As I've gone through school (I get my BS in CSE in May), and chatted w/others at different universities, I've noticed two very different mindsets at different schools. Some, as you say, focus on turning out coders: they take language courses by the dozens (some hyperbole), and in general spend the majority of their degree-work coding. By contrast, programs such as those offered at my school, and the other major (research) universities teach exactly one language (we use C++), with the understanding that it could just as easily be C, Perl, or the Turing Machine model: as per Church's Theorem, any is sufficient for teaching the theory behind this stuff. Now, does this mean we are supposed to graduate knowing only the one language? Hell no! We are expected (unlike every other kind of degree that I know of...) to actually teach ourselves outside of the classroom. Scary, no?
More specifically, as to your remarks: Yes, we are taught solutions to old problems. Why? Because they are FUNDAMENTAL problems, things that people struggled with mightily. It's no different than teaching Physics students about Newton and Einstein: they, too, are old news, but they are also the solid base for everything else. Now, you may have one of the universities of the first type near you, which could help explain your frustration. But at the same time, the resume is not everything. The principal purpose of a comp. sci. degree is to give a student some base to work from, to THINK from. They can't teach us to think, although they do try.
Before placing the blame solely on the backs of the education system, you should remember stuff like the above. Maybe you should widen your search to include other schools?
Re:A stroke of originality!
on
D&D Trailer
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· Score: 2
And then they thought, "You know what this
trailer needs? Orff's Carmina Burana!"
But don't you see? Carmina Burana makes EVERYTHING better!!!!
Well, it seems that Katz bashing and M$ bashing have been pushed aside in favor of something new: Republican bashing!
In all seriousness, folks, this piece goes pretty far (okay, VERY far) past moderation. Yes, most politicians are not the brightest of folks. Yes, they're mostly not geeks. But they are charismatic, and that's why they make good front men for the ideals behind them.
Probably the MOST disturbing idea in the above nonsense, for me at least, is the idea that the wealthy owe proportionately MORE to the country, simply because they've done well. If you're a failure, society will pick up the bill for you. If you're doing all right (read: middle class), society wants some back. If you've come up with something truly interesting, and are making big bucks, society will grab everything it can, and try for more. This leads to convoluted tax code, as the wealthy find it FAR cheaper to pay lots of lobbyists than to pay the taxes they might otherwise owe. As to inheritance tax: the constitution forbids double jeopardy: the government isn't allowed two bites out of the apple, in criminal matters. But inheritance tax gives them (at least) two HUGE bites out of the financial apple: this money is taxed when it is earned (income tax), taxed as it grows (capital gains tax), and taxed AGAIN after you die, and want to leave it to your kids (inheritance tax). And we wonder WHY people try to hide money overseas??
This isn't really a mindstorms expansion; it's a new set, using their Scout microcontroller (handicapped RCX: only 1 motor, only 1 light sensor, but intergrated into the computer brick). I fully expect that the normal mindstorms users could build this sans the kit (provided either a) you don't mind using yellow and red for your AT-AT, or b) you have lots of grey parts). We'll find out in a few hours, though!
Okay, I can see the argument for the death of RTSs. I don't agree with it, as they, along with traditional turn-based strategy (board and electronic) games, are at the top of my list. But what about a new genre? The FPS, contrary to the impression that may be given by the/. story, is NOT to be mistaken with a new genre; Wolfenstein 3d, anyone? But what would "The Sims" qualify as? Is it still just a 'sim' genre game, or is it some odd take on role-playing? Or could it be considered...new?
For those keeping up w/UF these days, this shouldn't be too surprising. After all, didn't Pitr just (essentially) port Outlook? Linux loses much of its boasting value, if these VB web worm/virus-thingys start taking down Linux boxes as well. Perhaps this is M$'s attempt to diffuse the blame a bit?
*sigh* Replying to trolls...how low I've fallen....
