Capitalization of the I doesn't make a lot of sense unless They are a deity.
In any case, the apostrophe is never used for the possessive case in any pronoun. Why would you think "its" would be any different? his hers its their, and he's she's it's they're. The rule is consistent with all pronouns.
It's true that many video games are derivative. I think though that the point is, in Hollywood it is customary for every new movie to have a new title unless it is an actual continuation of a previous film. In the video game world it is customary to re-use titles even for unrelated games (see Final Fantasy Tactics).
We can still talk about whether there is enough innovation in the industry, but we should leave the titles out of it. When Final Fantasy 12 comes out, it could be new and interesting or it could be stale and derivative, but neither will be just because it's CALLED "Final Fantasy".
I'm tired of people saying this, because there is a fundamental difference between a movie sequel and a video game "sequel".
The thing with a movie is that the experience is always the same. You sit, and the movie goes for a while. Innovation in movies has to come in the form of new plot ideas and new characters and so forth. So sequels in movies are not usually very much appreciated because in many ways we have seen the movie already.
Video games provide a much more diverse range of experiences. "The Sims 2", for instance, will not be "The Sims" again. It could in many ways be a completely different game, and you can bet there will be new things for a player to learn. They could call it something completely different -- the fact that they re-use a well-known brand doesn't mean that they are making the same game again. There's no new plot or characters simply because there wasn't any plot or characters in the first place.
If you want an example of a Hollywood-style sequel in the video game world, consider the ".hack" series. All four games are basically the same, it's just a somewhat long game that is really expensive.
If they are truly worth nothing at all when issued, that would mean that it would not matter to you whether you had them or not. If they have no value, then you throw them in the trash can with your other worthless papers.
They have value -- it may be speculative value, but it is still worth something. Let's say I have a ticket that will pay $100,000 if a specific die roll on January 1st, 2005 comes up as a 3. That doesn't have a value of zero just because you can't use it right away. Would you pay $100 for such a ticket? $1000?
Sorry about that, I don't get options so I assumed they were similar to the ones that are traded on the open market.
However that does not change the fact that options have value at the time they are issued (unless it is a certainty that the stock price will go down).
I hope your company will compensate you in some other way. I hear Microsoft has switched to using stock grants instead.
First of all options are transferable, in that you can sell them or buy them, so they have value in the first sense.
But besides that, in the case of your contract example, if the price at which you are allowed to buy the product is lower than the value of that product, then the contract itself has value.
If Apple "rewarded" its employees by issuing coupons allowing them to buy iPods for $50, those coupons would be valuable.
As I recall the whole "power lines cause cancer" thing was an example of irrelevant correlation. Turns out that statistically it tends to be poor people living next to high-voltage power lines and poor people have higher cancer rates for all sorts of other reasons.
It's really more interesting and useful to talk about it once Slashdotters as a whole have had a little bit of time to absorb the information. Slashdot was never intended to be "fast" news; you'll notice that since its news is always garnished from other places it is inherently slower than the places that do actual reporting.
Oh, that's easy. If you assume that an hour of someone's time is worth 6 dollars, then each second is worth like one sixth of a penny. If there are 500 million Internet users, and each types "www" an average of 1200 times a year, then it would be typed 600 billion times a year worldwide. 600 billion times a sixth of a penny is ONE BILLION DOLLARS.
The "www" prefix is pretty obsolete anyway, and hearkens back to an era when a given domain name likely represented a specific computer. Nowadays people typing in pointless prefixes probably costs the economy like a billion dollars a year.
So since it's not an issue of law, assume that in your scenario, the legal copyright expires and the work reverts to the public domain. Even if you are still "explicitly providing access to the work for a fee", it would then be legal for me to create copies and distribute them. Is it still wrong?
Perhaps the idea of copyright expiration is a moral one. If so, what is the moral copyright expiration date (which of course is independent from the legal one?)
This could be considered a moot argument since copyright currently extends beyond the life of the creator, but this was not always the case.
Also be aware that even when Microsoft does patch their product quickly, it's possible for the attacker to discover the vulnerability by examining the patch.
Note that Apple abandoned the touch-sensitive-only buttons on the 3rd-generation iPods and all the buttons are once again mechanical. The scroll wheel is still touch sensitive but you only use that when looking at the screen or adjusting the volume.
Most users of Windows do not get support from Microsoft. Generally most support is in-house, and for that rare problem that your internal staff simply cannot fix, you can hire Microsoft (for cash) to try and fix it.
Executives in general may have an instinctual belief that their support staff can "call up Microsoft" if they need to, but this is both rarely necessary and expensive.
Break it. Call support. See if you can understand what they are saying. See if they can understand what you are saying. See if they can understand what is wrong, or if they lead you through meaningless troubleshooting steps. See how long it takes for someone to show up to fix it. See whether they can actually get it fixed.
