No, I thought the same thing. I thought it was something to do with halting execution, maybe from a programme that was sending something out through some pipe to something else for some reason (no, I didn't RTFA).
Copy'n'paste never occured to me - I never thought a government agency could be so dumb as to hide text by setting the background colour the same as the text. I guess I give them too much credit:)
Um, I'm browsing at -1 and don't see any AC post. Maybe just IE6 (forced to use at work) being weird.
More to the point, the whole FF being Square's last game thing is a myth. It was released after Dragon Quest, a series which, whilst popular in Japan hasn't caught on as much as FF in the rest of the world. In either case the original DQ was a big hit and made lots of money, so Square have always been OK.
Your first link says almost exactly the opposite of what you claim it says (it's actually about how the govt seems to have a hidden policy of inclusion to force closure of expensive special schools) - yet you're modded informative?
Your second link is about how much teachers love breakfast clubs and how much Tories hate them for being expensive (as usual). I'm surprised you didn't find some similar contradictory links for your racist asylum rants.
Also you're talking bollocks about exams. You can't get an A at foundation level "O level", or GCSE as it's now known. The highest you can get at foundation is a B, Standard is A and the highest level can get A*.
OK, so buying hardware without making sure your OS supports it isn't completely idiotic?
OK, that's harsh I know, I've done it myself years ago - the last time was wich a really cheap ISA NIC (it only had a BNC too, none of this CAT 5 rubbish:P) that barely functioned even under Windows and would become unusuable if Windows PnP got it's grubby mitts on it - had to rip it out for a few mins whenever that happened.
Point being, make sure you check compatabiliy first. It's one of those Linux gotcha's. If the current kernel doesn't support it don't buy it, otherwise you're a complete idiot:)
Oh, and the whole s/h(d.)/s\1/g thing, that's what release notes are for! I'd make a joke about idiots and kernel upgrades but I think it'd be cruel:P
No, they cant. They use the fact that they control the hardware to also control the software. Otherwise people would make playstations that could play games from anywhere in the world which would mean games released in the US would work on European machines. Sony currently cant stand the idea of that and doesnt allow it on its machines (hence the infamous modchip, which not all owners opt for).
Also allowing for other people to create clones means variations in specifications. Sony currently takes great care over quality control of games, I mean, how often has a PS game crashed on you? Nowhere near as frequently as the average PC game. This would be much harder with clone hardware on the market and would cause then a drop in software sales and therefore hurt their core bussiness.
Just because something doesnt make you money doesnt mean its not essential for your profit.
I dunno, I mean, I know a few people who's employers would most probably like to know about the bongs they hit in the toilets on their breaks. You could call *that* a "misues of company resources". Personally I dont think there is anything morally wrong with having a smoke in the bogs or using email for personal purposes.
I dont think there is much wrong with with an employer wanting to read the stuff that their computers are being used for either. Having said that, I dont think they should be able to take any action against you unless you actually break the law using their systems, so if you happen to use your company laptop to download porn they shouldnt be able to do anything to you....
Even pleasant beliefs ultimately cause suffering, since circumstances change. Locked into a state of belief, the person is unable to change with circumstance.
I think you just described why things like love are utterly pointless and futile. Read up on Nihilism, you might just like it....
First off, does this *look* like a tech support forum to you?
Second, it serves you damned well right for installing a new system without testing it.
As for your problem, well, it could be anything. It could be Samba, it could be that you dont have your hardware configured properly under linux. Like I said, anything. If your not competent enough to properly configure a linux samba server then you shouldnt have convinced your company to switch to a linux server when your the only one around who has any hope of even guessing why its broken.
People like you are the evangilists who give linux a bad name.
First off, the majority of the recent rise in feul price is not due to feul tax, its due to the rise in price of crude oil. Crude used to be $10/barrel, now its $35/barrel. I think the price of petrol has gone up around 15p/litre this past year, of that 12p is due to the rise in crude and the rest is tax. I dislike this higher petrol prices as much as the next person, and I agree that the protesters had a ligitimate aim. I even think their means of protest was perfectly legitimate (organised peaceful civil disobedience can be one of the most effective forms of protest) but if they honestly think that the government has the power to make a significant impact on the price of petrol they are quite mistaken.
As for who to vote for at the next election, well, its gotta be labour really hasnt it? Given the only other option (Conservative) we dont really have much of a choice. The Tory's would most likely cut tax's by massive cuts in public spending which would just suck ass. Added that I find their policy on asylum seekers to be quite offensive I dont honestly feel as though I could vote for them.