For the record, I never scorned WebTV devices. And given all the hacking that the Tivo, for one, has undergone, I fully expect that anything that comes of this will be quickly disassembled and put back together, probably with a new toaster feature or something similar.:) In any case, it actually matters little if the end user can tell what is being run; market dominance is established by sneaking in through the cracks, NOT by launching a full-frontal assault on the current leaders.
Gateway and America Online have
also added their support, committing to use chips from Transmeta for an Internet access device.
Hmmm. So, we combine this with the earlier article from today, and we get a Gateway-built AOL set-top box, running Linux on a Crusoe, correct??:O Very cool, indeed.
an array of beneficial potential applications: provide a tamper-proof means of locating and identifying individuals for e-business and
e-commerce security
Remember the Intel PIII ID number? Same thing, just now it identifies the person, not the computer. If they can identify both the orderer and his location via his implant, then they can't get many fake orders, can they?
So, the consumer can turn OFF the privacy-invading auto-identifying feature, can they? Hmmm...I seem to recall Intel claiming something similar about their ID numbers on the PIII. And then somebody wrote a cute little program that turned it back on again. This is truly frightening....
Isn't slashdot about: "here's a new technology, here's a new idea, here's a new discovery, here's a review of the above."?
Yes, court cases fall into this somewhat. Like: The idea that napster is liable for the actions of its users, or the idea that
reversing/discovering and algorithm could be considered "criminal" by a country you don't even live in and may never have ever visited,
and that you could get a ton of flak for it.
But the fact that the case is now being decided uppon by the judge, is something people who wanted to track the case could get from
reuters or cnn [ouch the bias, it hurts it hurts].
I mean yeah, its great taht we're days from finding out, but this may be a case where people sort of figured we'd find out sometime,
and when that happens it'd be interesting to know how it went down.
First, a disclaimer: I live in the United States. There. I said it.
Now, the meat: Yes,/. is about technology. And new ideas. And reviewing same. But what else is covered in "stuff that matters"? Frankly, a hell of a lot. First, most readers are from the United States: simply a fact of being the most connected country at present, with a larger population than many. Further,/. is hosted/posted in the U.S. (not too far from where I'm sitting, actually). This increases the average of American stories over, say, Australian ones (although we do get those, too). Now, I wasn't following this trial that closely; transcripts bore me, as they are overfull of procedural nonsense to be an interesting read. (Wasn't always true; the Scopes' Monkey Trial transcripts aren't bad.) So I was glad to find this story here, and glad to read the two briefs, and MORE glad to get a chance to discuss them with the intelligent people who frequent/.. That's what this site is about, isn't it? A chance to discuss w/other geeks those things that affect (portions of) the geek community? I think the DMCA certainly applies, at least to the couple of us who live in the U.S.
It's been said before, but I'll say it again: if you don't want to hear about it, then don't read it. Hyperlinks don't click themselves (mostly...).
Think about it: If I'm allowed to de-encrypt DVD's to play them on my computer, then I should be allowed to de-compile software to
port it to other operating systems, right? I should be allowed to distribute this de-compiler at large so that people can run their
software under unintended operating systems? I don't hardly think so.
Actually...maybe. And do you know why? Because you don't BUY software in the same way you buy a DVD. You only LICENSE the software. Now, you'll have to the EULA (which may or may not be legal; that one's still up in the air) as to whether or not it restricts your access to the software to a particular platform. But if reverse engineering is legal (always has been; still will be, if the EFF is successful w/this), and all your software does is operate WITH the software you received (you're not rewriting/reselling the original software), fair use seems to cover this.
Oh, and example: Hmmm....how about Connectix? All they do is make an emulator that (effectively) ports software from one platform to another. It's been tried, it's legal, and Sony can't do anything about it.
From the EFF brief: Plaintiffs allege that privately watching a purchased movie using a disapproved player is a violation of the copyright owner's legal rights; that the mere existence
of a Linux DVD player which allows one to watch legitimate movies purchased anywhere on the globe is actionable. We hope that this Court will find that
legitimate holders of copyrighted works have an unfettered legal right to privately experience those works (in addition to any fair use rights they may have).
