I also noticed that their prototype is extremely small [...]
I think that's the point--they're targetting small camera applications: mobile phones, PDAs, keychain digital cameras, clandestine surveillance cameras and such.
I know that's unrealistic, considering the expense involved, but wouldn't that be cool? (I'm the prez - I fukk up for a week, next month I'm outta here because of it.)
No, it would be horrible. To make any policy work you have to make unpopular decisions. Your suggestion would result in an administration which couldn't achieve anything.
Carry a pager (turned on) and a cell phone (turned off). If they need you they can leave a number and you'll call in.
Danish telecom is phasing out pager service, and I imagine most other countries will be following suit. Soon you'll have no choice but to carry a cell phone when you're on call.
Certainly the actual programs can be made less useful for infringement, but new programs will be made without restrictions. And that can't be curtailed without removing the ability for owners to program their computers.
[...] disabling/outlawing p2p does not prevent me from using a computer for running my business, surfing the web, corresponding by email, playing games, etc.
The point of the OP is that you can't meaningfully restrain p2p without interfering with general purpose computing. As long as the computer is programmable by the user, copyrighted material can be exchanged.
Copyright, unlike all of those other things, depends on individual self restraint and respect for authors and publishers. It would be wonderful indeed if we could simply convince people not to be poor or die of AIDS [...]
AIDS would be all but eliminated by individual self restraint (i.e. refraining from unprotected sex), yet propaganda has not had much of an impact.
A ferry line in Denmark recently started using fingerprint scanners in their frequent traveler program (questionable, I know, but that's not the point).
Now, this line goes to an island (Bornholm) which is home to a lot of craftsmen, especially potters. Turns out that many of these potters have lost their fingerprints from years of turning clay. I wonder if they'd be allowed into the US.
the things that get done in life, are done by people like myself who think critically about what is true in the world and act accordingly, and are not side tracked by fantasy and wishful thinking.
I'm afraid this is precisely "fantasy and wishful thinking". How else do you explain George W. Bush?
There are several games I can think of which have strong narratives that are moving and/or make you think: Planescape: Torment, The Longest Journey, Anachronox, Grim Fandango (in fact pretty much any Lucasarts adventure), Max Payne, Final Fantasy VII, Xenogears, Police Quest and other Sierra games... the list goes on.
Strategy games are mostly interesting for the historical insights they offer. Europa Universalis I & II are some of the best in this regard. There's also plenty of philosophical and moral meat in a game like Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, especially if you take the time to read about the various techs.
I think the experiences are there if you look for them, but they're usually well out of the mainstream, and few and far between.
But you, and the listkeepers, and the list users are denying me that choice.
Only the list users are denying anyone anything. If they're not educating management and users about what the lists do, then they're being very irresponsible admins--but they're using a morally neutral tool.
I personally wouldn't ever consider using SPEWS or any other list beyond my control for purposes other than tagging, since I want the ability to whitelist anyone I damn well please.
I don't think SCO has any plan whatsoever, apart from making as much noise as possible in order to pump up the stock. Their actions are just way too inconsistent to stem from an actual plan.
What about Planescape: Torment, or the team's ealier efforts, Fallout 1 & 2? All those three have excellent replay value, story and dialogue. In the case of Torment, the dialogue and story are the best you'll find this side of Grim Fandango.
Why is it that all the new crops I hear about are all about functionality? It's decaf this, Roundup-ready that, when the number one priority for food products should be taste.
I hope their new bean has a unique and interesting taste; if so, I'll definitely be buying it--caffeine or not. But these guys shouldn't be focusing on caffeine, they should be trying to produce a coffee bean that can be grown easily in many regions, yet tastes as good as Jamaica Blue Mountain. They should be making coffees that taste more like chocolate, or like orange or like a thousand other things.
But what does introducing genes from another species do? It enables the organism to produce a protein it could not previously produce.
Can you promise me that, in thousands upon thousands of years of selective breeding, we have not even once managed to breed a mutation which coded for a protein never before expressed in the crop? Consider this before you claim GE is something new.
Or rather, it should be. The internet has so far been an unprecedented tool for small businesses, who have been able to push their products to the entire WORLD with very little means.
A small business does not have the resources to collect VAT for 100 different countries (because if this works for the EU every country will do it), and hence will in practice be restricted to their local market.
What this initiative does is stifle progress and global economy. It's plain old-fashioned protectionism, and it stinks.
Planescape: Torment shares the honor of the number one spot with GF in my book. Again it's the outrageously well written characters and dialogue (combined with an interesting setting) that do the trick.
And what's with the obsessiveness wrt Anime as well
Most geeks I know tend do be either 0 or 100% when they delve into something new. It's the essential geek traits of inquisitiveness and the need to know as much as possible about a given subject.
As for the specific connection, I think it's quite simply that Japanese filmmaking has some traits which appeal to geeks. They're typically slow paced (when compared to Western films) and require you to figure stuff out for yourself. Many also tackle some of the philosophical and scientific themes which appeal to many geeks, such as what it means to be human.
