My wife has Cerebral Palsy, with very poor fine motor control of her hands. She has two of these joysticks, both paid for with grants found for her from our local United Cerebral Palsy center (http://www.ucpsdtechcenter.org/).
It is an analog joystick - the same type used on power wheelchairs: the further you push the stick, the faster the cursor travels in that direction. It has buttons dedicated to single-click, double-click, and drag. It has an axis lock-out button which toggles cursor movement between horizontal-only, vertical-only, and any direction. It has a button which toggles cursor speed from very, very slow to very fast. All these functions are independent of PC hardware and drivers. It also comes with a selection of handles: large rubber ball, T-handle, and small knob.
There is also a trackball version with the same features, other than a very large ball intead of the stick.
It's USB and works with any OS. She has used it with Windows (3.11 - Win7), OS/2, OSX, and currently Linux (Fedora) without need of any device-specific drivers.
We also have a couple of USB and PS2 keyboards with keyguards which were also paid for with grant money.
When looking for assistive tech (AT) for the PC, you can pretty much ignore anything mainstream-PC-ish. There is a huge industry dedicated to AT for most all types of computer and communication devices for the disabled.
[Note: the following assumes you are in the USA. Other countries may have similar programs]
While much of it is pretty expensive, some of it is covered by health insurance. And as I noted above, there is often grant money available from many philanthropic entities (e.g. MDA, UCP, Easter Seals, Rotary Club, Big Brothers, etc.). Funding may also be available from various government programs for the disabled (e.g. Regional Center for the Developmentally Disabled, state Disabled Services, Dept. of Rehab, the VA, etc.). Also try checking your local colleges and universities for resources and referrals. Many of them have a Disabled Services office on campus.
Unless there is some magic involved, many reading and/or posting to this story don't use Tor themselves while connecting to Slashdot.
When I enquired why, the response from a Slashdot spokeman was "We block Tor ips when we find them. We've just had too many problems with attacks and auto-posting trolls using Tor, sorry" (direct quote).
You will obey me while I lead you, And eat the garbage that I feed you, Until the day that we don't need you. Don't call for help, no one will heed you.
Your mind is totally controlled, It has been stuffed into our mold, And you will Do As You Are Told, Until the rights to you are sold.
Create a passphrase which you prepend or append to every important password. Don't divulge that passphrase to any but the most trusted (spouse, family attorney, etc.).
Keep a list of passwords sans the passphrase in a safe but accessible place in case you forget one. If someone finds that list, it'll do them little good since not only will they not know the passphrase, neither will they even know it exists.
I'm assuming you have no state secrets or other seekrit stuff which may be intimidated out of you by other means (pliers, electrodes, etc.).
"A number of clients are guys who enjoy playing computer games, and for a variety of reasons some have no incentive to try and improve their speech."
This is pretty vague. There are many types of speech difficulties and many ways of dealing with them. As another poster pointed out, minor impediments are one thing, but problems related to physiological problems are more difficult to deal with.
My wife has Athetoid Cerebral Palsy which carries a side effect of her having Tongue Thrust. No degree of traditional speech therapy is going to allow her to control her tongue well enough to speak, although some old-school (and clueless) SLP's tried during her childhood. An Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC) device, specifically this, was the solution for her. There is a huge technology industry supporting people with severe speech problems, and similar tech is covered by most insurance carriers in the U.S., including Medicare.
"The issue is it can obviously inhibit options for jobs/other aspects of life etc."
It can and does but it doesn't have to, nor should it. There is a lot more tolerance of disabilities today. We know many people with moderate to severe speech-affected disabilities who manage to lead lives which are not so much affected by by their speech as they are by other aspects of their disabilities. The bigger problem for people with certain types of congenital speech problems, is not speech itself but language and communication deficits which come as a result certain areas of the individual's brain not being developed to the same degree as those who go through the normal speech-learning process as children. Modern SLP's will recognize when tradional therapy is not only the wrong approach, but actually counter-productive.
