>Using the word 'whacko' immediately discredits your post. Only in your eyes. It didn't diminish the post in mine. Wait, I guess your opinion means more than mine, right?
>Using the term 'big whoop' seriously questions your age and/or maturity. Actually, I took the phrasing as a clear attempt to show complete disdain, and thought it quite effective.
>Your feelings/opinions are clearly defined. As opposed to those that attempt to hide theirs by stating them as fact, as you do in your reply? "That is also false. Hybrids were beginning to become popular before the recent gas cost increases. And they will continue to remain popular even after Iraqi/Alaskan/etc. oil starts flowing into the US in the near future." Note that you provide nothing to support your statements, and in addition, one gets the impression that you're precogisant, as you make a claim about the future in the second sentence.
That's a nice trick, BTW - I don't suppose you could use it to obtain the winning lottery numbers for me, please?
>Your views have already been clearly defined. As have yours.
>It does not mean anyone else shares your feelings/opinions nor does it make them any more valid. Nor does it mean the contrary. And, with a little more self-honesty and conviction, you'd have noted that the same applies to you as well.
>we get a ton of questions and praise from complete strangers everywhere we stop. Must be nice to have crowds of strangers gathered outside your home. Are you sure they're all there to admire your car? Perhaps they're just there to ask you to move out? Or, maybe they're anti-environmentalist whackos gathered in protest:)
Finally, your last paragraph disturbs me greatly: "Also, not everyone in the world is selfish. There are people who believe in doing what is right, not just what benefits only them." You do what is right to avoid being selfish? I prefer to do what is right for its own sake. Maybe you should spend more time investigating your motivations? I'd imagine that once you have them straightened out, you'd be less intolerant and self-righteous.
>anything that is not a tangible object should cost nothing Using that logic, then you shouldn't be paid for any job you ever do - after all, it's just time on your part, right? Time spent exercising skills, knowledge, experience... but none of those are tangible things either, right? The cost to reproduce those on demand, are nil - so why should you get paid?
>You'd expect the price of the service to be proportional to how much work it takes to render the service. Actually, I don't, and I suspect that many others (most?) don't either. I expect the price to be proportional to the type of service rendered, the skill(s), knowledge and experience necessary to render it, and the amount of time needed to do so.
>Paying for information is simply not something many people are ready to do. The flaw in this statement, of course, is that software isn't "information" in any generally accepted sense. I'm sure you'd like to think so, to make it fall within the whole "information wants to be free" "thing". But, your desires notwithstanding, it isn't so, nor should it be.
So, to be accurate, and honest with yourself and the world, you should rephrase it: "Paying for software is simply not something I want to do, and I'd like to think that many others feel the same". There, that's better:)
>The idea that an idea has monetary value is not something I agree with. You're confused. Actually, I initially thought you were a troll, but I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Here's an exercise: Let's consider an idea, for a program that allows someone to capture words, sentences, etc., in electronic form. Let's call this idea a "word processor". Got it? Great!
Congratulations, you're now in possession of an idea for which you paid nothing.
The specific manifestation of that idea in software, however, is owned by the person or company that created it. This is called "copyright", perhaps you've heard of it? In addition, the terms under which that is released is also owned by them, as copyright holders.
You are free to not accept those terms, which also means that you're not entitled to benefit from the items so protected.
Why wire it up to an external power supply? You can get a splitter that has the power connecter that you need. It's basically a Y power splitter that has a power connector for an internal FDD on one side.
You can probably pick them up at CompUSA, etc., along with a cheap internal FDD and interface cable.
Turn off the computer, open the case, hook it all up and there you go. The whole cost should be around $20, I'd say, more or less.
We're already interconnected, and while you're waxing philosophical about sharing ideas freely, here's one for you (feel free to share it with your friends): Why not try respecting other people's property, and by extension, them? If they're not as enlightened as you, and want to charge for a song whose copyright they own, that makes them someone to be pitied, not abused. Feel free to give away whatever you want that's yours, though.
I'd like to think that the real evolution of our species includes respect for others, eventually. My parents dealt with this in part when I was a child, simply by teaching me not to take things that didn't belong to me.
The real issue is one of respect, too few people have it for others, which I generally think is an indication that they have little for themselves.
I do the same thing, myself. I go to stores, steal clothes and wear them for awhile. Then, I throw away the ones that I don't like, and go back to the store and pay for the ones that I do. If I'm gonna spend money on a shirt I better know for a fact I like it.
Yes, the above is sarcastic. Yes, I know the analogy isn't exact, but it's correct in essence: You want the benefit of something that isn't yours without paying for it, until you decide that it's worth paying for... by which point you've already derived the benefit of it, regardless of whether you think it's worth anything or not. What's to stop you from never paying? Your honesty? If you were honest, you'd not have infringed on someone else's copyright in the first place.