We were all taught in 3rd grade that "democracy" meant the citizens voted on everything and that is what they did in Athens or something and that this country was a "democratic republic", but this sort of distinction has nothing to do with anything I said. If you ask President Bush if the USA is a democracy, he will tell you that it is; if you ask Senator Kerry if the USA is a democracy, he will also tell you that it is.
Words evolve over time, and in this case, I am referring to the meaning of "democracy" as a government whose institutions of power are controlled by the citizens. If you look in a modern dictionary, you will find that my usage is not considered incorrect.
I've said it before, so I'll probably be called redundant, but criticism of a government during wartime is only treasonous in a totalitarian state. In a democracy, criticism of the government during war is patriotic.
In a totalitarian state, the interests of the government are by nature not aligned with the interests of the people. So criticism of the government damages its effort, because it suggests that interests other than those of the government ought to be considered.
In a democratic state, the government is only operating correctly when it represents the interests of the people. However, it is not easy to act in the proper aggregate interest of the entire population. The only way to do so is for the portions of the populace who see the government actions as contrary to their interests to speak out. Thus the government actions can be modified so that the interests of the people are better fulfilled.
This is pretty basic civics, but for some reason it is repeatedly suggested (during Vietnam, and again recently) that the proper interests of the government are somehow disconnected from those of the people when the government decides to go to war. In my viewpoint that is incorrect, especially when it leads to a government that is eager to use war as a device to promote its own interests, thus leading toward totalitarianism.
My employer has a small amount of underground cable (very small) so we had to subscribe to this service. The way it works is they send you a map divided into squares, and you tell them what square(s) you are interested in. Then you get a notification (via fax) every time something is happening in your square.
The notification describes where they will be digging, how deep, etc. Every subscriber is responsible for marking their own lines. There are codes you are supposed to follow for marking (orange for datacom, etc).
Anyway you can see some room for error in this sort of system. There's not actually a centralized map of where all the utilities are, so if somebody doesn't bother to mark something, it won't be marked. Usually they do a good job of making sure everybody gets their notifications, but they could still get lost any number of ways. I suppose public utilities are probably the worst problem, though, since often water and sewer systems were built generations ago.
Slashdot Mirror
Capitalization of the I doesn't make a lot of sense unless They are a deity.
In any case, the apostrophe is never used for the possessive case in any pronoun. Why would you think "its" would be any different? his hers its their, and he's she's it's they're. The rule is consistent with all pronouns.
You must be new here...
It's true that many video games are derivative. I think though that the point is, in Hollywood it is customary for every new movie to have a new title unless it is an actual continuation of a previous film. In the video game world it is customary to re-use titles even for unrelated games (see Final Fantasy Tactics).
We can still talk about whether there is enough innovation in the industry, but we should leave the titles out of it. When Final Fantasy 12 comes out, it could be new and interesting or it could be stale and derivative, but neither will be just because it's CALLED "Final Fantasy".
The experience is always the same in a physical sense -- you sit there and watch.
I'm tired of people saying this, because there is a fundamental difference between a movie sequel and a video game "sequel".
The thing with a movie is that the experience is always the same. You sit, and the movie goes for a while. Innovation in movies has to come in the form of new plot ideas and new characters and so forth. So sequels in movies are not usually very much appreciated because in many ways we have seen the movie already.
Video games provide a much more diverse range of experiences. "The Sims 2", for instance, will not be "The Sims" again. It could in many ways be a completely different game, and you can bet there will be new things for a player to learn. They could call it something completely different -- the fact that they re-use a well-known brand doesn't mean that they are making the same game again. There's no new plot or characters simply because there wasn't any plot or characters in the first place.
If you want an example of a Hollywood-style sequel in the video game world, consider the ".hack" series. All four games are basically the same, it's just a somewhat long game that is really expensive.
If they are truly worth nothing at all when issued, that would mean that it would not matter to you whether you had them or not. If they have no value, then you throw them in the trash can with your other worthless papers.
They have value -- it may be speculative value, but it is still worth something. Let's say I have a ticket that will pay $100,000 if a specific die roll on January 1st, 2005 comes up as a 3. That doesn't have a value of zero just because you can't use it right away. Would you pay $100 for such a ticket? $1000?
Grin, of course that isn't an "other" reason. And someone please mod the grandparent down -- it's a 3 at most and I don't need the karma.
Sorry about that, I don't get options so I assumed they were similar to the ones that are traded on the open market.
However that does not change the fact that options have value at the time they are issued (unless it is a certainty that the stock price will go down).
I hope your company will compensate you in some other way. I hear Microsoft has switched to using stock grants instead.
First of all options are transferable, in that you can sell them or buy them, so they have value in the first sense.
But besides that, in the case of your contract example, if the price at which you are allowed to buy the product is lower than the value of that product, then the contract itself has value.
If Apple "rewarded" its employees by issuing coupons allowing them to buy iPods for $50, those coupons would be valuable.
As I recall the whole "power lines cause cancer" thing was an example of irrelevant correlation. Turns out that statistically it tends to be poor people living next to high-voltage power lines and poor people have higher cancer rates for all sorts of other reasons.
