In 100 years reproducing things will be next to free and owning an 'original' will be meaningless.
This is demonstrably not true. It's already possible to produce artificial gemstones which are essentially indistinguishable from "real" gemstones - but for some reason people still value "real" gemstones very highly, and sneer at artificial ones!
By your logic, the availability of good forgeries of any product would render genuine examples worthless. But that has never happened in the past, isn't happening now, and I doubt it ever will - not for as long as advertising continues to work.
Don't fret - your revenge is easy enough. All you have to do is spell the name of Australia's capital wrong. S-Y-D-N-E-Y is a good spelling to choose.;)
I leave it to you, then, to come up with a harmful aspect of prostitution within "The Sims" that would warrant a treatment similar to that of prostitution within meatspace.
The issue in question was that one of the participants in the "prostitution" was apparently a child. While I agree with your broad point that cybersex is not automatically bad, are you willing to state, here, in public, that you believe cybersex involving minors "does no harm"?
ideally a system would eventually arise that permits people to filter for themselves what they would see-this is to say that it would be automated somehow, as obviously anyone can filter what their own eyes see simply by choosing whether or not to hit Enter after typing a URL.
Here's the weak point in your logic, because this statement is not true. While goatse.cx still existed, for example, anyone who did not know what the site contained might well type in the URL "humourously" provided by someone online and press Enter without any idea of what they were about to see. They therefore were NOT able to filter what they saw. The same goes for many similar sites that still exist, for pornographic pop-ups and spam, and so forth.
Unless you're suggesting that computers are soon going to be able to evaluate a picture and determine whether a user wants to see it without any human guidance - which seems unlikely to be the case within the forseeable future - then sites like Goatse will never be easily filtered automatically, because of the hordes of trolls who will always describe it as beautiful, work-safe, and ideal for children.
Unless... now, here's an idea... you could have a team of responsible humans evaluating such things manually! Yes, that's it, we could use humans to determine what content matches the things a user has indicated they want to see! And we could call the guidelines they use while "moderating" these pictures "regulation", or possibly "censorship".
However, most co-op games are much better if the players can talk to each other -- text messages, a la Quake multiplayer, work, but just aren't a good substitute for voice. That means that either you need good remote voice capabilities -- and remote voice over IP has its share of problems -- or you need players to be sitting next to each other. Folks don't have a bank of computers right next to each other of the same class to play a current game, which means that, sadly, for most real-time co-op games, the PC isn't a great platform.
Nonsense. There is a fossilized phrase "beg the question" which has the meaning you describe. There is also a perfectly logical modern phrase, formed through standard sentence construction rules, "beg the question", in which "beg" carries its modern meaning of "request", meaning "raise the question".
Tell me, have you ever used the word "treacle" to refer to a kind of sugary syrup used to flavour desserts? How ignorant of you! Treacle means an antidote to snake venom. At least, it did a few hundred years ago, and we all know that language never changes, right?
Correct, and I'm not sure why you haven't gotten an informative mod yet. However, I reiterate that there are legal ways to write a closed-source module for a GPL'd program. Very strict and narrow ways, but it is possible.
I know the GPL allows you to charge ($40?), but shouldn't Lindows make the source available?
Not necessarily.
For one thing, the GPL only requires you to make source code available to the people who have the binaries. In other words, if you haven't paid, you don't have any right to complain.
Another issue is how integrated the DVD decoder is. If it's sufficiently modular, then there is nothing in the GPL to stop them distributing a totally closed-source proprietary decoder module along with a GPL'd player, provided they offer you the source code to the GPL'd player as well.
You just need to look at this from a different angle. Think of it like paying for petrol for your car.
The difference is that modes of transport which require fuel, such as cars, offer obvious and undeniable advantages over the forms of transport which don't, such as the bicycle - speed, lack of effort, the ability to carry much more baggage...
What advantage does the subscription model offer over current software, which I pay for once (for about the price of two months' subscription, going by current proposals) and can then use however I like, including online play at no extra cost?