Look, I don't care that you do this - I just get tired of seeing these kinds of rationalizations on Slashdot. There's nothing newsworthy or interesting about copyright infringement; any idiot can do it, and its apparent that many do. Those of us that don't get tired of listening to you try to justify it.
Finally, not to pick nits, but this particular one is too egregious to let slide: The word is "paid", not "payed".
Here's something that's cool to try: Go retro. I mean, hardcore retro.
Here's how it works:
Get a copy of, for example, Zork I - III, which are freely available, on just about any platform you care to name. Start with Zork I, and set a limit: Since all the Zorks show the score and the turns to get that score, the challenge is to get the most points, in the least amount of time, without cheating (as in, looking up hints, etc.) - so, you could say: The person with the best points/turns played ratio after 5 business days wins.
The best thing is: Since your computers are old, this is ideal for them - it places no demands at all upon them. And, it supports save games, etc., so, it's ideal for time-limited play.
It's not "multi-user", in the traditional sense... but why does it have to be?
Just a thought.
But, if you're only into the FPS kinda thing, I'd suggest Doom II, if your LAN supports IPX. If it doesn't, I'd suggest the variants that offer TCP/IP connectivity... or, talk to your LAN Admin: At this point, IPX is all but phased out, and so, represents a miniscule amount of traffic, with regards to your purposes... adding IPX to a few PCs' network stacks won't even touch his overall traffic.
Doom II, under DOSbox, would run REALLY fast in your environment.
And, there's a lot of nice DM WADs around, still. Unfortunately, they're limited to 4 players, if you use the original Doom II.
TeamTNT is one place to check. They've some of THE best DM WADs I've ever seen for Doom II: Eternal Deathmatch, was, and is, in my mind, one of the best, most finely crafted, Doom II DM WADs EVER made. Fast, clean...
I used to setup after hours Deathmatches with my techs to play it, as a morale booster: We had enough PCs in the office to support 4 players. So, I bought 4 copies of Doom II. And, for the cynical, I DID it on purpose... and it was a tax-write-off, to boot, as I paid for those 4 legal copies with my corporation-issued credit card... and my accountant approved it as a tax write-off, under Federal Law:). I'd bought them with the explicit purpose of being legally entitled to play 4 player Doom II, on our corporate LAN, for business purposes that I, as Vice President, deemed necessary for the morale of our technicians.
So, the first 4 (out of whoever showed up) were chosen randomly, as the rest of us watched, cheered, etc... and the winner, after half an hour, stayed on, while the next 3 replaced the losers....
The cool thing was, it was a never-ending cycle - all we had to do was recycle the losers, for so long as they were willing to stay... and, even better, we all got to learn each others play styles, and kill the better players, from time to time, even if one was so poor a player as me (their Boss... but not as bad a player as you'd think: Sometimes, it's good to "die", so as to bolster morale *grin*).
But, please - don't only consider purely multi-player games: There's a multiverse out there now: You can CHOOSE anything you want, and apply it as you wish... the REAL question is: HOW do you want to be challenged?
First, there have always been middlemen: There are distributors, retail stores... MightyMartian's comment about them not "liking" middlemen is simply wrong. If they didn't, they'd have their own stores and sell their products exclusively through them.
However, the companies that produce the music and movies could do worse than simply eliminate the middlemen for electronic distribution and sell directly to whoever wants to buy as their profit margins would be higher if they did, even after infrastructure overhead.
Second: It's not extortion. If you think that a company charges too much for their products, you can simply choose not to buy.
So, the only thing that is really interesting about the post is the choice of the word "extortion", implying that the poster is somehow being forced to buy something that isn't desired. I'm curious how this works: Do representatives of the RIAA or MPAA escort you to a store at gunpoint and force you to buy CDs and DVDs?
Your reasoning skills are lacking, so I'll help you out:
If you're using a copy of Photoshop that you obtained through copyright infringment, then the loss to Adobe is the amount that they would have made if you bought it. It doesn't matter whether or not you WOULD have bought it, since you're obtaining the benefit of it, and it is exactly that benefit which Adobe licenses for a fee.
So, every act of infringement is a financial loss for the copyright holder, by definition, since you're NOT buying the IP itself, only the right to use it under the terms dictated by the copyright holder, and it is the fee that you've avoided by pirating.
I've not read ANY of the replies to this article, as this is ridiculous - is there no rational thought left on Slashdot at all?!?
"When I started working for my employer several years ago I signed an IP agreement that states anything I think while working for them is theirs, as well as anything I've ever thought in the past if it enters their building; dumb, but I needed a job."
I call bullshit: You claim to have signed a contract - post it.
