The difference is that with current passports, you have to show it, which has to be asked, and which you can refuse, so you have the ability to choose to accept the consequences of not showing your passport. With rfid tags it can be done without you even knowing it, and thus without you agreeing to.
Yes. Well, I don't think I am being extremely pessimistic here in thinking that will be one of the next steps. I seem to remember just having read something about companies being sued for making 'unlicensed' DVD players...
After that (and now i am being pessimistic) i would not even be surprised if they start to try to making unlicensed *content* illegal.
If these people are not stopped they will take more and more of our rights (and money) until everything belongs to them.
This would be a great way for a programmer to earn money. Getting paid for building (extra features for) free software. Are there any companies going in this direction at the moment?
Pokemon did not start as a tv show, but as a game (which was quite good from what i'm told). The cartoon was used to make it more popular (as are almost all cartoons).
- They would not have the resources to do that. The only way to fund it would be by using those patents to generate revenue, which would make them nothing better than any random Evil(tm) company.
- By getting patents they would be sending the message that the patent system is indeed something this world wants (or needs).
- It would be impossible to come even close to the number of patents that would be needed to be able to create a complete program without violating a patent after a while. Only BigCorp can afford that.
- This would be fighting on their turf, which is not something i would be wanting to do if i were the FSF (or likewise Fs).
Do not start to play their games, Software Patents should be abolished to the darkest pits of whatever hell anyone can think of.
The only real use for this service is for spam, who cares how often and for how long your message has been read? Especially since it's only reliable on a greater scale (if there are enough people using html mail with automatic loading).
I for one would personally find the first client i could get to disable this (which is any reasonable client at the moment i guess, although i did not rtfa).
Yes, but I do give them the benefit of the doubt here, and interpret it as 'Yes, there were five very noisy people who did not like the graphics style, but millions did'.
Actually that does exist, although mostly in the custom software business. Anyway, people who use oss (logically) tend to prefer real free software over 'supplied source' software, both because it doesn't cost money and they can actually do something useful with said source code (like redistribute forks).
It is, but the point is (i guess) that it makes it possible to have a 'real' job in a completely virtual world, that has no use except entertainment (and now apparently to make money).
Makes you wonder a few things, does it count as a job for the law if you pursue this fulltime (i.e. are you officially unemployed in that case). And if so, is there any legal responsibility for the company that runs the servers? etc.
Out everything-stores do sell games for every platform, but not really that much (i guess about 20-25 different titles for the gamecube at the moment). Also, they are either the really big titles (of which they then have about 20 copies) or the most crappy games you can imagine, not the 'simply-good' ones. Or maybe my taste is just terrible:)
I totally agree, the only problem with a smaller marketshare is that it's much harder to find shops that sell the games you're looking for. I have got all the 'big' titles (zelda, f-zero, metroid etc) but some of the lesser known titles are extremely hard to find around here. I had to look for weeks to find a copy of Skies of Arcadia (hehe, a port). I am still looking for Ikagura, and even Viewtiful Joe is hardly to be found in shops. Nonetheless, the games i do have are among the best there are, and when we come together with friends (who also have the pther consoles) to play games, we almost always play on the gamecube.
I agree, both games have not been released for the gamecube over here, and seeing them on the ps2 shelves is pretty annoying, especially when there are sighs that they don't seem to sell well. I have been planning to get them both ever since i read the first reviews (which now seems ages ago). A well, thanks to the publishers politics...
They also had the glove, the gun (and that appaling bazooka thingy for the snes), and correct me if i'm wrong, were the first with a dancing mat like peripheral. In my opinion, Nintendo has always been the most innovative one (for home consoles).
Not only are some being 'just' harassed, but some were (apparently pure randomly) sent back without any reason, after being put in jail (!) to spend the night because there were no planes flying anymore (And yes they were from countries that are supposed to have good political connections with the US). This is probably still happening,but fortunately for the reigning office, the voters probably don't see things like this.
This is a Good Thing, a big player is being threatened by the stupid patent system, so there's hope now for changes to be mad
Actually, I don't really think it will let the average BigCorp (tm) see the light. They will probably reason like 'well, two can play that game' and see themselves justified in acquiring even more stupid patents.
i got to 65 windows with IE, then ctrl-n stopped working and the first site i knew of with a popup had been 'loading' for about 6 minutes, after which that window crashed.
Slashdot Mirror
The difference is that with current passports, you have to show it, which has to be asked, and which you can refuse, so you have the ability to choose to accept the consequences of not showing your passport. With rfid tags it can be done without you even knowing it, and thus without you agreeing to.
This is the first time I had to RTFA just to find out what the fsck it was about.
They tried to make the vcr illegal too (as well as the cassette). They failed. We did end up with the 'copy tax' thing on every blank media.
