They have to do that, by law, or they lose the rights to whatever copyrights/trademarks/etc.
You're comparing apples and wintels. Trademarks need to be defended, otherwise they become part of the cultural landscape and can no longer be trademarked. Kleenex and Band-Aid are on the virge of that now, Xerox was on the virge 15 years ago but came back and now everyone calls it "photocopying."
All this trademark talk is interesting, but irrelevant. This isn't a case of copyright infringement either, unless the professor was dumb enough to copy IPIX's code. This is a case of patent infringement, for which there is no legal obligation to pursue, only financial. If I patent something, I can completely ignore $favorite_OS users who use my patent, but sue each and every $hated_OS user who uses my patent. The trademark law that you are vaugely familiar with isn't an issue.
Before asking whether "we really want to live in a world without intellectual property," I suggest you learn the different types of IP that are legally defined, as well as the opposing camp's arguements. For the IPIX patent, I suggest that making a 360 degree image is obvious to anyone who works with photos and as such is a Bad Patent(tm). --
I respectfully disagree. As far as the market for portable consoles goes, Gameboy has been a bigger success than anyone anticipated. It was introduced in 1990, and shortly after it had competition from Sega and Turbografix, neither of which sold well despite having color screens.
The Gameboy has survived for 10 years with only one upgrade (color) since it was introduced. That's better than any console in the history of video games. I think this says something fundamental about the handheld console market - people don't always want the best hardware as long as they can play games with high replay value (I suspect bundling Tetris with the Gameboy had a lot to do with its early success).
If all people want is a game that they can play riding in the car, or between classes, or sitting in a doctor's office, they don't want to carry around 3d goggles, custom input devices, etc. They want to carry as few items as possible and buy stuff like light guns and goggles for their powerful home console.
You suggest that the GameBoy will lose the market if they don't provide these add-ons. I'm curious who you think they'll lose the market to: Sony or Microsoft? The Gameboy's marketshare makes Windows look like it's at death's door. If the GBA doesn't catch on, it won't be because of competition providing a better product, it'll be because people don't want the GBA. --
That's not a bug, it's a feature! Seriously, Rob capped it at 50 so people couldn't accumulate 2^16-1 karma points, then post thousands of trolls and goatse.cx links at +1 --
You'll also notice people referring to Emmanual Goldstein - the false prophet in 1984 - as the publisher of 2600, while other people call him Eric Corley. --
Ironically, it was during Abraham Lincoln's term that the SS was created. Too bad he didn't think to include "protection of president" in their list of duties. IIRC, they were originally created to stem the ammount of counterfiet currency being created in the reconstruction era. --
I used to be really proud that I signed all my e-mail with a PGP signature so that everyone knew that it was really me sending the e-mail. Then I got curious as to whether anyone was actually checking my signature, so I copied a signature from an old message into a few messages to mailing lists that I'm on. These are fairly geeky mailing lists, one regularly talks about crypto, another was a LUG list. Not a single person noticed the wrong signature. I don't bother to use PGP anymore.
Crypto is only as good as the other people using it. --
System specs are at http://www.dreamcast.net/systeminfo/. CPU runs at 200Mhz, which may sound slow, but remember it's not an Intel processor. RAM: 16 MB main RAM, 8 MB video RAM, 2 MB sound RAM.
AFAIK, you can't add a hard drive, you burn it to a CD-ROM and NFS mount the root fs.
Funcoland is still around.
I'm constantly surprised that people think it's easier to post a question than do a simple Google search. --
I'm sad to see this happen, but my friends will be happy to get dreamcasts for $100. I suggest anyone reading this go out on Feb 4th (when the pricebreaks happen) and buy one, it's a fantastic system. There's a ton of good games out, and a lot of them are only $20. Check out Crazy Taxi (ultimate party game), Soul Caliber, and Target's current offerings.
The dreamcast is the only online console right now, and according to UPS my ethernet adapter should be on my doorstep this afternoon. Phantasy Star Online ought to kick ass, and give Everquesters a run for their money.
