If the IRS starts getting less $$ and it's the EULAS that's responsible you'll see just how little even a corporation the size of microsoft is. (you threaten a politicians income and power guess what the laws will say in very short order).
I suspect if large enough number of companies started listing most/all of the software they use as a deduction instead of a liability things would change, or at least mitigate a bit.
Besides I don't care what the blurb entitled *EULA* from company x says if I bought my software from Best Buy or Walmart. My agreement ($$$ for product) is with the retailer, not the THIRD party that sold THEM the software (who is likely not the software maker/publisher themselves but a middleman, likely one of many).
Even if I did buy something from company x directly, if there is no discussion/negotiation before I give them $$ and they give me the software then they don't get to come back and add a new contract afterwards with some sort of agreed to compensation (and no forcing someone to click a button marked 'I Agree' to use that which they already have a PAID FOR right to use doesn't count anymore than a 'contract' signed on threat of broken fingers otherwise).
This is as good a place as any for this question. WHY do so many seem to think that 'the publisher made them do it' is any different than 'the devil made them do it'.
I WILL so blame the developers for what hit's the shelves, if the publisher does evil then they should find a new publisher.
"The publisher requires it" will not put food on the table when they loose money because people won't buy their nifty program with the added malware.
It really annoys me the most when some developer says "we didn't want to add drm, but the publisher made us". Well then require them not to or take your game elsewhere or self publish. I see arguments of 'all publishers do this' or self-publishing not profitable, but then I've bought at a major store at least one drm free game that wasn't a 4.99 throw-away game. Install, put cd away, play whenever. O.k. you have to register online with a cd-key to get updates and other game related free-bees, but that's it
And considering drm schemes cost $$ to add and more to support and yet you can still get most games in drm-free no cd required 'pirate' version for a very low price (a.k.a. free) I don't see how they're anything but a net loss (and in this case and others like it cost big from the negative publicity and lost sales therefrom ). Why the stockholders of the publicly traded companies don't throw fit (and maybe a lawsuit or two) has to be due to pure ingorance and fud.
The legislation was passed some time ago, and we've ALREADY paid for it. The telco's have ALREADY gotten the money and are still getting it (look over your phone/dsl bill, especially at all those taxes and mandated fee's).
The problem is the telco's have mostly decided to take the money and NOT spend it (other than token amounts as I understand it) on what they should have.
IIRC it was the telco's idea, or at least they whined they needed the money to afford rolling broadband out to rural areas.
Broadband exists just a few miles from my house, in almost every direction, and ever since I moved out here they've been saying it'll be 3-6 months (it's already been 7+ years).
The cable company suddenly dropping plans to extend I can understand, they got bought out 3 months after I moved here, but the telco is just lying.
One tech told me there were no plans to upgrade this area that he'd heard of and another said it was scheduled 'about two weeks after they fix the lines in hell to handle snowstorms'. We've already paid and still are, it's time get what we paid for or get our money back, plus interest and fines and penalties.
Or possibly an older spelling. He did a lot of interesting things with the names of his characters (that hint at later plot elements) and was, IIRC, and was a english professor.
Then again he did make up a couple of languages, so what's a creative spelling or two?
The reason the charts are different is that there are differences in how male and female bodies handle alcohol. One of the main chemicals in the body the breaks down alcohol is derived from testosterone. IIRC it takes up to 3 times longer for a woman's body to nullify the same relative amount of alcohol.
There are other differences as well most likely, but that's the one I remember.
I've been telling people for this for some time now. Norton's utilities used to be THE answer to almost anything, now anything else is a better answer.
If anyone knows of a modern equivalent to the old Norton's utilities I'd love to hear about it.
A GOOD hex editor like Norton's used to have alone would be superior to the current state of Symantics so-called utilities.
Wasn't Heinlein the one who said "ask an expert what can't be done and why, then do it." or something approximating that.
I'd agree with premise that SF authors are there to say "What if?" not "you can't".
The quality is a factor, I've gotten calls from to many people who t..k l.ke ov th.. and ge.. mad at me whe I an on the.. @#$#@$ because I.sdf. to do.
Many of these idiots even call from home, say something like "sorry, only keep a cell phone and it's reception at home is bad", and then get anoyed (At me!) the fifth time I have to say "I'm sorry what did you say?".
