Those prosthetic legs look fairly high tech; they probably did cost six (6) million dollars, although I suppose that would be a bargain given the going rate for government projects these days.
I bought my parents a DVD recorder for Christmas only to find out later they could not copy their legally purchased VHS collection to DVD due to some macrovision crap. Ah, that is the first introduction that most average consumers have to DRM and copy protection. They think that techies of the sort who hang around on Slashdot bemoaning the evils of DRM are just a bunch of nerds blowing hot air about something which doesn't matter. They are stunned when they find out that they cannot copy their VHS tapes to DVD (or their DVDs to VHS tape) without either a band pass filtering device (which is way too black market for most people) or special software which is also "questionable". The usual scenario is that a Disney DVD or VHS tape needs to be copied (so their kids can destroy the copy while the parents preserve the original), but they are surprised at the poor quality of their copy asking their technology literate friends: why are there all these dark lines and messed up colors on my copy? The problem is compounded by the fact that Disney purposefully and deftly manipulates the recorded content market for their films, releasing and re-releasing films only every five or ten years or so, in order to heighten demand and charge higher prices. The desire to make copies because kids destroy DVDs and VHS tapes is a natural response by parents who hit upon the idea to hook the output of their DVD player into the input of their VCR and press record only to be surprised by the results.
Taking advantage of an eight year old girl, which is about as innocent a it gets in the eyes of a jury, and especially when those taking advantage are weaselly lawyers working for the entertainment industry, is about as low as one can go. If I were on the legal team bringing the class action against the RIAA and their big label backers then I would hit this weak spot again and again and again during the trial until they cry uncle and agreed to settle.
but it seems like most non-technical people stopped trying. They have been told not to try by people they trusted while growing up, such as teachers, parents, and even the media. They have been told that science and engineering are a waste of time because any future employment in those areas will be outsourced to countries were the work is done for dirt cheap. This isn't the whole story, of course, but who are you going to trust? So they spend their time trying to learn how to sing or become a professional athlete (both one in tens of thousands shots) or they major in business or try to sell real estate or whatever the current fads are.
To most people a CD is defined as "something that is about 5 inches across and has a shiny bottom. If I put it in my computer something happens." Ooooh! oooh! Look at the shiny things! ooohh...shiny.
Yes indeed, if it can be done then it is a sure bet that some user somewhere will do it. However, the enforcement of the CD logo program still has value for those of us in the know because lack of the logo cues us into the fact that the disk probably has some sort of DRM or other form of skulduggery going on so that we can avoid it or at least take precautions (like turning off auto-play or holding down the shift key or getting out the trusty old Sharpie). All external data sources, like user input, should be considered evil and not trustworthy and treated accordingly with basic precautions.
One of the interesting things about Star Trek is that the concepts frequently exceeded the ability of the set designers or the prop builders to keep up. If you get some of the coffee table books where they include some of the concept and designer notes from when say TNG, DS9, Voyager, or even Enterprise were being developed they include such items as three dimensional holographic displays, completely voice actuated systems with no buttons or control panels at all (ruled too advanced for 24th century at the time of TNG...the audience wouldn't buy it). So what actually ended up the screen was not always exactly what the producers wanted, but what they were able to do on time and in budget with the resources that they had available at the time. The user interface concepts shown in Star Trek are generally very forward looking and include many features which eventually make their way into real world systems in one form or another even if the physics and other scientific concepts are somewhat less convincingly portrayed (i.e. Star Trek physics...ugh).
Having done that, should they not be liable for SCO's debts? Not unless the law firm made a separate personal guarantee (i.e. contract) to stand behind those debts and why would they have given that to SCOs creditors? There are no more responsible for the debts of the corporation than any of the other owners. That is the whole point of corporation, to prevent direct exposure to liability of the owners whether they be other corporations, private individuals, or shareholders (public traded company). Novel can suck whatever assets remain out of the dried husk of SCO until it crumbles into dust, but once the assets of the corporation are completely exhausted, the corporate headquarters sold, and the office furniture has been auctioned off the company files the dissolution paperwork (or their law firm does it) and the company ceases to exist as entity.
I think they should be made to experience the full consequences of their agreement. People have been trying to pierce the veil of the corporation for generations now, but the courts have consistently upheld the separation of liability from the owners of the corporation and established many precedents. The modern world as we know it is based upon these abstractions and they will not be unwound short of crumpling the whole thing up and starting over which could be, well to put it nicely, messy like strawberry jam.