Car analogies are a bit silly, but how about this one - if someone tried to sell you a new type of car which had to have the oil replaced every day ("to protect you against problems caused by old oil, the car won't start till you replace it"), would you buy one of those?
That's talking about Saudi fundamentalists, not Saudi geeks. You know, there are "Christian" fundamentalists in America who believe that women should have no rights, too, but we don't go round accusing all Americans of believing that.
There are probably people in Norway who believe things that would disgust you as well as me, but I'm not going to accuse you of beliving the same things as they do just because you live in the same country. Please accord Saudis the same respect.
Because they believe that women are lesser creatures that have next to no rights?
Look at how women and other religious minorities are treated before you start saying that other geeks are just like them.
Um, they do? Show me the bit in the articles where it said that all the Saudi geeks were 100% behind the fundamentalist excesses of their government.
I might as well conclude that all American geeks are creationists? After all, some people in your government are creationists, so obviously that applies to every member of the population too!
Likewise, any work produced with college equipment is usually belong to them. So you'd damn well better make sure you don't write your amazing idea down on college paper, and you'd better unplug your computer from the college network before working on that game you're writing.
Can I license Europe from them? What sort of rights do I get to Europe?
Only binary rights, I'm afraid. You can say "zero, un", and "null, ein", but if you say "deux" or "zwei" they'll demand you pay extra for the decimal version.
Great Britain is the cradle of modern democracy. Ever since the early 1700s, the rule of Parliament has been supreme.
The model in the United States is a very nice refinement of the idea, but the British were a good way along the process before the US was ever founded.
Unfortunately you will never get an American to agree with the above statement. Their history classes pound it into their heads that it was Wicked King George who oppressed the poor American colonists and sparked the revolution. The fact is that the oppressors were a British parliament every bit as democratic as the modern American system - that is, theoretically representing the people, but in practice mainly composed of the rich and educated, and dedicated to the enrichment of their own country rather than the welfare of their colonies and client states.
If this ever happens, all my hardware is going to be shipped in from truly free countries, even if I have to build my own damn power supplies to make it all work.
The sad thing is that the country most likely to carry on making unrestricted hardware, if the USA makes DRM a legal requirement, is China, which is not a free country by any measure.
Carefully note that every option requires they have ALREADY given the source or a written offer for the source. If they have not ALREADY done that then they are ALREADY guilty of copyright infringment. Releasing the source now does not change the fact that they have already broken the law and are still liable for a fortune in cash damages for that previous infringment.
This is true. However, it might be wise to lay off the demands a little. You're much more likely to avoid a costly legal battle if you sound reasonable, and saying "oh, by the way, you're thieving scum and you must pay major-league damages EVEN IF you start following the license requirements" is not going to encourage any company to start following the license requirements.
In theory, a Flash-based site could be more accessible than HTML. The lack of non-standard-conforming implementations, and vector graphics base, are actually very nice.
The problem is that nobody seems to be able to use Flash without (a) plonking it in a non-resizable 640x480 box that gets lost somewhere in the vast expanses of any modern monitor (thus losing the WHOLE POINT of vector graphics), and (b) getting so excited about the Cool Stuff they can do with Flash that they forget about making the site consistent and usable.
Roll on SVG... maybe we'll finally have decent sites that work at decent sizes then.
Slashdot Mirror
In 100 years reproducing things will be next to free and owning an 'original' will be meaningless.
This is demonstrably not true. It's already possible to produce artificial gemstones which are essentially indistinguishable from "real" gemstones - but for some reason people still value "real" gemstones very highly, and sneer at artificial ones!
By your logic, the availability of good forgeries of any product would render genuine examples worthless. But that has never happened in the past, isn't happening now, and I doubt it ever will - not for as long as advertising continues to work.
Don't fret - your revenge is easy enough. All you have to do is spell the name of Australia's capital wrong. S-Y-D-N-E-Y is a good spelling to choose. ;)
I leave it to you, then, to come up with a harmful aspect of prostitution within "The Sims" that would warrant a treatment similar to that of prostitution within meatspace.