So, if you think about anything, your employer somehow then owns it? BULLSHIT.
Let's just take that to its logical conclusion, shall we?
You wake up in the morning, and think that you have to take a dump... so, you do so. Then you go to work, and, as you walk into work, you recall, briefly, having taken that dump... so, because it is part of "anything I've ever thought in the past"... they now own it (Actually, they own it twice over now, yes?). Do you then inform them? After all, they own it by the terms of your contract, and if you don't, then you're depriving them of something to which they're entitled and are then in breach of contract.
Later, you're sitting in your cubicle, and you look down and think "I like these shoes"... so, since you thought about your shoes, they now own them? Do you take them off and give them to your manager? What happens if you should chance to think about other articles of clothing throughout the day? Do you eventually leave naked?
Worse, being naked... you look down and note your penis: Whoops - you just thought about it! Now, they own that too!
Hopefully they'll then come and take ownership of it, chop it off and so prevent you from reproducing, thereby improving the human race.
How about creating a Windows file system that is resistent to fragmentation?
Hell, Novell managed to do it ages ago, with the file system that they created for NetWare... 'way back when NetWare 286 was state of the art for Network Operating Systems...
Later, it just got better, with sub-block allocation, as an example.
NTFS is up to, what, version 5? And, Microsoft still hasn't managed to make it efficient... file system fragmentation over time pretty much creates the "need" to replace computers: The defragger that comes with Windows XP, for example, is woefully inefficient... and the users don't run it anyway.
So, over time the perception is that "the computer is too slow"... or, "the server is slow"... when the reality is that, barring hardware malfunction, the processor will run at its rated speed forever.. as will memory... the slowdown comes from filesystem access, which, using NTFS, will degrade over time, if the filesystem is not defragmented.
And,if you use the Windows defrag utility, it won't fully defragment the filesystem: It is a subset of Executive Software's Diskeeper, and so, it's in the latter's best interest to be sure that it doesn't.
As one example: It cannot defragment NTFS' Master File Table (MFT). Another: It requires multiple passes to come close to anything approaching what the purchased version does, and again, who's going to do that?
I wonder how many computer hardware upgrades have been driven by this over the years... more importantly, Windows Server upgrades?
Actually, YOU couldn't have personified the attitude of many Slashdot members any better, which basically seems to stem from the "free as in beer" idea... but gets twisted and extended beyond that to encompass things that go beyond what has been offered under those terms.
Once you get a taste of "free as in beer", you will settle for nothing less, everywhere... mostly because you're greedy, selfish, cheap, clueless, unskilled, noncreative and ignorant.
You want all the things that you lack, so that you can be entertained, diverted, assisted; to benefit, without having to pay, nor think of giving anything back... and, you think that you're entitled to that, simply because you exist.
In short, you're a parasite.
Or, worse: If you CAN create, and offer such up for free, you think that in so doing, you should automatically get EVERYONE else's works for free, the warped logic being: "Hey, I'm as good as anyone else, and I'm giving away all my creations, which, because I'm as good as anyone else, are as good as anyone else's, for free, so I should get everyone else's stuff for free too!"
Sorry, Sparky, it doesn't work that way, either.
Here's the reality: Don't like the terms under which someone offers their copyrighted materials to you? That's fine, you don't have to buy it: Nobody's standing next to you with a pistol to your head.
The thing is: YOU are free to do whatever you want with the things that you create and copyright... and SO IS EVERYONE ELSE.
Which ALSO includes placing restrictions upon it, as they see fit.You may not like it, and probably don't, but that's OK - they aren't you (surprise!).
And, regardless of whether you like it or not, whether you think it's "right" (whatever the fuck THAT means) or not.. they have the RIGHT to do that.. because they own the copyrights to their works, and YOU do not.
And people like you, posting drivel such as you did, only end up looking cheap,selfish,ignorant and greedy.
So, basically, what you're saying is this: You think that you have the right to determine whether or not you should pay for someone else's IP, AFTER you've already garnered the benefit of it? Or, are you saying that you think that you have the right to benefit from it for free, because you think that it is crap?
Ah, I get it - either stance is in strict accordance with the beliefs of the pro-piracy (Whoops, I'm sorry: Pro-copyright infringement - I need to learn to be more politically correct around here) faction here on Slashdot, and one of them got mod points.
"...on a sidenote, I've spent more on CD's this year, than any year prior, and I made less than the year prior (by a good margin)" So? What's your point? You spent more money on non-essentials this year than last, even though you made less money? Are we supposed to congratulate you? Feel sorry for you? What?
Finally, I note with no small amount of cynicism that the URL you link to is "Copyright Matthew Minix 2004". If you are the copyright holder, then that's more than a little hypocritical, don't you think?
