Considering how forceful and near-universal condemnation from women and women's groups in and out of tech has been to the memo, it is extremely difficult to believe that this Ask Slashdot was submitted in good faith. Particularly in light of the extreme ease of finding high-profile responses. Here is a (small) sample from a simple google search:
If you really are that out of the loop, that should inform you pretty well. If you're begging the question, then the quantity of vile reactions in these comments have likely confirmed that it was worth it. I hope it is the former.
This is 100% true. The contents of the annotations are summaries of cases written by someone other than the court (sometimes the court's staff but most often by an indexing service like Lexis), and aren't actually law. Their sole purpose is to identify to attorneys and judges which cases stand for which principles. They are never even a complete statement of the law of that case, since they are usually a short paragraph long and only mention one of many issues the court dealt with. Half the time, the case identified by an annotation isn't even useful to the project, but they are always a good starting point.
So what he's saying is that we should all grab our botnets and assault Al Gore (the king of the internet), forcing him to give rights to those of us who own servers?
A markholder attempting to avoid dilution/abandonment only has an obligation to combat infringement of their mark. Legitimate uses of the mark, including the fair use associated with criticism in this case, do not affect the markholder's rights in any way.
Beyond the fact that they were both directives from the government, there are no similarities
Moonshot:ACA Exchange
Regulation: Whatever NASA thought was a good idea:Three extremely technical laws, plus various state laws
Interoperability: Everything done in-house by NASA:Interacting with dozens of different providers using different systems that don't talk to each other, plus data verification from a few more agencies
Public Support: Viewed as way to get one up on those darned ruskies:Extremely bitter partisan divide, was a major contentious issue in two elections
Government Support: Willing to throw money at NASA to get it done:Part of the House of Representatives shut down the government and threatened default in order to build anti-ACA support for the next election
Actual Work Done: Mostly in-house NASA work:Lots of contractors
Not that the exchange's launch hasn't been a complete disaster, but comparing the two is extremely tenuous.
Because the prima donnas at the heart of the story (Snowden and Greenwald) made and continue to make the story about themselves, rather than the material. A story about a reporter and his whistleblowing buddy on the lam, both making crazy statements that greatly overshadow the series but drier material they are disclosing, always played better and therefore was covered better.
At this point, everyone's tired of them, and has forgotten what the whole fuss was about.
Allowing more open development is fantastic. However, the summary (and really a ton of people) have the relationship at play with games backwards:
"This has helped developers focus less on creating a video game's underlying technology and more on the artistic and creative processes that actually make games fun to play."
The underlying technology, however, is the essence of the game. It's what tells us how mario moves compared to sonic or y metroid cant crawl. The artistic and creative process, while quite important, largely affect how a game is presented visually and thematically. The rise of one-size-fits-all platforms, designed to be broadly used not only between titles but between genres and platforms, has led to a massive homogenization of gameplay. Gameplay, of course, is what makes a game fun to actually play. Setting is not gameplay. Writing is not gameplay, and graphics aren't gameplay.
Yes, these platforms are customizable, but the distinctness that came with each game or class of games has largely been lost as games increasingly rely on generalized engines. Unity and Unreal (and various other engines) are great, but they're not responsible for freeing developers to make experimental games. To the extent that is happening, it is despite of, not because of, those engines.
SuSE has the best installation and configuration utility and has a ton of helpful user-run repos for packages. It also has builds for basically every windowing system, so you can pick your preference without any hacking, and when you do want to get down to brass tacks, the system will get out of your way (now that suseconfig is gone) and let you tinker as much as you please.
And when you screw everything up (half the fun, right?), it ships with a fantastic system repair tool to get you back on your feet. You can also use SuSE Studio to make a custom image if you have weird hardware.
Wait, there is a slashdot article on the front page detailing how to violate various broadcasters copyrights? I mean, I know it's preaching to the choir, but I'm astounded this is an actual article.
IPlayer in particular isn't region-locked because the BBC hates foreigners; the service is paid for by television licenses, which people outside of England (obviously) aren't paying. It's much more than just defeating a region-locking scheme, it's basically piracy. Seeing it front and center is crazy.
While I appreciate the thought that all software should be open-source, I can't shake the feeling that FOSS advocates are wasting their time and talent attempting to endlessly reinvent the wheel. I'm sure that avoiding proprietary blobs would be great, but it is worth all this effort with so little gain? You'll have a (very) small audience that will download it and put up with the inevitable incompatibilities, but why is so much effort being thrown at projects like this and nouveau; projects whose ideal result is something that perfectly mimics something that has already been made and is already in widespread use. Since ideal results are never possible, you are inevitably left making the excuse "sure, it's not as good, but it's more ideologically pure!" which is only really convincing for the most hardline ideologues.
