Unless I am wrong, though, the byte is not SI. The SI quantifiers only act as defined within the environment of SI, and so may act differently with bytes. In other words, the terms "kilobyte," "megabyte," "gigabyte," and "terabyte" have no defined SI meaning. This is similar to a U.S. hundredweight weighing 100 lbs., and an Imperial one weighing 112.
The computer science community has accepted, by long use, the definition of 1KB=2^10 bytes. This means that, although it is inconsistent with the SI definitions of the quantifiers, this is a de facto industry standard; one which hardware manufacturers have intentionally defied for years. That this is not the SI meaning of those quantifiers is a moot point.
Uh, no. That is a suggested resolution, but has never been accepted as industry standard. From the beginning, 1 KB was 1024, and so on. Much more recently, certain individuals, who felt this should not be so, suggested the "kibibyte" as a solution.
However, this has never been widely accepted, and certainly not enough so to be considered correct.
The SCO in that article is what is now Tarantella. The dispute in question was over XENIX, the SCO/Microsoft version of Unix. I'm not sure whether XENIX was involved in the sale of UNIX to Caldera (now SCO) by the former SCO (now Tarentella).
Well, yes and no. Keep in mind that most Vermonters (54%) opposed civil-unions, while only 37% supported the law. Dean took a lot of flak for signing the law, and also (from the proponents) for not signing it publicly.
Right now, the more rural parts of the state (and Rutland, the second largest city) tend to be Republican (but most Vermont Republicans are moderate), while the area around Burlington, and also the southern "Banana Belt" tend to be more liberal. There are also a lot of Progressives, especially in Burlington (their mayor is one).
Okay, I know, don't feed the trolls, but it's too hard to resist:
We need a strong president who will stand up to the nutcases and ban and confiscate all individually held guns and imprison those who don't turn them in
Not to defend Dean (see my other post on the subject). But Dean has always been anti-gun control. Actually, Vermont has the most Libertarian gun laws in the country (according to the NRA). To wit, as a Vermonter, I have a legal right to carry a concealed weapon without a permit as long as I do so without intending to commit a crime (I think that's how the law puts it). We don't even have a law barring convicted felons from owning/possing firearms (they can't, though, because of the federal law).
Normaly this news would excite me, but the Howard Dean that is running for president is not the same man as he was as our governor. I just don't know what to make of him anymore. Initiatives he opposed in Vermont now have his support, and vice-versa. His tirade over the war (regardless of your position on the war) seemed over the top. I found him downright scary.
I've met our former governor three times (it's a small state, and my involvement in statewide 4-H events gave me the opportunity). He seemed very personable, but actions towards the end of his time here tended to disillusion me (and many Vermonters) about "Howard the Coward" as some called him (especially after he wouldn't sign the civil-unions law publicly, instead of behind closed doors). A man who easily won his first three elections, found the next two more chalenging (many think that, if the Republican candidate - the same woman both times - had been more likeable, he might have lost). It is possible he could not have won another (his hand-picked successor did not).
I just don't know what to think of this move, I fear it is more than likely a political ploy, something we have seen more than enough of in Vermont these last two terms. The Democrats are desperate for the voters that went Green last time, because they know they need them. In Vermont, though, Dean was always very business friendly, too much so for me to trust him on this now. Which is the real Howard Dean? That is the question.
Yeah, they actually do this all the time. CN can't go more than two months w/o rearaging its schedule, often with little or no notice. It seems that, other than DB/DBZ (and next year DBGT), nothing is safe as far as anime goes. It never leaves for long, though. Even those get shuffled around with little warning. The question is just when it will come back, and how much warning will they give.
I must admit, it would seem like cutting out "Midnight Run" (if they don't just move it) would decrease the room they have on Tooonami, but right now, MR is just the ep's of DB & DBZ from earlier in the day. At least they went back to 3 hours of Toonami in the afternoon a while back. Actually, they have lots of room in Toonami, cause of the 3 hours in the afternoon, 2 are DB/DBZ - and the first hour of that is reruns from yesterday. I watch DB and DBZ religiously, but I don't need to watch the same episodes two days in a row. Besides, they will soon be off of the new ep's for those, and though they will repeat the new ones (but, frustratingly, not the old DBZ) ad infinitum, I doubt they will want to hog 2/3 of Toonami with them.