I dont think the next election is going to be a major upset. Labour will loose quite a few seats, but thats not really a problem because they had such a massive majority to start with. I think Tony Blair is actually doing quite a good job running the country and its during his next term in office that I think the history books will really decide how to view him.
I hear they obfuscate the object code and include commands to crash browsers, meaning that this is not a skript kiddie task. And what if the obfuscation differs between each copy of the SDMI binary on each users machine? Eventually this becomes a big pain in the ass and not sufficiently general to pirate music.
Um, if you used SoftICE to step through the decoding process for an SDMI stream, it'd allow you to step through and hack out any parts of the player that wanted authentication from the sound driver. You'd only have to do this once for each version of each player, not a hugely massive task.
Oh, and your also talking out of your arse. Obfusicating object code? Puhlease. Object code is optimised compiled code ready to be linked, 'obfusicating' it in any way will just degrade performance. Hell, its all in binary machine code anyway which is about the most obfusicated form any code can be in. Doesnt stop a disassembler from ripping through it and giving you a raw assembler dead listing though.
Also, fineally, about forcing signed drivers to not allow you to play and record at the same time (i.e. turning off full duplex). That has to be the shittiest idea I have *ever* heard to stop people copying music. I seriously doubt any sound card manufacturers will want to cripple their products in such a manner, and so wont release SDMI signed drivers, leading to the death of SDMI.
bring back the closed, all-in-one, non-upgradable mac (iMac and Cube) They have Firewire, so you can add high-speed peripherals. With 100Mbps Ethernet built in, most people don't need PCI slots; if you do then get a G4 tower.
So, im supposed to upgrade my graphics card by plugging it into my ethernet port? Or get a firewire soundcard? I'm having difficulty seeing how im supposed to fit a PCI card in such a manner.
Extremely few users need more than 3 slots, you can buy an expansion chassis if you do
I honestly dont know anyone who has less than 3 expansion cards fitted in their system, and those who do are planning to fit an extra one at some point.
Many people here advocate "civil disobediance" or even outright flouting of the law as a means of voicing their protests
Peaceful civil disobediance is a perfectly legitimate form of protest. "Flouting the law", as you put it, is just an extended version of peaceful civil disobediance. It tends to work too, I mean, most police officers tend to have a hard time arresting you if your sat there, not doing anything to harm anyone and breaking the law. From there on, reform is almost inevitable...
If you want my advice - which you probably don't, because, as so many other/.-ers are so eager to point out, I'm 'only' a 'dumb' high school student - you need to keep this show goin', and you should provide *at least* a 64kbps MP3 dudes. You know lame and bladeenc are free right?
Why bother for 64kpbs for human speech? The quality of GiS is currently comparable to FM radio, I'd even say superior because you dont have to worry about signal interference. Where would the extra bitspace be used in GiS? Sure, it'd make the intro music better, but thats about it. If they were to release the same episode of GiS at the current 24kbit and also at 64kbit and you were to take a blindfold test, I seriously doubt you'd be able to tell the difference. You might say that their voices currently sound slightly muggy or muffled, but thats more likely to be down to the quality of the recording equipment used than an encoding artifact.
Still, who expects a dumb high school kid to know any better? =)
I find that the more 'simple' movies are the best when it comes to making statements. Its a favourite past time of mine to get a classic movie (such as the Evil Dead to use your example =) ) and watch it with a bunch of friends making pseudo-deep statements about "points" made in the film that the writer/director most likely never saw or intended. Does that make them any less valid? I dont think so.
Most of the time I prefer those sort of 'simple' movies. If the movie is trying to actually make a point, I prefer it to be more of a secondary factor in the movie. Nothing worse than some of these modern hollywood peices of crap that try to ram the same point down your throat over and over...
...Although I am pretty skeptical about this particular case. Useually when a company offers to pay off game crackers/pirates/etc they useually ask for some form of NDA too, to stop these kinds of stories from getting out to the general public.
I remember from way back on the Atari ST a crew called "Pompeii Pirates". A friend of mine was actually involved in that group and they were given money/free stuff/etc by several games publishers on the understanding that they would leave their games alone and uncracked. That didnt stop them from taking the money and cracking the game on occasion, but still, thats the nature of the game =).
