"In the U.K., although not the U.S., writing a letter to yourself can be used as an argument of prior authorship."
I think that link is misleading. You get your copyright by simply writing that work as opposed to registering with the Copyright Office. The only thing registering really does for you is entitle you to sue for legal/collection fees if somebody violates it, while unregistered copyright holders are only entitled to the actual damages.
So long as you're not attempting to recoup legal fees, I don't see why mailing it to yourself couldn't be used to establish original ownership.
"Why do Goa'uld soldiers walk around in big noisy metal uniforms that make them easy to locate and easy to see, yet provide no protection against even handguns?"
Because they were more intended to terrorize the local populace rather than actually fight ("weapon of terror" vs. "weapon of war" to quote one episode). Also, their only real opponents were their peers (who also used energy weapons) or subjugated humans who are eliminated long before they get much farther than the "pointed stick" phase in weapon-making.
Also, with the example of the Asgard vs. the Replicators, they could have simply progressed so far for so long that they've simply collectively "forgotten" about kinetic-kill weapons; who's left nowadays who can make a decent sword, designed for something other than display? And how much protection does Kevlar afford against swords/knives/other sharp penetrators?
That said, there have been some episodes (especially early on) where their armor did stop bullets. One could assume that they switched to high-velocity weapons and ammunition, switched from lead to steel or DU, etc.
Yes! How dare these software companies take advantage of what we ourselves provided for them, for this very purpose! It's Big Money's fault, not the ones who "shall have the Power to regulate commerce with foreign Nations!"
Maybe they're only complaining because they haven't gotten their check from Abramoff yet.
"Tell me this is a joke. As part of a community I should accept assimilation and never ask questions, or try to change things I see as wrong? Or according to you, being non-american I am a second-class member of this "community"? WTF?"
You are not required to be a part of it. This site isn't a fundamental part of your life, there would be no economic hardship on you if you were to stop coming here, if nothing else this is entirely a pull medium; nothing happens until you type in the URL and try to access it.
"For the sake of your argument I'll try slashdot.ca "
If you want a slashdot.ca, host it yourself. To my knowledge the folks who designed this site do not object to the use of the "Slashdot" name in sites hosted by other people in other national TLDs (e. g. slashdot.jp).
"Britney Spears and Ashlee Simpson - doesn't sound Canadian to me. So americans are allowed infiltrate the.ca domain and spew their SHIT all over us but I'm not allowed to participate in fucking slashdot? YOU ARE A FASCIST."
Probably, but that doesn't change the fact that I am not requiring you to view any of that content. In a web browser, you are not required to view material you find objectionable, and if you insist on visiting URLs you find offensive, then the onus is on you, not the hosts (unless they install spyware that resets your home page or something similar).
"Seeking an international audience doesn't preclude it's existance. This IS an international audience whether you like it or not."
And yet this international audience developed with no apparent effort by the editors to pander to one. Why suddenly change now? Is there some "critical density" of international readers that, upon being reached, demand change in the content provided for (voluntary) download?
"Mod me however you want, since apparently I'm not allowed to participate in/. it doesn't matter."
What about my "right" to participate without having to cater to your tastes? Why must yours take priority simply because of your country of origin? Are you a hypocrite as well as being egocentric?
No, you're not anti-women, you just want rape victims to suffer for nine more months. After all, they were asking for it, weren't they?
At any rate, the "anti-science" comments come from the way the Bush Administration uses political appointments (and even firings) to promote a particular political aim (say, denying global warming or supporting "Intelligent Design") rather than let the scientific method play itself out.
"it doesn't make sense that any President would actively work to thwart something like scientific progress in general."
He'd do it if it harmed his campaign supporters.
"It DOES make sense that a President would try to do what's best for the country,"
At best, he is attempting to do what he thinks is best for the country, and that assumes good intentions (which may not be present, e. g. not asking Congress for the power for warrantless wiretaps). However, "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
"you just might discover that there are intelligent arguments on all sides of the table."
It is the general policy of the Bush Administration not to allow any dissent at the table to begin with, at least as far as science seems to be concerned.
"Articles about the UK are always introduced with adjectives: "The Prime Minister of the UK"."
Save your complaints for slashdot.org.uk
Or would Oxford spelling demand slashedotte.org.uk?
