Ever since microsoft brought out the X-Box and started to become the gaming powerhouse they are today, there have been rumors that microsoft would buy various japanese/asian companies.
Buying some japanese companies to gain a foothold in the japanese market makes sense for Microsoft (only if they are sucessfull companies obviously).
But, given the way the japanese system works, its unlikely that the other players in the japanese market would sit by and let Microsoft (a big foriegn company) buy a well-known japanese outfit.
As for the Nintendo buyout, it would never get approval from all the various governments that need to approve it (e.g. US government, EU governments etc) because it would give microsoft too much power.
What about a company like the one that makes those cool HDTV input cards for the PCs that everyone keeps suggesting people should buy whilst they still can?
There must be a company out there making TV reciever hardware that ISNT tied to big media in some way.
For example, what the media companies might do is build a requirement into the next generation of media formats (whatever they are) that all content be protected and that if you want to produce a player (and have access to the encryption specs) you need to enforce this in your player. Build it around some kind of public key cryptosystem so that even if it is "cracked", that doesnt allow you to make new content for the system. And make it so that Big Media holds all the keys.
The sheeple consumers will accept this since they wont even know its there, all they know is that they can now get even better quality out of their expensive home theater systems with these new "High Definition" DVD players and DVDs.
That is why the internet is such a threat to "Big Media" because anyone with a PC, CD Burner and a miminal amount of recording gear (and some kind of abillity) can record songs on to their computer, burn them onto a CD with the CD burner and distribute the songs in formats like MP3 over the internet.
Its not about stopping "piracy", its about "control".
Not if you boot from the check disk so the spyware doesnt load. But the best way to be safe (if you need windows) is not to use internet tools (Internet Explorer, Outlook Express etc) that let unsafe code run without any prompting.
Hopefully the new SPY act would make this crap illegal (if messing with the OS kernel without permission is not already illegal under some other law).
When I was at school, teachers checked attendance when you went into class. And if you needed to leave the classroom (e.g. to go to the loo or whatever else), you would need to get permission from the teacher. If a kid cuts class and goes down the back behind the shed to smoke or do drugs or something, they would show up as "absent" on both the computer method and the hand checked method. And they would be in just as much trouble if they are caught.
This just replaces a teacher with a hand-checked attendence list with a computer checking the same attendance, how does that make it a problem?
There should be a law giving ISPs of all kinds (dial-up, cable, wireless, DSL etc) the same common carrier status as POTS phone companies have.
Although would this mean places like airports, coffee shops, airplanes, municipalities and so on that now offer internet access of various kinds would be covered too?
What about the case where someone is leaching off someone elses WiFi connection (with or without permission), would that be covered?
In any case, giving ISPs common carrier status would be a good thing IHMO.
I aggree here. I have recieved physical mail addressed to me in the past from American Express asking if I wanted an American Express card (I dont) and I have never had any dealings with American Express. So they got my details because some other company gave it to them. It should be illegal for comapnies to do that.
Also, any company with your details should be required to let you change it (e.g. if you move house, you can have your details changed) And more should be done so that mistakes and identity theft cant have negative effects (e.g. if someone is able to steal your ID and ruin your credit rating you should be able to get that black mark removed if you can prove that your ID was stolen and that you didnt do whatever it was that ruined the credit rating)
Some things that went wrong with my PCs. One was when I used the heatsink/fan from a Pentium 166 MMX on a clone cyrix 300mhz part. That thing never worked right and eventually fried. Since then I have always used the manufacturer recommended cooling fan on all my CPUs.
My current PC has a floppy drive that doesnt work (but with a CD burner, I havent had a reason to need a floppy)
I also had a PC that got fried with an electrical surge (I can still remember the big burn mark next to one of the chips on the HDD controler card on the hard disk with all my data that I had yet to back up:( )
Also had a video card (brand newish) that I installed such that the fan on the GPU was completly covered by another card, I think the fan stopped working on that one.