IANAL, but it seems that (indirectly) the EFF is also arguing against regional encoding, in addition to everything ELSE they cover. In essence, if you buy this disc, you should be able to watch it everywhere you'd could possibly desire to. This rocks.:)
The way I read it, the toolkit Miguel is describing does NOTHING to your ability to hack at it w/your text editor. Essentially, it's a wrapper: for those of us who don't WANT to remember the syntax of every fsck'ing config file in/etc, we can run the toolkit, and it will edit the files according to the syntax rules FOR us. If the system goes down hard, and the CORBA interface goes w/it, then your dust off vi and edit by hand. The XML references he makes are the toolkit's backups, not the new state of your files. The config files you'll find exactly where you left them, with the content you wanted, but (here's their whole point) without the syntax errors that currently crop up occasionally when even the best *nix hacker goes to work.
Speech is protected, but not all speech is free. I think people seem to forget that there is speech that is NOT protected. Yelling fire in a crowded theatre is not protected. Threatening to kill the president is not protected. HEll, convincing other people to kill people is not protected (Manson never killed anyone, he just convinced everyone else to). Just because it's words doesn't mean it automatically rises above everything else in the world. Illegal is still illegal, whether it's written, spoken, compiled, printed, recorded, or built.
And that brings us full circle: is this law constitutional, as it restricts speech? The answer is hopefully no (oh, and IANAL). The examples you give involve distributing someone else's information without their consent, causing another person's life to be in jeopardy, or damaging the security of the country. I challenge you, however, to demonstrate how DeCSS fits into this category.
The code was distributed freely, thereby allowing Copyleft access to it, defeating the first case. So far as I'm aware, walking around with the code for DeCSS on one's shirt is unlikely to force them to kill themselves/others, so kiss the second case bye-bye. And (despite the MPAA's hopes to the contrary) the nation WILL continue to thrive, regardless of whether or not they hold an absolute monopoly over the distribution of DVD players (and seeing how they couldn't document a single case of DeCSS being used to pirate a DVD...), so the final case is baloney, too.
On a side note, the moderator who marked the meta-parent for this discussion as "Redundant" should probably be shot. Post #11 isn't likely to be redundant.
If it is decided that mere source code is illegal, then its propogation via T-shirt print is, sadly, as illegal. There's nothing special about T-Shirts, they're merely another medium.
I'm not sure if you simply missed the point, or if you're attempting to show that T-shirts are no different than electrons on a screen. In either case: the principal difference is that a T-shirt is something this judge (and ALL the American people, excluding the Amish, who probably don't frequent/. anyway) can identify with. Suddenly it's not "This piece of software is breaking our copyprotection, and is illegal", it's "This T-shirt is breaking our copyprotection, and is therefore illegal". This latter arguement sounds considerably more ludicrous, don't you think? Most people will, and if the judge supports the MPAA on this one, he's going to sound the same, to say nothing of the Congressmen who continue to support this law. And (hopefully) the voters might pay attention, and pick some less ludicrous people in the future... or at least that's what we want the politicians to think, so that they STOP the MPAA.
If such a beast is created, it would be advisable to find a new name for it. "Distributed Operating System", in acronym form, equates to DOS, something/. readers filter out 'cause they don't like M$ and something censorware'll probably filter out 'cause it's short for Denial Of Service (attack).
If they were to gratuitously change the API enough to break a clone, they would also break apps. Do that, and no one will be able to think of a reason for using Windows.
Sadly, this isn't true, either. Can we say Windows 2000? What is it, really, but NT w/a gratuitously altered API? MANY apps that work under NT or 9x don't work under 2K (including a number of MS's...). They can get away with this, quite simply, because they have the dominant market share. They can pressure acceptance by comp. manufacturers, which leads to the average consumer buying into it, and then buying new software. Those of us in the know...well, we don't use Windows anyway, so we have effectively no inpact.