I swear, it's posts such as yours that force me to believe in God - there's no way they could happen by chance. It HAS to be a test for the rest of us, there's just no other explanation.
And I think, with some re-wording, that I just made up my new sig... so I suppose I should thank you for the inspiration.
Nowhere in the Preamble to the Constitution does it state "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness".
The Preamble reads:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
I think you're thinking of the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
And this:
Now I would like anyone to tell me how copying stuff is going to deprive anyone of Liberty. And tell me, how the persuit of happyness wouldn't include sharing information at your disposal with people who you happen to come into.
Just made me laugh. Not only are you completely confused about what is in the Constitution, you use your confusion to justify copyright infringement.
I tried to parse: "sharing information at your disposal with people you happen to come into."... and after blinking hard a few times to ensure that I wasn't misreading it, I ignored other possible interpretations and decided that you intended to say "sharing information at your disposal with people who you happen to come into contact with."
So, here's the answer, although I suspect you're not going to like it: If the "information" to which you are referring is copyrighted, it isn't yours to share without the permission of the copyright holder, with the exception of fair use. Doing so is called "copyright infringement" and is illegal. Sometimes, people even get arrested for it, as was mentioned in the article.
And that's what the whole ruckus is about. You see, there's a small but vocal minority here on Slashdot that feel as though their "right" to be entertained for free via copyright infringement should supercede the rights of the copyright holders to make money from their copyrights.
The infringers rationalize it in various ways, but all the justifications are variants of greed and selfishness. And, in the truest form of irony, many of these same people claim that it is the copyright holders themselves that are greedy and selfish for insisting that they be allowed to make money from their copyrights.
Really, it comes down to money. The copyright holders want to make money from their copyrights and the infringers want to benefit from the copyrighted materials without paying.
If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the copyright holders are going to win. They have the money, and so can buy the politicians to make the laws that they want. All the infringers have are places such as this where they gather to piss and moan about wrong the laws are and how evil the big bad corporations are and how information wants to be free as in beer so that they can be entertained by the skills, talent and creativity of others without having to pay for it.
I also suspect that it is also the reason why so many of them also like the OSS movement. They can't code themselves, but being able to download a Linux distribution and install it on the 'puter that Mom and Dad bought them makes them feel elite, and smug because it was free.
It's a pity you didn't have enough strength of conviction to post non-AC.
The claim is mostly inaccurate because it presupposes that the copying individual would otherwise have bought a copy from the publisher. That is occasionally true, but more often false; and when it is false, the claimed loss does not occur.
This is provably false: Given any instance of copyright infringement, the loss occurs regardless of whether or not the person would have bought it or not, simply by virtue of the fact that the infringer has benefitted from the copyrighted material without paying for the privilege to do so under the terms that the copyright holder has established.
The copyright holder has the right to establish the terms under which those items they have copyrighted are used, for the duration of the copyright (within limits: They can't ask for your first born child in return for a copy of some pop diva's latest album, but they CAN ask for money). If those terms include payment, then the benefit of obtaining access to the copyrighted material without payment, with the exception of fair use, is infringement, and leads directly to a loss, at the rate of one loss per act of infringement. The amounts vary, naturally, but the loss is real because a transaction took place but the copyright holder was not compensated under the terms they established.
And another point - you're not allowed to infringe their copyright just because you don't agree with their terms, no matter how you try to justify it.
I don't know why so many people here have a problem understanding that. They seem to think that that they are free to ignore the law when it is convenient, a point the AC poster makes perfectly clear:
If the public decides it can share copies, then the publisher is not entitled to expect to be paid for each copy
Well, I highly doubt that you represent the "public"... but you do seem to represent the selfish, immature and greedy demographic on Slashdot quite well.
I'm curious: Do you believe that this should extend to other areas as well? What if the "public" decides, as an inflammatory example, that it is OK to beat someone because of their race, or perhaps their religion?
Or is it just OK when it's something you want, but don't want to pay for? And how, exactly, is that different from the commonly accepted definition of greed?
it was only based on characters he and gail Anne Herd had created.
Actually, if you read the end credits in T1, you'll discover acknowledgement to a short story called "Soldier" by Harlan Ellison. Cameron was sued for ripping off the idea for the Terminator from this story. The lawsuit was settled out of court, and part of the settlement was the inclusion of the acknowledgment.
Slashdot Mirror
As opposed to a self-righteous jerk with an over-developed sense of self-importance?
>Using the word 'whacko' immediately discredits your post.
:)
Only in your eyes. It didn't diminish the post in mine. Wait, I guess your opinion means more than mine, right?
>Using the term 'big whoop' seriously questions your age and/or maturity.