Personally, I always thought it was dumb that what was billed as "Adult Swim" was composed of shows rated TVPG and TV14. Wouldn't you expect them to be MA? I sure did when I saw the ad's. I rather think that may have been a marketing mistake, though I can kind of understand. Since most of CN is TVY, I assume they felt they had to warn people that these shows were higher rated than what they usually show, but I can't understand their whole "inapropriate for people under 18" stance.
I actually will enjoy the chance to watch Cowboy Bebop every night. I go to church on Sunday morning, so staying up until 12:30 on Saturday night isn't something I do often, so I've only watched a few ep's so far.
If it's no harder than Debian to install, then it can't be that bad. Debian was cake to instal, when I switched from Corel. The only problems I had were when I forgot to install gdm, instead of xdm, and when I forgot to link/dev/mouse to the serial port my mouse is on. In short, X-related problems, involving X86config; and stupid mistakes at that. I can imagine installing Gentoo over a modem could be a pain, though.
First, the standart caviat: IANAL, Constitutional or otherwise. Now, on to my comments.
Laws passed by Congress are limited amendments to the Constitution, therefore rights granted to the people by Congress to the Citizens of the United States explicitly in laws are de facto Constitutional Rights.
No, they are statuatory rights. Laws are not amendments to the Constitution in any capacity. An amendment would constitute an addition or change, which laws are not. Laws are a simple exercise of powers granted by the Constitution, just as regulations are an exercise of powers granted to government agencies by Congress.
Article X. of the Constitution of the United States
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Unfortunately, though this has been strictly upheld by the conservatives on the current Supreme Court, over the years the judiciary has taken such a broad view of the powers granted to Congress, that there seems little left for Article X to cover. Don't misunderstand I agree with your interpretation, but I greatly fear the courts may not.
If you are so conservative as to beleive in following the letter of the law, as opposed to following its intent, I present this:
Clause 8 of Article 1: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Clearly if you go by the letter, Congress does not have the power to grant copyright protection to recordings of music, video, etc, at all. The only things that can be protected are scripts and sheet music. Therefore, fair use is a moot point for anything other than books, papers, poetry, and other PRINTED media, because that is all that is explicitly stated.
I do tend to believe in a literal interpretation of the laws myself, as I feel that any attempt to determine intent is frought with pitfalls, and generally doomed to fail. More often, a person's own view of what the law ought to be clouds their judgement of what the author's intent was.
At any rate, your point here is well taken. However I fear that, here again, the courts will not be on your side. It would cause an extreme problem in that the Constitution would need to be amended to protect works of art. This could be done at the state level, perhaps, w/o an amendment, but that would necesitate a whole new, and generally redundant bereaucracy. Certainly art deserves some protection, though the DMCA, and indeed the majority of copyright law in the last century, goes to far IMO.
Also, the as you noted, musical scores and books (including, for example, screenplays) are within the authority of Cngress to protect, and the courts might well rule that this authority extended to performances of those copyrighted works. Would they be justified to do so? That is a very grey area.
The intent of this clause is to encourage innovation, and art, by granting LIMITED monopolies to allow artists to charge for their works, the keys being "limited times," and "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." The intent of this clause is clearly spelled out, how can you possibly deny its explicit intent? Congress' power is to allow artists some recompense as a means of encouraging innovation and additional artistic endeavors. As fair use, in many of its applications, such as reviewing a work, further this goal, fair use is therefore a ligitimate extension of Congress' power.
At issue will be the definition of "limited." Limited in extent, or limited in time only? Unfortunately, a literal reading of the clause in question would tend to favor the later interpretation, IMO. To have a leg to stand on, fair use needs to be more than "a legitimate extension of Congress' power", it needs to be determined to be a Constitutional right (presumably under Article X or Amendment I). I don't think this has been decided at all yet, but I hope you are right.
which would mean that Leahy is OUT of his control position. A third of the Senate is up for grabs in November, and there is only a one seat difference now (and, as you might recall, the Democrats only have control now because the Senator from Vermont, Jeffries, switched parties last year)
So for once Vermont, which is #49 in population now (I think Alaska passed us), is having real influence. It's even in a good way, for once.
[Takes a second to bask in the glory of being an 8th gen. Vermonter:-) ]
On the other hand, I don't like either Leahy or Jeffords much (and I've met them both, which tends to happen when you live in a state with only 600k people). BTW, Jeffords didn't actually switch parties, he became independent. I geus he figured being independent works for Bernie (as we all call Rep. Sanders, our lone congressman). Of course, many of us are pretty sure we only elect Bernie to keep him out of Vermont for most of the year (haha, only serious, as they say).