Instead of endless FOSS projects just trying to replicate things we already have, I'd like to see these supremely generous and talented people work on new projects. Why spend time on nouveau when you could work on, say, a new cross-platform graphics API? I just don't think FOSS will ever gain significant mindshare as long as it is continuously trying to emulate functional applications that people are already using.
Really? This is cause for outrage? The insane idea that the government might look at something you wrote and hunt you down using a printer serial number and some possible registration information? This isn't a "the innocent have nothing to hide" argument, this is a "any government agency that actually used this for anything other than the stated purpose is insane" argument. There are hundreds of far more efficient, reliable and accurate ways to figure out who you are and what you have been up to.
Reading through the comments, about how your printer is going to betray you when the fascist power grab comes, it is abundantly clear that a sizable portion of slashdotters enjoy nothing more than working themselves up by finding whatever scant excuse to go on hyperbolic rants about how the government is just waiting to come and take them away to gitmo, and that the only way to avoid this is to compete to see who is the most paranoid.
The sad thing is when the government DOES overstep its bounds and quash our freedoms, these people will have negative credibility because everyone else know that, to them, everything is a sinister government plot.
I'm astounded that people are, uh, astounded by this possibility. Do you seriously think posting things on YouTube is a right? The site is a service provided by a corporation and is almost certainly awash with "secret" agreements, just because of the subject matter of the site and how popular it is. I use sarcasm quotes for secret because Google has no obligation to disclose its contractual relationships with third parties because you, the user, aren't party to them.
Don't get me wrong, this is a pretty skeezy agreement, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that YouTube is different from any other business asset. Its operation is governed by a load of inter-party contracts, it is controlled with no external oversight, and it exists to make money. The only difference is that we are now both the resource and the consumer, and I don't think people have quite internalized the logical conclusion of that relationship. Google doesn't owe you anything or exist to safeguard some specious rights. Everything between you and them is business, nothing more and nothing less.
A bunch of crackers got a hold of boatloads of personal information that they can sell for cash money.
That is what it's done. There may be some sort of vendetta, and there definitely is the feeling that Sony is a personal information pinata, but that's really what it is at its core.
That would be an interesting move, to try to crack Nintendo's network, seeing as Nintendo... doesn't have a network. Or store CC info. Or really any personal info in general.
"After all, this is the programming crew who ruined Caprica by stuffing it into the Friday night death slot and splitting the season into two parts. These are the geniuses who killed off Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe. These are the people who wrecked Farscape, one of the most inventive and fun sci-fi shows to ever be on television. They also ended Mystery Science Theater 3000"
How DARE they cancel that show that nobody liked, and those two shows that had bad ratings. And that other show that had bad ratings. And that nine-year-old show that had a good run for years on their network.
I sometimes get the feeling that Sci-Fi fans are so desperate for more content that they religiously and desperately cling to whatever they get, and in the process make shows into far more than they actually are. It's understandable, and even sympathetic. Then again, so is the network trying to pay the bills.
I actually watched the oral argument for this case, and the appointed counsel did a really hideous job... one of the judges (based on the testimony of the correctional officer at trial) was talking about "escapism" being a problem that was promoted by dungeons and dragons, as in it would actually lead to the players escaping from the jail. The attorney completely missed this, didn't even familiarize himself with the material that was being discussed, and generally did a half-assed job of informing the court, which also admitted they had no idea how the game worked or what its implications were. I only partially blame the judges -- after all, part of your job is to inform the court of your arguments and interpretations of facts. That's what an oral argument is for.
So yes, "escapism" is a real problem. I expect the next things to be banned in the seventh circuit to be books, closely followed by looking out the window, closely followed by thinking.
Anyway, the judges have betrayed two things:
1. They have never been in a gang, because gang heirarchy doesn't work that way. 2. They have never played Dungeons & Dragons, because they think people actually listen to the DM.
Slashdot Mirror
"But not nearly as interesting as the assorted women parts I have archived in my basement freezer," he continued.
Considering how forceful and near-universal condemnation from women and women's groups in and out of tech has been to the memo, it is extremely difficult to believe that this Ask Slashdot was submitted in good faith. Particularly in light of the extreme ease of finding high-profile responses. Here is a (small) sample from a simple google search:
https://www.vox.com/the-big-id...
https://www.vox.com/first-pers...
http://fortune.com/2017/08/09/...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
https://patch.com/california/m...