"The Union of South Africa is never refered to as the USA."
That's because on May 31, 1961, they kicked out Her Majesty and are now known as the Republic of South Africa. You'd be less out-of-date if you were complaining about outsourcing stories not specifying West Pakistan.
"You have an international audience, quit staring in the bleeding mirror all day FCS!"
Hypocrite. Slashdot is not specifically seeking an international audience and, to my knowledge, has never claimed to be. You are here of your own volition and should yourself adjust yourself to the site and the community instead of "staring the bleeding mirror all day FCS!" Why should this established group suddenly change to suit your whims simply because you decide to be here?
"But I think you're implying that it's OK for Osama bin Laden to kill 3000 innocent Americans because the US had bases in Saudi Arabia."
Man A robs Man B of $20. Man B then shoots Man A in the back. Man B is guilty, but does that somehow retroactively make Man A innocent?
It is rationally, coherently possible to be outraged at the attacks of 9/11 while still pointing out that it wouldn't have happened to begin with if we were't propping up the Saudi regime.
"if for no other reason than if they had, this lawsuit would not be necessary."
The USDOJ is going to prosecute against a phone company that gave warrantless wiretaps to the USDOJ. Yeah, that'll happen.
"There's the question of whether or not the definition of "military operations" includes intelligence-gathering operations conducted by the Executive. There's the question of the wisdom of arbitrarily curbing the Executive's constituional authority, which would make it more difficult for the Executive to fulfill its constitutional responsiblities."
I've read Article II. I see no mention of any "war powers," with or without a declaration of war.
I hear a lot of talk of "implicit powers." The Ninth and Tenth Amendments say to me that there are no implied powers of any agent of the United States in the Constitution: it's either explicit or they don't have it.
"There's also the practical questions: how much of what's being said about this issue is FUD from partisans, extremists, the media-industrial complex, etc."
Considering that the White Hosue is defending rather than denying (or at least they stopped denying once the program became public), I'd say very little.
If anything I've only seen FUD coming from the programmers supporters: this has nothing to do with Osama calling somebody in the United States, that's something explicitly untouched by FISA; this is about tapping calls made from within the United States. For example...
"Then there's the technical questions: You raid a cell in Pakistan, find a U.S. phone number on a computer there. In criminal justice terms, that's not probable cause to tap a phone line. What do you do? Give up?"
You listen in to the calls coming from outside the United States to that particular number without need for a warrant, as explicitly spelled out in FISA. It's the calls made by the US number that you aren't allowed to listen to without a warrant.
However, if you want to go that far without warrants, you simply ask the 107th Congress to give you the power. They already gave the White House the keys to the kingdom in the form of the USA PATRIOT Act, what's one more little rider? The only reason for doing this in the way President Bush did it is pure hubris: he didn't want it to seem that he needed to ask permission (a rather liberal application/abuse of power from a self-described conservative, IMO).
"Or do you say, I'm Executive, the Constitution gives me the responsibility to do whatever I can and whatever I need to do to protect the country in time of war, and Congress has told me this is a time of war, so tap that fucker and let's see what's up?"
We're talking about the United States Constitution, not a Tolstoy novel. If the Constitution gives the executive such power, there should be a clause in the (rather short) document that makes this as plain as day. Otherwise, at most, these "executive powers" are left in the hands of the states to whom the constitution belongs.
"There is a problem with suing a company that did something not obviously illegal, and losing the suit."
Then how, praytell, are you supposed to find out whether or not it's legal if not before a court of law?
That by "newspapers" we're talking about the New York Times, the Washington Post, and not much else? It seems that, more often than not, the first link for a particualr news story is a smaller newspaper that doesn't exactly have a nationwide readership, giving their sites (and banner ads) far more traffic than they'd have without news aggregators. The only papers I could see complaining are the ones that already have their own national and/or global distribution channels.
If this is what they intend to do with the PlayStation 3's online offering, will you still be able to play PlayStation 2 games on the console online without having to go through the service?
If you think Live + PlayOnline is bad, just wait until you install Final Fantasy on your PlayStation 3. Or is that one of the games it won't be backwards-compatible with?
"Look, if you arent a millionaire by now, you should choose your slave master, because in federalism, you are someone elses property, and you own property."