Actually, I took the phrasing as a clear attempt to show complete disdain, and thought it quite effective.
>Your feelings/opinions are clearly defined.
As opposed to those that attempt to hide theirs by stating them as fact, as you do in your reply? "That is also false. Hybrids were beginning to become popular before the recent gas cost increases. And they will continue to remain popular even after Iraqi/Alaskan/etc. oil starts flowing into the US in the near future."
Note that you provide nothing to support your statements, and in addition, one gets the impression that you're precogisant, as you make a claim about the future in the second sentence.
That's a nice trick, BTW - I don't suppose you could use it to obtain the winning lottery numbers for me, please?
>Your views have already been clearly defined.
As have yours.
>It does not mean anyone else shares your feelings/opinions nor does it make them any more valid.
Nor does it mean the contrary. And, with a little more self-honesty and conviction, you'd have noted that the same applies to you as well.
>we get a ton of questions and praise from complete strangers everywhere we stop.
Must be nice to have crowds of strangers gathered outside your home. Are you sure they're all there to admire your car? Perhaps they're just there to ask you to move out? Or, maybe they're anti-environmentalist whackos gathered in protest
Finally, your last paragraph disturbs me greatly: "Also, not everyone in the world is selfish. There are people who believe in doing what is right, not just what benefits only them." You do what is right to avoid being selfish? I prefer to do what is right for its own sake. Maybe you should spend more time investigating your motivations? I'd imagine that once you have them straightened out, you'd be less intolerant and self-righteous.
>anything that is not a tangible object should cost nothing
:)
Using that logic, then you shouldn't be paid for any job you ever do - after all, it's just time on your part, right? Time spent exercising skills, knowledge, experience... but none of those are tangible things either, right? The cost to reproduce those on demand, are nil - so why should you get paid?
>You'd expect the price of the service to be proportional to how much work it takes to render the service.
Actually, I don't, and I suspect that many others (most?) don't either. I expect the price to be proportional to the type of service rendered, the skill(s), knowledge and experience necessary to render it, and the amount of time needed to do so.
>Paying for information is simply not something many people are ready to do.
The flaw in this statement, of course, is that software isn't "information" in any generally accepted sense. I'm sure you'd like to think so, to make it fall within the whole "information wants to be free" "thing". But, your desires notwithstanding, it isn't so, nor should it be.
So, to be accurate, and honest with yourself and the world, you should rephrase it: "Paying for software is simply not something I want to do, and I'd like to think that many others feel the same". There, that's better
>The idea that an idea has monetary value is not something I agree with.
You're confused. Actually, I initially thought you were a troll, but I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Here's an exercise: Let's consider an idea, for a program that allows someone to capture words, sentences, etc., in electronic form. Let's call this idea a "word processor". Got it? Great!
Congratulations, you're now in possession of an idea for which you paid nothing.
The specific manifestation of that idea in software, however, is owned by the person or company that created it. This is called "copyright", perhaps you've heard of it? In addition, the terms under which that is released is also owned by them, as copyright holders.
You are free to not accept those terms, which also means that you're not entitled to benefit from the items so protected.
Simple, no?
Why wire it up to an external power supply? You can get a splitter that has the power connecter that you need. It's basically a Y power splitter that has a power connector for an internal FDD on one side.
You can probably pick them up at CompUSA, etc., along with a cheap internal FDD and interface cable.
Turn off the computer, open the case, hook it all up and there you go. The whole cost should be around $20, I'd say, more or less.
Regards,
dj
You missed the part where he wrote "and pick it all up later, too". So, basically, he does the trip three times.
Clearly, "ProfaneMuthaFucka" has a lot more free time available than average.
"Let me guess"
Why guess? You can listen for yourself, and spare the rest of us your ignorance.
Oh, and his first name is spelled "Harlan", BTW.
Per the GPL, if he's making the changes only for his own use, and not for distribution, then he doesn't have to.
We're already interconnected, and while you're waxing philosophical about sharing ideas freely, here's one for you (feel free to share it with your friends): Why not try respecting other people's property, and by extension, them? If they're not as enlightened as you, and want to charge for a song whose copyright they own, that makes them someone to be pitied, not abused. Feel free to give away whatever you want that's yours, though.
I'd like to think that the real evolution of our species includes respect for others, eventually. My parents dealt with this in part when I was a child, simply by teaching me not to take things that didn't belong to me.
The real issue is one of respect, too few people have it for others, which I generally think is an indication that they have little for themselves.
I do the same thing, myself. I go to stores, steal clothes and wear them for awhile. Then, I throw away the ones that I don't like, and go back to the store and pay for the ones that I do. If I'm gonna spend money on a shirt I better know for a fact I like it.