"I was trying to think of fun computer based activities for those with speech and language difficulties that encourage individuals to speak and furthermore to speak with greater clarity."
There is a lot of software out there which can be used by therapists, and an SLP-in-training should have already been made aware of its existence by those experienced in the field. I think much of it though is probably aimed at the very young. Unfortunately the controlling factors are mostly social, and especially with males, once the teen years are reached, the mold is set unless the individual is already very self-motivated. One has to look at the person's social environment, the severity of the deficit ("I always have an aide who understands me") and at the nature of his support group ("I can already communicate with everyone who is important to me") and his own personal goals.
It seems you've asked for a solution to a very complex problem but haven't defined the problem set enough to suggest a pat solution (of which there are none anyway - each case is different enough from any other that there are few to no general solutions).
Neither judge has thrown out anyone's claims. The ruling was only on evidence TSCOG submitted in support of some of their claims against IBM. In fact, IBM pointed out in their own briefings and motions supporting their (eventually granted) request for exclusion of the evidence that TSCOG was playing word games in trying to interchange claims and evidence. Obviously, the judges are smarter than TSCOG thinks.
Saying that claims have been thrown out is the lie that TSCOG has repeated enough times in their arguments that even the press and now Slashdot is treating it as fact. You don't have read some semi-obscure ten second summary to know what really happened (November 14th - weeks ago). Go to Groklaw and read that actual court papers yourself if you really care.
Obviously, they are dual licensing the software, but they need to make a clearer distinction between the two licenses. The (presumedly fee-based) proprietary use license allows closed source redistribution. But both GPLv1 or GPLv2 require redistribution to be open source, and prohibit use restrictions.
But then they wouldn't be the first to misunderstand the term "proprietary" to mean "commercial". If I'm wrong, Redhat needs to give me my money back.
Send them so much chaff to Fingerpint that no one can upload any audio whatsoever. At that point the site, hell maybe all such sites, will be worthless. Let's make the whole fucking Internet deaf and blind. Maybe then the greedy bastards will get the point.
Apparently, the *AA think information wants to be useless. So, let's give them more useless information than they can handle.
To get away from the unlawful entry, burglary, and someone-stole-my-unlocked-bike OMG!'s, let use this analogy:
I install a drinking fountain at the edge of my property. Lets say it's at the sidewalk. Should I be surprised if people start drinking from my fountain?
If I notice people using my water, should I pump into it an alternate water supply - maybe mix in some sour milk, rancid cooking oil, pond water, or goat urine?
I guess if I really don't want people using my drinking fountain, I should probably either
a) hide it, or
b) disguise it as something else, or
c) turn off the water supply and plug the drain.
How do the idiot moderators consider the parent to be "+4 Funny"? In fact, it's right on the mark.
That there are multiple packages (bundles, if you will) of Linux does not constitute fragmentation of the OS. Every one of the mainstream full distributions (RH, SuSE, Mandriva, etc.) have much more in common than they have differences, with most of those differences being no more onerous to the typical user than the differences between Windows 2000 and Windows XP. I don't see anyone decrying the fragmentation of Windows. In fact, there are probably more important differences in kernel versions than in distributions.
Most of the other flavors of Linux fall into niche areas where they have certain specializations which fit the needs of their respective markets. This includes embedded, live CD, recovery and wireless tool needs.
Fragmentation suggests that the Linux community is moving toward having a history similar to the days when early PC/DOS vendors tried to differentiate their product by making it practically incompatible with every other vendor's offering to the point that any given "DOS" software OS or application would not run on any but a single "PC/DOS" platform.
This is obviously not the case. There are very few, if any, such problems today with the vast majority of properly written Linux applications. While there is some lack of universal standardization on some file system layout and usage details, and with system configuration nits, these are minor and as expected of a dynamic, living OS and its software development process, as are dialects of a living language. In any case, it's really about the ability to run applications across distributions not about how a particular distro is installed. By others' definition of "franmentation", we seem to have a larger problem in the fragmentation in the application space.
