It's like coming up with an idea for building a flying car, but never building one. When someone takes your ideas and expands upon them and creates a flying car, they get the credit.
And you sue them for patent infringement. After waiting for their flying car to become a commercial success, of course.
I can't think of an example of a texture-shaded polygonal 3D PC game from 1994 or earlier, but I'm sure some exist.
I'm 90% sure Rowan's "Operation Overlord" was textured, and I'm 100% sure Origin's "Wing Commander: Armada" was textured. Both of those were released months before the Playstation was launched.
"When"? I know my parents certainly never found out what I was up to.
If you think you know everything your kids are doing, then either you're sadly deluded, or you've installed spy cameras (including infra-red) in every room of your house, fitted your kids with tracking beacons, and hired bodyguards to watch their every move. And they're going to grow up a billion times more damaged than if they'd (shock! horror!) been exposed to the "wrong" sort of fiction.
1. From a "free speech" point of view, how is this any different than than your local newspaper's editorial policy? Some newspapers just won't print some kinds of content, even if the author is willing to pay for the service.
Does your local newspaper prevent you from subscribing to a different newspaper? No? Then that's the difference: it's trivial to switch newspapers, but it's very difficult to switch ISPs, particularly if you live in one of the many parts of the world where there is practically no competition.
2. Does this form of content limitation take away any of the rights you had before the dawn of email?
Of course not. Nor would banning cars take away any of the rights you had before the invention of the automobile, but if the government introduced a bill to ban cars, would you sit back and tell everyone to suck it up because "back in the day, we drove around in horse-drawn carriages"? Somehow I doubt it.
The mere fact that a technology only became ubiquitous recently does not automatically mean that people have no right to expect to be able to rely on it.
However, the back-end of the Windows delphi program was borland's c compiler, not the dos-based pascal compiler, which they didn't port to windows.
Really? What was that "Turbo Pascal for Windows" product they released in 1991, then?
I'd love to see some actual reliable sources to support your claim, if you have any. See, Pascal's design isn't actually as similar to C's as you seem to think. It's not easy to write a direct translator.
If you care to look, Delphi supports compiling c++ programs.
Only because they combined it with the originally-separate product "C++Builder". Which was created after Delphi.
Let's say Americans steal something that's Swedish.
Please try to keep your analogies vaguely relevant. We're talking about copyright infringement here, not theft, so let's at least keep it IP-related. Examples of relevant crimes would be Americans infringing Swedish copyrights (downloading ABBA tracks or whatever), or violating other Swedish IP laws (maybe making fake IKEA furniture, or using industrial espionage to get illegal access to Saab trade secrets).
Admittedly the car steering analogy is a bit silly
No, he misrepresented that as well. He presents it as though the FSF is claiming DRM is like a car that can't be steered. If he seriously thought that, then he's an idiot. In fact, the FSF is saying DRM is like a car that won't let you steer it -- i.e., one that steers itself, driving you where the car makers decide you ought to want to drive.
One can imagine quite a lot of people happily buying a self-driving car - how convenient! Except... how odd, when you tell it you want to drive to a hotel in Boston, it has a list of the hotels you can drive to, and they're all big chains. The nice little independent one you've booked isn't an option. And it's going to drive several hundred miles out of your way, to avoid having to fill up at an unapproved gas station. And you're going to be forced to watch adverts all the way...
And that's actually not a bad analogy for one form of DRM dystopia, the one where the content creators literally control all the content that gets produced, and amateurs literally cannot play back home recordings and the like. Of course that's not a plausible scenario. But hyperbole has always been an acceptable rhetorical device.
500 years ago, folks were 100% less likely to get run over, HIV, an aeroplane driven into their office building. That much is fact.
Actually, they were almost infinitely more likely to be run over by a horse-drawn vehicle (look up the fatality rates for cart accidents in medieval times - it's rather scary). They were infinitely more likely to die from measles or smallpox or scarlet fever or tuberculosis or any number of other diseases which have either been wiped out or contained. The Black Death killed 1/3 of the population of Europe: what recent epidemic has even come close to that?