I believe the Republican Senator who would take Leahy's position is Sen. Hatch of Utah.
That it would be.
As a libertarian I really don't take a partisan view of such things--I view the Republicans and Democrats like the Bloods and the Crips, or the Corleone and Tattaglia families. I am pretty sure, however, that the DMCA passed the Senate (and House) while they were both controlled by Republicans, with Hatch then in the position that Leahy has now. Of course it was signed into law by Clinton, a Democrat. See my point about the Bloods and the Crips...?
And most Vermonters would tend to agree with you, IMO. We are kind of on a right-ward swing (well, the people not so much the government, yet), right now, but nobody here much cares for the partisan stuff. Actually, that's why the Democrats are in trouble here: they passed a couple of infamous, liberal laws that most of the public doesn't like ("hates", might be a better description). They lost the house in 2000, an may lose the senate (and probably the governor) this year.
To stay on topic, I think that you mention the big problem, that both parties have sold out. We all know the Republicans are all rich folks, but look at the Dem's: the party that has stood so long for unions and better wages and such, has leaders like Kennedy and Gore - old-money. So of course they are going to be in with the Hollywood crowd. In fact, given the leftward leanings of the entertainment industry, the Dem's may be even closer tied to them than the Republicans. On the other hand, the Republicans, who were the party behind aboliton and anti-trust laws, are now tied to the business interests, so you're screwed either way. DMCA and this new one both seem to get bipartisan support. It's very discouraging.
I think the only way we'll ever get control back to the masses is to get the far-right (who don't trust the government) and the far left (who don't trust the goverment either) together, I think they'd find they have more in common than they know. Look at the protest of the WTO, who was there: the progressive types, the unions, and the right-wing folks. The problem is that these groups can't abide each other, because of mostly social views.
At the risk of being mod'ed down as flamebait or such (what the hell, my karma was still 0 at last check, anyway)...
Proving that a theory is consistent with observable phenomena and proving that it is true are two very different things. That is the first thing they teach you in every intro-level science class. Yes, the big bang theory, and the black hole theory are consistent with observable phenomena provided that you assume certain premises. This is a long way from proving them to be scientific fact, though, and some people will dispute the premises.
As for what the Catholic Church has ratified as true, it most certainly not does not include any such thing. The Church does not declare dogma on such matters. In point of fact, only three dogmas have been prolaimed in the last two centuries: the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary (not to be confused with the Virgin Birth of Jesus), Papal Infalibility (in matters of faith and morals), and the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. What the Church does with scientific theories of this sort, is simply to declare whether they are consistent with the faith (i.e., whether Christians can believe in these theories and remain faithful Christians). This is what Pope John Paul did with evolution (with some caveats) a few years back. Beisides, only doctrines that carry near-universal belief within the Church, and are: 1) consistent with Scripture and 2) consistent with the nearly two-thousand years of Sacred Tradition of the Church can be promulgated as dogma in this way - we don't declare new dogma, just that old ideas are finally decided to be definitely true.
To say that Catholics don't believe in anything isn't true at all (trust me, we believe in a lot, most notably Christ), but the Church's mission is to determine truth in matters of theology, not matters of science. As a practicing Catholic who has yet to make up his mind on such issues as black holes (for lack of scientific proof and because I haven't done the last of the research I would need to do on the subject to form an informed opinion, not because of any matter of faith) I can tell you with absolute certainty, that the pope has never said any such thing as "black holes are a fact."
Frankly, it seems odd that every time we have one of these debates, the argument "even the Catholics believe that!" pops up. Who cares? If you are not Catholic then what weight do our beliefs carry? Are you attepting an argument of truth based on lack of counter-example? You can't win with such an argument, since if there were no counter-example, then there would be no debate. The debate itself is the counter-example. Why bring religion into a rational scientific debate? At least be accurate if you do.
Sorry if this comes off as a flame. It is not intended as such, only as a rational, if passionate, rebuttal. I didn't even mention your lack of citations (well, now I did, but not in an angry way).
Re:One of the greatest games
on
Nethack 3.4.0
·
· Score: 1
No indication if they were the "best" games I played, just the ones with the most hours logged.
Probably best that way, so as to avoid warfare. I think I will follow your lead.
#3 was the Diablo series and expansion.
Same here, probably, though SimCity might be close. Dunno, it was around first, but I haven't played it much since I got Diablo. If only Winblows were more stable and I had a faster machine (I have a P-MMX 233 w/ 64MB of RAM), this would be higher.