From my observation, the day Linux becomes completely standardized, unified, and monotheistic in its nature will be day after it becomes effectively dead. Just like Latin. If we want a monoculture, then there are other options to Linux.
"I've almost gotten to the point where I consider a phrase like "makes its own gravy" to be written wrong because of the missing apostrophe, because it's so common -- even in advertising copy, for pete's sake."
That's because "its" is the proper spelling of the possessive form of the pronoun it.
You need to stop validating a broken so-called authentication system (read software rental system) - one pretty much unique (so far) to software.
If I buy a box on a store shelf (I haven't and I won't) purportedly containing media with a legal and fully functioning copy of HL2, I expect to get just that. What I don't expect to find is that, after paying $50+ for that legal copy of the game, I have to ask yet again for permission to play it (use the product), even in single-player mode on a box not even connected to the Internet!
Having been around software probably longer than most here have been alive, I am not exactly naive about how software is distributed in the context of licensing agreements. So, I expect to find some document either inside the box or displayed during the course of product installation telling me that, among other restrictions(1), I am not supposed to install the game on more than one box at a time or to distribute copies to others. Big deal, those "Terms of Use" documents have been around for years. And, generally speaking, I don't have problems with such reasonable terms.
And forget all the arguments about "Well, it's no different than Everquestish games" or "Publishers have been doing this for n years". HL2 is not Everquest. It's more like Doom 3. I don't have to ask id for an account to play D3 and I don't see them going out of business. And just because someone's gotten away with doing something questionable doesn't mean it's right or acceptable.
It looks to me that the Steam Scheme(tm) is not too different from renting cable. Without the monthly fee. The guy I'm renting from can turn off the service anytime he wants for any reason at all. If Valve/Vivendi decide for some arbitrary reason that I shouldn't be able to play anymore because I've somehow offended them, I'm screwed: "Sorry, the server is busted", "Sorry, we think you cheat", "Sorry, someone wrote a crack which just happened to use your key among many", or "Sorry, we don't care to support this game now, maybe you should try our New Game - lookie here, we'll rent you that too!", and "Oh, by the way, we really don't give a fuck what your side of the story is".
If you think I'm whining, I don't really GAF. I'm whining with my wallet. I really want to try HL2, but not under the current Steam Scheme(tm). I'll wait till someone does a practical crack so I can at least play single player, and then I'll buy the game but play with the crack. In any case, it's not like there aren't other games out there. I've got thousands of dollars worth of stuff to play - all of which I bought off a store shelf. And they all still work!
I'd also like to comment on all those aguments saying "Steam just keeps pirates from stealing the game". Bullshit. Copyright violation is not stealing. It's Copyright violation. Depriving someone of a sale is not necessarily depriving them of property. Neither is illegal copying piracy. No vehicles were hijacked, no planks walked, noone murdered or raped. You can call copying stealing and piracy all you want, but it doesn't make it so. If you get caught illegally copying, you won't get charged with either theft, or piracy, you'll get charged for illegal copying.
(1) Just because there are all kinds of intmidating legalese in the "license" doesn't necessarily make it either legal or binding, whether or not you agree to it. On the other hand, if you don't agree, the publisher doesn't have to sell you the product. That's just like in a brick and mortar business. The problem with such software agreements is that you've already given them your money before you know the terms, and you'll usually play hell getting that money back, if at all, if you don't agree to those terms.
Most people here don't even realize that once you are in the military, the Constitution effectively does not apply to you anymore. The only "rules" that count in the military are codified in the Uniform Code of Military Justice or UCMJ. And in that document, the General Articles basically override many of your rights as granted under the Constitution's amendments.
Both the draft and the UCMJ have already been validated by the U.S. Supreme Court more than once, and neither is likely to be found "unconstitutional" any time soon, as previous rulings have made both effectively articles of the Constitution itself.
