. If this were me, I'd transfer the name and pray daily that they don't try to sue me anyway.
I run my own site and services on a little network at home, and I must say that before I registered for a domain name I did so serious research (about 4 months worth) on all of the names I was considering. I ended up picking one that I did like, though it is kinda long, because there is nothing else on or off the net that resembles it in name or form anywhere. The TV show in question here has existed for 3 or 4 years now. So yes, this guy did register his domain before the name was trademarked, but the name existed before he ever registered the name. Paradox? That would be for a judge to decide.