praying that they'll make money in the long run so long as they use the law and regulations (A non-free market situation) to protect their locked down device.
Did you RTFA? It wasn't about regulations, it was about (failed) engineering attempts to lock it down. Capitalism, and all that... they have been trying to solve their problem themselves.
As you said, normal users notice no difference. And to the hackers... to quote Airplane (RIP, Leslie!): "They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em crash."
The fact is Sony doesn't make money selling their hardware (they might make a bit now, but not enough to make up for their previous losses). They make money licensing and selling games.
Even with that, I think it's pretty obvious they had no problem with Linux and homebrew development, since they supported Linux on the PS3 for quite a while. It was only once pirates took advantage of it that they decided they had to lock it down. I guarantee you, if no one was copying and selling pirated games, this would never have happened - so yes, the hackers did cause it. Which does make me more pissed off at the pirates than it does at Sony - I think a better saying would be "your selfish actions ruined it for everyone."
If Sarah Palin ever tried to run for office in Alaska again, they'd throw her to the grizzly bears. Nothing like resigning from your elected position with over a year left to make millions on a book deal and speeches to discourage voters...
Yeah, they aren't all bad... and it depends how you use it. It's really more the combination of factors conspiring against it.
I have seen, for example, a (not very tech savvy) family friend who bought a $3000+ (~4 years ago - I'm sure it's much cheaper now) 40" Sony LCD and had it placed more than 15' from where he normally watched it. At 15', he should have just bought the cheapest and largest one he could find...
Though the fact is, even though the majority of the population may now have "HD TVs", most of them wouldn't notice any difference between 720p and 1080p.
Small screens ( 50" 1080p just isn't really that useful from normal living room distances), crappy budget TVs (that $499 "1080p" LCD TV you get at Walmart looks nowhere near as good as a decent 720p Panasonic plasma), and just plain viewer inability to discern it (you'd be amazed at how many people set up their new HDTV in 480i and take months to figure that out) make the group of people who would really appreciate a 1080p game (which I, too, am in of course, if I had to choose again I'd still pick my 60" DLP over an LCD or plasma at any price;) ) the small minority...
Yep - everything you said, plus the fact that after they have just spent 3 years on an entirely new engine for their AAA game, they would really like to be able to reuse that engine as many times as possible rather than toss it out and develop one for the next generation system. As many probably know, the basic GTA4 engine was first developed for Rock Star Table Tennis, of all games, and then was later reused in Red Dead Redemption.
Not to mention with the online play, patching systems, and DLC of the latest consoles, they can keep players' interest longer and continue making new paid content for their title for many months after the initial release...
They can't sue you for code you wrote 10 years ago. Well, technically they can try to sue, of course, but they never would, as any claims that they asserted were infringed by your code would likely be invalidated, given the ample proof you have with an open source project, etc.
Rather, you or someone else using your code could be sued if you later *added* additional features that infringed on the patent's claims (and there are a number of claims in that patent that neither Electric Fence or HeapCheck has, which is the point to most patents (and why they reference earlier works) in the first place! Just because someone invented the automobile over 100 years ago doesn't mean you can't patent improvements to it...
Not really... claim 10 in the patent is a "dependent claim" because it depends on claim 1. If claim 1 is invalidated, all dependent claims are invalid, as well. They most definitely want to patent the idea in the first claim, otherwise the next 10 dependent claims are all useless.
The video chatting code may have been created in 1998, but I'm pretty sure "FaceTime" is just a product name that was publicly announced last June. If the trademark application came before that, Facebook may have grounds for forcing Apple to change the name...
They didn't patent "face", they just registered a trademark. I believe evolution patented the face, but that patent expired many millions of years ago...
The right to fly on a plane (if the plane is yours or agrees to carry you) is a part of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
While I can't stand the way the TSA is handling any of this, either, you most definitely do not have an inherent "right" to fly on a commercial plane. You might try to argue that point if you owned the plane, but as it is you just bought a ticket, which is basically a contract between you and the airline, subject to terms of the contract that you have to be cleared by security before being allowed on the plane.
And in general the Constitution itself is a form of joint contract/agreement between the citizens of the country, the basis of it being that they elect representatives from their number to make and enforce the laws of the country. Unless the law specifically conflicts with a right stated in that agreement (the Constitution), for good or bad (in this case we both agree with "bad") the majority of the elected representatives has decided you will be subject to it. Unfortunately it doesn't violate the Constitution (which doesn't contain laws, by the way, it contains the mechanism for creating laws).
And as you said, as long as the majority is apathetic (and not willing to elect representatives that listen and/or make changes to the Constrituion), it's not going to change...
