"The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it.
"Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author's expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles." - http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html
Couldn't EFF still offer legal services to those who are directly financially harmed by bogus patents? I don't this this would doom the patent busting project, just force it to change gears.
...of American scientists publishing a paper about "new" research into controlling motor muscles via electromagnetic stimulation of the brain. Nevermind that Japanese scientists had performed the same experiments and moved on to a working prototype a couple of years earlier... and published a video on the Web! (Viewable here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fILH4qgkXk8) I realize that scientific experiments need to be repeated and verified, but to claim it as new research is either deceitful or negligent. Probably gets you more grant money, though.
My issue with the game is the gear you've worked so hard to attain over the past year is essentially worthless with each expansion.
I'm not so concerned about that, because I enjoy getting new lewts. My issue with the level cap being raised is that, as a relative latecomer to the game, I'll probably never get to see any of the level 60 raid content. I look at WoW as an interactive work of art. I don't understand how a company can put so much time and money into developing something, and then make changes that basically render all their previous work obsolete.
With that much money and that many subscribers, it's astonishing that Blizzard is still using a Web forum (a broken Web forum, I might add, on which the search function ceased functioning months ago and they haven't even acknowledged it) as the primary means of collecting feedback and bug reports from their users. Even the most well-written bug reports rarely receive any kind of response from Blizzard. I'm about ready to set up an unofficial Bugzilla just people can see the incredible number of bugs in this game and how little concern Blizzard actually has for their customers.
Both need to get out of the software business and stick to the only thing they do well: hardware. Apple can keep making iPods and design the next generation of trendy PC cases, and Microsoft, well... keyboards and mice is about it for them.
The point is, why should you have to do any of this crap in the first place? You should not do any extra work to make compliant pages render correctly in a broken browser. Screw letting a convicted illegal monopolist create extra work for you just so they can maintain their market share. At most, you should put a note on the page that explains why it might not look right, and why people should download a compliant browser.
In 2000, during the media hype over the Elian Gonzalez affair, I wrote an email to my father and cousin in which I called the fascist thug Janet Reno "the domestic enemy I swore an oath to defend this country against." Three days later I got a knock on my door from two FBI agents who asked me a bunch of inane questions like whether I owned any firearms and whether I've ever visited Washington, D.C. I found out later that they had already interviewed everyone I worked with about my personality and behavior. So now I have an FBI file. Yay! (Are you reading this, Special Agent Irwin K. Summerville? Fuck you and everything you stand for!)
A few months later, the word "Carnivore" started showing up in the press. The FBI swore up and down that it was only used to monitor suspected criminals. But I have never been convicted (or even accused) of any crime.
To be fair, there is a rational explanation for why I might have been under specific surveillance: I held Secret security clearance because I was a military avionics technician who occasionally worked on ECM gear. However, I sent the email that tripped Carnivore from an off-base residential ISP account. So even if I was being specifically monitored, the FBI's investigation reveals the existence of a system for locating and tracking individuals by their 'net presence. That's scary enough, even if they're not secretly scanning everyone's email (which I strongly suspect they are).
How is it a leap to say that if you can't legally practice computer forensics without a P.I. license, you won't be able to testify in court about it without a license? And, more importantly, why has computer forensics been singled out for this licensing requirement?
I've known two people who took 100-level "Introduction to Programming" type classes using Java. Both of them ended up terribly confused and I had to tutor them. But the problem wasn't Java; it was the fact that their professors approached "an introduction to programming using Java" as "an introduction to Java programming." I believe Java can be a great first programming language, but only in the capable hands of somebody without a doctorate.
I could build a fully functional cruise missile for under $1000 using off-the-shelf hardware, and I'm just a tinkerer, not an aerospace engineer. You think Akabar is stupid just because he lives in some festering third-world shithole?
As a photographer, I have to take issue with #5. GIMP still doesn't support 32-bit color, something that used to be considered a minor shortcoming but is now a major issue even for an amateur like myself. It's essential for scanning analog media, and it would also be quite handy for working with raw images. There's an old fork of GIMP called CinePaint that has 32-bit support hacked in, but even in 16-bit mode it lacks a lot of recent optimizations and features.
I think the article's analysis is way off. Linux isn't losing ground to Apple, except in the sense that it's losing potential converts from Microsoft. Microsoft is losing ground to both Apple and Linux. So you have to ask, what does Apple have that Microsoft and Linux both lack? I think the answer is Apple's sudden appeal to a younger generation of users. It probably has a little to do with the iPod and a lot to do with Apple's excellent TV marketing campaign.
Slashdot Mirror
"The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it.
"Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author's expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles." - http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html
Couldn't EFF still offer legal services to those who are directly financially harmed by bogus patents? I don't this this would doom the patent busting project, just force it to change gears.
Which major IP holder sponsored the "research" behind the article?
True... but I'm not a professional scientist, and I knew about the earlier research. (Probably from reading Slashdot, actually.)