Someone pointed out that the DC runs WinCE, which isn't true most of the time, but it is for Nightmare Creatures 2, as evidenced by the first 10 minutes of playing the game on my birthday: Pic 1, Pic 2
Sega makes some of the most unique games out there, from Jet Grind Radio to Seaman to Crazy Taxi... It would be worth your while to check them out if you haven't already.
Well its a tradeoff. With a consumer deck, you get a nice user-interface (remote control), you get a quiet box (no fan noise), and it looks good on top of all your other home theater equipment.
OTOH, a computer can do nifty stuff like mp3 visualizations, DivX movies, and Quake.
The user interface is a big one, I've got friends who use their computers as DVD players and it feels like a very ghetto solution. To play a DVD on a computer it required a lot of mousing, clicking, and waiting. To play a DVD on a DVD player it involves hitting the play button.
Bottom line is that you'll probably spend around $400 to set up a computer, while a neat DVD player can be had for $200. --
There is an expiration on all copyrights. Unfortunatly, the late Sen. Sonny Bono managed to extend the law so copyrights effectively don't expire before he skied into that tree. But don't blame him, copyright extensions are a slippery slope.
Every so often the Mickey Mouse* copyright comes up, and Disney and the Gershwin grandchildren (who have are rich despite having produced no music of their own) pays whoever to extend copyright laws for a few years, and our intellectual property rights are eroded that much more.
Unfortunatly, sensible copyright laws conflict with corporate greed, and since the corporations own the politicos, there's not much that's going to change that without a massive overhaul of the system.
Remember, public companies can be held legally liable to their shareholders if they choose doing what's right (not abusing democracy) over what's profitable (keeping the rights to a dopey mouse because they haven't come up with a better mascot in 75 years). If that's not a recipie for social disaster, I don't know what is.
Yeah, but even the supposedly clueful can have miss the obvious. Do you do any programming (it's sad that I have to ask that these days on/.)? Ever spend 4 hours poring over your code to realize you typed bra instead of bar? Brainless moments even happen to the smartest.
The best thing to do is when you are describing your problem, explain to the tech support person what you have checked on your end. That way, the person you are talking to can determine if they are qualified to help you, or if you need to transfered up the ladder.
One thing to avoid is trying to diagnose the problem on their end. You can give them the evidence that you've gathered, but avoid drawing conclusions. The support person may assume you know what you're talking about when you are way off, and this can lead to lost time spent trying to fix something that isn't broken.
Also, remember that you are speaking to another person, and don't lose your cool - angry people get the worst quality tech support. --
"Like it or not, we are in the training _business_."
The gentleman posting the question is not. If he wants a commercial solution, I'm sure his company will turn to you. As it stands, he's looking for something he can present to give people a baseline to understand Linux. A database programmer sees everything as a database problem, and a professional trainer evidently sees everything as a professional training problem.
As for your idea that things should not be free, let me try to slightly rewrite that paragraph:
The idea that everything should be free as in beer, AKAIK, is not the intention of open source (or free software, whatever). Software take time and resources to produce, and they bring value to the market. Those who bring value to the market should be rewarded with more than just an ego trip. Let's not get into the mindset that if it's not free as in beer, it's against the spirit of Linux. Open source software needs credible business models to survive. Closed source software is a large part of that business model. Let's encourage them, and support open source.
Wait a minute, closed source software can contribute to open source? Oh wait, the two can co-exist on the same system. I forgot because I have a narrow mindset that requires everything to be licenced exactly the same. Silly me. I wonder if the same concept can apply to training materials?
So maybe you can continue to provide your services at your price, and not worry about those of us who want (the equivelant of) an open source solution for training. Or even better, you could use your income to give back to the community and release some introductory materials for free! After all, you're making money on the backs of the people who created the software, and I hear that "those who bring value to the market should be rewarded with more than just an ego trip."
</RANT> --
Well I don't know about you, but if I had read about this marathon three weeks ago, I would have said "Wow, cool, I can't wait to watch that" and then promptly forgotten about it.