I'll grant you the aeroplane one. However, I will note that if you take into account every single person who has ever had an aeroplane flown into their office building, the figure is about 0.0000001% of the world's population. Let's just say it's not the foremost worry on my mind when I get out of bed each morning.
There are new diseases, new strains, new cancers, new wars, new weapons, new ways to die.
And at the same time most of the old diseases and strains have been practically eliminated (or cures found); many cancers can be cured; today's wars involve far fewer deaths than the wars of the mid-20th century; today's weapons of mass destruction have in practice never been used by terrorists, and have only been used against civilians on a handful of occasions.
The world is safer than it's ever been. Fact. Indisputable fact, proven by the easily-verified fact that life expectancies are longer than they've ever been.
No doubt Apple is tired of seeing Microsoft dominate the games market. Look out for the all-new iPippin. With an Intel chip inside, it's twice as fast as the PowerPC-based XBox 360!*
* May not actually be twice as fast outside the Reality Distortion Field. But who cares? You know you'll buy it anyway.
The root of the hypocracy is the concept that since an MP3 is information, and not a physical construct, then it doesn't harm anyone when you steal it.
It can't "harm anyone when you steal it", because you can't steal it. It's not a physical construct, so it can't be stolen.
It does, however, violate people's legal rights when you copy an MP3 illegally.
See? It's possible to use accurate, non-emotive language to make accurate, non-emotive statements of fact. It's not theft. And you don't have to call it something it isn't. Someone will doubtless now accuse me of trying to "justify" copyright infringement, which I'm not. Copying people's data without their permission is just as illegal as taking people's property without their permission. But it's not the same thing.
However, the people that own the rights to that MP3 do feel that it is being stolen
Yes, and often the family of a murder victim will refer to their loved one being stolen from them, and often rape victims will speak of their life being stolen from them. But nobody feels any need to refer to murder or rape as theft...
If you actually critically think about it, all proprietary software companies are forking over dough (via taxes). They paid for it, but are not allowed to use it in ways that actually give them a return.
And if you actually think critically about it for a moment, it becomes quite obvious that the fact that something was partly funded by taxes certainly should not mean that anybody who pays taxes has any right to profit from it.
For example, my education was mostly paid for by taxes. That doesn't mean that anybody has the right to make me work for them for free. If they want to benefit from my education, they have to pay me, just as they would have to pay someone who was privately educated. Why should software be any different?
And this is ignoring the simple fact that even the most restrictive open-source licenses, like the GNU GPL, by no means prevent commercial exploitation of the software they cover. I observe that Red Hat is doing quite well selling a GNU/Linux distribution, even though you can get the exact same programs for free from many other sources. And, of course, there are many ways to benefit from software without selling it; how many companies are profiting handsomely by using open-source software to meet their internal requirements? Rather a lot.
Maybe the question should be asked differently: What advantages does it offer over existing formats? Sure it provides Microsoft with their own lossy image format, making their data type portfolio complete, but what does it offer everyone else?
Higher quality at smaller sizes, plus the ability to perform certain operations like rotation without modifying the compressed data itself (which would normally require recompression, decreasing quality).
The latter is trivial, of course -- the file will doubtless merely have additional fields for rotation, filters, etc. which are processed at display-time by the decoding application -- but it's still a nice idea that could be quite useful.
You can learn that much simply by R'ing TFA. The real questions, however, which the article does not answer, are: what patents do Microsoft have on this format, and are they going to try to stop open-source programs from supporting it?
Just by following a few simple common-sense guidelines, you can drastically improve the usability of any given software.
You appear to be claiming that the guidelines you quote are universal and apply to every conceivable bit of software. I would beg to differ.
Simplicity: keep things as simple as possible. Fewer options/settings/etc means less to have to figure out.
Photoshop would not be a popular program if it only provided the five most common graphical operations and only let you configure three aspects of each. It's successful precisely because it's insanely configurable.