...of American scientists publishing a paper about "new" research into controlling motor muscles via electromagnetic stimulation of the brain. Nevermind that Japanese scientists had performed the same experiments and moved on to a working prototype a couple of years earlier... and published a video on the Web! (Viewable here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fILH4qgkXk8) I realize that scientific experiments need to be repeated and verified, but to claim it as new research is either deceitful or negligent. Probably gets you more grant money, though.
I'm not so concerned about that, because I enjoy getting new lewts. My issue with the level cap being raised is that, as a relative latecomer to the game, I'll probably never get to see any of the level 60 raid content. I look at WoW as an interactive work of art. I don't understand how a company can put so much time and money into developing something, and then make changes that basically render all their previous work obsolete.
With that much money and that many subscribers, it's astonishing that Blizzard is still using a Web forum (a broken Web forum, I might add, on which the search function ceased functioning months ago and they haven't even acknowledged it) as the primary means of collecting feedback and bug reports from their users. Even the most well-written bug reports rarely receive any kind of response from Blizzard. I'm about ready to set up an unofficial Bugzilla just people can see the incredible number of bugs in this game and how little concern Blizzard actually has for their customers.
Both need to get out of the software business and stick to the only thing they do well: hardware. Apple can keep making iPods and design the next generation of trendy PC cases, and Microsoft, well... keyboards and mice is about it for them.
The "digital economy" is doomed to collapse unless they realize and accept that it's based on services, not products.
IE6 and IE7 break standards. That's the problem. Developers shouldn't have to waste man-hours supporting Microsoft's non-compliance.
And there is no such thing as a "de-facto standard" where an official standard exists, you fucking dipshit.
The point is, why should you have to do any of this crap in the first place? You should not do any extra work to make compliant pages render correctly in a broken browser. Screw letting a convicted illegal monopolist create extra work for you just so they can maintain their market share. At most, you should put a note on the page that explains why it might not look right, and why people should download a compliant browser.
In 2000, during the media hype over the Elian Gonzalez affair, I wrote an email to my father and cousin in which I called the fascist thug Janet Reno "the domestic enemy I swore an oath to defend this country against." Three days later I got a knock on my door from two FBI agents who asked me a bunch of inane questions like whether I owned any firearms and whether I've ever visited Washington, D.C. I found out later that they had already interviewed everyone I worked with about my personality and behavior. So now I have an FBI file. Yay! (Are you reading this, Special Agent Irwin K. Summerville? Fuck you and everything you stand for!)
A few months later, the word "Carnivore" started showing up in the press. The FBI swore up and down that it was only used to monitor suspected criminals. But I have never been convicted (or even accused) of any crime.
To be fair, there is a rational explanation for why I might have been under specific surveillance: I held Secret security clearance because I was a military avionics technician who occasionally worked on ECM gear. However, I sent the email that tripped Carnivore from an off-base residential ISP account. So even if I was being specifically monitored, the FBI's investigation reveals the existence of a system for locating and tracking individuals by their 'net presence. That's scary enough, even if they're not secretly scanning everyone's email (which I strongly suspect they are).
So? Fake problem, fake solution, everybody's happy.
Insipid hipsterism has has a lot of impact on people going back to vinyl.
PEW PEW LAZERS
It's kind of like that.
How is it a leap to say that if you can't legally practice computer forensics without a P.I. license, you won't be able to testify in court about it without a license? And, more importantly, why has computer forensics been singled out for this licensing requirement?
I've known two people who took 100-level "Introduction to Programming" type classes using Java. Both of them ended up terribly confused and I had to tutor them. But the problem wasn't Java; it was the fact that their professors approached "an introduction to programming using Java" as "an introduction to Java programming." I believe Java can be a great first programming language, but only in the capable hands of somebody without a doctorate.
And will a computer forensics expert be able to gain that acceptance without a P.I. license? See the point now?
I could build a fully functional cruise missile for under $1000 using off-the-shelf hardware, and I'm just a tinkerer, not an aerospace engineer. You think Akabar is stupid just because he lives in some festering third-world shithole?
Will this spell this the end of amateur comet hunting? Will all newly-discovered comets henceforth be named after Microsoft products?
Still ridiculous. Are they going to require a PI license for any other profession to give expert testimony?
As a photographer, I have to take issue with #5. GIMP still doesn't support 32-bit color, something that used to be considered a minor shortcoming but is now a major issue even for an amateur like myself. It's essential for scanning analog media, and it would also be quite handy for working with raw images. There's an old fork of GIMP called CinePaint that has 32-bit support hacked in, but even in 16-bit mode it lacks a lot of recent optimizations and features.
I think the article's analysis is way off. Linux isn't losing ground to Apple, except in the sense that it's losing potential converts from Microsoft. Microsoft is losing ground to both Apple and Linux. So you have to ask, what does Apple have that Microsoft and Linux both lack? I think the answer is Apple's sudden appeal to a younger generation of users. It probably has a little to do with the iPod and a lot to do with Apple's excellent TV marketing campaign.
If you allow exceptions for national security issues, suddenly everything is a national security issue.
Apple and Microsoft both need to stick to hardware.