If the other person is obviously not hearing you clearly, then you don't have a good enough signal. Just because you can hear them fine (with <1 watt transmitted vs many watts at the tower they'll lose your side well before you loose them) it doesn't mean they can hear you. I've had so many idiots insist that since they could here me saying "hello?" clearly that it must be my fault and not the cell connection.
And for sanity's sake if you do have a crappy cell connection DON'T waste some random strangers time by trying to call their business (the first call perhaps, after all sometimes cell phones SHOW a better connection than they actually have) repeatedly when you already know even if you don't loose the connection what you said is so scrambled the other person is going to get it wrong at best.
Sorry this rant had to go somewhere in this discussion,and isn't really so much directed at the above poster (who did put in some decent qualifiers on his assertion) but not having a land line is often a bad idea. You can usually get at least basic service cheap, and if you keep a working runs-purely-off-line-current phone, works when nothing else will.
Not to mention so-so land line quality beats all but the best cell-phone quality.
Like I said, I don't buy it myself.
At best I figure Lucas saw such and optical illusion once and it influenced him to make it a double star system.
I just like to figure out improbable explanations to explain what didn't really happen sometimes.
20 years to secretly build a space station so huge that a well traveled and experienced space hound is shocked and doesn't believe it at first isn't all that freaky, especially when you're also taking over a galactic government by political means.
Now as far as Luke being attracted to Lea at first I will present two datum about humans that one may assume applies to Luke and Lea (on the presumption that looks like and behaves like human in other ways is indicative).
One fact is that there has been work done that shows when in human development various behaviors are 'locked in' up till about six any language can be learned as native and our brains 'learn' who family is so we don't interbreed (this is why guys Don't marry the girl next door they grew up with as often as some seem to expect). As a minor addendum it's around eight the part that starts deciding who's 'cute' and not starts warming up.
The other fact is that humans tend to 'go' for people who look like their opposite gender parent.
IIRC there have been reported cases of siblings adopted out at birth or near enough and later getting married and then even later finding out they have the same biological parents.
First off this is just 'devil's advocate' pulling stuff out of thin air, but I do have a possible explanation.
It could be it wasn't sfx, but a valid weather phenomenon that Lucas took advantage of, either intentionally knowing it to be common or by accident and he decided to 'keep' it and add to the mythology of his fictional universe.
If that were the case he might not have bothered to explain it back then and and let the proto ILM get credited for it (makes him and them look better).
Not that I believe that's what happened. If I were a betting man I'd say it was fx of some sort or other.
That makes no sense. Sunset isn't the sun moving, it's the planet turning.
The only scenario I can think of would require the planet to be inside the orbit of the less massive star about it's companion and be orbiting in the opposite direction and I don't even think that would work without eventually tossing the planet away, probably long before it cooled.
Not how you're likely thinking. Unless one star was a LOT bigger than the other and there was only one planet involved.
Earth, Moon, man-made object can make one such trio as can say Sun Jupiter and asteroid.
To start with IANAL, but from what I've read EULAs have a pretty mixed history concerning whether the courts (in the US) will consider them valid or not.
IIRC 3 district courts have ruled against them and 2 for them, but these things are usually very narrowly done (IE if your circumstances differ much the ruling may not apply).
I'm personally of the opinion that first sale should apply. This was tried before with bound books and the Supreme court tossed it out. You can't add a suprise contract after the sale and claim it applies simply by possession/purchase of the item it was hid in.
If I buy a something at a store I'm in my rights to treat it as any other purchase, I was present with no contract to negotiate before I handed over the money and they let me take the product home, therefore I can do anything the law allows with it a dialog box requiring I click on an 'I agree' button during install means nothing and no exchange for consideration has happened other than the basic purchase I made at the store.
But again I am not a lawyer and this is mostly opinion and half remembered info.
Nope, IQ is not a linear measurement (usually). There are quite a few IQ tests and they are usually structured so that the majority of people fall right around 100 with a max possible score of 200.
IIRC, over 80% of all people fall in the 10 point range around 100 (or maybe it was with 10 points of 100).
A 150+ on most tests is in the upper 2% of the population.