I feel for you: your pain is evident. "Here", you cry to an uncaring world, "am I, slone and ignored in my self-righteousness!"
Why can't a movie be for entertainment any longer? Star Wars was ALWAYS a monetary scheme: all movies are; movie directors/producers/actors all expect to get some sort of compensation for their time. If they're good enough, they get more than those involved in bad projects (*cough*Battlefield Earth*cough*). But it isn't THEIR fault if their audience goes into a movie, expecting more than a couple hours of entertainment, something Lucas has almost always delivered (I'm not as sure about THX-1138 as the rest of the films...). So, in summary, if you expect MORE from a movie than a prettily-packaged product, you're in the wrong spot.
Now, as for the "dubious moralising, dumb looking aliens and slushy character relationships", in order: all fiction is political, and contains value judgements based upon the society it was created for. The originals had quite a bit of moralising. Say it with me: "Anger. Fear. Agression. The Dark Side are they." As to dumb looking aliens, I refer you to Star Trek - you must have gotten confused as to which SF saga you were critiquing. And slushy character relationships: society is replete with 'em. EVERY modern (fiction) show cannot help but handle "slushy" relationships. Episode I is tame by comparison.
Finally, your remarks comparing Vader and Manson: you're obviously trolling here, looking for "insightful" or some such. Real quick: Vader==fiction. Manson!=fiction. eof.
Well....yes, I suppose, you're probably right: radio dramas are an extinguished breed. However, I'd like more to comment on the poster of the original question: No, the HGttG broadcasts are NOT the only known radio dramas; you left out the Star Wars radio dramas. Those deserve mention, if for no other reason than they showed surprising initiative at the time.
2. A lego will obey humans unless it involves taking apart two peices (in these cases it's okay to break rule 1 as well)
*lol* The best thing Lego has EVER made, IMHO, is this strange-looking piece that comes w/the Lego Mindstorms. It is vaguely reminiscent of a shoehorn (A Lego shoehorn??). I didn't realize WHAT it was until I started trying to pry 2 pieces apart (2x1 flats). Naturally, I resorted to teeth (SOP, right?), but I'm staring at this thing, and notice the two hole in the bottom of the thicker end. They are suggestive of...something...lego bumps, maybe? So if I put them OVER the Lego bumps....
In short, it was a Lego TOOL FOR SEPARATING LEGOS!!!!!! I call it the Lego wrench.
Well, you take your average egg, boil it for (I believe) on the order of 15 minutes, pull it out, cool it, dry it, and color it, usually using dyes or paints or some such. And, provided it's fairly close to the Easter holiday, Voila! You have an Easter Egg.:)
I think they're defining an easter egg as being a snippet of code that requires the user to use the program in an unusual way in order for it to be seen. So, if they have to enter a bizarre sequence of keystrokes at a place where keystrokes aren't normally called for, I'd call it an egg.
I don't know if it's legal; that's one of those debates that's still up in the air (see here for the last/. article about such). But this seems to be justified at the very least. The crimes he KNEW these people were comitting (to say nothing about what he found out) are sufficient. Now, IANAL, but I don't think what he found is admissable as evidence for prosecution, but it would serve as a great reason for conducting civil and criminal investigations, wouldn't it? Then they can get the same info legitimately, and can the spam for a few years, or hit them in their pockets, where it hurts.:)
Okay, so M$ moves to Canada. What then? Well, first and foremost, their prices would go up - they'd become an import product, after all. And if their prices go up further, it's just barely possible that some of the major manufacturers (forget induhvidual consumers for the moment) will find their products...less enticing. But finally, and quite entertainingly, Red Hat, Apple, and others could (rightfully) encourage people to Always Buy American: that's right, M$ would become the foreign menace.:)
Re:Fantasy: Slayers and Lodoss
on
Essential Anime
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· Score: 1
Note that the first two seasons/series of Slayers will be out this fall as DVD box sets ($100 each--pretty decent for 26 eps)...