In other words, while there is indeed a place for simplistic software (witness the popularity of basic photo editing programs that literally only offer crop, size, and red-eye removal), it is by no means desirable for all software to be simplistic. Complex tasks require complex interfaces. Simplistic interfaces limit users to the options you have chosen, and I find it hard to believe that you can imagine all the possible ways a user will want to use your program.
Don't assume user expertise: always assume your user knows NOTHING about computers.
You cannot possibly believe this applies to all software. Are you seriously saying that the writers of a kernel debugger should assume their users know nothing about computers?
Scenario-based design: don't merely dump a bundle of functionality on the user; give them a program that guides them through all the steps needed to solve their scenario. It's the difference between handing someone a graphing calculator and handing them a math expert.
If a mathematician asks for a graphing calculator, you think they should instead be handed another mathematician?
Yes, simple tasks should have simple interfaces. Anyone should be able to answer emails, browse the web, write letters, keep an address book and diary, and print photos from their digital camera.
But that does not mean that simplicity should always be prized over functionality. Some things in life are tough. I've never driven an 18-wheeler: I would not expect to be able to sit down in one and take it across the continent. I've never filed a lawsuit: I would not expect to be able to waltz into a court and win a billion-dollar case. Why should I expect computers to be any different? If users won't read manuals, that is the users' problem.
Consider how many major inventions were developed between 1986 and 2006. A lot. No, compare that to the number of useful inventions that were created between, say, 1966 and 1986, or between 1946 and 1966.
Well, let's look at it in computer terms.
1946-1966: development of the mainframe computer, based on the pioneering work that took place during WW2. Invention of procedural and functional programming. 1966-1986: development of the modern desktop computer with GUI and applications. Creation of the internet. Invention of object-oriented programming. 1986-2006: development of Microsoft Windows and videogames.
Yup, clearly progression has been accelerating. I mean, the invention of the entire concept of computing simply can't compare to the invention of Final Fantasy XVIII.
What about between 1890 and 1910?
What about it? One of the most innovative periods of human history, during which the introduction of the automobile totally changed the entire face of the developed world. Oh, and there was this other invention then called the "airplane". You may have heard of it, I believe it's still used in some parts of the world.
To differentiate their product from Openoffice.org.
Their product is already very well differentiated from OpenOffice.org.
Microsoft Office is the one that works. OpenOffice.org is the one that doesn't understand all the VBA macros your office has accumulated over the years, making it completely useless in the real world.
its not plagiarism if you cite the source - passing off the work as your own is one of the things that seperates copyright infringement from plagiarism.
You are right to say that it is a question of presentation. You are wrong to say that citing the source necessarily stops it being plagiarism.
For example, the following paragraph would be an example of plagiarism:
In this comment, Whiney Mac Fanboy explains one difference between plagiarism and copyright infringement, namely whether you are passing the work off as your own or not. It's not plagiarism if you cite the source, though it may still be an inappropriate use.
Why is that plagiarism? I cited the source, didn't I? Yes, but I didn't identify which words were my own and which were a paraphrase of what you said -- and that might be a deliberate attempt to make the reader assume that some of what I wrote was a commentary on or interpretation of your comment, when in fact it is simply a straight copy of your words with only minimal rearrangement. In other words, plagiarism.
Worked great last time I used it, although the configuration involved editing text files.
Yes: it's very tough to get up and running (I tried and gave up two or three times before I eventually got it all working to my satisfaction), but once everything's configured, it does exactly what it says on the tin.
The last release came out in February. That's recent enough to indicate that it's still being developed.
And the next release is imminent; version 0.6.4-pre2 was released for testing just five days ago. I'd say it's not quite dead yet.
For all the usual reasons that there shouldn't be any other new domains. When was the last time you saw a legitimate business with a.biz domain? Or a legitimate anything with a.info domain? They're not needed and are used almost exclusively for scams.
All it would mean would be that everyone would have to buy the.xxx version of their domain as well. For some reason I don't think Coca-Cola wants a porn site at www.cocacola.xxx.
Not mandatory, but if a particular site wants to say right up front, "Hey, I'm porn," what's wrong with that?