Yeah, it would be great to see more switchgrass, etc grown and refined instead of corn. Guess the Dakotas just don't have as much political influence to fight for their own subsidies/investments as Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska, etc.
Exactly - all *more* reasons to stop the subsidies, IMO. The beef industry is almost as bad as the oil industry in waste of resources and environmental damage.
Making beef an occasional luxury rather than a cheap staple would probably cut the US health costs in half, as well!
Well, my point wasn't to grow more cane, it was that we should be importing cheap ethanol from Brazil (or just give up and invest in more USEFUL alternative fuels), rather than wasting our money subsidizing it from corn.
[and in fact we do import a fair amount, it just has to go through ridiculous hoops (exported to the Caribbean as hydrous ethanol, and then converted to anhydrous and re-exported to avoid the Brazilian quotas). Love that corn lobby - and I grew up in corn central...]
Other plants can be used to make ethanol, but it's not being done widely
Sure it is. Brazil has been producing efficient sugarcane-based ethanol for decades, and now accounts for almost 40% of the world's ethanol fuel production. Not that it matters much to the US, because of the quotas and massive tariffs to protect the crappy corn ethanol industry...
Yeah, but that is a Nintendo game. He meant a non-Nintendo game using the phrase, of course.
Trademarks are not usually valid unless they are in a competing industry (which is how Apple computer successfully fought the Apple Records lawsuit, before they turned around and started threatening every unrelated industry they could find regarding their own trademarks).
Except there is a direct quote from Nintendo in TFA:
"In addition to Nintendo's use, it has been used in popular music, television and film over the years, pointing to Donkey Kong's status as an enduring pop-culture icon and video game superstar," they said Wednesday in a written release.
They clearly thought about this before doing (enough to put out a release to the media) as well as acknowledged it's already a common phrase in pop culture...
Though patenting the process of firing someone would be much more interesting. It could really help unemployment rates, until the masses of incompetent employees drove all major business into the ground...
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praying that they'll make money in the long run so long as they use the law and regulations (A non-free market situation) to protect their locked down device.
Did you RTFA? It wasn't about regulations, it was about (failed) engineering attempts to lock it down. Capitalism, and all that... they have been trying to solve their problem themselves.
As you said, normal users notice no difference. And to the hackers... to quote Airplane (RIP, Leslie!): "They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em crash."
The fact is Sony doesn't make money selling their hardware (they might make a bit now, but not enough to make up for their previous losses). They make money licensing and selling games.
Even with that, I think it's pretty obvious they had no problem with Linux and homebrew development, since they supported Linux on the PS3 for quite a while. It was only once pirates took advantage of it that they decided they had to lock it down. I guarantee you, if no one was copying and selling pirated games, this would never have happened - so yes, the hackers did cause it. Which does make me more pissed off at the pirates than it does at Sony - I think a better saying would be "your selfish actions ruined it for everyone."
Yeesh, have you seen Assange's hair? I wouldn't want to touch it, let alone muss it.
Apparently a guy named "L. Bob Rife" has put in a bid...
Then again, Ron Paul got re-elected.
If Sarah Palin ever tried to run for office in Alaska again, they'd throw her to the grizzly bears. Nothing like resigning from your elected position with over a year left to make millions on a book deal and speeches to discourage voters...
Yeah, they aren't all bad... and it depends how you use it. It's really more the combination of factors conspiring against it.
I have seen, for example, a (not very tech savvy) family friend who bought a $3000+ (~4 years ago - I'm sure it's much cheaper now) 40" Sony LCD and had it placed more than 15' from where he normally watched it. At 15', he should have just bought the cheapest and largest one he could find...
Argh, /. killed my less than sign... was supposed to be "less than 50" 1080p isn't really that useful"... oh well.
Though the fact is, even though the majority of the population may now have "HD TVs", most of them wouldn't notice any difference between 720p and 1080p.
Small screens ( 50" 1080p just isn't really that useful from normal living room distances), crappy budget TVs (that $499 "1080p" LCD TV you get at Walmart looks nowhere near as good as a decent 720p Panasonic plasma), and just plain viewer inability to discern it (you'd be amazed at how many people set up their new HDTV in 480i and take months to figure that out) make the group of people who would really appreciate a 1080p game (which I, too, am in of course, if I had to choose again I'd still pick my 60" DLP over an LCD or plasma at any price ;) ) the small minority...
Yep - everything you said, plus the fact that after they have just spent 3 years on an entirely new engine for their AAA game, they would really like to be able to reuse that engine as many times as possible rather than toss it out and develop one for the next generation system. As many probably know, the basic GTA4 engine was first developed for Rock Star Table Tennis, of all games, and then was later reused in Red Dead Redemption.