I didn't know that. That makes things MUCH better, I think.;)
Slashdot Mirror
As I've gone through school (I get my BS in CSE in May), and chatted w/others at different universities, I've noticed two very different mindsets at different schools. Some, as you say, focus on turning out coders: they take language courses by the dozens (some hyperbole), and in general spend the majority of their degree-work coding. By contrast, programs such as those offered at my school, and the other major (research) universities teach exactly one language (we use C++), with the understanding that it could just as easily be C, Perl, or the Turing Machine model: as per Church's Theorem, any is sufficient for teaching the theory behind this stuff. Now, does this mean we are supposed to graduate knowing only the one language? Hell no! We are expected (unlike every other kind of degree that I know of...) to actually teach ourselves outside of the classroom. Scary, no?
More specifically, as to your remarks: Yes, we are taught solutions to old problems. Why? Because they are FUNDAMENTAL problems, things that people struggled with mightily. It's no different than teaching Physics students about Newton and Einstein: they, too, are old news, but they are also the solid base for everything else. Now, you may have one of the universities of the first type near you, which could help explain your frustration. But at the same time, the resume is not everything. The principal purpose of a comp. sci. degree is to give a student some base to work from, to THINK from. They can't teach us to think, although they do try.
Before placing the blame solely on the backs of the education system, you should remember stuff like the above. Maybe you should widen your search to include other schools?
And then they thought, "You know what this trailer needs? Orff's Carmina Burana!"
But don't you see? Carmina Burana makes EVERYTHING better!!!!
Well, it seems that Katz bashing and M$ bashing have been pushed aside in favor of something new: Republican bashing!
In all seriousness, folks, this piece goes pretty far (okay, VERY far) past moderation. Yes, most politicians are not the brightest of folks. Yes, they're mostly not geeks. But they are charismatic, and that's why they make good front men for the ideals behind them.
Probably the MOST disturbing idea in the above nonsense, for me at least, is the idea that the wealthy owe proportionately MORE to the country, simply because they've done well. If you're a failure, society will pick up the bill for you. If you're doing all right (read: middle class), society wants some back. If you've come up with something truly interesting, and are making big bucks, society will grab everything it can, and try for more. This leads to convoluted tax code, as the wealthy find it FAR cheaper to pay lots of lobbyists than to pay the taxes they might otherwise owe. As to inheritance tax: the constitution forbids double jeopardy: the government isn't allowed two bites out of the apple, in criminal matters. But inheritance tax gives them (at least) two HUGE bites out of the financial apple: this money is taxed when it is earned (income tax), taxed as it grows (capital gains tax), and taxed AGAIN after you die, and want to leave it to your kids (inheritance tax). And we wonder WHY people try to hide money overseas??
Elloquent, well-structured nonsense remains nonsense.
This isn't really a mindstorms expansion; it's a new set, using their Scout microcontroller (handicapped RCX: only 1 motor, only 1 light sensor, but intergrated into the computer brick). I fully expect that the normal mindstorms users could build this sans the kit (provided either a) you don't mind using yellow and red for your AT-AT, or b) you have lots of grey parts). We'll find out in a few hours, though!
Okay, I can see the argument for the death of RTSs. I don't agree with it, as they, along with traditional turn-based strategy (board and electronic) games, are at the top of my list. But what about a new genre? The FPS, contrary to the impression that may be given by the /. story, is NOT to be mistaken with a new genre; Wolfenstein 3d, anyone? But what would "The Sims" qualify as? Is it still just a 'sim' genre game, or is it some odd take on role-playing? Or could it be considered...new?
For those keeping up w/UF these days, this shouldn't be too surprising. After all, didn't Pitr just (essentially) port Outlook? Linux loses much of its boasting value, if these VB web worm/virus-thingys start taking down Linux boxes as well. Perhaps this is M$'s attempt to diffuse the blame a bit?
*sigh* Replying to trolls...how low I've fallen....