The issue in question was that one of the participants in the "prostitution" was apparently a child. While I agree with your broad point that cybersex is not automatically bad, are you willing to state, here, in public, that you believe cybersex involving minors "does no harm"?
ideally a system would eventually arise that permits people to filter for themselves what they would see-this is to say that it would be automated somehow, as obviously anyone can filter what their own eyes see simply by choosing whether or not to hit Enter after typing a URL.
Here's the weak point in your logic, because this statement is not true. While goatse.cx still existed, for example, anyone who did not know what the site contained might well type in the URL "humourously" provided by someone online and press Enter without any idea of what they were about to see. They therefore were NOT able to filter what they saw. The same goes for many similar sites that still exist, for pornographic pop-ups and spam, and so forth.
Unless you're suggesting that computers are soon going to be able to evaluate a picture and determine whether a user wants to see it without any human guidance - which seems unlikely to be the case within the forseeable future - then sites like Goatse will never be easily filtered automatically, because of the hordes of trolls who will always describe it as beautiful, work-safe, and ideal for children.
Unless... now, here's an idea... you could have a team of responsible humans evaluating such things manually! Yes, that's it, we could use humans to determine what content matches the things a user has indicated they want to see! And we could call the guidelines they use while "moderating" these pictures "regulation", or possibly "censorship".
Oh, wait a minute...
However, most co-op games are much better if the players can talk to each other -- text messages, a la Quake multiplayer, work, but just aren't a good substitute for voice. That means that either you need good remote voice capabilities -- and remote voice over IP has its share of problems -- or you need players to be sitting next to each other. Folks don't have a bank of computers right next to each other of the same class to play a current game, which means that, sadly, for most real-time co-op games, the PC isn't a great platform.
Ever hear of a thing called a "lan party"?
Nonsense. There is a fossilized phrase "beg the question" which has the meaning you describe. There is also a perfectly logical modern phrase, formed through standard sentence construction rules, "beg the question", in which "beg" carries its modern meaning of "request", meaning "raise the question".
Tell me, have you ever used the word "treacle" to refer to a kind of sugary syrup used to flavour desserts? How ignorant of you! Treacle means an antidote to snake venom. At least, it did a few hundred years ago, and we all know that language never changes, right?
Correct, and I'm not sure why you haven't gotten an informative mod yet. However, I reiterate that there are legal ways to write a closed-source module for a GPL'd program. Very strict and narrow ways, but it is possible.
I know the GPL allows you to charge ($40?), but shouldn't Lindows make the source available?
Not necessarily.
For one thing, the GPL only requires you to make source code available to the people who have the binaries. In other words, if you haven't paid, you don't have any right to complain.
Another issue is how integrated the DVD decoder is. If it's sufficiently modular, then there is nothing in the GPL to stop them distributing a totally closed-source proprietary decoder module along with a GPL'd player, provided they offer you the source code to the GPL'd player as well.
The grandparent poster was NOT saying that there were no windows programs with silly names; but that there are no OSS programs with sensible names.
I suppose things like ImageMagick, Sendmail, and OpenOffice don't count?
You just need to look at this from a different angle. Think of it like paying for petrol for your car.
The difference is that modes of transport which require fuel, such as cars, offer obvious and undeniable advantages over the forms of transport which don't, such as the bicycle - speed, lack of effort, the ability to carry much more baggage...
What advantage does the subscription model offer over current software, which I pay for once (for about the price of two months' subscription, going by current proposals) and can then use however I like, including online play at no extra cost?
Car analogies are a bit silly, but how about this one - if someone tried to sell you a new type of car which had to have the oil replaced every day ("to protect you against problems caused by old oil, the car won't start till you replace it"), would you buy one of those?
That's talking about Saudi fundamentalists, not Saudi geeks. You know, there are "Christian" fundamentalists in America who believe that women should have no rights, too, but we don't go round accusing all Americans of believing that.
