The other aspect that seems to have been overlooked in this discussion is the licensing.
The government of Ontario may not have been prepared to accept open source licensing. In the case of the Wait Time and EMPI projects (which were precursor building block projects to the eHealth project), the RFPs issued to vendors specified that the Ontario government would own the IP of any system developed. I doubt that is compatible with the FOSS licensing for OSCAR.
That is why consultants wound up being hired -- as opposed to using a package from a vendor, or from an open source project -- because that way a custom system would be built from scratch whose IP could be claimed. No third party vendor of software was prepared to develop a system and give the IP away.
If the used games market is sooo lucrative that publishers think they should get a cut of it... then from a business perspective really what they should do, is start their own Game Stop equivalent stores that sell used games.
It would be similar to the (somewhat evil) approach that Ticketmaster took -- they realized there was a huge aftermarket for scalper tickets, and they were missing out on the margins. So they set up a subsidiary business to cater directly to that resale market. (nevermind the ongoing class action lawsuit...).
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.
"The company still runs its critical business applications on a Unix server using an accounting package from The SCO Group, formerly Caldera International."
Ripley: How many drops is this for you, Lieutenant? Gorman: Thirty eight... simulated. Vasquez: How many *combat* drops? Gorman: Uh, two. Including this one. Drake: Shit. Hudson: Oh, man...
I agree wholeheartedly with the need for copyright education -- provided there is an open balance of viewpoints presented. Part of the reason why copyright is in the messed up state it's in is because only rights-holders to date have bothered to understand copyright and to advance an agenda of increasing restrictions and controls with plausible-sounding rationales and suave justifications.
Meanwhile the general populace doesn't even realize the erosion of fair use until they get sued for something innocuous or can't perform some common-sense activity due to 'rights management'.
The intro courses should present the different perspectives across the entire spectrum -- it should be like taking a political science 101 course or something, where the challenge is to understand the principles behind each perspective, not necessarily to decide (within the framework of the course) on which is "right". I *want* to learn what the Jack Valenti's have to say in the copyright debate, ALONG WITH the EFF rebuttal. I *want* to learn the historical origins of Bill Gates' definition of software piracy, ALONG WITH the evolution of the GPL.
Knowing this stuff as background would be invaluable as a technologist developing new channels/media for communication, because then your technology will be informed by this prerequisite knowledge.
"People do not dress this way in normal life, not even in Los Angeles. There are some companies that seem more susceptible to this kind of technique than others."
This could also have read, "there are some PEOPLE that seem more susceptible to this kind of technique"...
why bother moving all the way to china? Try Canada. here in Ontario, there is a statutory requirement that *every* "adult sex film" in distribution be reviewed by a screening panel of the Ontario Film Review Board.
In actuality the setup is used as a cash cow for the government -- in order to get a film distributed, you have to pay a fee for them to review it and approve it for distribution. It's kind of ridiculous.
Joking aside, it turns out that the job is quite mind numbing. the panel members basically sit in a room all day long watching porn on fast forward with the audio muted. they only slow it if they think something verboten (e.g. beastiality, child porn etc) is onscreen.
Watching porn at your leisure is one thing. But *having* to do so as your job? And you don't just get to watch the stuff you enjoy. You are trapped there watching *all* the bad porn that is being made. Umm, no thanks.
I think to be fair, you also have to note that Google is also complicit in that it has also signed the "Responsibility Code" from China and declared that it will comply with local laws where necessary.
Debbie Frost, a spokesperson for Google has stated: "Google complies with local laws where it operates. We are also committed to doing what is best for our users.... With China, we are in the process of learning as much as possible in order to achieve both of these important objectives."
Google has also in the past filtered out stuff as requested by the French and German governments.
In this specific case, the CRIA executive quoted did even worse from my perspective: Graham Henderson married the lead singer of one of my favourite bands (Cowboy Junkies).
Margo, how could you!?!
(The junkies were one of the few bands I was happy to consistently shell out $$$ for. I always saw them live, and reflexively bought their latest non-popular albums from their little label. Sigh.)
Actually (and the scary part about it is) Graham Henderson is quite articulate in person and very vocal. He's (unfortunately) been enormously effective in his lobbyist role for the RIA.
In one of my English lit. classes at university this topic came up and the argument was made that John Milton (~1600s) was potentially the last person who could credibly claim that he had read "everything of importance". (He somewhat famously spent several years post matriculation in intensive private study, basically just reading.) (He also famously went blind later on in life...)