Any reasoning as to the political function of the draft is pretty irrelevant to those of us who were conscripted during the Viet Nam war, for example. We had two choices: hide somewhere, or surrender. Once the draft is reinstituted, every male (at the least) between the ages of 17 and 35 is in jeapordy of being emigrated to a totalitarian state.
Think of the military as the fifty-first State.
As for working within your skill set, you can pretty much get the idea of any guarantee of that out of your head right now. That's not how the military works. Not even now: current enlistees who go in under contract are only guaranteed training in a specific skill. And only if they qualify throughout the whole process - and don't piss someone off in the mean time. However, they are not guaranteed a billet in that skill. Once you've signed the papers and taken the oath, you're pretty much fodder for anything the military wants to use you for. Including being a human lab rat.
And forget all the idealistic arguments of the form "They can't do that, it's against the law, and the people won't stand for it.". Obviously the people will stand for quite a lot as long as they aren't the ones directly affected. Everyone hopes the other guy will get nabbed, and will not hesitate to point a finger at another in the process of distracting the giant from stomping on themselves instead.
I'll bet one of the first things to go is TCP/IP networking. The CLI interface could disappear. Crippled Multimedia support maybe? Or how about eliminating some of the configuration tools and options. Fewer drivers? Eye candy (what little there is now) including fonts, screen savers, wallpaper, event sounds, themes, etc. will probably disappear.
My guess is Microsoft wants to sell a locked down system where the only upgrade path to new features is through XP Home Edition.
Microsoft R&D has produced pretty much nothing of any consequence. Its diversification came from buying or stealing competing products and ideas, not from its labs. The only piece of Office that Microsoft can really be given any credit for is Excel. Everything else was originally someone else's work. Microsoft merely made incremental changes - changes that the inventors of those products would probably have made themselves had they not been bought out.
Today that behavior is getting harder and harder for Microsoft to sustain. There is not as much innovation going on in the computer industry right now; not as many new ideas to be bought or stolen. The revolutionary phase has given way, at least for a time, to an evolutionary phase.
And then factor in a much higher suspicion of Microsoft. It now has a memorable history: too many other companies now have case histories to reference which will point out to them what may happen if they play nice with Microsoft. "Partners" are becoming increasingly harder to find for Microsoft. Screw enough people long enough, and pretty soon you run out of gullible people. At that point the con man turns to armed robbery.
Microsoft has put so much time, effort and money into perfecting its bag of dirty tricks, and been so casual and indescriminate in using them against any who would oppose (read "compete with") it that virtually noone trusts it now. It is the snake of fables and just about everyone has now been bitten by that snake. There aren't any more free rides to be had.
Had Microsoft really spent more money on useful R&D and less on burning bridges, it might have a better future. Now, I think, it's too late.
"Write when it wants to write, read when it wants to read..."
Sorry, but you can't use the terms "write" or "read" either, as those are not literacy-neutral words. In fact, it would be better not to use any language other than Esperanto or Klingon from now on.
Even if you could get a list of BayStar's investors, no doubt those are also investment houses, and trying to track down any M$ investment would take a lot of poking. Especially if they are private, not public, companies...
It doesn't take much poking at all: From yesterday's/. discussion, way2trivial found this little gem. Microsoft and Paul Allen's Vulcan Capital are BayStar's number nine and number one investors, respectively (see page three of the PDF).
Oh what a tangled web we weave. It will be interesting to see who else turns up as a TSG investor, even indirectly.
Slashdot Mirror
There are many vendors who sell these devices, such as here: http://enablingdevices.com/cat...
For the specific need you mention, here's a start:
http://www.traxsys.com/Assisti...
My wife has Cerebral Palsy, with very poor fine motor control of her hands. She has two of these joysticks, both paid for with grants found for her from our local United Cerebral Palsy center (http://www.ucpsdtechcenter.org/).