Um, exactly what is not upfront about "www.hot-lesbian-porn-pictures.com"? I don't see them panicking that people might not realise what their site is about, just because it doesn't have an ".xxx" on the end.
Maybe it seems a little much to give a whole domain to a single topic, but if you don't want to accidentally see porn it gives you a decent way to greatly reduce the amount you see
How? It will be of precisely ZERO VALUE for filtering out porn unless it's mandatory. And any attempt to make it mandatory would be unenforcable.
Look, if you don't want to accidentally see porn, all you have to do is install filtering software, which you'd have to do anyway to avoid being redirected from a.com to a.xxx domain, and which works perfectly well today without needing any special domains at all. See? Capitalism has already provided the answer by making available products that meet a consumer demand. There is no need whatsoever for any legislative solution.
Perheaps that Wii controller will offer something new, but I expect it to still suck in FPS scenarios (mid-air hand motion lacks precision even if it has the speed)
I dunno. Last I heard, even the most technologically-advanced militaries still find mid-air hand motion the most efficient technique for infantry use.
At least, if anyone's started equipping their troops with experimental mouse-operated weapons, they've managed to keep it jolly quiet.
Java is rarely less than 50% as fast as C and often significantly faster.
This claim is made in every Java-related thread. In fact, with every thread, the claim gets more extravagant. You're the first person I've seen assert that it is often faster, or significantly faster.
So, where's the proof, please? Which scientific, peer-reviewed study are you referring to that demonstrates that Java is "often significantly faster" than C?
All I see in your post is fantastic claims supported by fast talking and handwaving. If there is anything to what you are saying, I would rather like to see, you know, just a teensy bit of evidence?
So, we know from that lawsuit that Apple believes that an interface can be legally owned, and that litigation is an appropriate way to resolve a situation where a more successful competitor is using a similar interface to your own.
How does the saying go again? "Live by the sword..."
Slashdot Mirror
It's like coming up with an idea for building a flying car, but never building one. When someone takes your ideas and expands upon them and creates a flying car, they get the credit.
And you sue them for patent infringement. After waiting for their flying car to become a commercial success, of course.
I can't think of an example of a texture-shaded polygonal 3D PC game from 1994 or earlier, but I'm sure some exist.
I'm 90% sure Rowan's "Operation Overlord" was textured, and I'm 100% sure Origin's "Wing Commander: Armada" was textured. Both of those were released months before the Playstation was launched.
And when you find out your kids do that,
"When"? I know my parents certainly never found out what I was up to.
If you think you know everything your kids are doing, then either you're sadly deluded, or you've installed spy cameras (including infra-red) in every room of your house, fitted your kids with tracking beacons, and hired bodyguards to watch their every move. And they're going to grow up a billion times more damaged than if they'd (shock! horror!) been exposed to the "wrong" sort of fiction.
1. From a "free speech" point of view, how is this any different than than your local newspaper's editorial policy? Some newspapers just won't print some kinds of content, even if the author is willing to pay for the service.
Does your local newspaper prevent you from subscribing to a different newspaper? No? Then that's the difference: it's trivial to switch newspapers, but it's very difficult to switch ISPs, particularly if you live in one of the many parts of the world where there is practically no competition.
2. Does this form of content limitation take away any of the rights you had before the dawn of email?
Of course not. Nor would banning cars take away any of the rights you had before the invention of the automobile, but if the government introduced a bill to ban cars, would you sit back and tell everyone to suck it up because "back in the day, we drove around in horse-drawn carriages"? Somehow I doubt it.
The mere fact that a technology only became ubiquitous recently does not automatically mean that people have no right to expect to be able to rely on it.
Delphi the language is based on Turbo pascal.
Correct.
However, the back-end of the Windows delphi program was borland's c compiler, not the dos-based pascal compiler, which they didn't port to windows.
Really? What was that "Turbo Pascal for Windows" product they released in 1991, then?
I'd love to see some actual reliable sources to support your claim, if you have any. See, Pascal's design isn't actually as similar to C's as you seem to think. It's not easy to write a direct translator.
If you care to look, Delphi supports compiling c++ programs.