If you really are that out of the loop, that should inform you pretty well. If you're begging the question, then the quantity of vile reactions in these comments have likely confirmed that it was worth it. I hope it is the former.
This is 100% true. The contents of the annotations are summaries of cases written by someone other than the court (sometimes the court's staff but most often by an indexing service like Lexis), and aren't actually law. Their sole purpose is to identify to attorneys and judges which cases stand for which principles. They are never even a complete statement of the law of that case, since they are usually a short paragraph long and only mention one of many issues the court dealt with. Half the time, the case identified by an annotation isn't even useful to the project, but they are always a good starting point.
So what he's saying is that we should all grab our botnets and assault Al Gore (the king of the internet), forcing him to give rights to those of us who own servers?
. . . I'm OK with this.
A markholder attempting to avoid dilution/abandonment only has an obligation to combat infringement of their mark. Legitimate uses of the mark, including the fair use associated with criticism in this case, do not affect the markholder's rights in any way.
Beyond the fact that they were both directives from the government, there are no similarities
Moonshot:ACA Exchange
Regulation:
Whatever NASA thought was a good idea:Three extremely technical laws, plus various state laws
Interoperability:
Everything done in-house by NASA:Interacting with dozens of different providers using different systems that don't talk to each other, plus data verification from a few more agencies
Public Support:
Viewed as way to get one up on those darned ruskies:Extremely bitter partisan divide, was a major contentious issue in two elections
Government Support:
Willing to throw money at NASA to get it done:Part of the House of Representatives shut down the government and threatened default in order to build anti-ACA support for the next election
Actual Work Done:
Mostly in-house NASA work:Lots of contractors
Not that the exchange's launch hasn't been a complete disaster, but comparing the two is extremely tenuous.
Because the prima donnas at the heart of the story (Snowden and Greenwald) made and continue to make the story about themselves, rather than the material. A story about a reporter and his whistleblowing buddy on the lam, both making crazy statements that greatly overshadow the series but drier material they are disclosing, always played better and therefore was covered better.
At this point, everyone's tired of them, and has forgotten what the whole fuss was about.
Allowing more open development is fantastic. However, the summary (and really a ton of people) have the relationship at play with games backwards:
"This has helped developers focus less on creating a video game's underlying technology and more on the artistic and creative processes that actually make games fun to play."
The underlying technology, however, is the essence of the game. It's what tells us how mario moves compared to sonic or y metroid cant crawl. The artistic and creative process, while quite important, largely affect how a game is presented visually and thematically. The rise of one-size-fits-all platforms, designed to be broadly used not only between titles but between genres and platforms, has led to a massive homogenization of gameplay. Gameplay, of course, is what makes a game fun to actually play. Setting is not gameplay. Writing is not gameplay, and graphics aren't gameplay.
Yes, these platforms are customizable, but the distinctness that came with each game or class of games has largely been lost as games increasingly rely on generalized engines. Unity and Unreal (and various other engines) are great, but they're not responsible for freeing developers to make experimental games. To the extent that is happening, it is despite of, not because of, those engines.
SuSE has the best installation and configuration utility and has a ton of helpful user-run repos for packages. It also has builds for basically every windowing system, so you can pick your preference without any hacking, and when you do want to get down to brass tacks, the system will get out of your way (now that suseconfig is gone) and let you tinker as much as you please.
And when you screw everything up (half the fun, right?), it ships with a fantastic system repair tool to get you back on your feet. You can also use SuSE Studio to make a custom image if you have weird hardware.
It's a really great linux experience.
Particularly rumaki.
While I prefer the larger tipped version, I've used the micro before and it has a nice, clean small line. Great line of pens in either size.
Wait, there is a slashdot article on the front page detailing how to violate various broadcasters copyrights? I mean, I know it's preaching to the choir, but I'm astounded this is an actual article.
IPlayer in particular isn't region-locked because the BBC hates foreigners; the service is paid for by television licenses, which people outside of England (obviously) aren't paying. It's much more than just defeating a region-locking scheme, it's basically piracy. Seeing it front and center is crazy.
This is the most incoherent summary I've seen on slashdot yet. Maybe because it's so far in tinfoil hat territory, but still, wow.
Well, Anonymous is going to start their OWN pastebin! With hookers! And blackjack!