The copyright holder can do whatever they damn well please, they are not bound by the terms of the license. What they cannot do, however, is change the license retroactivly. I.e. under *any* software license (be it BSD, GPL or one of those Microsoft EULA's) the copyright holder is free to change the terms of the license and re-release the software (it doesnt even have to be changed). You, as the user, are free to carry on using the software within the terms of your current license. No change whatsoever.
Ahh, but here in the UK we have the lovely Regulation of Investagory Powers bill coming into force, which will make you a criminal just for refusing to supply passwords to encrypted documents. Noone has to proove you actually did anything wrong either, they just have to have to suspect you of a crime, get your computer, find some encrypted files they "believe" may be involved in said crime and force you to supply passwords.
How ironic that this bill was rushed through the commons to make time for the ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights. That bill acts retroactivly on all other legislation though, so with any luck the RIP will be thrown out just as quickly as it was enacted. Heres hoping eh?
I remember an old law from usenet. The point in the discussion where the involved parties start comparing each other to Nazi's is the point at which the thread can said to have degenerated past any useful discourse.
Taking that into consideration, I find it ironic that this is attached to a post which has been moderated to the top of the discussion =).
Napster doesn't have any banners, doesn't charge, etc. Of course they need money! How else would they keep servers used by 20 million people up and at a decent speed?
Maybe you (or I) use a different Napster to the rest of the planet, but half the time it seems like they cant even manage that.
No, because that isnt speech, its someone elses copyright protected work. Also in that format it has very little meaning to anyone who doesnt have an mp3 decoding algorithm burned into their mind from too much work hacking on mp3 decoders, but yea, it would still be considered distribution and most likely you'd get sued if any record company could be bothered to pay someone to type all that back into a hex editor to proove that it really was their copyrighted work.
Still, keep in mind that the big debate over mp3's and the issue about DeCSS are different things. Just because they both feature a lot on Slashdot does not make them the same. The issue about DeCSS is that its code constitutes free speech as it is expressive and therefore it shouldnt be possible to limit its distribution. The issue with mp3's is a whole other can of worms about how to properly reimburse artists who create work when its so easy to digitally copy their work, essentially creating a 'free rider' problem.
The two are very different things, dont try to compare.
Well, your allowed to get drunk with the permission of your parents, or parental presence, or somesuch stuff. Even then your not allowed to go out and be drunk in public (witness Ewan Blair being done for being 'drunk and incapable').
So yea, if their parents knew then its kosher, else if Mr Policeman comes along and sees them he'll pull them home buy their ears and rap them on the knuckles for being such naughty kiddies =P.
The legal age for buying alcohol here in the UK is 18, so yea, those guys are just a little too young to be getting drunk at 17;).
Having said that I've been going out and buying alcohol for as long as I can remember. I think the first time I went down the pub without any parental figures there I was 15 and I got served without any probs. Now I am actually 18, and going out and buying alcohol just isnt as fun anymore, what with being legal and all. I'm still waiting for the day that we can get legally stoned, but thats another story =P.
As a side note, the lack of proper age checks whilst cool for alcohol, sucks for cigarettes. The first time I bought a pack of fags I was 13. Sometimes people can be too lax about things...
Right now, The Sims is only available on Windows, but I'm making a lot of progress porting it to Linux, and looking for a distributor. Please contact your favorite Linux game distributor and tell them if you would like to buy a copy of The Sims for Linux.
Any plans to release a patch for those of us who have the Windows version of The Sims? I always end up getting the Windows version of games if its the first one to be released, and in the case of The Sims, I doubt I'd have been able to wait this long for a linux port. Having said that, rebooting to 'doze is always a pain, so how about it?
Which converts to about £16 (ish, I dont have the latest exchange rates to hand). Compare that with internet prices (on most places I go looking for DVD's on the net I useually find them for around $15 a pop) and its easy to see that in the high street, people in the UK are paying way over the odds.
Theres actually a name for it btw (for all you merkins who are interested), its called 'rip-off britain'.
Actually the only Quake game to use 'dumb clients' was the original release of Quake 1. Of course this meant you had to have a high speed internet connection in order to play the thing online, which left modem users such as myself as fragbait.