Only because they combined it with the originally-separate product "C++Builder". Which was created after Delphi.
Let's say Americans steal something that's Swedish.
Please try to keep your analogies vaguely relevant. We're talking about copyright infringement here, not theft, so let's at least keep it IP-related. Examples of relevant crimes would be Americans infringing Swedish copyrights (downloading ABBA tracks or whatever), or violating other Swedish IP laws (maybe making fake IKEA furniture, or using industrial espionage to get illegal access to Saab trade secrets).
Admittedly the car steering analogy is a bit silly
No, he misrepresented that as well. He presents it as though the FSF is claiming DRM is like a car that can't be steered. If he seriously thought that, then he's an idiot. In fact, the FSF is saying DRM is like a car that won't let you steer it -- i.e., one that steers itself, driving you where the car makers decide you ought to want to drive.
One can imagine quite a lot of people happily buying a self-driving car - how convenient! Except... how odd, when you tell it you want to drive to a hotel in Boston, it has a list of the hotels you can drive to, and they're all big chains. The nice little independent one you've booked isn't an option. And it's going to drive several hundred miles out of your way, to avoid having to fill up at an unapproved gas station. And you're going to be forced to watch adverts all the way...
And that's actually not a bad analogy for one form of DRM dystopia, the one where the content creators literally control all the content that gets produced, and amateurs literally cannot play back home recordings and the like. Of course that's not a plausible scenario. But hyperbole has always been an acceptable rhetorical device.
500 years ago, folks were 100% less likely to get run over, HIV, an aeroplane driven into their office building. That much is fact.
Actually, they were almost infinitely more likely to be run over by a horse-drawn vehicle (look up the fatality rates for cart accidents in medieval times - it's rather scary). They were infinitely more likely to die from measles or smallpox or scarlet fever or tuberculosis or any number of other diseases which have either been wiped out or contained. The Black Death killed 1/3 of the population of Europe: what recent epidemic has even come close to that?
I'll grant you the aeroplane one. However, I will note that if you take into account every single person who has ever had an aeroplane flown into their office building, the figure is about 0.0000001% of the world's population. Let's just say it's not the foremost worry on my mind when I get out of bed each morning.
There are new diseases, new strains, new cancers, new wars, new weapons, new ways to die.
And at the same time most of the old diseases and strains have been practically eliminated (or cures found); many cancers can be cured; today's wars involve far fewer deaths than the wars of the mid-20th century; today's weapons of mass destruction have in practice never been used by terrorists, and have only been used against civilians on a handful of occasions.
The world is safer than it's ever been. Fact. Indisputable fact, proven by the easily-verified fact that life expectancies are longer than they've ever been.
No doubt Apple is tired of seeing Microsoft dominate the games market. Look out for the all-new iPippin. With an Intel chip inside, it's twice as fast as the PowerPC-based XBox 360!*
* May not actually be twice as fast outside the Reality Distortion Field. But who cares? You know you'll buy it anyway.
For case insensitive comparisons like xml, you're pretty much stuck with letter at a time.
XML is case-sensitive.
The root of the hypocracy is the concept that since an MP3 is information, and not a physical construct, then it doesn't harm anyone when you steal it.
It can't "harm anyone when you steal it", because you can't steal it. It's not a physical construct, so it can't be stolen.
It does, however, violate people's legal rights when you copy an MP3 illegally.
See? It's possible to use accurate, non-emotive language to make accurate, non-emotive statements of fact. It's not theft. And you don't have to call it something it isn't. Someone will doubtless now accuse me of trying to "justify" copyright infringement, which I'm not. Copying people's data without their permission is just as illegal as taking people's property without their permission. But it's not the same thing.
However, the people that own the rights to that MP3 do feel that it is being stolen
Yes, and often the family of a murder victim will refer to their loved one being stolen from them, and often rape victims will speak of their life being stolen from them. But nobody feels any need to refer to murder or rape as theft...
If you actually critically think about it, all proprietary software companies are forking over dough (via taxes). They paid for it, but are not allowed to use it in ways that actually give them a return.