:) In any case, it actually matters little if the end user can tell what is being run; market dominance is established by sneaking in through the cracks, NOT by launching a full-frontal assault on the current leaders.
For the record, I never scorned WebTV devices. And given all the hacking that the Tivo, for one, has undergone, I fully expect that anything that comes of this will be quickly disassembled and put back together, probably with a new toaster feature or something similar.
Gateway and America Online have also added their support, committing to use chips from Transmeta for an Internet access device.
:O Very cool, indeed.
Hmmm. So, we combine this with the earlier article from today, and we get a Gateway-built AOL set-top box, running Linux on a Crusoe, correct??
an array of beneficial potential applications: provide a tamper-proof means of locating and identifying individuals for e-business and
e-commerce security
Remember the Intel PIII ID number? Same thing, just now it identifies the person, not the computer. If they can identify both the orderer and his location via his implant, then they can't get many fake orders, can they?
So, the consumer can turn OFF the privacy-invading auto-identifying feature, can they? Hmmm...I seem to recall Intel claiming something similar about their ID numbers on the PIII. And then somebody wrote a cute little program that turned it back on again. This is truly frightening....
Isn't slashdot about: "here's a new technology, here's a new idea, here's a new discovery, here's a review of the above."? Yes, court cases fall into this somewhat. Like: The idea that napster is liable for the actions of its users, or the idea that reversing/discovering and algorithm could be considered "criminal" by a country you don't even live in and may never have ever visited, and that you could get a ton of flak for it. But the fact that the case is now being decided uppon by the judge, is something people who wanted to track the case could get from reuters or cnn [ouch the bias, it hurts it hurts]. I mean yeah, its great taht we're days from finding out, but this may be a case where people sort of figured we'd find out sometime, and when that happens it'd be interesting to know how it went down.
/. is about technology. And new ideas. And reviewing same. But what else is covered in "stuff that matters"? Frankly, a hell of a lot. First, most readers are from the United States: simply a fact of being the most connected country at present, with a larger population than many. Further, /. is hosted/posted in the U.S. (not too far from where I'm sitting, actually). This increases the average of American stories over, say, Australian ones (although we do get those, too). Now, I wasn't following this trial that closely; transcripts bore me, as they are overfull of procedural nonsense to be an interesting read. (Wasn't always true; the Scopes' Monkey Trial transcripts aren't bad.) So I was glad to find this story here, and glad to read the two briefs, and MORE glad to get a chance to discuss them with the intelligent people who frequent /.. That's what this site is about, isn't it? A chance to discuss w/other geeks those things that affect (portions of) the geek community? I think the DMCA certainly applies, at least to the couple of us who live in the U.S.
First, a disclaimer: I live in the United States. There. I said it.
Now, the meat: Yes,
It's been said before, but I'll say it again: if you don't want to hear about it, then don't read it. Hyperlinks don't click themselves (mostly...).
Think about it: If I'm allowed to de-encrypt DVD's to play them on my computer, then I should be allowed to de-compile software to port it to other operating systems, right? I should be allowed to distribute this de-compiler at large so that people can run their software under unintended operating systems? I don't hardly think so.
Actually...maybe. And do you know why? Because you don't BUY software in the same way you buy a DVD. You only LICENSE the software. Now, you'll have to the EULA (which may or may not be legal; that one's still up in the air) as to whether or not it restricts your access to the software to a particular platform. But if reverse engineering is legal (always has been; still will be, if the EFF is successful w/this), and all your software does is operate WITH the software you received (you're not rewriting/reselling the original software), fair use seems to cover this.
Oh, and example: Hmmm....how about Connectix? All they do is make an emulator that (effectively) ports software from one platform to another. It's been tried, it's legal, and Sony can't do anything about it.
From the EFF brief:
:)
Plaintiffs allege that privately watching a purchased movie using a disapproved player is a violation of the copyright owner's legal rights; that the mere existence of a Linux DVD player which allows one to watch legitimate movies purchased anywhere on the globe is actionable. We hope that this Court will find that legitimate holders of copyrighted works have an unfettered legal right to privately experience those works (in addition to any fair use rights they may have).
