Just becuase you say something a lot doesn't make it ture. Just becuase people say "any publicity is good publicity" doesn't make it true.
"They clearly did not intend to pursue the lawsuit in question"
Based on what? Maybe they just hope to intimidate the domain holder without going to court?
I'd rather people speak out about companies doing bad things, even if it does mean they get publicity. The only alternative is we stop talking about what companies do completely.
Well if you use drugs you are funding terrorist organizations, that much is for sure.
Just becuase some terrorist organisations use organsised crime for funding does not mean all crimanal organisations are terrorists. Some terrorist organisations avoid drugs, many drug selling organisations are not terroristss (until all crime is classified as terrorism). Of course, not all drugs come from organisations anyway.
One of the wisest things Bush ever said was "The day you stop doing drugs, is the day you join the War against Terror."
The phrase "Damning with faint praise" springs to mind.
What's more kids nowadays understand this.
Yep, kids these days don't do drugs, no sir.
In 30 years time, far from thinking that the War on Drugs was a bad idea, the self indulgent baby boomers will be dead, and their drug taking funding of terrorist organizations will be a thing of the past.
Yep, it isn't like drug taking is part of human history for as long as we have had human history, and even prehistory. It isn't like the baby boomers succesors, generation X, haven't taken drugs, or whatever we call the generation after them.
Taking drugs will be seen as a really bad (not to mention un-patriotic) idea, just like trepanation or blood-letting.
As opposed to good ol' traditional booze and cigarettes that fund the War on Terror with taxes?
I this is really your view of reality, sounds like you need to stop the drugs, or start, whatever.
You're wrong. Books and inventions have been protected since the 1790...that's almost as long as this country has existed.
And that's relevant to the claim "aren't copyrights a rather new idea with respect to MUSIC, BOOKS, and INVENTIONS" how? Although copyright doesn't really apply to invetions (that's patents), books and music have been around long, long before copyright, becuase, I hate to break it to you, they existed long before America.
I know they speak in funny languages, but the rest of the world has done pretty well at producing music and literature. I highly sceptical of claims the US has turned out better quality, and if so it's down to IP laws.
Copyright allows me to play works in progress at coffee house open mics without fear of having my half-baked ideas stolen for somebody else's profit.
Generally perfomances are not protected by copyright unless recorded, so this is not true.
Nobody's in dispute on the right to protect copyright, either.
But plenty of people are in dispute about how much protection, where to strike a balance and so on. Groups like the BSA are very pro copyright holders, even when that means effective removal of fair use for consumers.
Copyright is freeing...unless you believe you should be free to do whatever you can do with anybody else's work
Good copyright laws are about a compromise of freedoms, the creators and the public both give up some to try and provide the best balance and public interest. However you strike it, it will be freeing to some, and removing freedom from others.
It isn't freeing when big companies own copyright for a hundred years or however much they extend it too. It's ironic when Disney pushes for extending copyright after building it's fortune on non-copyright material (the source for most of it's animated movies, the music for Fantasia). Disney were free to use it becuase it
How many books, or movies, or TV shows have used characters like Holmes, Dracula or Frankenstien? Now imagine if they had been created under current copyright laws, most of that wouldn't exist (ok a lot of bad horror movies would go at no great loss, but the point remains:) ).
How about attempts to change the law so that recording artsits would never regaing (copy)rights to their own work? Would that be freeing? It's all about how they are implemented, and not as simple as copyrights = good.
All it does is breed a group of kids that will not challenge the system and sit around all day thinking certain laws are okay when in fact they may not be so perfect.
This assumes it is effective. Adults telling kids not to do drugs, or have sex, has been pretty ineffective. Once kids realise they can get stuff they want for free, at little risk (nobody has sued downloaders), I can't imagine what they were told stopping many of them.
It's true they will get less money from you, although I'm pretty sure there are statutory damages for copyright infringemnet, that apply whatever the value of the item.
IIRC in America the winner doesn't get legal fees automatically, but can sue again for legal costs. So it may cost you less if it was zero value, but could still be expensive.
The point is not the Microsoft is going to be bothered to take anyone to court over this, we all know they aren't.
The point it, it was supposed to be an example of legal use of p2p. It isn't. If you are trying to make a case for p2p software to legislators or courts, or even the public, this is not a good example becuase it is breaking the law.