It's really more interesting and useful to talk about it once Slashdotters as a whole have had a little bit of time to absorb the information. Slashdot was never intended to be "fast" news; you'll notice that since its news is always garnished from other places it is inherently slower than the places that do actual reporting.
Oh, that's easy. If you assume that an hour of someone's time is worth 6 dollars, then each second is worth like one sixth of a penny. If there are 500 million Internet users, and each types "www" an average of 1200 times a year, then it would be typed 600 billion times a year worldwide. 600 billion times a sixth of a penny is ONE BILLION DOLLARS.
The "www" prefix is pretty obsolete anyway, and hearkens back to an era when a given domain name likely represented a specific computer. Nowadays people typing in pointless prefixes probably costs the economy like a billion dollars a year.
So since it's not an issue of law, assume that in your scenario, the legal copyright expires and the work reverts to the public domain. Even if you are still "explicitly providing access to the work for a fee", it would then be legal for me to create copies and distribute them. Is it still wrong?
Perhaps the idea of copyright expiration is a moral one. If so, what is the moral copyright expiration date (which of course is independent from the legal one?)
This could be considered a moot argument since copyright currently extends beyond the life of the creator, but this was not always the case.
Also be aware that even when Microsoft does patch their product quickly, it's possible for the attacker to discover the vulnerability by examining the patch.
Note that Apple abandoned the touch-sensitive-only buttons on the 3rd-generation iPods and all the buttons are once again mechanical. The scroll wheel is still touch sensitive but you only use that when looking at the screen or adjusting the volume.
What a crock! What if it's 16/65? That's 1/5? I don't think so, but let me get out my calculator to check.
Most users of Windows do not get support from Microsoft. Generally most support is in-house, and for that rare problem that your internal staff simply cannot fix, you can hire Microsoft (for cash) to try and fix it.
Executives in general may have an instinctual belief that their support staff can "call up Microsoft" if they need to, but this is both rarely necessary and expensive.
Break it. Call support. See if you can understand what they are saying. See if they can understand what you are saying. See if they can understand what is wrong, or if they lead you through meaningless troubleshooting steps. See how long it takes for someone to show up to fix it. See whether they can actually get it fixed.
The rest of it is not all that important, really.
Exactly what meaning is that supposed to have?
We were all taught in 3rd grade that "democracy" meant the citizens voted on everything and that is what they did in Athens or something and that this country was a "democratic republic", but this sort of distinction has nothing to do with anything I said. If you ask President Bush if the USA is a democracy, he will tell you that it is; if you ask Senator Kerry if the USA is a democracy, he will also tell you that it is.
Words evolve over time, and in this case, I am referring to the meaning of "democracy" as a government whose institutions of power are controlled by the citizens. If you look in a modern dictionary, you will find that my usage is not considered incorrect.
I've said it before, so I'll probably be called redundant, but criticism of a government during wartime is only treasonous in a totalitarian state. In a democracy, criticism of the government during war is patriotic.
In a totalitarian state, the interests of the government are by nature not aligned with the interests of the people. So criticism of the government damages its effort, because it suggests that interests other than those of the government ought to be considered.
In a democratic state, the government is only operating correctly when it represents the interests of the people. However, it is not easy to act in the proper aggregate interest of the entire population. The only way to do so is for the portions of the populace who see the government actions as contrary to their interests to speak out. Thus the government actions can be modified so that the interests of the people are better fulfilled.
This is pretty basic civics, but for some reason it is repeatedly suggested (during Vietnam, and again recently) that the proper interests of the government are somehow disconnected from those of the people when the government decides to go to war. In my viewpoint that is incorrect, especially when it leads to a government that is eager to use war as a device to promote its own interests, thus leading toward totalitarianism.
not so -- there can be cases where the rook for example would lead to checkmate while the queen's extra attack would create stalemate.
Some opposite -- they both get really hot, they both make energy, they both rely on nuclear chemistry... where do the similarities end?
I'd say the opposite of a nuclear reactor is a banana.
I think it was the Hundred Year War... a hundred centuries is 10,000 years. I don't think there was a kingdom of France or England in 8000 BC.
I'm from Texas and we have a similar system.
My employer has a small amount of underground cable (very small) so we had to subscribe to this service. The way it works is they send you a map divided into squares, and you tell them what square(s) you are interested in. Then you get a notification (via fax) every time something is happening in your square.
The notification describes where they will be digging, how deep, etc. Every subscriber is responsible for marking their own lines. There are codes you are supposed to follow for marking (orange for datacom, etc).
Anyway you can see some room for error in this sort of system. There's not actually a centralized map of where all the utilities are, so if somebody doesn't bother to mark something, it won't be marked. Usually they do a good job of making sure everybody gets their notifications, but they could still get lost any number of ways. I suppose public utilities are probably the worst problem, though, since often water and sewer systems were built generations ago.