In order to fix this Carmack created QuakeWorld with the aim of providing a playable game of Quake for people on a modem. In order to do this the QW server sends much more data then the client actually needs, such as the position of all the entities in the level as opposed to the entities you can actually see. This solved the problem of walking round a corner and then not seeing some other guy until 300ms later because thats how long it took you to tell the server you had turned the corner, the server to figure out you should see the other guy and the journey time back to you so that your client could draw the other guy. Of course the guy in question will always without fail be on a local 10ms LAN connection to the server (due to Murpheys law) which means unless hes an incredibly bad player (unlikely, again, Murpheys law), your dead.
The other major feature that QuakeWorld added was client side prediction. The main aim of this is to 'smooth' gameplay, as if your on a high latency connection playing vanilla Quake you'll notice that you'll 'judder' forwards as opposed to nice smooth motion. This is because your client sends a 'move forward' command to the server, you wait 150ms for it to reach the server, the server processes it in a negligible amount of time (which is about as likely as ever seeing a light inextensible string but bear with me =) ) and then the server sends back a packet saying 'you moved forward'. This means you have a 300ms delay between you hitting the key and you actually moving forward, which is just plain silly really. Client side prediction basically means that you move the moment you hit the key, the client just predicts that you will move forward as planned. This extends to every other entity in the game, e.g. the client assumes that all other players will continue to move with the same velocity they were travelling at before and will continue to do so until the server tells the client otherwise, the client also predicts the motion of projectiles such as grenades/rockets/nails/etc.
Now, that sounds nice and perfect, but creates problems. If you hit the 'move forward' key and your client predicts that you do just that, what happens when the server tells you that you were actually killed/displaced by a rocket fired by someone who just ran round the corner? Well, you get a 'warp' artifact. If you were killed you get warped back to where you were killed and your looking at the sky, if you got bounced then you get warped to wherever you were displaced to.
I think its important to note that none of the Quake games trust the client, i.e. if your client says "I killed that guy" and the server disagrees, the server always has the final say. Instead they just give them more information than they strictly need in order to offset the effects of latency.
Oh, also, a final distinction. You dont need a 'fat' pipe to get a good game of Quake, you need a 'fast' pipe. Satillite frame relay is a 'fat' pipe, you can get quite a few Mbit out of it, but it also has a very high latency. On the other hand, ISDN is a comparativly 'thin' pipe, but it has a much lower latency. I think Quake only uses about 1Kbyte/s of bandwidth on a modem, QW a bit more (due to the extra information it sends) (and also, the actual amount of bandwidth QW uses is dependant on the '/rate' console command) but whats important is shifting that small amount of data as fast as possible. We dont care if you have 1Gbit of bandwidth just so long as you can shift it within a few ms =).
I'm sure I've missed something, but bleh. Oh yea, the Q2 networking code is actually based off QuakeWorld (which Carmack handed over to Dave 'Zoid' Kirsch (sp?) to work on after he'd done the initial implementation). I'm not too sure about the parentage of the Q3 networking code, but I should imagine its fairly similar to the stuff used in Q2 and hence is directly descended from QW.
Its amazing how much its possible to go on when you dont really mean to =)....
Slashdot Mirror
No, I thought the same thing. I thought it was something to do with halting execution, maybe from a programme that was sending something out through some pipe to something else for some reason (no, I didn't RTFA).
:)
Copy'n'paste never occured to me - I never thought a government agency could be so dumb as to hide text by setting the background colour the same as the text. I guess I give them too much credit
Um, I'm browsing at -1 and don't see any AC post. Maybe just IE6 (forced to use at work) being weird.
More to the point, the whole FF being Square's last game thing is a myth. It was released after Dragon Quest, a series which, whilst popular in Japan hasn't caught on as much as FF in the rest of the world. In either case the original DQ was a big hit and made lots of money, so Square have always been OK.
Your first link says almost exactly the opposite of what you claim it says (it's actually about how the govt seems to have a hidden policy of inclusion to force closure of expensive special schools) - yet you're modded informative?
/. ....
.sig :)
Your second link is about how much teachers love breakfast clubs and how much Tories hate them for being expensive (as usual). I'm surprised you didn't find some similar contradictory links for your racist asylum rants.
Also you're talking bollocks about exams. You can't get an A at foundation level "O level", or GCSE as it's now known. The highest you can get at foundation is a B, Standard is A and the highest level can get A*.
Only on
p.s. At least we can agree on your
OK, so buying hardware without making sure your OS supports it isn't completely idiotic?
:P) that barely functioned even under Windows and would become unusuable if Windows PnP got it's grubby mitts on it - had to rip it out for a few mins whenever that happened.