Actually, even in the US, what sort of penalties could you possibly face for "moving operations out of the country"? Air to ground missile strike perhaps? States have the guns remember? Take Sealand for example, a single torpedo could wipe them out and if they made themselves irritating and annoying then it would NOT surprise me if they had an "accident" courtesy of the states which they annoyed.
Why not simply ask people to contribute what they think the game is worth? Allow them to donate via PayPal or the like or you could try and get your game featured on one of the consoles, XBox 360 and XBox Live come to mind. Another question, why is a small team trying to make games for profit? I chose not to work in the games industry as a software developer, even though I could have, because I knew that it would be tons of work for comparatively low pay (as opposed to other types of development which pay much better for less brutal hours) and very high risk. In fact I have heard that over 2/3 of all game projects lose money or just barely break even. It is the big brand name series owned by the big studios and the occasional break out hit that makes up for it (although games have become so formulaic now that those breakout hits, the kinds that smaller game studios made in the past are becoming less and less frequent).
With such a model the ability to contain a single security breech to a small number of files should be possible. Indeed, that was their intention with the Blu-Ray format or at least in part by allowing part of the decryption algorithm to be dynamically loaded from the disc. The model was still flawed in that the dynamically loaded code was subject to analysis, but the designers probably hoped that the extra effort involved in analyzing dozens or even hundreds of variations all different on different disks would be enough of a deterrent to discourage copying. Obviously they are wrong, for the reasons pointed above, but it was the first time that the DRM pushers took a slightly more dynamic approach to the problem (unsolvable IMHO).
The only way that their copy protection scheme would work is if they had complete end-to-end control of all hardware devices that might capture either the data or the sounds and images which is not only ridiculous but impossible. I have long thought that a different course should be pursued and it is as follows:
First, the music industry should discontinue their lawsuits and refund all money and reasonable legal expenses that they have inflicted upon average citizens of modest means in their lawsuit campaign. Second, they should apologize to both the artists and the fans for years of skullduggery, ripoffs, and other assorted nastiness. Third, they should charge reasonable prices for downloads of music in the format chosen by the user (ogg, mp3, aac, or whatever the customer wants). Finally, after all of these steps have been taken, they should make the case against wholesale copyright infringement by taking the moral high ground and appealing to peoples' sense of decency and fairness. Most people are reasonable and would be swayed by such an argument. They would not infringe copyright wholesale for the same reasons that they don't empty the cardboard change box (i.e. the one with no lock or other security) of the charity candy stand. The honor system works, and works at least as well as treating everyone like a thief. There will always be wholesale copyright infringers no matter what the industry does. However, the problem can be minimized for minimal cost and expense by taking the high road and appealing to peoples' noble side rather than taking the low road with lawsuits and injustice for all.
Of course, the possibilities for wide-screen above a row of urinals do come to mind, so they'll get you eventually if they haven't already I doubt it, for the simple reason that it is easier for us men to "target" (if you get my drift) the source of our annoyance (unless they mounted it really high up on the wall) for immediate destruction via electrolytic liquid. That and women are probably less likely to completely trash the washroom, write on the screen with a grease pencil, or take any number of other destructive actions against the furnishings and fixtures.
Hmmm...lets review your positions here shall we?
I will repeal corporate personhood. Return to feudalism...check
I will tax the top 5% and distribute the wealth through increased funding for basic academic research, reimburse college loans for students carrying 3.2GPA or higher, national daycare programs, and national health care programs. Why stop there? what else should the government be providing? They do such a wonderful job of spending YOUR money efficiently for you so why not just run everything that way? It is not possible to re-distribute wealth, it has been tried and it just doesn't work. You will only succeed in distributing an equal portion of misery to everyone.
Prosecute the supreme court justices who appointed Bush, and every person in the federal governemnt who continued to aid and abet the terrorist regime. Sounds like a purge. I hear that the Soviets were fond of those.
Establish a department of peace, reduce military funding, and give anyone a seat a a negotiating table so we do not have to fight them "over there" or "over here". Spoken like someone who hasn't seen much of the world. There are people out there who would rather kill us or die trying and they would only "negotiate" if they thought that it would give them a short term tactical advantage (i.e. they would negotiate in bad faith) or cause us to ease off the pressure for a while. We negotiate where we can, but sometimes we need the sword as well. Negotiation with the sword to back it up is meaningless.
Reparations for the victims of hurrican katrina who were failed by their governments. Reparations imply that someone was at fault, so unless you are going to blame Bush for the weather it doesn't make sense to talk about reparations. People choose to build their houses in flood plains or live in low lying areas, nobody forced them to live there. How is it the fault of the rest of us when the inevitable storm comes through and wipes them out? There are plenty of other places in the United States to live besides the coasts, pick one and move there or else don't complain when you have to rebuild your house in the same bad location every few years. Why should the rest of us have to pay for that?