And if you actually think critically about it for a moment, it becomes quite obvious that the fact that something was partly funded by taxes certainly should not mean that anybody who pays taxes has any right to profit from it.
For example, my education was mostly paid for by taxes. That doesn't mean that anybody has the right to make me work for them for free. If they want to benefit from my education, they have to pay me, just as they would have to pay someone who was privately educated. Why should software be any different?
And this is ignoring the simple fact that even the most restrictive open-source licenses, like the GNU GPL, by no means prevent commercial exploitation of the software they cover. I observe that Red Hat is doing quite well selling a GNU/Linux distribution, even though you can get the exact same programs for free from many other sources. And, of course, there are many ways to benefit from software without selling it; how many companies are profiting handsomely by using open-source software to meet their internal requirements? Rather a lot.
Maybe the question should be asked differently: What advantages does it offer over existing formats? Sure it provides Microsoft with their own lossy image format, making their data type portfolio complete, but what does it offer everyone else?
Higher quality at smaller sizes, plus the ability to perform certain operations like rotation without modifying the compressed data itself (which would normally require recompression, decreasing quality).
The latter is trivial, of course -- the file will doubtless merely have additional fields for rotation, filters, etc. which are processed at display-time by the decoding application -- but it's still a nice idea that could be quite useful.
You can learn that much simply by R'ing TFA. The real questions, however, which the article does not answer, are: what patents do Microsoft have on this format, and are they going to try to stop open-source programs from supporting it?
It's plausible, too. 25,000 yen is £120, so £150 would fit in VAT and the obligatory ripoff-Britain price increase.
:(
Although, £149.99 exc VAT sounds more plausible still...
Just by following a few simple common-sense guidelines, you can drastically improve the usability of any given software.
You appear to be claiming that the guidelines you quote are universal and apply to every conceivable bit of software. I would beg to differ.
Simplicity: keep things as simple as possible. Fewer options/settings/etc means less to have to figure out.
Photoshop would not be a popular program if it only provided the five most common graphical operations and only let you configure three aspects of each. It's successful precisely because it's insanely configurable.
In other words, while there is indeed a place for simplistic software (witness the popularity of basic photo editing programs that literally only offer crop, size, and red-eye removal), it is by no means desirable for all software to be simplistic. Complex tasks require complex interfaces. Simplistic interfaces limit users to the options you have chosen, and I find it hard to believe that you can imagine all the possible ways a user will want to use your program.
Don't assume user expertise: always assume your user knows NOTHING about computers.
You cannot possibly believe this applies to all software. Are you seriously saying that the writers of a kernel debugger should assume their users know nothing about computers?
Scenario-based design: don't merely dump a bundle of functionality on the user; give them a program that guides them through all the steps needed to solve their scenario. It's the difference between handing someone a graphing calculator and handing them a math expert.
If a mathematician asks for a graphing calculator, you think they should instead be handed another mathematician?
Yes, simple tasks should have simple interfaces. Anyone should be able to answer emails, browse the web, write letters, keep an address book and diary, and print photos from their digital camera.
But that does not mean that simplicity should always be prized over functionality. Some things in life are tough. I've never driven an 18-wheeler: I would not expect to be able to sit down in one and take it across the continent. I've never filed a lawsuit: I would not expect to be able to waltz into a court and win a billion-dollar case. Why should I expect computers to be any different? If users won't read manuals, that is the users' problem.
Consider how many major inventions were developed between 1986 and 2006. A lot. No, compare that to the number of useful inventions that were created between, say, 1966 and 1986, or between 1946 and 1966.
Well, let's look at it in computer terms.
1946-1966: development of the mainframe computer, based on the pioneering work that took place during WW2. Invention of procedural and functional programming.
1966-1986: development of the modern desktop computer with GUI and applications. Creation of the internet. Invention of object-oriented programming.
1986-2006: development of Microsoft Windows and videogames.
Yup, clearly progression has been accelerating. I mean, the invention of the entire concept of computing simply can't compare to the invention of Final Fantasy XVIII.
What about between 1890 and 1910?