Let's hope the system isn't too coorporationalized that they succeed completely this time.
Yes. Well, I don't think I am being extremely pessimistic here in thinking that will be one of the next steps. I seem to remember just having read something about companies being sued for making 'unlicensed' DVD players...
After that (and now i am being pessimistic) i would not even be surprised if they start to try to making unlicensed *content* illegal.
If these people are not stopped they will take more and more of our rights (and money) until everything belongs to them.
thanks, i've added him to my to read list :)
Maybe we should consider the possibility that we are part of a device to perform some calculation to find the answer to a certain big question.
all Acer laptops i have seen also have a smartcard reader. Unfortunately i still haven't been able to get it to work under Linux.
This would be a great way for a programmer to earn money. Getting paid for building (extra features for) free software. Are there any companies going in this direction at the moment?
Money? Can you imagine what kind of superpowers they must have got from the meteorite?
You know, this has actually been an argument from some of the pro-patent lobbyists here.
"There are already patents being granted so we'd better make it legal"
It is just wrong in so many ways I couldn't even believe it.
Pokemon did not start as a tv show, but as a game (which was quite good from what i'm told). The cartoon was used to make it more popular (as are almost all cartoons).
- They would not have the resources to do that. The only way to fund it would be by using those patents to generate revenue, which would make them nothing better than any random Evil(tm) company.
- By getting patents they would be sending the message that the patent system is indeed something this world wants (or needs).
- It would be impossible to come even close to the number of patents that would be needed to be able to create a complete program without violating a patent after a while. Only BigCorp can afford that.
- This would be fighting on their turf, which is not something i would be wanting to do if i were the FSF (or likewise Fs).
Do not start to play their games, Software Patents should be abolished to the darkest pits of whatever hell anyone can think of.
The only real use for this service is for spam, who cares how often and for how long your message has been read? Especially since it's only reliable on a greater scale (if there are enough people using html mail with automatic loading).
I for one would personally find the first client i could get to disable this (which is any reasonable client at the moment i guess, although i did not rtfa).
Yes, but I do give them the benefit of the doubt here, and interpret it as 'Yes, there were five very noisy people who did not like the graphics style, but millions did'.
Actually that does exist, although mostly in the custom software business. Anyway, people who use oss (logically) tend to prefer real free software over 'supplied source' software, both because it doesn't cost money and they can actually do something useful with said source code (like redistribute forks).
It is, but the point is (i guess) that it makes it possible to have a 'real' job in a completely virtual world, that has no use except entertainment (and now apparently to make money).
Makes you wonder a few things, does it count as a job for the law if you pursue this fulltime (i.e. are you officially unemployed in that case). And if so, is there any legal responsibility for the company that runs the servers? etc.
And here we see that analogies, like code, are hard to get right the first time (or the second).
Out everything-stores do sell games for every platform, but not really that much (i guess about 20-25 different titles for the gamecube at the moment). Also, they are either the really big titles (of which they then have about 20 copies) or the most crappy games you can imagine, not the 'simply-good' ones. Or maybe my taste is just terrible :)
I totally agree, the only problem with a smaller marketshare is that it's much harder to find shops that sell the games you're looking for. I have got all the 'big' titles (zelda, f-zero, metroid etc) but some of the lesser known titles are extremely hard to find around here. I had to look for weeks to find a copy of Skies of Arcadia (hehe, a port). I am still looking for Ikagura, and even Viewtiful Joe is hardly to be found in shops. Nonetheless, the games i do have are among the best there are, and when we come together with friends (who also have the pther consoles) to play games, we almost always play on the gamecube.
I agree, both games have not been released for the gamecube over here, and seeing them on the ps2 shelves is pretty annoying, especially when there are sighs that they don't seem to sell well. I have been planning to get them both ever since i read the first reviews (which now seems ages ago). A well, thanks to the publishers politics...
They also had the glove, the gun (and that appaling bazooka thingy for the snes), and correct me if i'm wrong, were the first with a dancing mat like peripheral. In my opinion, Nintendo has always been the most innovative one (for home consoles).
Not only are some being 'just' harassed, but some were (apparently pure randomly) sent back without any reason, after being put in jail (!) to spend the night because there were no planes flying anymore (And yes they were from countries that are supposed to have good political connections with the US). This is probably still happening,but fortunately for the reigning office, the voters probably don't see things like this.
This is a Good Thing, a big player is being threatened by the stupid patent system, so there's hope now for changes to be mad
Actually, I don't really think it will let the average BigCorp (tm) see the light. They will probably reason like 'well, two can play that game' and see themselves justified in acquiring even more stupid patents.
(Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!)
i got to 65 windows with IE, then ctrl-n stopped working and the first site i knew of with a popup had been 'loading' for about 6 minutes, after which that window crashed.