#2 was the Civ series. Each one grabs me and doesn't let go. I've played for 24 hour blocks of time.
Yup, same again. Even if I haven't gotten anything newer than II yet. Same problem as Diablo, though, it forces me to boot to Win. I haven't done 24 hours, but have done 8 straight, and maybe more. I remember at least one near all-nighter session (I think I quit at 6 a.m.), but the same tends to happen with:
#1 was Nethack. It's so incredible, so in depth. And so easy to die and have to start again.
Yeah, I have to admit to playing Nethack for hours on end, too. It was Linux that got me adicted:-). Never even HEARD of it before I got that. I stumbled over it looking for games to play while separated from Diablo I and II, Civ II, SimCity 3000 (yes, I know, Loki had it, and I should have bought it), etc.
Some will complain about the lack of real-time and of graphics, but real-time isn't a be-all-end-all, and graphics are less important than gameplay. Nethack certainly has gameplay; I love the re-playability. Then again, I grew up playing Zork (though in the late '80's/early '90's, not the '70's), so I understand (and even like) games which devote insane amounts of time to inside-jokes and tributes to predecessors. Those who post-date Zork and it's ilk may not be so inclined, but they are missing out.
Nethack isn't Diablo II with expansion, or anything like it; but it can be a wildly fun (if frustrating) game to play. When I finally ascend, it will be a moment far greater even than beating Diablo II (though I haven't done that just yet either), because it is so hard to do.
I wonder if someone reading/. could post the legal definition of spam from one of the states which prohibits it. I can't even remember right now what states have anti-spam laws. It might be helpful if we could have a solid definition, seems how different people seem to disagree even on what constitutes spam. I know a lot of people who consider any unsolicited, commercial e-mail spam, but I don't know if that fits the legal definition.
The point RMS was trying to make was that there is a better way to send documents over e-mail. We have PDF, Postscript, plain text, etc. Those are all superior to.doc for reasons other than just system portability -.doc can carry viruses among other problems. Now it is true that Outlook users are more susceptible to getting viruses, but that doesn't affect non-Outlook users (well, it does to a point, but we can and should protect ourselves from viruses and not expect others to do it for us).
Here we have an example of intentionally making it harder for someone else to read mail you send them. That is exactly why RMS is telling people not to send.doc - it places an undue bunden on the recipient. That is, at the least, unkind to your recipient. And for what purpose? Are the hacked headers somehow superior? No, this is for spite. IMHO, that is detrimental to the cause of open software.
Frankly, we don't need to sink to the level that MS has. We can take the high road. If users want to use Outlook, that is their business. Don't get me wrong, you couldn't pay me to use it, but I still think people ought to have the choice to use the softwre they prefer, now matter how bad it is. What people should avoid is intentionally inconveniencing other people who make different choices.
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The computer science community has accepted, by long use, the definition of 1KB=2^10 bytes. This means that, although it is inconsistent with the SI definitions of the quantifiers, this is a de facto industry standard; one which hardware manufacturers have intentionally defied for years. That this is not the SI meaning of those quantifiers is a moot point.
Uh, no. That is a suggested resolution, but has never been accepted as industry standard. From the beginning, 1 KB was 1024, and so on. Much more recently, certain individuals, who felt this should not be so, suggested the "kibibyte" as a solution. However, this has never been widely accepted, and certainly not enough so to be considered correct.
The SCO in that article is what is now Tarantella. The dispute in question was over XENIX, the SCO/Microsoft version of Unix. I'm not sure whether XENIX was involved in the sale of UNIX to Caldera (now SCO) by the former SCO (now Tarentella).
Well, yes and no. Keep in mind that most Vermonters (54%) opposed civil-unions, while only 37% supported the law. Dean took a lot of flak for signing the law, and also (from the proponents) for not signing it publicly. Right now, the more rural parts of the state (and Rutland, the second largest city) tend to be Republican (but most Vermont Republicans are moderate), while the area around Burlington, and also the southern "Banana Belt" tend to be more liberal. There are also a lot of Progressives, especially in Burlington (their mayor is one).
Normaly this news would excite me, but the Howard Dean that is running for president is not the same man as he was as our governor. I just don't know what to make of him anymore. Initiatives he opposed in Vermont now have his support, and vice-versa. His tirade over the war (regardless of your position on the war) seemed over the top. I found him downright scary.