The only people likely to think it is a legitamate use of p2p are those who don't think much of current copyright, and they hardly need convincing about p2p anyway.
Re:Yeah but scientific method requires faith
on
The Unknown Newton
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· Score: 1
I'm not so sure it requires a rational universe as a consistent one. That is, the rules don't arbitarily change on you. You can't, of course, prove the universe is like this, even though it appears to be. It's rather like Soliphism, where you can't prove anything your sense tell is real. Both are kinda interesting to talk about, but philosphical dead ends, if the universe really isn't rational/consistent or doesn't exist, if you can't trust your senses or experience you might as well give up on thinking about the whole thing, you can't get anywhere.
So while it is somewhat an act faith to rely on what we see (or hear etc) and experience, it is at least based on something (experience, and things we can replicate). It seems to me a big gap between this and religious faith, which is not based on either. In short, I disagree "faith is faith", it requires rather less faith on my part to assume if a drop an object it will fall (unless its a feather held over a fan or something equally contrived), based on lifetime of experience, than God exists, of which I have no experience.
I think it is important to recognise this degree of faith in science, but I do think it is important to recognise the difference between faith in evidence, and faith without evidence.
As for you suggestion a limitless existence implies God, I can't agree there either. Just because something is limitless, or infinate, doesn't mean it covers all possibilities. Consider, the number of whole, positive numbers is limitless, but none of them include -1. You could have a universe limitless in size, or time, or parallel universes with no God anywhere.
What if the FBI had a history of abusing powers to spy on people for polical reasons, not becuase they were criminals?
Oh wait, they do. So why assume they will behave differently? Isn't suggesting they will only use it on criminals rather more speculative than assuming they won't, based on past experience?
Or do civil rights activists, anti-war activists and those with socialist political beleifs not deserve privacy either?
But you're on a space station, filled with monsters... what else is there to do?
I find this logic very strage. The game designers chose to set the game there. If the setting limited what they could do, they should have changed or expanded the setting. If someone made a game set in one room with nothing in it, and people complained there was nothing to do, would you reply "well you are in empty room, what else is there to do?"
Can't have the flashlight out with the gun? That adds to the fear...
Or the frustration. Not to mention detracting from the realism and immersion when you're character can't do something they really should be able to. It's like those games that don't let you jump, and you can't get passed 1ft walls in them.
People who complain about that stuff, as far as I'm concerned are "spoiled" by shit like that...
Yeah, I'm spoiled by playing these games that have things I enjoy. I really should stop it and play more things I don't.
if you're in a riot situation are you gonna bitch that the pistol you grabbed and the maglight you found can't be one unit? No. You use what you have and deal with it.
Oh, so you hold the light in your off arm, and use that formarm to support the arm with pistol. Like police are trained to do, and you see in movies and TV all the time. Except your marine can't, so much for immersion.
Thats call "immersion" you stop thinking like a spoiled little person with unlimited resources and start thinking like a marine stuck out in space with only a few tools at his disposal...
That would be why Doom 3 limits the weapons you can carry at a time, right? And has scarce ammo. Oh wait...
Instead of realizing the amount of work and study that went into this, people are brats.
Well, if games were graded on effort, A+. It's results that count though, not the effort going into it. I don't care if the game was made by God and the hosts of heaven, it has to be fun to play. You can respect the person and still think the game sucks.
I'm looking forward to a generation of games built on this tech, that will look stunning and offer some great gameplay and new ideas. Not yet another corridor shooter.
If $1 a song is too expensive, it should come down, unless online operators start colluding. Still, it is cheap, in Europe we pay a lot more.
Remember also Apple are only making a small profit at the moment. At $.50 they would lose money. If you have no interest, don't buy. I don't. Just accept you aren't part of their target market. I'm puzzled why people need to keep saying they wouldn't buy something, just don't buy it.
You can get Windows programs that act as 'fake' sound drivers. Set them as your machine's sound out, and play anything protected, iTunes, WMP, Real, whatever, and it will save it out as a wav file. Instant DRM avoidance, as DRM doesn't yet extend that far into the computer.