The difference between MS, Unix and other propriatory systems and Linux & OSS when it comes to forking is that linux "forks" (such as the kernels that most distros ship) are compatible and indeed pretty much every "fork" or variant of an OSS program has tried to remain compatible (i.e. the kernel remains compatible with all linux apps except mabie those that talk to the kernel directly like kernel modules and drivers and so on)
And programs like Apache, OpenSSL, OpenSSH and others are based on standards.
On the other hand when Microsoft and other propriatory software vendors make forks, they are often incompatible by design.
At high school I learned pascal then later Visual Basic (starting with VB3 then VB4). Then when uni happened, JAVA was the language of choice with some C & ASM in the "lower level" course Since then I have done more java, C and C++ & some VB.
Who decides what counts as "violent" and "mature"? If they are accepting the ESRB definitions for Teen and Mature games and stuff, thats great. But if they are trying to define a new definition for "violent" and "mature" games that is different (perhaps more restrictive) than what the ESRB and the industry define, then I have a big problem with that.
Where can I see exactly what the possible values for the flag are (e.g. "cant record this show at all", "can record it once then not move the recorded copy" etc)?
Basicly, it would be a CDROM (and perhaps a book or manual) that would be sold in computer shops. When you install it, it would clean all the spyware, viruses, trojans, zombies and gunk from your system automatically. It would then install anti-virus and anti-spyware and etc programs designed to run periodically and clean the system. (including hooks into email programs like Outlook Express to remove the viruses before they even reach the users inbox) Plus a firewall with settings to block known bad software (spyware, trojans etc) but not block anything else. (this prevents the problem of the user blindly allowing everything through). It should also contain auto-updates so it keeps the data files it uses up to date without any action from the user. If you can make it block or restrict websites used by philshing (fake bank sites etc) in a way that is going to be understandable for the cluless users the package is aimed at and which will be 100% sure to not block anything other than malicious sites, even better. (although I suspect this is going to be difficult)
Design the UI and interface so that it can be used and understood by even the most cluless of users (the kind that think that the "blue E icon" is "the internet" for example).
Give it a name like PC Tune Up or something. Most people (even the most clueless of people) know that you should take your car into the mechanic and have it serviced regularly if you want to keep it running well. So pitch this package as the computer equivelent of getting a service/tune up, that way even the clueless will be able to understand why running it is a good thing. Also, in the marketing campaign & software, show people all the bad things that hackers, viruses, spyware, trojans, philshing etc can do you & your computer. For example, show (in a way the cluless can understand) how these things can be used to access your online banking and bank account and take money from it without your knowledge. And so on.
Firstly, this program would serve to get rid of the junk even without the user needing to know exactly what the junk is. And secondly, it would serve as a way to educate the users so that they know how to avoid the junk in the future.
really an alien from outer space, we might be able to convince GWB to fund NASA.
Or mabie if we can show that there is oil on the moon...
Unfortunatly, the US government (bush in particular) seems too focused on oil, wars no-one really wants, not catching the people who need to be captured (bin laden etc), catching people who arent a threat (most of the people in the cuban camps, people pirating music and movies online etc) and generally doing stupid things.
The only reason GWB can get away with all these stupid things is because he does just enough good things (anti-gay things, anti-abortion things, farm subsidies, various religious things that totally defly the so-called seperation of church and state, tax cuts designed to look good without actually doing anything etc) to keep the american voters happy.
I want to see netscape/AOL release the code to the bits that let you use IE rendering engine alongside GECKO, along with the list of whitelisted-to-run-in-IE sites.
Something that is a factor in the case of the B5 game and probobly also in the case of Sam & Max 2 and probobly other canceled projects is that by canceling it and burying it for all time, you can get a tax benifit on whatever you spent on it (I think this applies to anything, not just games).