I've met our former governor three times (it's a small state, and my involvement in statewide 4-H events gave me the opportunity). He seemed very personable, but actions towards the end of his time here tended to disillusion me (and many Vermonters) about "Howard the Coward" as some called him (especially after he wouldn't sign the civil-unions law publicly, instead of behind closed doors). A man who easily won his first three elections, found the next two more chalenging (many think that, if the Republican candidate - the same woman both times - had been more likeable, he might have lost). It is possible he could not have won another (his hand-picked successor did not).
I just don't know what to think of this move, I fear it is more than likely a political ploy, something we have seen more than enough of in Vermont these last two terms. The Democrats are desperate for the voters that went Green last time, because they know they need them. In Vermont, though, Dean was always very business friendly, too much so for me to trust him on this now. Which is the real Howard Dean? That is the question.
I must admit, it would seem like cutting out "Midnight Run" (if they don't just move it) would decrease the room they have on Tooonami, but right now, MR is just the ep's of DB & DBZ from earlier in the day. At least they went back to 3 hours of Toonami in the afternoon a while back. Actually, they have lots of room in Toonami, cause of the 3 hours in the afternoon, 2 are DB/DBZ - and the first hour of that is reruns from yesterday. I watch DB and DBZ religiously, but I don't need to watch the same episodes two days in a row. Besides, they will soon be off of the new ep's for those, and though they will repeat the new ones (but, frustratingly, not the old DBZ) ad infinitum, I doubt they will want to hog 2/3 of Toonami with them.
Personally, I always thought it was dumb that what was billed as "Adult Swim" was composed of shows rated TVPG and TV14. Wouldn't you expect them to be MA? I sure did when I saw the ad's. I rather think that may have been a marketing mistake, though I can kind of understand. Since most of CN is TVY, I assume they felt they had to warn people that these shows were higher rated than what they usually show, but I can't understand their whole "inapropriate for people under 18" stance.
I actually will enjoy the chance to watch Cowboy Bebop every night. I go to church on Sunday morning, so staying up until 12:30 on Saturday night isn't something I do often, so I've only watched a few ep's so far.
If it's no harder than Debian to install, then it can't be that bad. Debian was cake to instal, when I switched from Corel. The only problems I had were when I forgot to install gdm, instead of xdm, and when I forgot to link /dev/mouse to the serial port my mouse is on. In short, X-related problems, involving X86config; and stupid mistakes at that. I can imagine installing Gentoo over a modem could be a pain, though.
At any rate, your point here is well taken. However I fear that, here again, the courts will not be on your side. It would cause an extreme problem in that the Constitution would need to be amended to protect works of art. This could be done at the state level, perhaps, w/o an amendment, but that would necesitate a whole new, and generally redundant bereaucracy. Certainly art deserves some protection, though the DMCA, and indeed the majority of copyright law in the last century, goes to far IMO.
Also, the as you noted, musical scores and books (including, for example, screenplays) are within the authority of Cngress to protect, and the courts might well rule that this authority extended to performances of those copyrighted works. Would they be justified to do so? That is a very grey area.
At issue will be the definition of "limited." Limited in extent, or limited in time only? Unfortunately, a literal reading of the clause in question would tend to favor the later interpretation, IMO. To have a leg to stand on, fair use needs to be more than "a legitimate extension of Congress' power", it needs to be determined to be a Constitutional right (presumably under Article X or Amendment I). I don't think this has been decided at all yet, but I hope you are right.[Takes a second to bask in the glory of being an 8th gen. Vermonter :-) ]
On the other hand, I don't like either Leahy or Jeffords much (and I've met them both, which tends to happen when you live in a state with only 600k people). BTW, Jeffords didn't actually switch parties, he became independent. I geus he figured being independent works for Bernie (as we all call Rep. Sanders, our lone congressman). Of course, many of us are pretty sure we only elect Bernie to keep him out of Vermont for most of the year (haha, only serious, as they say).
That it would be. And most Vermonters would tend to agree with you, IMO. We are kind of on a right-ward swing (well, the people not so much the government, yet), right now, but nobody here much cares for the partisan stuff. Actually, that's why the Democrats are in trouble here: they passed a couple of infamous, liberal laws that most of the public doesn't like ("hates", might be a better description). They lost the house in 2000, an may lose the senate (and probably the governor) this year.To stay on topic, I think that you mention the big problem, that both parties have sold out. We all know the Republicans are all rich folks, but look at the Dem's: the party that has stood so long for unions and better wages and such, has leaders like Kennedy and Gore - old-money. So of course they are going to be in with the Hollywood crowd. In fact, given the leftward leanings of the entertainment industry, the Dem's may be even closer tied to them than the Republicans. On the other hand, the Republicans, who were the party behind aboliton and anti-trust laws, are now tied to the business interests, so you're screwed either way. DMCA and this new one both seem to get bipartisan support. It's very discouraging.