:)
:P
OK, that's harsh I know, I've done it myself years ago - the last time was wich a really cheap ISA NIC (it only had a BNC too, none of this CAT 5 rubbish
Point being, make sure you check compatabiliy first. It's one of those Linux gotcha's. If the current kernel doesn't support it don't buy it, otherwise you're a complete idiot
Oh, and the whole s/h(d.)/s\1/g thing, that's what release notes are for! I'd make a joke about idiots and kernel upgrades but I think it'd be cruel
No, they cant. They use the fact that they control the hardware to also control the software. Otherwise people would make playstations that could play games from anywhere in the world which would mean games released in the US would work on European machines. Sony currently cant stand the idea of that and doesnt allow it on its machines (hence the infamous modchip, which not all owners opt for).
Also allowing for other people to create clones means variations in specifications. Sony currently takes great care over quality control of games, I mean, how often has a PS game crashed on you? Nowhere near as frequently as the average PC game. This would be much harder with clone hardware on the market and would cause then a drop in software sales and therefore hurt their core bussiness.
Just because something doesnt make you money doesnt mean its not essential for your profit.
Nick
I dunno, I mean, I know a few people who's employers would most probably like to know about the bongs they hit in the toilets on their breaks. You could call *that* a "misues of company resources". Personally I dont think there is anything morally wrong with having a smoke in the bogs or using email for personal purposes.
I dont think there is much wrong with with an employer wanting to read the stuff that their computers are being used for either. Having said that, I dont think they should be able to take any action against you unless you actually break the law using their systems, so if you happen to use your company laptop to download porn they shouldnt be able to do anything to you....
Moose, brain, mush...
Nick
I think you just described why things like love are utterly pointless and futile. Read up on Nihilism, you might just like it....
Nick
First off, does this *look* like a tech support forum to you?
Second, it serves you damned well right for installing a new system without testing it.
As for your problem, well, it could be anything. It could be Samba, it could be that you dont have your hardware configured properly under linux. Like I said, anything. If your not competent enough to properly configure a linux samba server then you shouldnt have convinced your company to switch to a linux server when your the only one around who has any hope of even guessing why its broken.
People like you are the evangilists who give linux a bad name.
Nick
First off, the majority of the recent rise in feul price is not due to feul tax, its due to the rise in price of crude oil. Crude used to be $10/barrel, now its $35/barrel. I think the price of petrol has gone up around 15p/litre this past year, of that 12p is due to the rise in crude and the rest is tax. I dislike this higher petrol prices as much as the next person, and I agree that the protesters had a ligitimate aim. I even think their means of protest was perfectly legitimate (organised peaceful civil disobedience can be one of the most effective forms of protest) but if they honestly think that the government has the power to make a significant impact on the price of petrol they are quite mistaken.
As for who to vote for at the next election, well, its gotta be labour really hasnt it? Given the only other option (Conservative) we dont really have much of a choice. The Tory's would most likely cut tax's by massive cuts in public spending which would just suck ass. Added that I find their policy on asylum seekers to be quite offensive I dont honestly feel as though I could vote for them.
I dont think the next election is going to be a major upset. Labour will loose quite a few seats, but thats not really a problem because they had such a massive majority to start with. I think Tony Blair is actually doing quite a good job running the country and its during his next term in office that I think the history books will really decide how to view him.
Nick
Um, if you used SoftICE to step through the decoding process for an SDMI stream, it'd allow you to step through and hack out any parts of the player that wanted authentication from the sound driver. You'd only have to do this once for each version of each player, not a hugely massive task.
Oh, and your also talking out of your arse. Obfusicating object code? Puhlease. Object code is optimised compiled code ready to be linked, 'obfusicating' it in any way will just degrade performance. Hell, its all in binary machine code anyway which is about the most obfusicated form any code can be in. Doesnt stop a disassembler from ripping through it and giving you a raw assembler dead listing though.
Also, fineally, about forcing signed drivers to not allow you to play and record at the same time (i.e. turning off full duplex). That has to be the shittiest idea I have *ever* heard to stop people copying music. I seriously doubt any sound card manufacturers will want to cripple their products in such a manner, and so wont release SDMI signed drivers, leading to the death of SDMI.
Nick
So, im supposed to upgrade my graphics card by plugging it into my ethernet port? Or get a firewire soundcard? I'm having difficulty seeing how im supposed to fit a PCI card in such a manner.