If you run then remind me to vote for the other guy.
Then I'd pardon everyone in jail for simple possession. If you had to personally sign each one then you would have a very sore wrist by the time you were done, if indeed you even could finish before your term ran out.
The race card is almost always played by people who wish to short circuit debate on genuine issues and cut straight to an emotional response designed to override logic and reason when frankly, there are much more important issues at stake in this next election. The race issue in our society has already been well addressed and it has been for at least a decade now if not longer. In my own experience it is rare to uncover the types of institutionalized discriminations that used to be part of the system and if you do experience that sort of discrimination then you have adequate methods of redress and relief via the courts. If you are trying to eliminate all bigotry then you are truly wasting your time. The test of a free society with free speech is the allowance of speech that we may disagree with or which represents a minority point of view. Discrimination is one thing, but free speech, even bigoted speech, should be answered with speech, not banned out of hand. Kicking off one's campaign at Bob Jones U or referring to 'states rights' does not make one a racist, one can speak to groups, even groups with values you don't agree with, without becoming part of that group or endorsing their message. In fact, there may be many groups which support a candidate or run ads for a candidate, but that does not mean that the candidate endorses or is even connected with those groups. Why do you think that candidates generally include the line, "I am candidate name and I approve of this message." in their ads? People should be more careful about labeling someone a racist, that is a serious charge and it is, more often than not, unfounded. Ron Paul is NOT a racist.
We don't need to waste our money on an army that just inspires douchebag politicians to start shit. History has not been kind to peoples who either couldn't or wouldn't grasp the sword when required. You are descended from the ones who used the sword, never forget that.
Put 10% of the military welfare towards space exploration, and tone down the aggressive rhetoric. Military welfare? A curious description to be sure. The military exists primarily to ensure your welfare against looting, pillaging, and ultimately death at the hands of foreign powers and their armies. In fact, the military is one of the few things that the government actually should provide, both to limit the overall level of violence and preserve the power of the state to enforce civilized society.
I mean, why should my tax dollars finance an over-powered military which sucks hard at stopping current terroristic threats? Well for starters, since it is not generally possible to exclude just you from enjoying the benefits of the national defense that the rest of us are paying for, you must also be compelled to pay. Now, I am generally against taxes and compulsion, but in the case of national defense I make a notable exception. The alternatives are armed gangs, warlordism, and lots of collateral damage. Given that a certain level of violence is inevitable (it is human nature to be violent) I prefer to vest that power in the state so that it can be effectively monopolized and minimized, even though the coercive power of taxation must be used to support it. You might argue about the level of spending or that the spending is inefficient, but the government is inefficient at spending on anything so it is best to limit spending to the necessary items only (i.e the military, the courts, the treasury, and not much else).
Because you're pants-filling fear says so? Which is exactly what you will be doing when the invaders come, and come they shall, especially if you have no organized army to protect you. Those who forget history in order to embrace a hopelessly idealistic future are doomed to learn the same lessons that their fathers and their fathers learned with much pain and hard experience.
So they're both useless and harmful. They are indeed useless and potentially harmful to the uninformed, but really it would be easy to maintain anonymity by paying either cash or using a pre-pay debit card (again bought with cash) with fake signup information. They can spend as much money and time as they like finding out where Berta A. Sapp lives.
Berta A. Sapp
3392 University Hill Road
Bloomington, IL 61701
Hmmmm...he might want to watch out on those cross country trips through the United States, some states have heavy gasoline taxes to pay for construction and maintenance of their roads and they take a rather dim view of truckers who fill up at the borders to drive through those states "without paying the tax". In fact, they set up checkpoints to stop trucks that don't fill up on the way out of their state and issue them a bill for taxes they would have paid if they did fill up. The whole thing is ridiculous if you ask me, but it is conceivable that if they (i.e. those states) take a dim view of cross border diesel fill-ups then they will probably take an equally dim view of non-taxed alternative fuel fill-ups.
To use a term from the lexicon of the average New Yorker, why don't those companies, which are based OUTSIDE of New York, politely tell the attorney general of New York to go f*** himself?
They changed the postal regs on that one a long time ago, at least here in the United States (I think it goes back to the Nixon presidential campaign during the 1970s when people were using his postage paid campaign fund raising envelopes to mail bricks and other heavy objects by taping the envelope to the object in question). Anyway, if it doesn't fit inside the standard envelope or weighs more than a certain low amount, less that 3.5 ounces and 0.25 inches thick are the maximum limits for standard envelope, it gets classified as "junk" and the post office discards it without actually sending it through. So while you are madly cackling with glee stuffing that postage paid envelope with "ballast" just remember to keep it under the 3.5 ounce limit so that it will actually get there and not get discarded as junk (i.e. they never get it and they don't have to pay for the cost of mailing) at your local post office before it is sent on through the system.