Yes, the above is sarcastic. Yes, I know the analogy isn't exact, but it's correct in essence: You want the benefit of something that isn't yours without paying for it, until you decide that it's worth paying for... by which point you've already derived the benefit of it, regardless of whether you think it's worth anything or not. What's to stop you from never paying? Your honesty? If you were honest, you'd not have infringed on someone else's copyright in the first place.
Look, I don't care that you do this - I just get tired of seeing these kinds of rationalizations on Slashdot. There's nothing newsworthy or interesting about copyright infringement; any idiot can do it, and its apparent that many do. Those of us that don't get tired of listening to you try to justify it.
Finally, not to pick nits, but this particular one is too egregious to let slide: The word is "paid", not "payed".
Think outside the box!
:). I'd bought them with the explicit purpose of being legally entitled to play 4 player Doom II, on our corporate LAN, for business purposes that I, as Vice President, deemed necessary for the morale of our technicians.
Here's something that's cool to try: Go retro. I mean, hardcore retro.
Here's how it works:
Get a copy of, for example, Zork I - III, which are freely available, on just about any platform you care to name. Start with Zork I, and set a limit: Since all the Zorks show the score and the turns to get that score, the challenge is to get the most points, in the least amount of time, without cheating (as in, looking up hints, etc.) - so, you could say: The person with the best points/turns played ratio after 5 business days wins.
The best thing is: Since your computers are old, this is ideal for them - it places no demands at all upon them. And, it supports save games, etc., so, it's ideal for time-limited play.
It's not "multi-user", in the traditional sense... but why does it have to be?
Just a thought.
But, if you're only into the FPS kinda thing, I'd suggest Doom II, if your LAN supports IPX. If it doesn't, I'd suggest the variants that offer TCP/IP connectivity... or, talk to your LAN Admin: At this point, IPX is all but phased out, and so, represents a miniscule amount of traffic, with regards to your purposes... adding IPX to a few PCs' network stacks won't even touch his overall traffic.
Doom II, under DOSbox, would run REALLY fast in your environment.
And, there's a lot of nice DM WADs around, still. Unfortunately, they're limited to 4 players, if you use the original Doom II.
TeamTNT is one place to check. They've some of THE best DM WADs I've ever seen for Doom II: Eternal Deathmatch, was, and is, in my mind, one of the best, most finely crafted, Doom II DM WADs EVER made. Fast, clean...
I used to setup after hours Deathmatches with my techs to play it, as a morale booster: We had enough PCs in the office to support 4 players. So, I bought 4 copies of Doom II. And, for the cynical, I DID it on purpose... and it was a tax-write-off, to boot, as I paid for those 4 legal copies with my corporation-issued credit card... and my accountant approved it as a tax write-off, under Federal Law
So, the first 4 (out of whoever showed up) were chosen randomly, as the rest of us watched, cheered, etc... and the winner, after half an hour, stayed on, while the next 3 replaced the losers....
The cool thing was, it was a never-ending cycle - all we had to do was recycle the losers, for so long as they were willing to stay... and, even better, we all got to learn each others play styles, and kill the better players, from time to time, even if one was so poor a player as me (their Boss... but not as bad a player as you'd think: Sometimes, it's good to "die", so as to bolster morale *grin*).
But, please - don't only consider purely multi-player games: There's a multiverse out there now: You can CHOOSE anything you want, and apply it as you wish... the REAL question is: HOW do you want to be challenged?
Think outside the box!
Regards,
dj
Why are posts such as this modded up?
First, there have always been middlemen: There are distributors, retail stores... MightyMartian's comment about them not "liking" middlemen is simply wrong. If they didn't, they'd have their own stores and sell their products exclusively through them.
However, the companies that produce the music and movies could do worse than simply eliminate the middlemen for electronic distribution and sell directly to whoever wants to buy as their profit margins would be higher if they did, even after infrastructure overhead.
Second: It's not extortion. If you think that a company charges too much for their products, you can simply choose not to buy.
So, the only thing that is really interesting about the post is the choice of the word "extortion", implying that the poster is somehow being forced to buy something that isn't desired. I'm curious how this works: Do representatives of the RIAA or MPAA escort you to a store at gunpoint and force you to buy CDs and DVDs?
It's "Rogue".
Actually, most wet their body parts first, then lather, then rinse.
So, it'd be rinse, lather, rinse, repeat.
"potatoe"
Dan Qualye posts on Slashdot?!?
>and they seem perfectly happy to apply them to situations where they really shouldn't be applied.
Oh, I don't know - I bet there are many US copyright holders terrified of BitTorrent *grin*.
"because they are supposedly not of the same mentality level for such topics as the general public"
You're new here, aren't you?