There are several reasons I don't do it that way. First is the practical reason. It's a pain in the @$$ to pass around a laptop in the middle of the game every time someone needs to refer to something, at which point it's a pain to find things.
It's a good way to drop, break, spill things on an expensive device.
There are just too many ways a real book differs from a computer and a typical gaming sessions would make this painfully obvious.
75!!! crap That means I'm missing 6 of them. Seriously though I think my brother has that many or more for second ed.
I've been playing on and off since '81 and the current group I'm in has been playing since just before 3.0 came out and I've accumulated enough books that I'm planning on getting a FOURTH book bag to cart them all around in.
To be honest many were bought just for a few clever ideas or more background material.
I doubt it's out of spite, if it would make them more money they'd do it. They are a publicly traded company and as such the focus is profit.
They may have adopted the N.I.H. attitude in for pr reasons e.g.: "We're Intell, we lead not follow!".
Or perhaps they felt the cost at the time was prohibitive relative to the advantages and by the time the tech was cheap enough to implement they already had something more promising (perhaps this tech?) on the near horrizon.
Not saying they made the right or wrong choice, just that I doubt the board members sat around saying "they invented it so I don't want it no matter how good it is."
Where is this true? I'm pretty shure several religions of the popular sort use wine in some services/rituals that sub-21 year old persons participate in.
Now providing a minor with booze when they are NOT your child is usually a crime however.
Not positive, but I believe drinking at age 18 is allowed on base (assuming you are 'off duty' and do break any other rules).
Also parents/guardians are allowed to give thier children alchoholic beverages (or else a lot of church rituals would make criminals of parents). Though I suspect if someone let thier ten year get trashed routinely they would be subject child abuse/neglect charges.
Slashdot Mirror
If the IRS starts getting less $$ and it's the EULAS that's responsible you'll see just how little even a corporation the size of microsoft is. (you threaten a politicians income and power guess what the laws will say in very short order).
I suspect if large enough number of companies started listing most/all of the software they use as a deduction instead of a liability things would change, or at least mitigate a bit.
Besides I don't care what the blurb entitled *EULA* from company x says if I bought my software from Best Buy or Walmart. My agreement ($$$ for product) is with the retailer, not the THIRD party that sold THEM the software (who is likely not the software maker/publisher themselves but a middleman, likely one of many).
Even if I did buy something from company x directly, if there is no discussion/negotiation before I give them $$ and they give me the software then they don't get to come back and add a new contract afterwards with some sort of agreed to compensation (and no forcing someone to click a button marked 'I Agree' to use that which they already have a PAID FOR right to use doesn't count anymore than a 'contract' signed on threat of broken fingers otherwise).
Mycroft
This is as good a place as any for this question.
WHY do so many seem to think that 'the publisher made them do it' is any
different than 'the devil made them do it'.
I WILL so blame the developers for what hit's the shelves, if the publisher does evil then they should find a new publisher.
"The publisher requires it" will not put food on the table when they loose money because people won't buy their nifty program with the added malware.
It really annoys me the most when some developer says "we didn't want to add drm, but the publisher made us".
Well then require them not to or take your game elsewhere or self publish. I see arguments of 'all publishers do this' or self-publishing not profitable, but then I've bought at a major store at least one drm free game that wasn't a 4.99 throw-away game. Install, put cd away, play whenever. O.k. you have to register online with a cd-key to get updates and other game related free-bees, but that's it
And considering drm schemes cost $$ to add and more to support and yet you can still get most games in drm-free no cd required 'pirate' version for a very low price (a.k.a. free) I don't see how they're anything but a net loss (and in this case and others like it cost big from the negative publicity and lost sales therefrom ). Why the stockholders of the publicly traded companies don't throw fit (and maybe a lawsuit or two) has to be due to pure ingorance and fud.
Mycroft
The legislation was passed some time ago, and we've ALREADY paid for it. The telco's have ALREADY gotten the money and are still getting it (look over your phone/dsl bill, especially at all those taxes and mandated fee's).
The problem is the telco's have mostly decided to take the money and NOT spend it (other than token amounts as I understand it) on what they should have.
IIRC it was the telco's idea, or at least they whined they needed the money to afford rolling broadband out to rural areas.