That single representative could be quite influential, especially if he was very senior in years of service and was on the important committees compared to 53 more junior members from a larger state. This is why smaller states tend to elect the same guy over and over again because it increases their chances of getting more and better goodies in disproportionate amounts to their actual population or influence. Seniority matters in Congress.
One potential drawback in your system is that substantial minority populations, which may be spread across multiple districts but not large enough to take a seat in any individual district, may fail to gain any seats in any district (i.e no representation whatsoever), even though there may be enough of them in the aggregate to warrant a minority number of seats. This would be particularly true in a "winner take all" system where all of the seats in a district or if the district only has one seat goes to the winner with the runners up getting nothing.
They have legitimate uses, particularly when the calculator is being used for custom programs (and who buys one these days if they don't intend to use the programming features?). It would be really annoying to have to scan through a program one line at a time to find and make a tweak or what if you want to display multiple outputs simultaneously? The large screen combined with programming features is really a winning combination, the graphing tools are just a nice bonus.
Slashdot Mirror
Those prosthetic legs look fairly high tech; they probably did cost six (6) million dollars, although I suppose that would be a bargain given the going rate for government projects these days.
Taking advantage of an eight year old girl, which is about as innocent a it gets in the eyes of a jury, and especially when those taking advantage are weaselly lawyers working for the entertainment industry, is about as low as one can go. If I were on the legal team bringing the class action against the RIAA and their big label backers then I would hit this weak spot again and again and again during the trial until they cry uncle and agreed to settle.
Yes indeed, if it can be done then it is a sure bet that some user somewhere will do it. However, the enforcement of the CD logo program still has value for those of us in the know because lack of the logo cues us into the fact that the disk probably has some sort of DRM or other form of skulduggery going on so that we can avoid it or at least take precautions (like turning off auto-play or holding down the shift key or getting out the trusty old Sharpie). All external data sources, like user input, should be considered evil and not trustworthy and treated accordingly with basic precautions.
Haaaaar! The cutlasses be honed an' th' boardin' hooks be ready, plunder an' plenty o' booty await us when th' mafiaa ship be finally taken a prize.
One of the interesting things about Star Trek is that the concepts frequently exceeded the ability of the set designers or the prop builders to keep up. If you get some of the coffee table books where they include some of the concept and designer notes from when say TNG, DS9, Voyager, or even Enterprise were being developed they include such items as three dimensional holographic displays, completely voice actuated systems with no buttons or control panels at all (ruled too advanced for 24th century at the time of TNG...the audience wouldn't buy it). So what actually ended up the screen was not always exactly what the producers wanted, but what they were able to do on time and in budget with the resources that they had available at the time. The user interface concepts shown in Star Trek are generally very forward looking and include many features which eventually make their way into real world systems in one form or another even if the physics and other scientific concepts are somewhat less convincingly portrayed (i.e. Star Trek physics...ugh).
First they ban your account and then they fix if and when they get around to it.
Why not simply ask people to contribute what they think the game is worth? Allow them to donate via PayPal or the like or you could try and get your game featured on one of the consoles, XBox 360 and XBox Live come to mind. Another question, why is a small team trying to make games for profit? I chose not to work in the games industry as a software developer, even though I could have, because I knew that it would be tons of work for comparatively low pay (as opposed to other types of development which pay much better for less brutal hours) and very high risk. In fact I have heard that over 2/3 of all game projects lose money or just barely break even. It is the big brand name series owned by the big studios and the occasional break out hit that makes up for it (although games have become so formulaic now that those breakout hits, the kinds that smaller game studios made in the past are becoming less and less frequent).
The only way that their copy protection scheme would work is if they had complete end-to-end control of all hardware devices that might capture either the data or the sounds and images which is not only ridiculous but impossible. I have long thought that a different course should be pursued and it is as follows:
First, the music industry should discontinue their lawsuits and refund all money and reasonable legal expenses that they have inflicted upon average citizens of modest means in their lawsuit campaign. Second, they should apologize to both the artists and the fans for years of skullduggery, ripoffs, and other assorted nastiness. Third, they should charge reasonable prices for downloads of music in the format chosen by the user (ogg, mp3, aac, or whatever the customer wants). Finally, after all of these steps have been taken, they should make the case against wholesale copyright infringement by taking the moral high ground and appealing to peoples' sense of decency and fairness. Most people are reasonable and would be swayed by such an argument. They would not infringe copyright wholesale for the same reasons that they don't empty the cardboard change box (i.e. the one with no lock or other security) of the charity candy stand. The honor system works, and works at least as well as treating everyone like a thief. There will always be wholesale copyright infringers no matter what the industry does. However, the problem can be minimized for minimal cost and expense by taking the high road and appealing to peoples' noble side rather than taking the low road with lawsuits and injustice for all.