It is an analog joystick - the same type used on power wheelchairs: the further you push the stick, the faster the cursor travels in that direction. It has buttons dedicated to single-click, double-click, and drag. It has an axis lock-out button which toggles cursor movement between horizontal-only, vertical-only, and any direction. It has a button which toggles cursor speed from very, very slow to very fast. All these functions are independent of PC hardware and drivers. It also comes with a selection of handles: large rubber ball, T-handle, and small knob.
There is also a trackball version with the same features, other than a very large ball intead of the stick.
It's USB and works with any OS. She has used it with Windows (3.11 - Win7), OS/2, OSX, and currently Linux (Fedora) without need of any device-specific drivers.
We also have a couple of USB and PS2 keyboards with keyguards which were also paid for with grant money.
When looking for assistive tech (AT) for the PC, you can pretty much ignore anything mainstream-PC-ish. There is a huge industry dedicated to AT for most all types of computer and communication devices for the disabled.
[Note: the following assumes you are in the USA. Other countries may have similar programs]
While much of it is pretty expensive, some of it is covered by health insurance. And as I noted above, there is often grant money available from many philanthropic entities (e.g. MDA, UCP, Easter Seals, Rotary Club, Big Brothers, etc.). Funding may also be available from various government programs for the disabled (e.g. Regional Center for the Developmentally Disabled, state Disabled Services, Dept. of Rehab, the VA, etc.). Also try checking your local colleges and universities for resources and referrals. Many of them have a Disabled Services office on campus.
Unless there is some magic involved, many reading and/or posting to this story don't use Tor themselves while connecting to Slashdot.
When I enquired why, the response from a Slashdot spokeman was "We block Tor ips when we find them. We've just had too many problems with attacks and auto-posting trolls using Tor, sorry" (direct quote).
A lab book stored in a company safe.
You will obey me while I lead you,
And eat the garbage that I feed you,
Until the day that we don't need you.
Don't call for help, no one will heed you.
Your mind is totally controlled,
It has been stuffed into our mold,
And you will Do As You Are Told,
Until the rights to you are sold.
- Frank Zappa
Whether or not you may have offended the State is not to be determined by you, but rather by someone, somewhere, whom you do not know.
I mean, everyone knows, "Stella Artois" is French for "Budweiser."
I really need to get me one of those.
But I suppose I'd need my own house first though, huh?
Create a passphrase which you prepend or append to every important password. Don't divulge that passphrase to any but the most trusted (spouse, family attorney, etc.).
Keep a list of passwords sans the passphrase in a safe but accessible place in case you forget one. If someone finds that list, it'll do them little good since not only will they not know the passphrase, neither will they even know it exists.
I'm assuming you have no state secrets or other seekrit stuff which may be intimidated out of you by other means (pliers, electrodes, etc.).
"A number of clients are guys who enjoy playing computer games, and for a variety of reasons some have no incentive to try and improve their speech."
This is pretty vague. There are many types of speech difficulties and many ways of dealing with them. As another poster pointed out, minor impediments are one thing, but problems related to physiological problems are more difficult to deal with.
My wife has Athetoid Cerebral Palsy which carries a side effect of her having Tongue Thrust. No degree of traditional speech therapy is going to allow her to control her tongue well enough to speak, although some old-school (and clueless) SLP's tried during her childhood. An Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC) device, specifically this, was the solution for her. There is a huge technology industry supporting people with severe speech problems, and similar tech is covered by most insurance carriers in the U.S., including Medicare.
"The issue is it can obviously inhibit options for jobs/other aspects of life etc."
It can and does but it doesn't have to, nor should it. There is a lot more tolerance of disabilities today. We know many people with moderate to severe speech-affected disabilities who manage to lead lives which are not so much affected by by their speech as they are by other aspects of their disabilities. The bigger problem for people with certain types of congenital speech problems, is not speech itself but language and communication deficits which come as a result certain areas of the individual's brain not being developed to the same degree as those who go through the normal speech-learning process as children. Modern SLP's will recognize when tradional therapy is not only the wrong approach, but actually counter-productive.