I am not a tax expert so I dont know for sure but if that is the case, that is a good reason for them. i.e. its worth $x in tax benifits to bury it vs $y in possible sales if they release it. Unfortunatly for fans of B5 and adventure game fans, the marketing and accounting people at vivendi and lucasarts did the math and based on how many units they thought they could ship, the estimates led to $x being enough vs $y that it was better for them to bury the games.
From what I have heard and read, the script is good (it should be, its a DNA origonal). But the production design is nothing like the BBC TV series or the descriptions in the book (I havent heard the radio plays so I cant comment on those).
There are some things that are consistant between the book and TV series (and probobly the radio plays too). For example: The heart of gold is portrayed as being shaped like a sneaker. Zaphod Beeblebrox has 3 arms and an extra neck and head comming out of his shoulder. Yet the movie doesnt have those elements:(
I imagine it only applies if you are using the player names, team names, logos and such that are owned by/licenced by the major league baseball people.
If you read the 1000s of other posts on this or the bugzilla bugs covering it, you would see that its been fixed in firefox mainline but that it didnt hit 1.0 because it was considered too risky. And that its broken because slashdot spits out bad HTML.
Why dont banks change the way they print their credit card statements so that the statements dont contain enough information to enable someone to use the card. That way, if the statement is stolen, it alone doesnt give anyone enough information to use the credit card.
I like the idea of photos on credit cards. Basicly, if there is a photo on your card, it makes it just that much harder for a casual thief to use the card. Plus, it wouldnt require any changes to POS terminals or equipment.
Its just like when EA closed Westwood Studios in las vegas and moved everyone who was happy to move over to EALA. If it was possible for EA to fit everyone into a single office and give everyone a single PC and still make the craptastic same-old same-old games they are doing, the would probobly do it.
Slashdot Mirror
Ever since microsoft brought out the X-Box and started to become the gaming powerhouse they are today, there have been rumors that microsoft would buy various japanese/asian companies.
Buying some japanese companies to gain a foothold in the japanese market makes sense for Microsoft (only if they are sucessfull companies obviously).
But, given the way the japanese system works, its unlikely that the other players in the japanese market would sit by and let Microsoft (a big foriegn company) buy a well-known japanese outfit.
As for the Nintendo buyout, it would never get approval from all the various governments that need to approve it (e.g. US government, EU governments etc) because it would give microsoft too much power.
Basicly, what it means is that if an ISP finds or is made aware of child porn on its network, it has to report that to the police.
What about a company like the one that makes those cool HDTV input cards for the PCs that everyone keeps suggesting people should buy whilst they still can?
There must be a company out there making TV reciever hardware that ISNT tied to big media in some way.
For example, what the media companies might do is build a requirement into the next generation of media formats (whatever they are) that all content be protected and that if you want to produce a player (and have access to the encryption specs) you need to enforce this in your player. Build it around some kind of public key cryptosystem so that even if it is "cracked", that doesnt allow you to make new content for the system.
And make it so that Big Media holds all the keys.
The sheeple consumers will accept this since they wont even know its there, all they know is that they can now get even better quality out of their expensive home theater systems with these new "High Definition" DVD players and DVDs.
That is why the internet is such a threat to "Big Media" because anyone with a PC, CD Burner and a miminal amount of recording gear (and some kind of abillity) can record songs on to their computer, burn them onto a CD with the CD burner and distribute the songs in formats like MP3 over the internet.
Its not about stopping "piracy", its about "control".
Not if you boot from the check disk so the spyware doesnt load.
But the best way to be safe (if you need windows) is not to use internet tools (Internet Explorer, Outlook Express etc) that let unsafe code run without any prompting.
Hopefully the new SPY act would make this crap illegal (if messing with the OS kernel without permission is not already illegal under some other law).
teachers checking attendance?
When I was at school, teachers checked attendance when you went into class. And if you needed to leave the classroom (e.g. to go to the loo or whatever else), you would need to get permission from the teacher. If a kid cuts class and goes down the back behind the shed to smoke or do drugs or something, they would show up as "absent" on both the computer method and the hand checked method. And they would be in just as much trouble if they are caught.