Most people don't need a three week advance notice to plan their television watching schedules. --
My favorite patent is Visualising a Process: Visualise functions by graphically displaying their components, allowing iterations on the screen and creating a flow chart from these iterations.
I guess that would make Doom for SysAdmins illegal in Europe. America will remain the leader in shotgun based process management! --
The supreme court has ruled that time shifting broadcast television is perfectly legal. I don't see how this could be construed as anything other than time shifting, so legally you should be safe. IANAL.
Now there's just the whole technical problem. I imagine that there's a whole lotta reverse engineering required to pull an MPEG stream out of your coax, so good luck. --
If it was a legitimate market researcher sending legitimate software that performs a legitimate task, all is well in the world.
But if everyone was who they said they were, social engineers like Kevin Mitnick wouldn't have gotten nearly as far as they did. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't trying to get you. Remember, the recent MSFT hack was done with a trojan. --
I agree with this post. Find out why you are being pressured to use Exchange. If its for NT zealotry and you are resisting it because of Unix zealotry, you're in a tough (and not particularly smart) position.
Identify what features the people in power want from Exchange, and find a Unix alternative. Groupware calendaring? Shared addressbooks? If the benefits of a solution under Exchange outweighs the cost of converting to NT (hardware AND retraining AND licences), the security implications, and the support headaches that Exchange tends to bring, then go with Exchange. If the Unix alternative (MailOne or HP's OpenMail are a couple) will cause fewer problems and cost less, go with that.
Don't forget that your job is to pick the right tool for the job. --
Slashdot Mirror
X-men lets you watch it with cut scenes spliced in... it's not seamless (there's some seek time) but it's pretty cool none-the-less.
--
Check out Crowds from AT&T's research arm... the same people who did VNC. It's not encrypted, but it has the same pooling affect.
--
You're comparing apples and wintels. Trademarks need to be defended, otherwise they become part of the cultural landscape and can no longer be trademarked. Kleenex and Band-Aid are on the virge of that now, Xerox was on the virge 15 years ago but came back and now everyone calls it "photocopying."
All this trademark talk is interesting, but irrelevant. This isn't a case of copyright infringement either, unless the professor was dumb enough to copy IPIX's code. This is a case of patent infringement, for which there is no legal obligation to pursue, only financial. If I patent something, I can completely ignore $favorite_OS users who use my patent, but sue each and every $hated_OS user who uses my patent. The trademark law that you are vaugely familiar with isn't an issue.
Before asking whether "we really want to live in a world without intellectual property," I suggest you learn the different types of IP that are legally defined, as well as the opposing camp's arguements. For the IPIX patent, I suggest that making a 360 degree image is obvious to anyone who works with photos and as such is a Bad Patent(tm).
--
I respectfully disagree. As far as the market for portable consoles goes, Gameboy has been a bigger success than anyone anticipated. It was introduced in 1990, and shortly after it had competition from Sega and Turbografix, neither of which sold well despite having color screens.
The Gameboy has survived for 10 years with only one upgrade (color) since it was introduced. That's better than any console in the history of video games. I think this says something fundamental about the handheld console market - people don't always want the best hardware as long as they can play games with high replay value (I suspect bundling Tetris with the Gameboy had a lot to do with its early success).
If all people want is a game that they can play riding in the car, or between classes, or sitting in a doctor's office, they don't want to carry around 3d goggles, custom input devices, etc. They want to carry as few items as possible and buy stuff like light guns and goggles for their powerful home console.
You suggest that the GameBoy will lose the market if they don't provide these add-ons. I'm curious who you think they'll lose the market to: Sony or Microsoft? The Gameboy's marketshare makes Windows look like it's at death's door. If the GBA doesn't catch on, it won't be because of competition providing a better product, it'll be because people don't want the GBA.
--
Does Bumblebee Man speak English?
--
That's not a bug, it's a feature! Seriously, Rob capped it at 50 so people couldn't accumulate 2^16-1 karma points, then post thousands of trolls and goatse.cx links at +1
--
*cough* *cough* handle *cough*
You'll also notice people referring to Emmanual Goldstein - the false prophet in 1984 - as the publisher of 2600, while other people call him Eric Corley.