"I was trying to think of fun computer based activities for those with speech and language difficulties that encourage individuals to speak and furthermore to speak with greater clarity."
There is a lot of software out there which can be used by therapists, and an SLP-in-training should have already been made aware of its existence by those experienced in the field. I think much of it though is probably aimed at the very young. Unfortunately the controlling factors are mostly social, and especially with males, once the teen years are reached, the mold is set unless the individual is already very self-motivated. One has to look at the person's social environment, the severity of the deficit ("I always have an aide who understands me") and at the nature of his support group ("I can already communicate with everyone who is important to me") and his own personal goals.
It seems you've asked for a solution to a very complex problem but haven't defined the problem set enough to suggest a pat solution (of which there are none anyway - each case is different enough from any other that there are few to no general solutions).
Neither judge has thrown out anyone's claims. The ruling was only on evidence TSCOG submitted in support of some of their claims against IBM. In fact, IBM pointed out in their own briefings and motions supporting their (eventually granted) request for exclusion of the evidence that TSCOG was playing word games in trying to interchange claims and evidence. Obviously, the judges are smarter than TSCOG thinks.
Saying that claims have been thrown out is the lie that TSCOG has repeated enough times in their arguments that even the press and now Slashdot is treating it as fact. You don't have read some semi-obscure ten second summary to know what really happened (November 14th - weeks ago). Go to Groklaw and read that actual court papers yourself if you really care.
Obviously, they are dual licensing the software, but they need to make a clearer distinction between the two licenses. The (presumedly fee-based) proprietary use license allows closed source redistribution. But both GPLv1 or GPLv2 require redistribution to be open source, and prohibit use restrictions.
But then they wouldn't be the first to misunderstand the term "proprietary" to mean "commercial". If I'm wrong, Redhat needs to give me my money back.
Send them so much chaff to Fingerpint that no one can upload any audio whatsoever. At that point the site, hell maybe all such sites, will be worthless. Let's make the whole fucking Internet deaf and blind. Maybe then the greedy bastards will get the point.
Apparently, the *AA think information wants to be useless. So, let's give them more useless information than they can handle.
To get away from the unlawful entry, burglary, and someone-stole-my-unlocked-bike OMG!'s, let use this analogy:
I install a drinking fountain at the edge of my property. Lets say it's at the sidewalk. Should I be surprised if people start drinking from my fountain?
If I notice people using my water, should I pump into it an alternate water supply - maybe mix in some sour milk, rancid cooking oil, pond water, or goat urine?
I guess if I really don't want people using my drinking fountain, I should probably either a) hide it, or b) disguise it as something else, or c) turn off the water supply and plug the drain.
How do the idiot moderators consider the parent to be "+4 Funny"? In fact, it's right on the mark.
That there are multiple packages (bundles, if you will) of Linux does not constitute fragmentation of the OS. Every one of the mainstream full distributions (RH, SuSE, Mandriva, etc.) have much more in common than they have differences, with most of those differences being no more onerous to the typical user than the differences between Windows 2000 and Windows XP. I don't see anyone decrying the fragmentation of Windows. In fact, there are probably more important differences in kernel versions than in distributions.
Most of the other flavors of Linux fall into niche areas where they have certain specializations which fit the needs of their respective markets. This includes embedded, live CD, recovery and wireless tool needs.
Fragmentation suggests that the Linux community is moving toward having a history similar to the days when early PC/DOS vendors tried to differentiate their product by making it practically incompatible with every other vendor's offering to the point that any given "DOS" software OS or application would not run on any but a single "PC/DOS" platform.
This is obviously not the case. There are very few, if any, such problems today with the vast majority of properly written Linux applications. While there is some lack of universal standardization on some file system layout and usage details, and with system configuration nits, these are minor and as expected of a dynamic, living OS and its software development process, as are dialects of a living language. In any case, it's really about the ability to run applications across distributions not about how a particular distro is installed. By others' definition of "franmentation", we seem to have a larger problem in the fragmentation in the application space.From my observation, the day Linux becomes completely standardized, unified, and monotheistic in its nature will be day after it becomes effectively dead. Just like Latin. If we want a monoculture, then there are other options to Linux.