Broadband exists just a few miles from my house, in almost every direction, and ever since I moved out here they've been saying it'll be 3-6 months (it's already been 7+ years).
The cable company suddenly dropping plans to extend I can understand, they got bought out 3 months after I moved here, but the telco is just lying.
One tech told me there were no plans to upgrade this area that he'd heard of and another said it was scheduled 'about two weeks after they fix the lines in hell to handle snowstorms'.
We've already paid and still are, it's time get what we paid for or get our money back, plus interest and fines and penalties.
Mycroft
Or possibly an older spelling. He did a lot of interesting things with the names of his characters (that hint at later plot elements) and was, IIRC, and was a english professor.
Then again he did make up a couple of languages, so what's a creative spelling or two?
Mcyroft
Didn't "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" rather strongly hint at atomic energy?
Mycroft
The reason the charts are different is that there are differences in how male and female bodies handle alcohol. One of the main chemicals in the body the breaks down alcohol is derived from testosterone. IIRC it takes up to 3 times longer for a woman's body to nullify the same relative amount of alcohol.
There are other differences as well most likely, but that's the one I remember.
Mycroft
The game he's thinking of from the 90's might be the dos game put out by Virgin games, at least that's the one I had. :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle:_the_Space_F light_Simulator_(Virgin_game) for more info
about it.
Try
Mycroft
I've been telling people for this for some time now. Norton's utilities used to be THE answer to almost anything, now anything else is a better answer.
If anyone knows of a modern equivalent to the old Norton's utilities I'd love to hear about it.
A GOOD hex editor like Norton's used to have alone would be superior to the current state of Symantics so-called utilities.
Mycroft
I thought the key words were 'access control' not copy protected (copy protection schemes are a subset of access controls).
Mycroft
Wasn't Heinlein the one who said "ask an expert what can't be done and why, then do it."
or something approximating that.
I'd agree with premise that SF authors are there to say "What if?" not "you can't".
Mycroft
Thanks, I've been 'Mycroft' since 1984 on the old color-64 and wwiv bbs boards. Probably since before many here were born.
Mycroft
The quality is a factor, I've gotten calls from to many people who t..k l.ke ov th.. and ge.. mad at me whe I an on the.. @#$#@$ because I .sdf. to do.
Many of these idiots even call from home, say something like "sorry, only keep a cell phone and it's reception at home is bad", and then get anoyed (At me!) the fifth time I have to say "I'm sorry what did you say?".
If the other person is obviously not hearing you clearly, then you don't have a good enough signal. Just because you can hear them fine (with <1 watt transmitted vs many watts at the tower they'll lose your side well before you loose them) it doesn't mean they can hear you. I've had so many idiots insist that since they could here me saying "hello?" clearly that it must be my fault and not the cell connection.
And for sanity's sake if you do have a crappy cell connection DON'T waste some random strangers time by trying to call their business (the first call perhaps, after all sometimes cell phones SHOW a better connection than they actually have) repeatedly when you already know even if you don't loose the connection what you said is so scrambled the other person is going to get it wrong at best.
Sorry this rant had to go somewhere in this discussion,and isn't really so much directed at the above poster (who did put in some decent qualifiers on his assertion) but not having a land line is often a bad idea. You can usually get at least basic service cheap, and if you keep a working runs-purely-off-line-current phone, works when nothing else will.
Not to mention so-so land line quality beats all but the best cell-phone quality.
Mycroft
Like I said, I don't buy it myself.
At best I figure Lucas saw such and optical illusion once and it influenced him to make it a double star system.
I just like to figure out improbable explanations to explain what didn't really happen sometimes.
Mycroft
20 years to secretly build a space station so huge that a well traveled and experienced space hound is shocked and doesn't believe it at first isn't all that freaky, especially when you're also taking over a galactic government by political means.
Now as far as Luke being attracted to Lea at first I will present two datum about humans that one may assume applies to Luke and Lea (on the presumption that looks like and behaves like human in other ways is indicative).
One fact is that there has been work done that shows when in human development various behaviors are 'locked in' up till about six any language can be learned as native and our brains 'learn' who family is so we don't interbreed (this is why guys Don't marry the girl next door they grew up with as often as some seem to expect). As a minor addendum it's around eight the part that starts deciding who's 'cute' and not starts warming up.