Huh? I said "federalism," not "feudalism." Most states had already granted women suffrage by the time the Nineteenth Amendment was proposed (after all, who do you think ratified it) and the ratification was a mere formality.
Why, exactly, does federalism mean "you're somebody else's property?" How does having a supremely powerful central government (i. e. the opposite of federalism) somehow alleviate that? Canada is far more federal in nature than the United States, what does that say of civil liberties up north? What about the federalist tact that Europe is on now?
Why am I left with the feeling that I'm responding to a cut-and-paste troll?
"how about creating 2 separate pages in the wikipedia, one for autobiography and one for biography."
Better yet, why not have the Wikipedia article include a link to the congresscritter's own website, on which they can host their own autobiographical content?
"How long did it take for the Supreme Court to figure out that... women were people?"
Not as long as it is taking you to figure out federalism.
Women were always considered "persons" in the census. Beyond that, everything from suffrage (until the Nineteenth Amendment), property ownership and the like were state matters. The Supreme Court of the United States had nothing to do with anything as far as the vast majority of womens' rights are concerned.
"I imagine there's a much larger existing userbase for input devices for the disabled in the PC world. What prevents someone from using one of these devices for gaming?"
The fact that 99.9% of PC games are designed for keyboard and mouse (as FPS fans are so fond of moaning about when they play on a console), which requires both hands and ten fingers. Unless the games are specifically written for these specialized controllers, you'll end up with a cludge that probably won't be very satisfying to anybody.
On the other hand, the majority of Revo games will be designed to take advantage of the default controller.
Slashdot Mirror
"In the U.K., although not the U.S., writing a letter to yourself can be used as an argument of prior authorship."
I think that link is misleading. You get your copyright by simply writing that work as opposed to registering with the Copyright Office. The only thing registering really does for you is entitle you to sue for legal/collection fees if somebody violates it, while unregistered copyright holders are only entitled to the actual damages.
So long as you're not attempting to recoup legal fees, I don't see why mailing it to yourself couldn't be used to establish original ownership.
"Shout really loud?"
I wouldn't reccomend that. You'd have everybody within earshot laughing in your face instead of just her.
I'm just sayin'...
"no game can live up to expectations of a 10 year wait."
Metroid Prime.
- Because they were more intended to terrorize the local populace rather than actually fight ("weapon of terror" vs. "weapon of war" to quote one episode). Also, their only real opponents were their peers (who also used energy weapons) or subjugated humans who are eliminated long before they get much farther than the "pointed stick" phase in weapon-making.
- Also, with the example of the Asgard vs. the Replicators, they could have simply progressed so far for so long that they've simply collectively "forgotten" about kinetic-kill weapons; who's left nowadays who can make a decent sword, designed for something other than display? And how much protection does Kevlar afford against swords/knives/other sharp penetrators?
That said, there have been some episodes (especially early on) where their armor did stop bullets. One could assume that they switched to high-velocity weapons and ammunition, switched from lead to steel or DU, etc."Wrong. It uses dots, dashes, and pauses."
Dihs, dahs, short pauses between characters (silent "dih"), long pauses between words (silent "dah").
Tetranary.
"In other news, has anyone on Slashdot EVER written a friendly letter (attempted seduction counts) and sent it by snail mail?"
Well, now that you mention it, it was less "letter" and more "book"... but I did get a bona fide letter from her lawyer via certified mail!
Yes! How dare these software companies take advantage of what we ourselves provided for them, for this very purpose! It's Big Money's fault, not the ones who "shall have the Power to regulate commerce with foreign Nations!"
Maybe they're only complaining because they haven't gotten their check from Abramoff yet.
You're forgetting the HEV suit.
"When will you make a videogame that's going to teach my students chemistry?"
Full-Metal Alchemist!
"Tell me this is a joke. As part of a community I should accept assimilation and never ask questions, or try to change things I see as wrong? Or according to you, being non-american I am a second-class member of this "community"? WTF?"
.ca domain and spew their SHIT all over us but I'm not allowed to participate in fucking slashdot? YOU ARE A FASCIST."
/. it doesn't matter."
You are not required to be a part of it. This site isn't a fundamental part of your life, there would be no economic hardship on you if you were to stop coming here, if nothing else this is entirely a pull medium; nothing happens until you type in the URL and try to access it.