"I've almost gotten to the point where I consider a phrase like "makes its own gravy" to be written wrong because of the missing apostrophe, because it's so common -- even in advertising copy, for pete's sake."
That's because "its" is the proper spelling of the possessive form of the pronoun it.
It's is a contraction of the phrase it is.
Odd, at first I read the second sentence as referring to "my client's sad pink elephant".
You need to stop validating a broken so-called authentication system (read software rental system) - one pretty much unique (so far) to software.
If I buy a box on a store shelf (I haven't and I won't) purportedly containing media with a legal and fully functioning copy of HL2, I expect to get just that. What I don't expect to find is that, after paying $50+ for that legal copy of the game, I have to ask yet again for permission to play it (use the product), even in single-player mode on a box not even connected to the Internet!
Having been around software probably longer than most here have been alive, I am not exactly naive about how software is distributed in the context of licensing agreements. So, I expect to find some document either inside the box or displayed during the course of product installation telling me that, among other restrictions(1), I am not supposed to install the game on more than one box at a time or to distribute copies to others. Big deal, those "Terms of Use" documents have been around for years. And, generally speaking, I don't have problems with such reasonable terms.
And forget all the arguments about "Well, it's no different than Everquestish games" or "Publishers have been doing this for n years". HL2 is not Everquest. It's more like Doom 3. I don't have to ask id for an account to play D3 and I don't see them going out of business. And just because someone's gotten away with doing something questionable doesn't mean it's right or acceptable.
It looks to me that the Steam Scheme(tm) is not too different from renting cable. Without the monthly fee. The guy I'm renting from can turn off the service anytime he wants for any reason at all. If Valve/Vivendi decide for some arbitrary reason that I shouldn't be able to play anymore because I've somehow offended them, I'm screwed: "Sorry, the server is busted", "Sorry, we think you cheat", "Sorry, someone wrote a crack which just happened to use your key among many", or "Sorry, we don't care to support this game now, maybe you should try our New Game - lookie here, we'll rent you that too!", and "Oh, by the way, we really don't give a fuck what your side of the story is".
If you think I'm whining, I don't really GAF. I'm whining with my wallet. I really want to try HL2, but not under the current Steam Scheme(tm). I'll wait till someone does a practical crack so I can at least play single player, and then I'll buy the game but play with the crack. In any case, it's not like there aren't other games out there. I've got thousands of dollars worth of stuff to play - all of which I bought off a store shelf. And they all still work!
I'd also like to comment on all those aguments saying "Steam just keeps pirates from stealing the game". Bullshit. Copyright violation is not stealing. It's Copyright violation. Depriving someone of a sale is not necessarily depriving them of property. Neither is illegal copying piracy. No vehicles were hijacked, no planks walked, noone murdered or raped. You can call copying stealing and piracy all you want, but it doesn't make it so. If you get caught illegally copying, you won't get charged with either theft, or piracy, you'll get charged for illegal copying.
(1) Just because there are all kinds of intmidating legalese in the "license" doesn't necessarily make it either legal or binding, whether or not you agree to it. On the other hand, if you don't agree, the publisher doesn't have to sell you the product. That's just like in a brick and mortar business. The problem with such software agreements is that you've already given them your money before you know the terms, and you'll usually play hell getting that money back, if at all, if you don't agree to those terms.
Thank you God. We hope you'll drop by again soon.
Most people here don't even realize that once you are in the military, the Constitution effectively does not apply to you anymore. The only "rules" that count in the military are codified in the Uniform Code of Military Justice or UCMJ. And in that document, the General Articles basically override many of your rights as granted under the Constitution's amendments.
Both the draft and the UCMJ have already been validated by the U.S. Supreme Court more than once, and neither is likely to be found "unconstitutional" any time soon, as previous rulings have made both effectively articles of the Constitution itself.