The prof. further went on to make a current comparison with respect to the magnitude of published materials. He stated that, if as an undergrad today you decided to start studying, without exception, every piece of extant Canadian children's literature, by the time you were 60 or so you might be able to claim a fairly comprehensive knowledge of that particular sub-genre, not counting everything that had been published since you started reading.
what bugs me is that, even if you accept the premise that search *is* the answer to everything, in gmail the search is not fully functional. Specifically, you can't search for partial string matches.
So, (to use the example mentioned in the help), if you search for 'vacation', you won't get messages containing 'vacations'. Instead you have to build obnoxious OR clauses for the queries you want.
Part of it is not a revenue generation thing so much as a cost savings. Google has been buying up a lot of dark fibre... They're trying to eliminate a middleman for IP transit fees. "Millions of dollars per month in savings" etc.
A small outfit based in toronto called Boxpilot (www.boxpilot.com) does something similar. Except instead of AI they use humans to get to your voice mail. They call it "Guided Voicemail" (shudder).
'We use live, human agents to guide your prerecorded message to the right person's voice mailbox...'
It's a weird variation on the usual crap call center job -- the agents sit there all day making calls hoping they *don't* get picked up on the other end.
Not to put too fine of a point on it, but those were movies based off of games.
Well, to put a fine point on it, that's exactly what my point is, which resulted in the Subject of the post. The corollary to the premise that 'games based on movies suck' is that 'movies based on games suck'.
Oooh! I think I'll dash on down to the video store and see if they still have a copy of Super Mario Brothers. Or maybe Street Fighter. Or Wing Commander...
Slashdot Mirror
As narrated by Morpheus.
As narrated by Kyle Reese. Enjoy!
Colossus? That sounds ominous.
"Congratulations! You survived a bird looking at you! Achievement unlocked, 10 points!"
Congratulations! I see your slashdot achievements are:
* Got a Score:5 Comment
* Days Read in a Row
* Days Metamoderated in a Row
+1 Flamebait!
and there was also the 3D House of Beef
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEnCKEfSgUM&feature=fvw
The other aspect that seems to have been overlooked in this discussion is the licensing.
The government of Ontario may not have been prepared to accept open source licensing. In the case of the Wait Time and EMPI projects (which were precursor building block projects to the eHealth project), the RFPs issued to vendors specified that the Ontario government would own the IP of any system developed. I doubt that is compatible with the FOSS licensing for OSCAR.
That is why consultants wound up being hired -- as opposed to using a package from a vendor, or from an open source project -- because that way a custom system would be built from scratch whose IP could be claimed. No third party vendor of software was prepared to develop a system and give the IP away.
If the used games market is sooo lucrative that publishers think they should get a cut of it... then from a business perspective really what they should do, is start their own Game Stop equivalent stores that sell used games.
It would be similar to the (somewhat evil) approach that Ticketmaster took -- they realized there was a huge aftermarket for scalper tickets, and they were missing out on the margins. So they set up a subsidiary business to cater directly to that resale market. (nevermind the ongoing class action lawsuit...).
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.
Amusingly...
"The company still runs its critical business applications on a Unix server using an accounting package from The SCO Group, formerly Caldera International."
(from TFA)
Ripley: How many drops is this for you, Lieutenant?
Gorman: Thirty eight... simulated.
Vasquez: How many *combat* drops?
Gorman: Uh, two. Including this one.
Drake: Shit.
Hudson: Oh, man...
In Toronto there is a google maps mashup of a similar project, where someone has driven around taking pictures from a truck.
http://toronto.virtualcity.ca/
I agree wholeheartedly with the need for copyright education -- provided there is an open balance of viewpoints presented. Part of the reason why copyright is in the messed up state it's in is because only rights-holders to date have bothered to understand copyright and to advance an agenda of increasing restrictions and controls with plausible-sounding rationales and suave justifications.
Meanwhile the general populace doesn't even realize the erosion of fair use until they get sued for something innocuous or can't perform some common-sense activity due to 'rights management'.
The intro courses should present the different perspectives across the entire spectrum -- it should be like taking a political science 101 course or something, where the challenge is to understand the principles behind each perspective, not necessarily to decide (within the framework of the course) on which is "right". I *want* to learn what the Jack Valenti's have to say in the copyright debate, ALONG WITH the EFF rebuttal. I *want* to learn the historical origins of Bill Gates' definition of software piracy, ALONG WITH the evolution of the GPL.