IANAL, but it seems that (indirectly) the EFF is also arguing against regional encoding, in addition to everything ELSE they cover. In essence, if you buy this disc, you should be able to watch it everywhere you'd could possibly desire to. This rocks.
The way I read it, the toolkit Miguel is describing does NOTHING to your ability to hack at it w/your text editor. Essentially, it's a wrapper: for those of us who don't WANT to remember the syntax of every fsck'ing config file in /etc, we can run the toolkit, and it will edit the files according to the syntax rules FOR us. If the system goes down hard, and the CORBA interface goes w/it, then your dust off vi and edit by hand. The XML references he makes are the toolkit's backups, not the new state of your files. The config files you'll find exactly where you left them, with the content you wanted, but (here's their whole point) without the syntax errors that currently crop up occasionally when even the best *nix hacker goes to work.
Speech is protected, but not all speech is free. I think people seem to forget that there is speech that is NOT protected. Yelling fire in a crowded theatre is not protected. Threatening to kill the president is not protected. HEll, convincing other people to kill people is not protected (Manson never killed anyone, he just convinced everyone else to). Just because it's words doesn't mean it automatically rises above everything else in the world. Illegal is still illegal, whether it's written, spoken, compiled, printed, recorded, or built.
And that brings us full circle: is this law constitutional, as it restricts speech? The answer is hopefully no (oh, and IANAL). The examples you give involve distributing someone else's information without their consent, causing another person's life to be in jeopardy, or damaging the security of the country. I challenge you, however, to demonstrate how DeCSS fits into this category.
The code was distributed freely, thereby allowing Copyleft access to it, defeating the first case. So far as I'm aware, walking around with the code for DeCSS on one's shirt is unlikely to force them to kill themselves/others, so kiss the second case bye-bye. And (despite the MPAA's hopes to the contrary) the nation WILL continue to thrive, regardless of whether or not they hold an absolute monopoly over the distribution of DVD players (and seeing how they couldn't document a single case of DeCSS being used to pirate a DVD...), so the final case is baloney, too.
On a side note, the moderator who marked the meta-parent for this discussion as "Redundant" should probably be shot. Post #11 isn't likely to be redundant.
If it is decided that mere source code is illegal, then its propogation via T-shirt print is, sadly, as illegal. There's nothing special about T-Shirts, they're merely another medium.
/. anyway) can identify with. Suddenly it's not "This piece of software is breaking our copyprotection, and is illegal", it's "This T-shirt is breaking our copyprotection, and is therefore illegal". This latter arguement sounds considerably more ludicrous, don't you think? Most people will, and if the judge supports the MPAA on this one, he's going to sound the same, to say nothing of the Congressmen who continue to support this law. And (hopefully) the voters might pay attention, and pick some less ludicrous people in the future... or at least that's what we want the politicians to think, so that they STOP the MPAA.
I'm not sure if you simply missed the point, or if you're attempting to show that T-shirts are no different than electrons on a screen. In either case: the principal difference is that a T-shirt is something this judge (and ALL the American people, excluding the Amish, who probably don't frequent
If such a beast is created, it would be advisable to find a new name for it. "Distributed Operating System", in acronym form, equates to DOS, something /. readers filter out 'cause they don't like M$ and something censorware'll probably filter out 'cause it's short for Denial Of Service (attack).
If they were to gratuitously change the API enough to break a clone, they would also break apps. Do that, and no one will be able to think of a reason for using Windows.
Sadly, this isn't true, either. Can we say Windows 2000? What is it, really, but NT w/a gratuitously altered API? MANY apps that work under NT or 9x don't work under 2K (including a number of MS's...). They can get away with this, quite simply, because they have the dominant market share. They can pressure acceptance by comp. manufacturers, which leads to the average consumer buying into it, and then buying new software. Those of us in the know...well, we don't use Windows anyway, so we have effectively no inpact.