I think the only way we'll ever get control back to the masses is to get the far-right (who don't trust the government) and the far left (who don't trust the goverment either) together, I think they'd find they have more in common than they know. Look at the protest of the WTO, who was there: the progressive types, the unions, and the right-wing folks. The problem is that these groups can't abide each other, because of mostly social views.
Proving that a theory is consistent with observable phenomena and proving that it is true are two very different things. That is the first thing they teach you in every intro-level science class. Yes, the big bang theory, and the black hole theory are consistent with observable phenomena provided that you assume certain premises. This is a long way from proving them to be scientific fact, though, and some people will dispute the premises.
As for what the Catholic Church has ratified as true, it most certainly not does not include any such thing. The Church does not declare dogma on such matters. In point of fact, only three dogmas have been prolaimed in the last two centuries: the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary (not to be confused with the Virgin Birth of Jesus), Papal Infalibility (in matters of faith and morals), and the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. What the Church does with scientific theories of this sort, is simply to declare whether they are consistent with the faith (i.e., whether Christians can believe in these theories and remain faithful Christians). This is what Pope John Paul did with evolution (with some caveats) a few years back. Beisides, only doctrines that carry near-universal belief within the Church, and are: 1) consistent with Scripture and 2) consistent with the nearly two-thousand years of Sacred Tradition of the Church can be promulgated as dogma in this way - we don't declare new dogma, just that old ideas are finally decided to be definitely true.
To say that Catholics don't believe in anything isn't true at all (trust me, we believe in a lot, most notably Christ), but the Church's mission is to determine truth in matters of theology, not matters of science. As a practicing Catholic who has yet to make up his mind on such issues as black holes (for lack of scientific proof and because I haven't done the last of the research I would need to do on the subject to form an informed opinion, not because of any matter of faith) I can tell you with absolute certainty, that the pope has never said any such thing as "black holes are a fact."
Frankly, it seems odd that every time we have one of these debates, the argument "even the Catholics believe that!" pops up. Who cares? If you are not Catholic then what weight do our beliefs carry? Are you attepting an argument of truth based on lack of counter-example? You can't win with such an argument, since if there were no counter-example, then there would be no debate. The debate itself is the counter-example. Why bring religion into a rational scientific debate? At least be accurate if you do.
Sorry if this comes off as a flame. It is not intended as such, only as a rational, if passionate, rebuttal. I didn't even mention your lack of citations (well, now I did, but not in an angry way).
Some will complain about the lack of real-time and of graphics, but real-time isn't a be-all-end-all, and graphics are less important than gameplay. Nethack certainly has gameplay; I love the re-playability. Then again, I grew up playing Zork (though in the late '80's/early '90's, not the '70's), so I understand (and even like) games which devote insane amounts of time to inside-jokes and tributes to predecessors. Those who post-date Zork and it's ilk may not be so inclined, but they are missing out.
Nethack isn't Diablo II with expansion, or anything like it; but it can be a wildly fun (if frustrating) game to play. When I finally ascend, it will be a moment far greater even than beating Diablo II (though I haven't done that just yet either), because it is so hard to do.
Just wondering.
The point RMS was trying to make was that there is a better way to send documents over e-mail. We have PDF, Postscript, plain text, etc. Those are all superior to .doc for reasons other than just system portability - .doc can carry viruses among other problems. Now it is true that Outlook users are more susceptible to getting viruses, but that doesn't affect non-Outlook users (well, it does to a point, but we can and should protect ourselves from viruses and not expect others to do it for us). .doc - it places an undue bunden on the recipient. That is, at the least, unkind to your recipient. And for what purpose? Are the hacked headers somehow superior? No, this is for spite. IMHO, that is detrimental to the cause of open software.
Here we have an example of intentionally making it harder for someone else to read mail you send them. That is exactly why RMS is telling people not to send
Frankly, we don't need to sink to the level that MS has. We can take the high road. If users want to use Outlook, that is their business. Don't get me wrong, you couldn't pay me to use it, but I still think people ought to have the choice to use the softwre they prefer, now matter how bad it is. What people should avoid is intentionally inconveniencing other people who make different choices.