--
Ironically, it was during Abraham Lincoln's term that the SS was created. Too bad he didn't think to include "protection of president" in their list of duties. IIRC, they were originally created to stem the ammount of counterfiet currency being created in the reconstruction era.
--
I used to be really proud that I signed all my e-mail with a PGP signature so that everyone knew that it was really me sending the e-mail. Then I got curious as to whether anyone was actually checking my signature, so I copied a signature from an old message into a few messages to mailing lists that I'm on. These are fairly geeky mailing lists, one regularly talks about crypto, another was a LUG list. Not a single person noticed the wrong signature. I don't bother to use PGP anymore.
Crypto is only as good as the other people using it.
--
System specs are at http://www.dreamcast.net/systeminfo/. CPU runs at 200Mhz, which may sound slow, but remember it's not an Intel processor. RAM: 16 MB main RAM, 8 MB video RAM, 2 MB sound RAM.
AFAIK, you can't add a hard drive, you burn it to a CD-ROM and NFS mount the root fs.
Funcoland is still around.
I'm constantly surprised that people think it's easier to post a question than do a simple Google search.
--
Not quite what you're looking for, but check out http://mc.pp.se/dc/dreamsnes/
--
I'm sad to see this happen, but my friends will be happy to get dreamcasts for $100. I suggest anyone reading this go out on Feb 4th (when the pricebreaks happen) and buy one, it's a fantastic system. There's a ton of good games out, and a lot of them are only $20. Check out Crazy Taxi (ultimate party game), Soul Caliber, and Target's current offerings.
The dreamcast is the only online console right now, and according to UPS my ethernet adapter should be on my doorstep this afternoon. Phantasy Star Online ought to kick ass, and give Everquesters a run for their money.
Someone pointed out that the DC runs WinCE, which isn't true most of the time, but it is for Nightmare Creatures 2, as evidenced by the first 10 minutes of playing the game on my birthday: Pic 1, Pic 2
Sega makes some of the most unique games out there, from Jet Grind Radio to Seaman to Crazy Taxi... It would be worth your while to check them out if you haven't already.
My $0.02
--
I found http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volum e6/v6i4/postal-6-4.html on Memepool. It details just what you can get away with when (ab)using the USPS.
--
http://www.sega.com/pc/segastore/SegaProduct.jhtml ?PRODID=447&CATID=39
Too bad games need to explicitly support it, so I can't download new tags for Jet Grind Radio without swapping out the NIC for a modem
--
Well its a tradeoff. With a consumer deck, you get a nice user-interface (remote control), you get a quiet box (no fan noise), and it looks good on top of all your other home theater equipment.
OTOH, a computer can do nifty stuff like mp3 visualizations, DivX movies, and Quake.
The user interface is a big one, I've got friends who use their computers as DVD players and it feels like a very ghetto solution. To play a DVD on a computer it required a lot of mousing, clicking, and waiting. To play a DVD on a DVD player it involves hitting the play button.
Bottom line is that you'll probably spend around $400 to set up a computer, while a neat DVD player can be had for $200.
--
There is an expiration on all copyrights. Unfortunatly, the late Sen. Sonny Bono managed to extend the law so copyrights effectively don't expire before he skied into that tree. But don't blame him, copyright extensions are a slippery slope.
Every so often the Mickey Mouse* copyright comes up, and Disney and the Gershwin grandchildren (who have are rich despite having produced no music of their own) pays whoever to extend copyright laws for a few years, and our intellectual property rights are eroded that much more.
Unfortunatly, sensible copyright laws conflict with corporate greed, and since the corporations own the politicos, there's not much that's going to change that without a massive overhaul of the system.
Remember, public companies can be held legally liable to their shareholders if they choose doing what's right (not abusing democracy) over what's profitable (keeping the rights to a dopey mouse because they haven't come up with a better mascot in 75 years). If that's not a recipie for social disaster, I don't know what is.