This just replaces a teacher with a hand-checked attendence list with a computer checking the same attendance, how does that make it a problem?
There should be a law giving ISPs of all kinds (dial-up, cable, wireless, DSL etc) the same common carrier status as POTS phone companies have.
Although would this mean places like airports, coffee shops, airplanes, municipalities and so on that now offer internet access of various kinds would be covered too?
What about the case where someone is leaching off someone elses WiFi connection (with or without permission), would that be covered?
In any case, giving ISPs common carrier status would be a good thing IHMO.
I aggree here.
I have recieved physical mail addressed to me in the past from American Express asking if I wanted an American Express card (I dont) and I have never had any dealings with American Express.
So they got my details because some other company gave it to them.
It should be illegal for comapnies to do that.
Also, any company with your details should be required to let you change it (e.g. if you move house, you can have your details changed)
And more should be done so that mistakes and identity theft cant have negative effects (e.g. if someone is able to steal your ID and ruin your credit rating you should be able to get that black mark removed if you can prove that your ID was stolen and that you didnt do whatever it was that ruined the credit rating)
Some things that went wrong with my PCs.
:( )
One was when I used the heatsink/fan from a Pentium 166 MMX on a clone cyrix 300mhz part. That thing never worked right and eventually fried.
Since then I have always used the manufacturer recommended cooling fan on all my CPUs.
My current PC has a floppy drive that doesnt work (but with a CD burner, I havent had a reason to need a floppy)
I also had a PC that got fried with an electrical surge (I can still remember the big burn mark next to one of the chips on the HDD controler card on the hard disk with all my data that I had yet to back up
Also had a video card (brand newish) that I installed such that the fan on the GPU was completly covered by another card, I think the fan stopped working on that one.
The difference between MS, Unix and other propriatory systems and Linux & OSS when it comes to forking is that linux "forks" (such as the kernels that most distros ship) are compatible and indeed pretty much every "fork" or variant of an OSS program has tried to remain compatible (i.e. the kernel remains compatible with all linux apps except mabie those that talk to the kernel directly like kernel modules and drivers and so on)
And programs like Apache, OpenSSL, OpenSSH and others are based on standards.
On the other hand when Microsoft and other propriatory software vendors make forks, they are often incompatible by design.
At high school I learned pascal then later Visual Basic (starting with VB3 then VB4).
Then when uni happened, JAVA was the language of choice with some C & ASM in the "lower level" course
Since then I have done more java, C and C++ & some VB.
Who decides what counts as "violent" and "mature"?
If they are accepting the ESRB definitions for Teen and Mature games and stuff, thats great.
But if they are trying to define a new definition for "violent" and "mature" games that is different (perhaps more restrictive) than what the ESRB and the industry define, then I have a big problem with that.
Where can I see exactly what the possible values for the flag are (e.g. "cant record this show at all", "can record it once then not move the recorded copy" etc)?
Basicly, it would be a CDROM (and perhaps a book or manual) that would be sold in computer shops.
When you install it, it would clean all the spyware, viruses, trojans, zombies and gunk from your system automatically.
It would then install anti-virus and anti-spyware and etc programs designed to run periodically and clean the system. (including hooks into email programs like Outlook Express to remove the viruses before they even reach the users inbox) Plus a firewall with settings to block known bad software (spyware, trojans etc) but not block anything else. (this prevents the problem of the user blindly allowing everything through). It should also contain auto-updates so it keeps the data files it uses up to date without any action from the user.
If you can make it block or restrict websites used by philshing (fake bank sites etc) in a way that is going to be understandable for the cluless users the package is aimed at and which will be 100% sure to not block anything other than malicious sites, even better. (although I suspect this is going to be difficult)
Design the UI and interface so that it can be used and understood by even the most cluless of users (the kind that think that the "blue E icon" is "the internet" for example).