Knowing this stuff as background would be invaluable as a technologist developing new channels/media for communication, because then your technology will be informed by this prerequisite knowledge.
"People do not dress this way in normal life, not even in Los Angeles. There are some companies that seem more susceptible to this kind of technique than others."
This could also have read, "there are some PEOPLE that seem more susceptible to this kind of technique"...
Me being one of those people. Ahem.
A google AI might be able to pass the other turing test.
i.e. pass for female in the imitation game.
Which, it may be argued, has already been done in the online chat world...
why bother moving all the way to china? Try Canada. here in Ontario, there is a statutory requirement that *every* "adult sex film" in distribution be reviewed by a screening panel of the Ontario Film Review Board.
In actuality the setup is used as a cash cow for the government -- in order to get a film distributed, you have to pay a fee for them to review it and approve it for distribution. It's kind of ridiculous.
Joking aside, it turns out that the job is quite mind numbing. the panel members basically sit in a room all day long watching porn on fast forward with the audio muted. they only slow it if they think something verboten (e.g. beastiality, child porn etc) is onscreen.
Watching porn at your leisure is one thing. But *having* to do so as your job? And you don't just get to watch the stuff you enjoy. You are trapped there watching *all* the bad porn that is being made. Umm, no thanks.
gmail: must search for exact search term.
yahoo: allows partial string matches.
Finding stuff in gmail can be a major pain. Which is ironic considering Google's expertise in search.
I think to be fair, you also have to note that Google is also complicit in that it has also signed the "Responsibility Code" from China and declared that it will comply with local laws where necessary.
Debbie Frost, a spokesperson for Google has stated:
"Google complies with local laws where it operates. We are also committed to doing what is best for our users.... With China, we are in the process of learning as much as possible in order to achieve both of these important objectives."
Google has also in the past filtered out stuff as requested by the French and German governments.
That part of the announcement is scheduled for Friday.
Here in Toronto a commonly advertised type is "massage parlour".
For therapeutic purposes only! Honest!
In this specific case, the CRIA executive quoted did even worse from my perspective: Graham Henderson married the lead singer of one of my favourite bands (Cowboy Junkies).
Margo, how could you!?!
(The junkies were one of the few bands I was happy to consistently shell out $$$ for. I always saw them live, and reflexively bought their latest non-popular albums from their little label. Sigh.)
Actually (and the scary part about it is) Graham Henderson is quite articulate in person and very vocal. He's (unfortunately) been enormously effective in his lobbyist role for the RIA.
In one of my English lit. classes at university this topic came up and the argument was made that John Milton (~1600s) was potentially the last person who could credibly claim that he had read "everything of importance". (He somewhat famously spent several years post matriculation in intensive private study, basically just reading.) (He also famously went blind later on in life...)
The prof. further went on to make a current comparison with respect to the magnitude of published materials. He stated that, if as an undergrad today you decided to start studying, without exception, every piece of extant Canadian children's literature, by the time you were 60 or so you might be able to claim a fairly comprehensive knowledge of that particular sub-genre, not counting everything that had been published since you started reading.
what bugs me is that, even if you accept the premise that search *is* the answer to everything, in gmail the search is not fully functional. Specifically, you can't search for partial string matches.
So, (to use the example mentioned in the help), if you search for 'vacation', you won't get messages containing 'vacations'. Instead you have to build obnoxious OR clauses for the queries you want.
There's an article in the current issue of Business 2.0 that speculates as to the business model.
1 093558,00.html
http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,
Part of it is not a revenue generation thing so much as a cost savings. Google has been buying up a lot of dark fibre... They're trying to eliminate a middleman for IP transit fees. "Millions of dollars per month in savings" etc.
A small outfit based in toronto called Boxpilot (www.boxpilot.com) does something similar. Except instead of AI they use humans to get to your voice mail. They call it "Guided Voicemail" (shudder).
'We use live, human agents to guide your prerecorded message to the right person's voice mailbox...'
It's a weird variation on the usual crap call center job -- the agents sit there all day making calls hoping they *don't* get picked up on the other end.
Not to put too fine of a point on it, but those were movies based off of games.
Well, to put a fine point on it, that's exactly what my point is, which resulted in the Subject of the post. The corollary to the premise that 'games based on movies suck' is that 'movies based on games suck'.
Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider, the list goes on...
Oooh! I think I'll dash on down to the video store and see if they still have a copy of Super Mario Brothers. Or maybe Street Fighter. Or Wing Commander...