"For the sake of your argument I'll try slashdot.ca "
If you want a slashdot.ca, host it yourself. To my knowledge the folks who designed this site do not object to the use of the "Slashdot" name in sites hosted by other people in other national TLDs (e. g. slashdot.jp).
"Britney Spears and Ashlee Simpson - doesn't sound Canadian to me. So americans are allowed infiltrate the
Probably, but that doesn't change the fact that I am not requiring you to view any of that content. In a web browser, you are not required to view material you find objectionable, and if you insist on visiting URLs you find offensive, then the onus is on you, not the hosts (unless they install spyware that resets your home page or something similar).
"Seeking an international audience doesn't preclude it's existance. This IS an international audience whether you like it or not."
And yet this international audience developed with no apparent effort by the editors to pander to one. Why suddenly change now? Is there some "critical density" of international readers that, upon being reached, demand change in the content provided for (voluntary) download?
"Mod me however you want, since apparently I'm not allowed to participate in
What about my "right" to participate without having to cater to your tastes? Why must yours take priority simply because of your country of origin? Are you a hypocrite as well as being egocentric?
Hmm... I could go one of two ways with this:
"no more than pro-lifers are anti-women."
No, you're not anti-women, you just want rape victims to suffer for nine more months. After all, they were asking for it, weren't they?
At any rate, the "anti-science" comments come from the way the Bush Administration uses political appointments (and even firings) to promote a particular political aim (say, denying global warming or supporting "Intelligent Design") rather than let the scientific method play itself out.
"it doesn't make sense that any President would actively work to thwart something like scientific progress in general."
He'd do it if it harmed his campaign supporters.
"It DOES make sense that a President would try to do what's best for the country,"
At best, he is attempting to do what he thinks is best for the country, and that assumes good intentions (which may not be present, e. g. not asking Congress for the power for warrantless wiretaps). However, "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
"you just might discover that there are intelligent arguments on all sides of the table."
It is the general policy of the Bush Administration not to allow any dissent at the table to begin with, at least as far as science seems to be concerned.
"Articles about the UK are always introduced with adjectives: "The Prime Minister of the UK"."
a djectve.html"
Save your complaints for slashdot.org.uk
Or would Oxford spelling demand slashedotte.org.uk?
"The Union of South Africa is never refered to as the USA."
That's because on May 31, 1961, they kicked out Her Majesty and are now known as the Republic of South Africa. You'd be less out-of-date if you were complaining about outsourcing stories not specifying West Pakistan.
"You have an international audience, quit staring in the bleeding mirror all day FCS!"
Hypocrite. Slashdot is not specifically seeking an international audience and, to my knowledge, has never claimed to be. You are here of your own volition and should yourself adjust yourself to the site and the community instead of "staring the bleeding mirror all day FCS!" Why should this established group suddenly change to suit your whims simply because you decide to be here?
"PS: Because I know you forgot what an adjective is:
http://www.arts.uottawa.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/
Ah, no wonder you're still stuck on "Union of South Africa," you're still in a Commonwealth Realm.
"Either genetic modification is OK or it isn't, do we really need decisions made on the basis of how much you hate someone?"
Then is it not also hypocritical of President Bush to call for a ban on patents of human genes while still supporting patents on any other life form?
"He's just a dude we all do stupid things"
Yes, but most of us stop.
"But I think you're implying that it's OK for Osama bin Laden to kill 3000 innocent Americans because the US had bases in Saudi Arabia."
Man A robs Man B of $20. Man B then shoots Man A in the back. Man B is guilty, but does that somehow retroactively make Man A innocent?
It is rationally, coherently possible to be outraged at the attacks of 9/11 while still pointing out that it wouldn't have happened to begin with if we were't propping up the Saudi regime.
"if for no other reason than if they had, this lawsuit would not be necessary."
The USDOJ is going to prosecute against a phone company that gave warrantless wiretaps to the USDOJ. Yeah, that'll happen.
"There's the question of whether or not the definition of "military operations" includes intelligence-gathering operations conducted by the Executive. There's the question of the wisdom of arbitrarily curbing the Executive's constituional authority, which would make it more difficult for the Executive to fulfill its constitutional responsiblities."
I've read Article II. I see no mention of any "war powers," with or without a declaration of war.