While I appreciate the thought that all software should be open-source, I can't shake the feeling that FOSS advocates are wasting their time and talent attempting to endlessly reinvent the wheel. I'm sure that avoiding proprietary blobs would be great, but it is worth all this effort with so little gain? You'll have a (very) small audience that will download it and put up with the inevitable incompatibilities, but why is so much effort being thrown at projects like this and nouveau; projects whose ideal result is something that perfectly mimics something that has already been made and is already in widespread use. Since ideal results are never possible, you are inevitably left making the excuse "sure, it's not as good, but it's more ideologically pure!" which is only really convincing for the most hardline ideologues.
Instead of endless FOSS projects just trying to replicate things we already have, I'd like to see these supremely generous and talented people work on new projects. Why spend time on nouveau when you could work on, say, a new cross-platform graphics API? I just don't think FOSS will ever gain significant mindshare as long as it is continuously trying to emulate functional applications that people are already using.
Really? This is cause for outrage? The insane idea that the government might look at something you wrote and hunt you down using a printer serial number and some possible registration information? This isn't a "the innocent have nothing to hide" argument, this is a "any government agency that actually used this for anything other than the stated purpose is insane" argument. There are hundreds of far more efficient, reliable and accurate ways to figure out who you are and what you have been up to.
Reading through the comments, about how your printer is going to betray you when the fascist power grab comes, it is abundantly clear that a sizable portion of slashdotters enjoy nothing more than working themselves up by finding whatever scant excuse to go on hyperbolic rants about how the government is just waiting to come and take them away to gitmo, and that the only way to avoid this is to compete to see who is the most paranoid.
The sad thing is when the government DOES overstep its bounds and quash our freedoms, these people will have negative credibility because everyone else know that, to them, everything is a sinister government plot.
I'm looking forward to the next edition of Ask Slashdot: "How to Inform a Non-Auto Mechanic about Multiple-Bypass Surgery."
I'm astounded that people are, uh, astounded by this possibility. Do you seriously think posting things on YouTube is a right? The site is a service provided by a corporation and is almost certainly awash with "secret" agreements, just because of the subject matter of the site and how popular it is. I use sarcasm quotes for secret because Google has no obligation to disclose its contractual relationships with third parties because you, the user, aren't party to them.
Don't get me wrong, this is a pretty skeezy agreement, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that YouTube is different from any other business asset. Its operation is governed by a load of inter-party contracts, it is controlled with no external oversight, and it exists to make money. The only difference is that we are now both the resource and the consumer, and I don't think people have quite internalized the logical conclusion of that relationship. Google doesn't owe you anything or exist to safeguard some specious rights. Everything between you and them is business, nothing more and nothing less.
They could've just asked me. I was there when the second moon left, after all!
A bunch of crackers got a hold of boatloads of personal information that they can sell for cash money.
That is what it's done. There may be some sort of vendetta, and there definitely is the feeling that Sony is a personal information pinata, but that's really what it is at its core.
That would be an interesting move, to try to crack Nintendo's network, seeing as Nintendo ... doesn't have a network. Or store CC info. Or really any personal info in general.
1 April 2006, the most magical day on the internet. Slashdot gave us this:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/45/121120624_5b9fb34dcb.jpg
You win this thread, just for the TV Tropes link. Excelsior!
"After all, this is the programming crew who ruined Caprica by stuffing it into the Friday night death slot and splitting the season into two parts. These are the geniuses who killed off Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe. These are the people who wrecked Farscape, one of the most inventive and fun sci-fi shows to ever be on television. They also ended Mystery Science Theater 3000"
How DARE they cancel that show that nobody liked, and those two shows that had bad ratings. And that other show that had bad ratings. And that nine-year-old show that had a good run for years on their network.
I sometimes get the feeling that Sci-Fi fans are so desperate for more content that they religiously and desperately cling to whatever they get, and in the process make shows into far more than they actually are. It's understandable, and even sympathetic. Then again, so is the network trying to pay the bills.
I actually watched the oral argument for this case, and the appointed counsel did a really hideous job ... one of the judges (based on the testimony of the correctional officer at trial) was talking about "escapism" being a problem that was promoted by dungeons and dragons, as in it would actually lead to the players escaping from the jail. The attorney completely missed this, didn't even familiarize himself with the material that was being discussed, and generally did a half-assed job of informing the court, which also admitted they had no idea how the game worked or what its implications were. I only partially blame the judges -- after all, part of your job is to inform the court of your arguments and interpretations of facts. That's what an oral argument is for.
So yes, "escapism" is a real problem. I expect the next things to be banned in the seventh circuit to be books, closely followed by looking out the window, closely followed by thinking.
Anyway, the judges have betrayed two things:
1. They have never been in a gang, because gang heirarchy doesn't work that way.
2. They have never played Dungeons & Dragons, because they think people actually listen to the DM.