I feel for you: your pain is evident. "Here", you cry to an uncaring world, "am I, slone and ignored in my self-righteousness!"
Why can't a movie be for entertainment any longer? Star Wars was ALWAYS a monetary scheme: all movies are; movie directors/producers/actors all expect to get some sort of compensation for their time. If they're good enough, they get more than those involved in bad projects (*cough*Battlefield Earth*cough*). But it isn't THEIR fault if their audience goes into a movie, expecting more than a couple hours of entertainment, something Lucas has almost always delivered (I'm not as sure about THX-1138 as the rest of the films...). So, in summary, if you expect MORE from a movie than a prettily-packaged product, you're in the wrong spot.
Now, as for the "dubious moralising, dumb looking aliens and slushy character relationships", in order: all fiction is political, and contains value judgements based upon the society it was created for. The originals had quite a bit of moralising. Say it with me: "Anger. Fear. Agression. The Dark Side are they." As to dumb looking aliens, I refer you to Star Trek - you must have gotten confused as to which SF saga you were critiquing. And slushy character relationships: society is replete with 'em. EVERY modern (fiction) show cannot help but handle "slushy" relationships. Episode I is tame by comparison.
Finally, your remarks comparing Vader and Manson: you're obviously trolling here, looking for "insightful" or some such. Real quick: Vader==fiction. Manson!=fiction. eof.
Well....yes, I suppose, you're probably right: radio dramas are an extinguished breed. However, I'd like more to comment on the poster of the original question: No, the HGttG broadcasts are NOT the only known radio dramas; you left out the Star Wars radio dramas. Those deserve mention, if for no other reason than they showed surprising initiative at the time.
2. A lego will obey humans unless it involves taking apart two peices (in these cases it's okay to break rule 1 as well)
*lol*
The best thing Lego has EVER made, IMHO, is this strange-looking piece that comes w/the Lego Mindstorms. It is vaguely reminiscent of a shoehorn (A Lego shoehorn??). I didn't realize WHAT it was until I started trying to pry 2 pieces apart (2x1 flats). Naturally, I resorted to teeth (SOP, right?), but I'm staring at this thing, and notice the two hole in the bottom of the thicker end. They are suggestive of...something...lego bumps, maybe? So if I put them OVER the Lego bumps....
In short, it was a Lego TOOL FOR SEPARATING LEGOS!!!!!! I call it the Lego wrench.
Well, you take your average egg, boil it for (I believe) on the order of 15 minutes, pull it out, cool it, dry it, and color it, usually using dyes or paints or some such. And, provided it's fairly close to the Easter holiday, Voila! You have an Easter Egg. :)
I think they're defining an easter egg as being a snippet of code that requires the user to use the program in an unusual way in order for it to be seen. So, if they have to enter a bizarre sequence of keystrokes at a place where keystrokes aren't normally called for, I'd call it an egg.
I don't know if it's legal; that's one of those debates that's still up in the air (see here for the last /. article about such). But this seems to be justified at the very least. The crimes he KNEW these people were comitting (to say nothing about what he found out) are sufficient. Now, IANAL, but I don't think what he found is admissable as evidence for prosecution, but it would serve as a great reason for conducting civil and criminal investigations, wouldn't it? Then they can get the same info legitimately, and can the spam for a few years, or hit them in their pockets, where it hurts. :)
Okay, so M$ moves to Canada. What then? Well, first and foremost, their prices would go up - they'd become an import product, after all. And if their prices go up further, it's just barely possible that some of the major manufacturers (forget induhvidual consumers for the moment) will find their products...less enticing. But finally, and quite entertainingly, Red Hat, Apple, and others could (rightfully) encourage people to Always Buy American: that's right, M$ would become the foreign menace. :)
Note that the first two seasons/series of Slayers will be out this fall as DVD box sets ($100 each--pretty decent for 26 eps)...
;)
I didn't know that. That makes things MUCH better, I think.