There are probably people in Norway who believe things that would disgust you as well as me, but I'm not going to accuse you of beliving the same things as they do just because you live in the same country. Please accord Saudis the same respect.
Because they believe that women are lesser creatures that have next to no rights?
Look at how women and other religious minorities are treated before you start saying that other geeks are just like them.
Um, they do? Show me the bit in the articles where it said that all the Saudi geeks were 100% behind the fundamentalist excesses of their government.
I might as well conclude that all American geeks are creationists? After all, some people in your government are creationists, so obviously that applies to every member of the population too!
Likewise, any work produced with college equipment is usually belong to them. So you'd damn well better make sure you don't write your amazing idea down on college paper, and you'd better unplug your computer from the college network before working on that game you're writing.
Can I license Europe from them? What sort of rights do I get to Europe?
Only binary rights, I'm afraid. You can say "zero, un", and "null, ein", but if you say "deux" or "zwei" they'll demand you pay extra for the decimal version.
Great Britain is the cradle of modern democracy. Ever since the early 1700s, the rule of Parliament has been supreme.
The model in the United States is a very nice refinement of the idea, but the British were a good way along the process before the US was ever founded.
Unfortunately you will never get an American to agree with the above statement. Their history classes pound it into their heads that it was Wicked King George who oppressed the poor American colonists and sparked the revolution. The fact is that the oppressors were a British parliament every bit as democratic as the modern American system - that is, theoretically representing the people, but in practice mainly composed of the rich and educated, and dedicated to the enrichment of their own country rather than the welfare of their colonies and client states.
Here you go - $0.00, $0.00. I'll expect you here at 8 am tomorrow.
The problem with that is that most of us receive 99% of our legitimate email from people who wouldn't know a public key if it bit them.
Not to mention mailing lists and other forms of solicited mass email - although I guess whitelisting would let most of that through easily enough.
Or, in three words: No silver bullet.
If this ever happens, all my hardware is going to be shipped in from truly free countries, even if I have to build my own damn power supplies to make it all work.
The sad thing is that the country most likely to carry on making unrestricted hardware, if the USA makes DRM a legal requirement, is China, which is not a free country by any measure.
Oh, the irony.
emulation may be cheaper, but nothing compares to having the actual system and carts.
Your SNES includes hq2x resolution enhancement, does it? And fast-forward/rewind buttons? And save states? And high-res filtered mode 7?
Nope, emulation doesn't have anything to offer that isn't there in the original platform...
>To use your analogy: it's $10 for the paperback edition and $20 for the hardback
Some forms of this might also be considered "bait and switch", which possibly could be illegal is certain kinds of situations.
No problem... just copy the shops and describe your work as costing "from $0.00"!
Carefully note that every option requires they have ALREADY given the source or a written offer for the source. If they have not ALREADY done that then they are ALREADY guilty of copyright infringment. Releasing the source now does not change the fact that they have already broken the law and are still liable for a fortune in cash damages for that previous infringment.
This is true. However, it might be wise to lay off the demands a little. You're much more likely to avoid a costly legal battle if you sound reasonable, and saying "oh, by the way, you're thieving scum and you must pay major-league damages EVEN IF you start following the license requirements" is not going to encourage any company to start following the license requirements.
jigoku e ike Darl-san
Um... I'm not sure the "-san" is quite appropriate, though. You do realise it's a polite suffix?
In theory, a Flash-based site could be more accessible than HTML. The lack of non-standard-conforming implementations, and vector graphics base, are actually very nice.
The problem is that nobody seems to be able to use Flash without (a) plonking it in a non-resizable 640x480 box that gets lost somewhere in the vast expanses of any modern monitor (thus losing the WHOLE POINT of vector graphics), and (b) getting so excited about the Cool Stuff they can do with Flash that they forget about making the site consistent and usable.
Roll on SVG... maybe we'll finally have decent sites that work at decent sizes then.
we'll see an OpenOffice that runs in X off of this SFU kit
Well... you might, if this SFU kit contained an X server.
Which it doesn't.