Your reasoning skills are lacking, so I'll help you out:
If you're using a copy of Photoshop that you obtained through copyright infringment, then the loss to Adobe is the amount that they would have made if you bought it. It doesn't matter whether or not you WOULD have bought it, since you're obtaining the benefit of it, and it is exactly that benefit which Adobe licenses for a fee.
So, every act of infringement is a financial loss for the copyright holder, by definition, since you're NOT buying the IP itself, only the right to use it under the terms dictated by the copyright holder, and it is the fee that you've avoided by pirating.
Hope this helps.
I've not read ANY of the replies to this article, as this is ridiculous - is there no rational thought left on Slashdot at all?!?
"When I started working for my employer several years ago I signed an IP agreement that states anything I think while working for them is theirs, as well as anything I've ever thought in the past if it enters their building; dumb, but I needed a job."
I call bullshit: You claim to have signed a contract - post it.
So, if you think about anything, your employer somehow then owns it? BULLSHIT.
Let's just take that to its logical conclusion, shall we?
You wake up in the morning, and think that you have to take a dump... so, you do so. Then you go to work, and, as you walk into work, you recall, briefly, having taken that dump... so, because it is part of "anything I've ever thought in the past"... they now own it (Actually, they own it twice over now, yes?). Do you then inform them? After all, they own it by the terms of your contract, and if you don't, then you're depriving them of something to which they're entitled and are then in breach of contract.
Later, you're sitting in your cubicle, and you look down and think "I like these shoes"... so, since you thought about your shoes, they now own them? Do you take them off and give them to your manager? What happens if you should chance to think about other articles of clothing throughout the day? Do you eventually leave naked?
Worse, being naked... you look down and note your penis: Whoops - you just thought about it! Now, they own that too!
Hopefully they'll then come and take ownership of it, chop it off and so prevent you from reproducing, thereby improving the human race.
How about creating a Windows file system that is resistent to fragmentation?
Hell, Novell managed to do it ages ago, with the file system that they created for NetWare... 'way back when NetWare 286 was state of the art for Network Operating Systems...
Later, it just got better, with sub-block allocation, as an example.
NTFS is up to, what, version 5? And, Microsoft still hasn't managed to make it efficient... file system fragmentation over time pretty much creates the "need" to replace computers: The defragger that comes with Windows XP, for example, is woefully inefficient... and the users don't run it anyway.
So, over time the perception is that "the computer is too slow"... or, "the server is slow"... when the reality is that, barring hardware malfunction, the processor will run at its rated speed forever.. as will memory... the slowdown comes from filesystem access, which, using NTFS, will degrade over time, if the filesystem is not defragmented.
And,if you use the Windows defrag utility, it won't fully defragment the filesystem: It is a subset of Executive Software's Diskeeper, and so, it's in the latter's best interest to be sure that it doesn't.
As one example: It cannot defragment NTFS' Master File Table (MFT). Another: It requires multiple passes to come close to anything approaching what the purchased version does, and again, who's going to do that?
I wonder how many computer hardware upgrades have been driven by this over the years... more importantly, Windows Server upgrades?
Actually, YOU couldn't have personified the attitude of many Slashdot members any better, which basically seems to stem from the "free as in beer" idea... but gets twisted and extended beyond that to encompass things that go beyond what has been offered under those terms.
Once you get a taste of "free as in beer", you will settle for nothing less, everywhere... mostly because you're greedy, selfish, cheap, clueless, unskilled, noncreative and ignorant.
You want all the things that you lack, so that you can be entertained, diverted, assisted; to benefit, without having to pay, nor think of giving anything back... and, you think that you're entitled to that, simply because you exist.
In short, you're a parasite.
Or, worse: If you CAN create, and offer such up for free, you think that in so doing, you should automatically get EVERYONE else's works for free, the warped logic being: "Hey, I'm as good as anyone else, and I'm giving away all my creations, which, because I'm as good as anyone else, are as good as anyone else's, for free, so I should get everyone else's stuff for free too!"
Sorry, Sparky, it doesn't work that way, either.
Here's the reality: Don't like the terms under which someone offers their copyrighted materials to you? That's fine, you don't have to buy it: Nobody's standing next to you with a pistol to your head.
The thing is: YOU are free to do whatever you want with the things that you create and copyright... and SO IS EVERYONE ELSE.
Which ALSO includes placing restrictions upon it, as they see fit.You may not like it, and probably don't, but that's OK - they aren't you (surprise!).
And, regardless of whether you like it or not, whether you think it's "right" (whatever the fuck THAT means) or not.. they have the RIGHT to do that.. because they own the copyrights to their works, and YOU do not.
And people like you, posting drivel such as you did, only end up looking cheap,selfish,ignorant and greedy.
How's that for "yummy"?