I honestly dont know anyone who has less than 3 expansion cards fitted in their system, and those who do are planning to fit an extra one at some point.
Nick
Peaceful civil disobediance is a perfectly legitimate form of protest. "Flouting the law", as you put it, is just an extended version of peaceful civil disobediance. It tends to work too, I mean, most police officers tend to have a hard time arresting you if your sat there, not doing anything to harm anyone and breaking the law. From there on, reform is almost inevitable...
Nick
Why bother for 64kpbs for human speech? The quality of GiS is currently comparable to FM radio, I'd even say superior because you dont have to worry about signal interference. Where would the extra bitspace be used in GiS? Sure, it'd make the intro music better, but thats about it. If they were to release the same episode of GiS at the current 24kbit and also at 64kbit and you were to take a blindfold test, I seriously doubt you'd be able to tell the difference. You might say that their voices currently sound slightly muggy or muffled, but thats more likely to be down to the quality of the recording equipment used than an encoding artifact.
Still, who expects a dumb high school kid to know any better? =)
Nick
I find that the more 'simple' movies are the best when it comes to making statements. Its a favourite past time of mine to get a classic movie (such as the Evil Dead to use your example =) ) and watch it with a bunch of friends making pseudo-deep statements about "points" made in the film that the writer/director most likely never saw or intended. Does that make them any less valid? I dont think so.
Most of the time I prefer those sort of 'simple' movies. If the movie is trying to actually make a point, I prefer it to be more of a secondary factor in the movie. Nothing worse than some of these modern hollywood peices of crap that try to ram the same point down your throat over and over...
Nick
...Although I am pretty skeptical about this particular case. Useually when a company offers to pay off game crackers/pirates/etc they useually ask for some form of NDA too, to stop these kinds of stories from getting out to the general public.
I remember from way back on the Atari ST a crew called "Pompeii Pirates". A friend of mine was actually involved in that group and they were given money/free stuff/etc by several games publishers on the understanding that they would leave their games alone and uncracked. That didnt stop them from taking the money and cracking the game on occasion, but still, thats the nature of the game =).
Nick
The copyright holder can do whatever they damn well please, they are not bound by the terms of the license. What they cannot do, however, is change the license retroactivly. I.e. under *any* software license (be it BSD, GPL or one of those Microsoft EULA's) the copyright holder is free to change the terms of the license and re-release the software (it doesnt even have to be changed). You, as the user, are free to carry on using the software within the terms of your current license. No change whatsoever.
That wasnt hard was it?
Nick
Ahh, but here in the UK we have the lovely Regulation of Investagory Powers bill coming into force, which will make you a criminal just for refusing to supply passwords to encrypted documents. Noone has to proove you actually did anything wrong either, they just have to have to suspect you of a crime, get your computer, find some encrypted files they "believe" may be involved in said crime and force you to supply passwords.
How ironic that this bill was rushed through the commons to make time for the ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights. That bill acts retroactivly on all other legislation though, so with any luck the RIP will be thrown out just as quickly as it was enacted. Heres hoping eh?
Nick
I remember an old law from usenet. The point in the discussion where the involved parties start comparing each other to Nazi's is the point at which the thread can said to have degenerated past any useful discourse.
Taking that into consideration, I find it ironic that this is attached to a post which has been moderated to the top of the discussion =).
Nick
Nick
No, because that isnt speech, its someone elses copyright protected work. Also in that format it has very little meaning to anyone who doesnt have an mp3 decoding algorithm burned into their mind from too much work hacking on mp3 decoders, but yea, it would still be considered distribution and most likely you'd get sued if any record company could be bothered to pay someone to type all that back into a hex editor to proove that it really was their copyrighted work.
Still, keep in mind that the big debate over mp3's and the issue about DeCSS are different things. Just because they both feature a lot on Slashdot does not make them the same. The issue about DeCSS is that its code constitutes free speech as it is expressive and therefore it shouldnt be possible to limit its distribution. The issue with mp3's is a whole other can of worms about how to properly reimburse artists who create work when its so easy to digitally copy their work, essentially creating a 'free rider' problem.
The two are very different things, dont try to compare.
Nick
Well, your allowed to get drunk with the permission of your parents, or parental presence, or somesuch stuff. Even then your not allowed to go out and be drunk in public (witness Ewan Blair being done for being 'drunk and incapable').
So yea, if their parents knew then its kosher, else if Mr Policeman comes along and sees them he'll pull them home buy their ears and rap them on the knuckles for being such naughty kiddies =P.