Give it a name like PC Tune Up or something. Most people (even the most clueless of people) know that you should take your car into the mechanic and have it serviced regularly if you want to keep it running well. So pitch this package as the computer equivelent of getting a service/tune up, that way even the clueless will be able to understand why running it is a good thing.
Also, in the marketing campaign & software, show people all the bad things that hackers, viruses, spyware, trojans, philshing etc can do you & your computer. For example, show (in a way the cluless can understand) how these things can be used to access your online banking and bank account and take money from it without your knowledge. And so on.
Firstly, this program would serve to get rid of the junk even without the user needing to know exactly what the junk is.
And secondly, it would serve as a way to educate the users so that they know how to avoid the junk in the future.
really an alien from outer space, we might be able to convince GWB to fund NASA.
Or mabie if we can show that there is oil on the moon...
Unfortunatly, the US government (bush in particular) seems too focused on oil, wars no-one really wants, not catching the people who need to be captured (bin laden etc), catching people who arent a threat (most of the people in the cuban camps, people pirating music and movies online etc) and generally doing stupid things.
The only reason GWB can get away with all these stupid things is because he does just enough good things (anti-gay things, anti-abortion things, farm subsidies, various religious things that totally defly the so-called seperation of church and state, tax cuts designed to look good without actually doing anything etc) to keep the american voters happy.
I want to see netscape/AOL release the code to the bits that let you use IE rendering engine alongside GECKO, along with the list of whitelisted-to-run-in-IE sites.
Something that is a factor in the case of the B5 game and probobly also in the case of Sam & Max 2 and probobly other canceled projects is that by canceling it and burying it for all time, you can get a tax benifit on whatever you spent on it (I think this applies to anything, not just games).
I am not a tax expert so I dont know for sure but if that is the case, that is a good reason for them.
i.e. its worth $x in tax benifits to bury it vs $y in possible sales if they release it.
Unfortunatly for fans of B5 and adventure game fans, the marketing and accounting people at vivendi and lucasarts did the math and based on how many units they thought they could ship, the estimates led to $x being enough vs $y that it was better for them to bury the games.
From what I have heard and read, the script is good (it should be, its a DNA origonal).
:(
But the production design is nothing like the BBC TV series or the descriptions in the book (I havent heard the radio plays so I cant comment on those).
There are some things that are consistant between the book and TV series (and probobly the radio plays too). For example:
The heart of gold is portrayed as being shaped like a sneaker.
Zaphod Beeblebrox has 3 arms and an extra neck and head comming out of his shoulder.
Yet the movie doesnt have those elements
I imagine it only applies if you are using the player names, team names, logos and such that are owned by/licenced by the major league baseball people.
If you read the 1000s of other posts on this or the bugzilla bugs covering it, you would see that its been fixed in firefox mainline but that it didnt hit 1.0 because it was considered too risky.
And that its broken because slashdot spits out bad HTML.
Yeah but does the helix player play content in RealAudio and RealVideo formats? Does it talk to streaming servers using the Real streaming protocols?
Why dont banks change the way they print their credit card statements so that the statements dont contain enough information to enable someone to use the card. That way, if the statement is stolen, it alone doesnt give anyone enough information to use the credit card.
I like the idea of photos on credit cards.
Basicly, if there is a photo on your card, it makes it just that much harder for a casual thief to use the card. Plus, it wouldnt require any changes to POS terminals or equipment.
Its just like when EA closed Westwood Studios in las vegas and moved everyone who was happy to move over to EALA.
If it was possible for EA to fit everyone into a single office and give everyone a single PC and still make the craptastic same-old same-old games they are doing, the would probobly do it.
But why go with PCI only for the first release?
AGP is what everyone wants.
I suspect it is because developing glue logic to talk to the PCI bus is easier than developing glue logic to talk to the AGP bus...