Any reasoning as to the political function of the draft is pretty irrelevant to those of us who were conscripted during the Viet Nam war, for example. We had two choices: hide somewhere, or surrender. Once the draft is reinstituted, every male (at the least) between the ages of 17 and 35 is in jeapordy of being emigrated to a totalitarian state.
Think of the military as the fifty-first State.
As for working within your skill set, you can pretty much get the idea of any guarantee of that out of your head right now. That's not how the military works. Not even now: current enlistees who go in under contract are only guaranteed training in a specific skill. And only if they qualify throughout the whole process - and don't piss someone off in the mean time. However, they are not guaranteed a billet in that skill. Once you've signed the papers and taken the oath, you're pretty much fodder for anything the military wants to use you for. Including being a human lab rat.
And forget all the idealistic arguments of the form "They can't do that, it's against the law, and the people won't stand for it.". Obviously the people will stand for quite a lot as long as they aren't the ones directly affected. Everyone hopes the other guy will get nabbed, and will not hesitate to point a finger at another in the process of distracting the giant from stomping on themselves instead.
I'll bet one of the first things to go is TCP/IP networking. The CLI interface could disappear. Crippled Multimedia support maybe? Or how about eliminating some of the configuration tools and options. Fewer drivers? Eye candy (what little there is now) including fonts, screen savers, wallpaper, event sounds, themes, etc. will probably disappear.
My guess is Microsoft wants to sell a locked down system where the only upgrade path to new features is through XP Home Edition.
Is that like being part Minnesotan?
Microsoft R&D has produced pretty much nothing of any consequence. Its diversification came from buying or stealing competing products and ideas, not from its labs. The only piece of Office that Microsoft can really be given any credit for is Excel. Everything else was originally someone else's work. Microsoft merely made incremental changes - changes that the inventors of those products would probably have made themselves had they not been bought out.
Today that behavior is getting harder and harder for Microsoft to sustain. There is not as much innovation going on in the computer industry right now; not as many new ideas to be bought or stolen. The revolutionary phase has given way, at least for a time, to an evolutionary phase.
And then factor in a much higher suspicion of Microsoft. It now has a memorable history: too many other companies now have case histories to reference which will point out to them what may happen if they play nice with Microsoft. "Partners" are becoming increasingly harder to find for Microsoft. Screw enough people long enough, and pretty soon you run out of gullible people. At that point the con man turns to armed robbery.Microsoft has put so much time, effort and money into perfecting its bag of dirty tricks, and been so casual and indescriminate in using them against any who would oppose (read "compete with") it that virtually noone trusts it now. It is the snake of fables and just about everyone has now been bitten by that snake. There aren't any more free rides to be had.
Had Microsoft really spent more money on useful R&D and less on burning bridges, it might have a better future. Now, I think, it's too late.Now, because it's under the GPL and not the LGPL, commercial development with Qt requires a commercial license
If it's licensed under GPL, then its use, by defintion, can't be further restricted.
You are confusing the terms commercial (e.g. for profit) and proprietary (e.g. closed source). These terms are not interchangeable.
Software may be commercial and non-proprietary at the same time (for example SUSE Linux). And proprietary does not necessarily imply for-profit.
"Write when it wants to write, read when it wants to read..."
Sorry, but you can't use the terms "write" or "read" either, as those are not literacy-neutral words. In fact, it would be better not to use any language other than Esperanto or Klingon from now on.
Even if you could get a list of BayStar's investors, no doubt those are also investment houses, and trying to track down any M$ investment would take a lot of poking. Especially if they are private, not public, companies ...
It doesn't take much poking at all: From yesterday's /. discussion, way2trivial found this little gem. Microsoft and Paul Allen's Vulcan Capital are BayStar's number nine and number one investors, respectively (see page three of the PDF).
Oh what a tangled web we weave. It will be interesting to see who else turns up as a TSG investor, even indirectly.