Nick
The legal age for buying alcohol here in the UK is 18, so yea, those guys are just a little too young to be getting drunk at 17 ;).
Having said that I've been going out and buying alcohol for as long as I can remember. I think the first time I went down the pub without any parental figures there I was 15 and I got served without any probs. Now I am actually 18, and going out and buying alcohol just isnt as fun anymore, what with being legal and all. I'm still waiting for the day that we can get legally stoned, but thats another story =P.
As a side note, the lack of proper age checks whilst cool for alcohol, sucks for cigarettes. The first time I bought a pack of fags I was 13. Sometimes people can be too lax about things...
Nick
Nick
Which converts to about £16 (ish, I dont have the latest exchange rates to hand). Compare that with internet prices (on most places I go looking for DVD's on the net I useually find them for around $15 a pop) and its easy to see that in the high street, people in the UK are paying way over the odds.
Theres actually a name for it btw (for all you merkins who are interested), its called 'rip-off britain'.
Nick
Actually the only Quake game to use 'dumb clients' was the original release of Quake 1. Of course this meant you had to have a high speed internet connection in order to play the thing online, which left modem users such as myself as fragbait.
In order to fix this Carmack created QuakeWorld with the aim of providing a playable game of Quake for people on a modem. In order to do this the QW server sends much more data then the client actually needs, such as the position of all the entities in the level as opposed to the entities you can actually see. This solved the problem of walking round a corner and then not seeing some other guy until 300ms later because thats how long it took you to tell the server you had turned the corner, the server to figure out you should see the other guy and the journey time back to you so that your client could draw the other guy. Of course the guy in question will always without fail be on a local 10ms LAN connection to the server (due to Murpheys law) which means unless hes an incredibly bad player (unlikely, again, Murpheys law), your dead.
The other major feature that QuakeWorld added was client side prediction. The main aim of this is to 'smooth' gameplay, as if your on a high latency connection playing vanilla Quake you'll notice that you'll 'judder' forwards as opposed to nice smooth motion. This is because your client sends a 'move forward' command to the server, you wait 150ms for it to reach the server, the server processes it in a negligible amount of time (which is about as likely as ever seeing a light inextensible string but bear with me =) ) and then the server sends back a packet saying 'you moved forward'. This means you have a 300ms delay between you hitting the key and you actually moving forward, which is just plain silly really. Client side prediction basically means that you move the moment you hit the key, the client just predicts that you will move forward as planned. This extends to every other entity in the game, e.g. the client assumes that all other players will continue to move with the same velocity they were travelling at before and will continue to do so until the server tells the client otherwise, the client also predicts the motion of projectiles such as grenades/rockets/nails/etc.
Now, that sounds nice and perfect, but creates problems. If you hit the 'move forward' key and your client predicts that you do just that, what happens when the server tells you that you were actually killed/displaced by a rocket fired by someone who just ran round the corner? Well, you get a 'warp' artifact. If you were killed you get warped back to where you were killed and your looking at the sky, if you got bounced then you get warped to wherever you were displaced to.
I think its important to note that none of the Quake games trust the client, i.e. if your client says "I killed that guy" and the server disagrees, the server always has the final say. Instead they just give them more information than they strictly need in order to offset the effects of latency.
Oh, also, a final distinction. You dont need a 'fat' pipe to get a good game of Quake, you need a 'fast' pipe. Satillite frame relay is a 'fat' pipe, you can get quite a few Mbit out of it, but it also has a very high latency. On the other hand, ISDN is a comparativly 'thin' pipe, but it has a much lower latency. I think Quake only uses about 1Kbyte/s of bandwidth on a modem, QW a bit more (due to the extra information it sends) (and also, the actual amount of bandwidth QW uses is dependant on the '/rate' console command) but whats important is shifting that small amount of data as fast as possible. We dont care if you have 1Gbit of bandwidth just so long as you can shift it within a few ms =).
I'm sure I've missed something, but bleh. Oh yea, the Q2 networking code is actually based off QuakeWorld (which Carmack handed over to Dave 'Zoid' Kirsch (sp?) to work on after he'd done the initial implementation). I'm not too sure about the parentage of the Q3 networking code, but I should imagine its fairly similar to the stuff used in Q2 and hence is directly descended from QW.
Its amazing how much its possible to go on when you dont really mean to =)....
Nick