I hear a lot of talk of "implicit powers." The Ninth and Tenth Amendments say to me that there are no implied powers of any agent of the United States in the Constitution: it's either explicit or they don't have it.
"There's also the practical questions: how much of what's being said about this issue is FUD from partisans, extremists, the media-industrial complex, etc."
Considering that the White Hosue is defending rather than denying (or at least they stopped denying once the program became public), I'd say very little.
If anything I've only seen FUD coming from the programmers supporters: this has nothing to do with Osama calling somebody in the United States, that's something explicitly untouched by FISA; this is about tapping calls made from within the United States. For example...
"Then there's the technical questions: You raid a cell in Pakistan, find a U.S. phone number on a computer there. In criminal justice terms, that's not probable cause to tap a phone line. What do you do? Give up?"
You listen in to the calls coming from outside the United States to that particular number without need for a warrant, as explicitly spelled out in FISA. It's the calls made by the US number that you aren't allowed to listen to without a warrant.
However, if you want to go that far without warrants, you simply ask the 107th Congress to give you the power. They already gave the White House the keys to the kingdom in the form of the USA PATRIOT Act, what's one more little rider? The only reason for doing this in the way President Bush did it is pure hubris: he didn't want it to seem that he needed to ask permission (a rather liberal application/abuse of power from a self-described conservative, IMO).
"Or do you say, I'm Executive, the Constitution gives me the responsibility to do whatever I can and whatever I need to do to protect the country in time of war, and Congress has told me this is a time of war, so tap that fucker and let's see what's up?"
We're talking about the United States Constitution, not a Tolstoy novel. If the Constitution gives the executive such power, there should be a clause in the (rather short) document that makes this as plain as day. Otherwise, at most, these "executive powers" are left in the hands of the states to whom the constitution belongs.
"There is a problem with suing a company that did something not obviously illegal, and losing the suit."
Then how, praytell, are you supposed to find out whether or not it's legal if not before a court of law?
That by "newspapers" we're talking about the New York Times, the Washington Post, and not much else? It seems that, more often than not, the first link for a particualr news story is a smaller newspaper that doesn't exactly have a nationwide readership, giving their sites (and banner ads) far more traffic than they'd have without news aggregators. The only papers I could see complaining are the ones that already have their own national and/or global distribution channels.
If this is what they intend to do with the PlayStation 3's online offering, will you still be able to play PlayStation 2 games on the console online without having to go through the service?
If you think Live + PlayOnline is bad, just wait until you install Final Fantasy on your PlayStation 3. Or is that one of the games it won't be backwards-compatible with?
"Look, if you arent a millionaire by now, you should choose your slave master, because in federalism, you are someone elses property, and you own property."
Huh? I said "federalism," not "feudalism." Most states had already granted women suffrage by the time the Nineteenth Amendment was proposed (after all, who do you think ratified it) and the ratification was a mere formality.
Why, exactly, does federalism mean "you're somebody else's property?" How does having a supremely powerful central government (i. e. the opposite of federalism) somehow alleviate that? Canada is far more federal in nature than the United States, what does that say of civil liberties up north? What about the federalist tact that Europe is on now?
Why am I left with the feeling that I'm responding to a cut-and-paste troll?
To paraphrase Tocqueville, no self-respecting adult would be caught dead in the Capitol.
"how about creating 2 separate pages in the wikipedia, one for autobiography and one for biography."
Better yet, why not have the Wikipedia article include a link to the congresscritter's own website, on which they can host their own autobiographical content?
Wait a sec...
"How long did it take for the Supreme Court to figure out that... women were people?"
Not as long as it is taking you to figure out federalism.
Women were always considered "persons" in the census. Beyond that, everything from suffrage (until the Nineteenth Amendment), property ownership and the like were state matters. The Supreme Court of the United States had nothing to do with anything as far as the vast majority of womens' rights are concerned.
"We're all individuals."
I'm not!
"I imagine there's a much larger existing userbase for input devices for the disabled in the PC world. What prevents someone from using one of these devices for gaming?"
The fact that 99.9% of PC games are designed for keyboard and mouse (as FPS fans are so fond of moaning about when they play on a console), which requires both hands and ten fingers. Unless the games are specifically written for these specialized controllers, you'll end up with a cludge that probably won't be very satisfying to anybody.
On the other hand, the majority of Revo games will be designed to take advantage of the default controller.