That's the serious end of the spectrum (Neon Genesis Evangelion, Perfect Blue, Serial Experiments Lain and others). In the wacky end of the spectrum, japanese films (and anime in paricular) are simply so much more over the top than anything else out there that it's the only place to turn for true wackiness (Excel Saga, FLCL and so on).
Stephen Donaldson is the strongest example of excellent character development. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever still ranks as the best fantasy I've ever read, for precisely this reason. His The Gap-series would be on top of my sci-fi list, were it not for Iain M. Banks. Banks does an excellent job of character development in works like The Player of Games, Excession and most notably Use of Weapons.
But what about a new game that nobody's heard of before that's really, really good?
Syberia might fit your description: an adventure game after the manner of The Longest Journey, it's an excellent story with a wonderful and varied cast of persons and locations.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that's the point--they're targetting small camera applications: mobile phones, PDAs, keychain digital cameras, clandestine surveillance cameras and such.
No, it would be horrible. To make any policy work you have to make unpopular decisions. Your suggestion would result in an administration which couldn't achieve anything.
Danish telecom is phasing out pager service, and I imagine most other countries will be following suit. Soon you'll have no choice but to carry a cell phone when you're on call.
The only way business practices today make sense is if they think we're actually stealing their profits when we choose a competitor.
That's not entirely true. Shelling or bombing civilians for the purpose of terror was pretty much not done until Nelson did it to Copenhagen in 1801.
Are you taking issue with my assertion that unprotected sex is directly responsible for the AIDS pandemic?
Certainly the actual programs can be made less useful for infringement, but new programs will be made without restrictions. And that can't be curtailed without removing the ability for owners to program their computers.
The point of the OP is that you can't meaningfully restrain p2p without interfering with general purpose computing. As long as the computer is programmable by the user, copyrighted material can be exchanged.
AIDS would be all but eliminated by individual self restraint (i.e. refraining from unprotected sex), yet propaganda has not had much of an impact.
A ferry line in Denmark recently started using fingerprint scanners in their frequent traveler program (questionable, I know, but that's not the point). Now, this line goes to an island (Bornholm) which is home to a lot of craftsmen, especially potters. Turns out that many of these potters have lost their fingerprints from years of turning clay. I wonder if they'd be allowed into the US.
A pissy kid? The visa exemption program is based on reciprocity--why on earth should this program be handled any differently?
I'm afraid this is precisely "fantasy and wishful thinking". How else do you explain George W. Bush?
It is a method which is widely used: witness the Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse.
But yes, Torment really is in a class all its own. I would pay good money if the same team made another game with that quality of writing.
Strategy games are mostly interesting for the historical insights they offer. Europa Universalis I & II are some of the best in this regard. There's also plenty of philosophical and moral meat in a game like Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, especially if you take the time to read about the various techs.
I think the experiences are there if you look for them, but they're usually well out of the mainstream, and few and far between.
Only the list users are denying anyone anything. If they're not educating management and users about what the lists do, then they're being very irresponsible admins--but they're using a morally neutral tool.
I personally wouldn't ever consider using SPEWS or any other list beyond my control for purposes other than tagging, since I want the ability to whitelist anyone I damn well please.
I don't think SCO has any plan whatsoever, apart from making as much noise as possible in order to pump up the stock. Their actions are just way too inconsistent to stem from an actual plan.
What about Planescape: Torment, or the team's ealier efforts, Fallout 1 & 2? All those three have excellent replay value, story and dialogue. In the case of Torment, the dialogue and story are the best you'll find this side of Grim Fandango.
I hope their new bean has a unique and interesting taste; if so, I'll definitely be buying it--caffeine or not. But these guys shouldn't be focusing on caffeine, they should be trying to produce a coffee bean that can be grown easily in many regions, yet tastes as good as Jamaica Blue Mountain. They should be making coffees that taste more like chocolate, or like orange or like a thousand other things.
Can you promise me that, in thousands upon thousands of years of selective breeding, we have not even once managed to breed a mutation which coded for a protein never before expressed in the crop? Consider this before you claim GE is something new.
A small business does not have the resources to collect VAT for 100 different countries (because if this works for the EU every country will do it), and hence will in practice be restricted to their local market.
What this initiative does is stifle progress and global economy. It's plain old-fashioned protectionism, and it stinks.
Planescape: Torment shares the honor of the number one spot with GF in my book. Again it's the outrageously well written characters and dialogue (combined with an interesting setting) that do the trick.
Most geeks I know tend do be either 0 or 100% when they delve into something new. It's the essential geek traits of inquisitiveness and the need to know as much as possible about a given subject.
As for the specific connection, I think it's quite simply that Japanese filmmaking has some traits which appeal to geeks. They're typically slow paced (when compared to Western films) and require you to figure stuff out for yourself. Many also tackle some of the philosophical and scientific themes which appeal to many geeks, such as what it means to be human.
That's the serious end of the spectrum (Neon Genesis Evangelion, Perfect Blue, Serial Experiments Lain and others). In the wacky end of the spectrum, japanese films (and anime in paricular) are simply so much more over the top than anything else out there that it's the only place to turn for true wackiness (Excel Saga, FLCL and so on).
Syberia might fit your description: an adventure game after the manner of The Longest Journey, it's an excellent story with a wonderful and varied cast of persons and locations.