Not to mention with the online play, patching systems, and DLC of the latest consoles, they can keep players' interest longer and continue making new paid content for their title for many months after the initial release...
They can't sue you for code you wrote 10 years ago. Well, technically they can try to sue, of course, but they never would, as any claims that they asserted were infringed by your code would likely be invalidated, given the ample proof you have with an open source project, etc.
Rather, you or someone else using your code could be sued if you later *added* additional features that infringed on the patent's claims (and there are a number of claims in that patent that neither Electric Fence or HeapCheck has, which is the point to most patents (and why they reference earlier works) in the first place! Just because someone invented the automobile over 100 years ago doesn't mean you can't patent improvements to it...
Not really... claim 10 in the patent is a "dependent claim" because it depends on claim 1. If claim 1 is invalidated, all dependent claims are invalid, as well. They most definitely want to patent the idea in the first claim, otherwise the next 10 dependent claims are all useless.
The video chatting code may have been created in 1998, but I'm pretty sure "FaceTime" is just a product name that was publicly announced last June. If the trademark application came before that, Facebook may have grounds for forcing Apple to change the name...
They didn't patent "face", they just registered a trademark. I believe evolution patented the face, but that patent expired many millions of years ago...
Desperately seeking emphysemic adjective...
Fixed that for ya...
I don't understand... I thought it was invented by an underachieving officer worker at a paper factory in Scranton, PA.
The right to fly on a plane (if the plane is yours or agrees to carry you) is a part of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
While I can't stand the way the TSA is handling any of this, either, you most definitely do not have an inherent "right" to fly on a commercial plane. You might try to argue that point if you owned the plane, but as it is you just bought a ticket, which is basically a contract between you and the airline, subject to terms of the contract that you have to be cleared by security before being allowed on the plane.
And in general the Constitution itself is a form of joint contract/agreement between the citizens of the country, the basis of it being that they elect representatives from their number to make and enforce the laws of the country. Unless the law specifically conflicts with a right stated in that agreement (the Constitution), for good or bad (in this case we both agree with "bad") the majority of the elected representatives has decided you will be subject to it. Unfortunately it doesn't violate the Constitution (which doesn't contain laws, by the way, it contains the mechanism for creating laws).
And as you said, as long as the majority is apathetic (and not willing to elect representatives that listen and/or make changes to the Constrituion), it's not going to change...
They have a DoD root cert, it's just not shipped in consumer browsers I guess...
Yeah, it would be great to see more switchgrass, etc grown and refined instead of corn. Guess the Dakotas just don't have as much political influence to fight for their own subsidies/investments as Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska, etc.
Exactly - all *more* reasons to stop the subsidies, IMO. The beef industry is almost as bad as the oil industry in waste of resources and environmental damage.
Making beef an occasional luxury rather than a cheap staple would probably cut the US health costs in half, as well!
Well, my point wasn't to grow more cane, it was that we should be importing cheap ethanol from Brazil (or just give up and invest in more USEFUL alternative fuels), rather than wasting our money subsidizing it from corn.
[and in fact we do import a fair amount, it just has to go through ridiculous hoops (exported to the Caribbean as hydrous ethanol, and then converted to anhydrous and re-exported to avoid the Brazilian quotas). Love that corn lobby - and I grew up in corn central...]
Other plants can be used to make ethanol, but it's not being done widely
Sure it is. Brazil has been producing efficient sugarcane-based ethanol for decades, and now accounts for almost 40% of the world's ethanol fuel production. Not that it matters much to the US, because of the quotas and massive tariffs to protect the crappy corn ethanol industry...
AND her name is The Baroness?!? I can see why she'd be blocked, she sounds terrifying. And possibly a mortal enemy to GI Joe.
Yeah, but that is a Nintendo game. He meant a non-Nintendo game using the phrase, of course.
Trademarks are not usually valid unless they are in a competing industry (which is how Apple computer successfully fought the Apple Records lawsuit, before they turned around and started threatening every unrelated industry they could find regarding their own trademarks).
Except there is a direct quote from Nintendo in TFA:
"In addition to Nintendo's use, it has been used in popular music, television and film over the years, pointing to Donkey Kong's status as an enduring pop-culture icon and video game superstar," they said Wednesday in a written release.
They clearly thought about this before doing (enough to put out a release to the media) as well as acknowledged it's already a common phrase in pop culture...
I think you mean trademark?
Though patenting the process of firing someone would be much more interesting. It could really help unemployment rates, until the masses of incompetent employees drove all major business into the ground...