If you run then remind me to vote for the other guy.
The race card is almost always played by people who wish to short circuit debate on genuine issues and cut straight to an emotional response designed to override logic and reason when frankly, there are much more important issues at stake in this next election. The race issue in our society has already been well addressed and it has been for at least a decade now if not longer. In my own experience it is rare to uncover the types of institutionalized discriminations that used to be part of the system and if you do experience that sort of discrimination then you have adequate methods of redress and relief via the courts. If you are trying to eliminate all bigotry then you are truly wasting your time. The test of a free society with free speech is the allowance of speech that we may disagree with or which represents a minority point of view. Discrimination is one thing, but free speech, even bigoted speech, should be answered with speech, not banned out of hand. Kicking off one's campaign at Bob Jones U or referring to 'states rights' does not make one a racist, one can speak to groups, even groups with values you don't agree with, without becoming part of that group or endorsing their message. In fact, there may be many groups which support a candidate or run ads for a candidate, but that does not mean that the candidate endorses or is even connected with those groups. Why do you think that candidates generally include the line, "I am candidate name and I approve of this message." in their ads? People should be more careful about labeling someone a racist, that is a serious charge and it is, more often than not, unfounded. Ron Paul is NOT a racist.
Berta A. Sapp
3392 University Hill Road
Bloomington, IL 61701
Website: Jabberva.com
Email Address: BertaASapp@fontdrift.com
Phone: 217-570-0093
Mother's maiden name: Salinas
Birthday: March 4, 1961
MasterCard: 5401 7559 8792 4613
Expires: 1/2011
SSN: 326-48-5038
Hmmmm...he might want to watch out on those cross country trips through the United States, some states have heavy gasoline taxes to pay for construction and maintenance of their roads and they take a rather dim view of truckers who fill up at the borders to drive through those states "without paying the tax". In fact, they set up checkpoints to stop trucks that don't fill up on the way out of their state and issue them a bill for taxes they would have paid if they did fill up. The whole thing is ridiculous if you ask me, but it is conceivable that if they (i.e. those states) take a dim view of cross border diesel fill-ups then they will probably take an equally dim view of non-taxed alternative fuel fill-ups.
I thought that goatse.cx had that rather dubious distinction...
To use a term from the lexicon of the average New Yorker, why don't those companies, which are based OUTSIDE of New York, politely tell the attorney general of New York to go f*** himself?
They changed the postal regs on that one a long time ago, at least here in the United States (I think it goes back to the Nixon presidential campaign during the 1970s when people were using his postage paid campaign fund raising envelopes to mail bricks and other heavy objects by taping the envelope to the object in question). Anyway, if it doesn't fit inside the standard envelope or weighs more than a certain low amount, less that 3.5 ounces and 0.25 inches thick are the maximum limits for standard envelope, it gets classified as "junk" and the post office discards it without actually sending it through. So while you are madly cackling with glee stuffing that postage paid envelope with "ballast" just remember to keep it under the 3.5 ounce limit so that it will actually get there and not get discarded as junk (i.e. they never get it and they don't have to pay for the cost of mailing) at your local post office before it is sent on through the system.
That single representative could be quite influential, especially if he was very senior in years of service and was on the important committees compared to 53 more junior members from a larger state. This is why smaller states tend to elect the same guy over and over again because it increases their chances of getting more and better goodies in disproportionate amounts to their actual population or influence. Seniority matters in Congress.
One potential drawback in your system is that substantial minority populations, which may be spread across multiple districts but not large enough to take a seat in any individual district, may fail to gain any seats in any district (i.e no representation whatsoever), even though there may be enough of them in the aggregate to warrant a minority number of seats. This would be particularly true in a "winner take all" system where all of the seats in a district or if the district only has one seat goes to the winner with the runners up getting nothing.
They have legitimate uses, particularly when the calculator is being used for custom programs (and who buys one these days if they don't intend to use the programming features?). It would be really annoying to have to scan through a program one line at a time to find and make a tweak or what if you want to display multiple outputs simultaneously? The large screen combined with programming features is really a winning combination, the graphing tools are just a nice bonus.