What about it? One of the most innovative periods of human history, during which the introduction of the automobile totally changed the entire face of the developed world. Oh, and there was this other invention then called the "airplane". You may have heard of it, I believe it's still used in some parts of the world.
To differentiate their product from Openoffice.org.
Their product is already very well differentiated from OpenOffice.org.
Microsoft Office is the one that works. OpenOffice.org is the one that doesn't understand all the VBA macros your office has accumulated over the years, making it completely useless in the real world.
You are right to say that it is a question of presentation. You are wrong to say that citing the source necessarily stops it being plagiarism.
For example, the following paragraph would be an example of plagiarism:
Why is that plagiarism? I cited the source, didn't I? Yes, but I didn't identify which words were my own and which were a paraphrase of what you said -- and that might be a deliberate attempt to make the reader assume that some of what I wrote was a commentary on or interpretation of your comment, when in fact it is simply a straight copy of your words with only minimal rearrangement. In other words, plagiarism.
Worked great last time I used it, although the configuration involved editing text files.
Yes: it's very tough to get up and running (I tried and gave up two or three times before I eventually got it all working to my satisfaction), but once everything's configured, it does exactly what it says on the tin.
The last release came out in February. That's recent enough to indicate that it's still being developed.
And the next release is imminent; version 0.6.4-pre2 was released for testing just five days ago. I'd say it's not quite dead yet.
Anyway, why shouldn't there be a xxx domain?
.biz domain? Or a legitimate anything with a .info domain? They're not needed and are used almost exclusively for scams.
.xxx version of their domain as well. For some reason I don't think Coca-Cola wants a porn site at www.cocacola.xxx.
.com to a .xxx domain, and which works perfectly well today without needing any special domains at all. See? Capitalism has already provided the answer by making available products that meet a consumer demand. There is no need whatsoever for any legislative solution.
For all the usual reasons that there shouldn't be any other new domains. When was the last time you saw a legitimate business with a
All it would mean would be that everyone would have to buy the
Not mandatory, but if a particular site wants to say right up front, "Hey, I'm porn," what's wrong with that?
Um, exactly what is not upfront about "www.hot-lesbian-porn-pictures.com"? I don't see them panicking that people might not realise what their site is about, just because it doesn't have an ".xxx" on the end.
Maybe it seems a little much to give a whole domain to a single topic, but if you don't want to accidentally see porn it gives you a decent way to greatly reduce the amount you see
How? It will be of precisely ZERO VALUE for filtering out porn unless it's mandatory. And any attempt to make it mandatory would be unenforcable.
Look, if you don't want to accidentally see porn, all you have to do is install filtering software, which you'd have to do anyway to avoid being redirected from a
Perheaps that Wii controller will offer something new, but I expect it to still suck in FPS scenarios (mid-air hand motion lacks precision even if it has the speed)
I dunno. Last I heard, even the most technologically-advanced militaries still find mid-air hand motion the most efficient technique for infantry use.
At least, if anyone's started equipping their troops with experimental mouse-operated weapons, they've managed to keep it jolly quiet.
email is a text medium, like it or not.
Yes, and letters are also a text medium, "like it or not". That doesn't stop me slipping photos or money into the envelope with them.
Java is rarely less than 50% as fast as C and often significantly faster.
This claim is made in every Java-related thread. In fact, with every thread, the claim gets more extravagant. You're the first person I've seen assert that it is often faster, or significantly faster.
So, where's the proof, please? Which scientific, peer-reviewed study are you referring to that demonstrates that Java is "often significantly faster" than C?
All I see in your post is fantastic claims supported by fast talking and handwaving. If there is anything to what you are saying, I would rather like to see, you know, just a teensy bit of evidence?
Come on man. This is Slashdot, wtf is football?
Look it up.
Right, so when can Apple sue Windows for making a GUI file system for their OS?
In 1988, since you ask.
So, we know from that lawsuit that Apple believes that an interface can be legally owned, and that litigation is an appropriate way to resolve a situation where a more successful competitor is using a similar interface to your own.
How does the saying go again? "Live by the sword..."