The other fact is that humans tend to 'go' for people who look like their opposite gender parent.
IIRC there have been reported cases of siblings adopted out at birth or near enough and later getting married and then even later finding out they have the same biological parents.
Mycroft
First off this is just 'devil's advocate' pulling stuff out of thin air, but I do have a possible explanation.
It could be it wasn't sfx, but a valid weather phenomenon that Lucas took advantage of, either intentionally knowing it to be common or by accident and he decided to 'keep' it and add to the mythology of his fictional universe.
If that were the case he might not have bothered to explain it back then and and let the proto ILM get credited for it (makes him and them look better).
Not that I believe that's what happened. If I were a betting man I'd say it was fx of some sort or other.
Mycroft
That makes no sense. Sunset isn't the sun moving, it's the planet turning.
The only scenario I can think of would require the planet to be inside the orbit of the less massive star about it's companion and be orbiting in the opposite direction and I don't even think that would work without eventually tossing the planet away, probably long before it cooled.
Mycroft
Not how you're likely thinking. Unless one star was a LOT bigger than the other and there was only one planet involved.
Earth, Moon, man-made object can make one such trio as can say Sun Jupiter and asteroid.
Mycroft
To start with IANAL, but from what I've read EULAs have a pretty mixed history concerning whether the courts (in the US) will consider them valid or not.
IIRC 3 district courts have ruled against them and 2 for them, but these things are usually very narrowly done (IE if your circumstances differ much the ruling may not apply).
I'm personally of the opinion that first sale should apply. This was tried before with bound books and the Supreme court tossed it out. You can't add a suprise contract after the sale and claim it applies simply by possession/purchase of the item it was hid in.
If I buy a something at a store I'm in my rights to treat it as any other purchase, I was present with no contract to negotiate before I handed over the money and they let me take the product home, therefore I can do anything the law allows with it a dialog box requiring I click on an 'I agree' button during install means nothing and no exchange for consideration has happened other than the basic purchase I made at the store.
But again I am not a lawyer and this is mostly opinion and half remembered info.
Mycroft
Nope, IQ is not a linear measurement (usually).
There are quite a few IQ tests and they are usually structured so that the majority of people fall right around 100 with a max possible score of 200.
IIRC, over 80% of all people fall in the 10 point range around 100 (or maybe it was with 10 points of 100).
A 150+ on most tests is in the upper 2% of the population.
Mycroft
There are several reasons I don't do it that way.
First is the practical reason. It's a pain in the @$$
to pass around a laptop in the middle of the game every
time someone needs to refer to something, at which point
it's a pain to find things.
It's a good way to drop, break, spill things on an
expensive device.
There are just too many ways a real book differs from
a computer and a typical gaming sessions would make this
painfully obvious.
Mycroft
Thanks, I always liked people too. :)
Mycroft
75!!! crap That means I'm missing 6 of them.
Seriously though I think my brother has that many or more for second ed.
I've been playing on and off since '81 and the current group I'm in has been playing since just before 3.0 came out and I've accumulated enough books that I'm planning on
getting a FOURTH book bag to cart them all around in.
To be honest many were bought just for a few clever ideas or more background material.
Mycroft
I doubt it's out of spite, if it would make them more money they'd do it. They are a publicly traded company and as such the focus is profit.
They may have adopted the N.I.H. attitude in for pr reasons e.g.: "We're Intell, we lead not follow!".
Or perhaps they felt the cost at the time was prohibitive relative to the advantages and by the time the tech was cheap enough to implement they already had something more promising (perhaps this tech?) on the near horrizon.
Not saying they made the right or wrong choice, just that I doubt the board members sat around saying "they invented it so I don't want it no matter how good it is."
Mycroft
Where is this true? I'm pretty shure several religions of the popular sort use wine in some services/rituals that sub-21 year old persons participate in.
Now providing a minor with booze when they are NOT your child is usually a crime however.
Mycroft
Not positive, but I believe drinking at age 18 is allowed on base (assuming you are 'off duty' and do break any other rules).
Also parents/guardians are allowed to give thier children alchoholic beverages (or else a lot of church rituals would make criminals of parents). Though I suspect if someone let thier ten year get trashed routinely they would be subject child abuse/neglect charges.
Mycroft