And how, exactly, does one compete when the marketplace wants everything for free?
This drivel gets modded up as insightful?
So, basically, what you're saying is this: You think that you have the right to determine whether or not you should pay for someone else's IP, AFTER you've already garnered the benefit of it? Or, are you saying that you think that you have the right to benefit from it for free, because you think that it is crap?
Ah, I get it - either stance is in strict accordance with the beliefs of the pro-piracy (Whoops, I'm sorry: Pro-copyright infringement - I need to learn to be more politically correct around here) faction here on Slashdot, and one of them got mod points.
"...on a sidenote, I've spent more on CD's this year, than any year prior, and I made less than the year prior (by a good margin)"
So? What's your point? You spent more money on non-essentials this year than last, even though you made less money? Are we supposed to congratulate you? Feel sorry for you? What?
Finally, I note with no small amount of cynicism that the URL you link to is "Copyright Matthew Minix 2004". If you are the copyright holder, then that's more than a little hypocritical, don't you think?
I swear, it's posts such as yours that force me to believe in God - there's no way they could happen by chance. It HAS to be a test for the rest of us, there's just no other explanation.
And I think, with some re-wording, that I just made up my new sig... so I suppose I should thank you for the inspiration.
The Preamble reads:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
I think you're thinking of the Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
And this:
Just made me laugh. Not only are you completely confused about what is in the Constitution, you use your confusion to justify copyright infringement.
I tried to parse: "sharing information at your disposal with people you happen to come into."... and after blinking hard a few times to ensure that I wasn't misreading it, I ignored other possible interpretations and decided that you intended to say "sharing information at your disposal with people who you happen to come into contact with."
So, here's the answer, although I suspect you're not going to like it: If the "information" to which you are referring is copyrighted, it isn't yours to share without the permission of the copyright holder, with the exception of fair use. Doing so is called "copyright infringement" and is illegal. Sometimes, people even get arrested for it, as was mentioned in the article.
And that's what the whole ruckus is about. You see, there's a small but vocal minority here on Slashdot that feel as though their "right" to be entertained for free via copyright infringement should supercede the rights of the copyright holders to make money from their copyrights.
The infringers rationalize it in various ways, but all the justifications are variants of greed and selfishness. And, in the truest form of irony, many of these same people claim that it is the copyright holders themselves that are greedy and selfish for insisting that they be allowed to make money from their copyrights.
Really, it comes down to money. The copyright holders want to make money from their copyrights and the infringers want to benefit from the copyrighted materials without paying.
If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the copyright holders are going to win. They have the money, and so can buy the politicians to make the laws that they want. All the infringers have are places such as this where they gather to piss and moan about wrong the laws are and how evil the big bad corporations are and how information wants to be free as in beer so that they can be entertained by the skills, talent and creativity of others without having to pay for it.
I also suspect that it is also the reason why so many of them also like the OSS movement. They can't code themselves, but being able to download a Linux distribution and install it on the 'puter that Mom and Dad bought them makes them feel elite, and smug because it was free.
This is provably false: Given any instance of copyright infringement, the loss occurs regardless of whether or not the person would have bought it or not, simply by virtue of the fact that the infringer has benefitted from the copyrighted material without paying for the privilege to do so under the terms that the copyright holder has established.
The copyright holder has the right to establish the terms under which those items they have copyrighted are used, for the duration of the copyright (within limits: They can't ask for your first born child in return for a copy of some pop diva's latest album, but they CAN ask for money). If those terms include payment, then the benefit of obtaining access to the copyrighted material without payment, with the exception of fair use, is infringement, and leads directly to a loss, at the rate of one loss per act of infringement. The amounts vary, naturally, but the loss is real because a transaction took place but the copyright holder was not compensated under the terms they established.
And another point - you're not allowed to infringe their copyright just because you don't agree with their terms, no matter how you try to justify it.
I don't know why so many people here have a problem understanding that. They seem to think that that they are free to ignore the law when it is convenient, a point the AC poster makes perfectly clear:
Well, I highly doubt that you represent the "public"... but you do seem to represent the selfish, immature and greedy demographic on Slashdot quite well.
I'm curious: Do you believe that this should extend to other areas as well? What if the "public" decides, as an inflammatory example, that it is OK to beat someone because of their race, or perhaps their religion?
Or is it just OK when it's something you want, but don't want to pay for? And how, exactly, is that different from the commonly accepted definition of greed?
it was only based on characters he and gail Anne Herd had created.
Actually, if you read the end credits in T1, you'll discover acknowledgement to a short story called "Soldier" by Harlan Ellison. Cameron was sued for ripping off the idea for the Terminator from this story. The lawsuit was settled out of court, and part of the settlement was the inclusion of the acknowledgment.