* Mickey Mouse is the trademark of Disney
--
Yeah, but even the supposedly clueful can have miss the obvious. Do you do any programming (it's sad that I have to ask that these days on /.)? Ever spend 4 hours poring over your code to realize you typed bra instead of bar? Brainless moments even happen to the smartest.
The best thing to do is when you are describing your problem, explain to the tech support person what you have checked on your end. That way, the person you are talking to can determine if they are qualified to help you, or if you need to transfered up the ladder.
One thing to avoid is trying to diagnose the problem on their end. You can give them the evidence that you've gathered, but avoid drawing conclusions. The support person may assume you know what you're talking about when you are way off, and this can lead to lost time spent trying to fix something that isn't broken.
Also, remember that you are speaking to another person, and don't lose your cool - angry people get the worst quality tech support.
--
Let's see, where to begin...
"Like it or not, we are in the training _business_."
The gentleman posting the question is not. If he wants a commercial solution, I'm sure his company will turn to you. As it stands, he's looking for something he can present to give people a baseline to understand Linux. A database programmer sees everything as a database problem, and a professional trainer evidently sees everything as a professional training problem.
As for your idea that things should not be free, let me try to slightly rewrite that paragraph:
The idea that everything should be free as in beer, AKAIK, is not the intention of open source (or free software, whatever). Software take time and resources to produce, and they bring value to the market. Those who bring value to the market should be rewarded with more than just an ego trip. Let's not get into the mindset that if it's not free as in beer, it's against the spirit of Linux. Open source software needs credible business models to survive. Closed source software is a large part of that business model. Let's encourage them, and support open source.
Wait a minute, closed source software can contribute to open source? Oh wait, the two can co-exist on the same system. I forgot because I have a narrow mindset that requires everything to be licenced exactly the same. Silly me. I wonder if the same concept can apply to training materials?
So maybe you can continue to provide your services at your price, and not worry about those of us who want (the equivelant of) an open source solution for training. Or even better, you could use your income to give back to the community and release some introductory materials for free! After all, you're making money on the backs of the people who created the software, and I hear that "those who bring value to the market should be rewarded with more than just an ego trip."
</RANT>
--
You forgot this link.
--
Well I don't know about you, but if I had read about this marathon three weeks ago, I would have said "Wow, cool, I can't wait to watch that" and then promptly forgotten about it.
Most people don't need a three week advance notice to plan their television watching schedules.
--
My favorite patent is Visualising a Process: Visualise functions by graphically displaying their components, allowing iterations on the screen and creating a flow chart from these iterations.
I guess that would make Doom for SysAdmins illegal in Europe. America will remain the leader in shotgun based process management!
--
The supreme court has ruled that time shifting broadcast television is perfectly legal. I don't see how this could be construed as anything other than time shifting, so legally you should be safe. IANAL.
Now there's just the whole technical problem. I imagine that there's a whole lotta reverse engineering required to pull an MPEG stream out of your coax, so good luck.
--
Personally, I hope that my e-tailer gets hacked and everyone finds out I buy XXL condoms.
--
If it was a legitimate market researcher sending legitimate software that performs a legitimate task, all is well in the world.
But if everyone was who they said they were, social engineers like Kevin Mitnick wouldn't have gotten nearly as far as they did. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't trying to get you. Remember, the recent MSFT hack was done with a trojan.
--
I agree with this post. Find out why you are being pressured to use Exchange. If its for NT zealotry and you are resisting it because of Unix zealotry, you're in a tough (and not particularly smart) position.
Identify what features the people in power want from Exchange, and find a Unix alternative. Groupware calendaring? Shared addressbooks? If the benefits of a solution under Exchange outweighs the cost of converting to NT (hardware AND retraining AND licences), the security implications, and the support headaches that Exchange tends to bring, then go with Exchange. If the Unix alternative (MailOne or HP's OpenMail are a couple) will cause fewer problems and cost less, go with that.
Don't forget that your job is to pick the right tool for the job.
--