That's why folks like the RIAA want "trusted" computing. Your trusted sound card won't work without a trusted driver, that won't non-trusted things have the sound info. That's the pipe dream of DRM.
Contrary to popular belief, you don't have an inherent right to music, just like the RIAA has no right to sales. Listen to non RIAA bands, or go out and make your own music.....
I should have a right to the music I have paid for though. That's what anti-DRM people are usually complaining about.
Novell can't have copyrights or patents involved with Linux. Under the GPL you can't release code with such things, and Novell release Linux under the GPL.
Funny, reviewing bad movies for my friends webiste I've noticed the exact opposite. Brit actors will work in complete shite. For some reason, it doesn't damage their reputation, probably becuase they also go and do things like Shakespear plays, and are regarded as actors, not movie stars.
They come pretty cheap too, for the talent, so some relative low budget stuff can afford them.
I assume that it is the general consensus of the population of the world that viewing graphic sexual or violent content isn't beneficial, and if anything, harmful.
Quite a few places seem pretty relaxed about graphic sexual content, and the idea about what is "graphic" varies quite a lot as well. Countries where more graphic sexual content is around tend to have lower rates of teenage pregnancy too. To be fair it probably isn't a case of one causing the other, but both reflecting healthier attitudes to sex.
It's worth noting that despite their much more open attitudes toward sex Europe has a lower rate of teen pregnancy than the US.
Even in Europe, countries like the UK which are much more uptight about sex have much higher teenage pregancy then places like Sweden, which are much more relaxed.
Maybe its the lure of the forbiden, if you make sex a big deal it becomes more attractive. Or maybe if people are just used to seeing sex, where people use protection, teenages are more likely to emulate that.
I rather liked it:) I like the original AvP's lack of save points too, both for me, created tension.
Sure, it got kinda frustrating at times, like the bit where you come out the ship and the helicopter is above you. These bits were basically puzzles, you couldn't just barge through, so you had to figure out another way. If you kept getting killed, you were probably doing something wrong.
You wouldn't get far with your suugested 'bot' approach, as the game rewarded having a think about how to handle each bit. Sneak past, leg it, snipe some guys, make raids from the undergrowth. In many FPS with quick save you can just kill one guy, quick save, kill the next, quick save, and so on. You don't need much thought or skill.
It's a trade off of accessabilty and challenge, and not everyone will like it. The best choice I think it to offer both, easy mode with quicksave, normal with checkpoints.
If I'm playing a game, and someone walks into the room to talk to me, I don't have to scrabble for the pause button, or whatever, I just drop the joystick, release the mouse, hands off the keyboard, whatever, turn and talk to them.
I guess I can't see how 'scrabling' for the pause button is a big deal. On most PC games it's 'pause', you just reach out and hit it. It takes a second. No scrabling involved, very quick and easy.
Those may be your terms, but frankly I think they are pretty unworkable for most games, and unreasonably too. I suppose you could have a dead man's switch on the mouse, but really it's total overkill (and will probably hurt you hand afer a while) for a total non-issue to the vast majority of gamers.
Giving good bug reports is putting in an effort, so is constructive criticism. For the vast majority of users for the vast majority of OSS projects, that is the most they can do. Even if they are coders, they aren't experts in every bit of OSS software they use.
You can put 'realistic' in quotes as often as you like, but you name a major piece of open source software where most of the user contribute code? It seems to me what is happening is that you have small groups of developers who, if you are lucky, listen to the users, and if not, ignore them. That's the reality.
And how is capitalism going to make them magically go away?
Or are you saying not that capitalism will solve the problems, as a future prediction, but that it could solve them, if the corrupt government wasn't there to stop it? Which just comes back to, the problem is the governement (well, and often the ethnic hatred and civil war, also things capitalism won't solve).
I'm not anti-capitalist, its the least worse system IMO, if properly regulated. It is not a silver bullet though.
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IIRC if you have a TV that is incapable of receiveing TV signals you don't have to pay anything. If anyone makes such a TV is another question.
Just becuase you say something a lot doesn't make it ture. Just becuase people say "any publicity is good publicity" doesn't make it true.
"They clearly did not intend to pursue the lawsuit in question"
Based on what? Maybe they just hope to intimidate the domain holder without going to court?
I'd rather people speak out about companies doing bad things, even if it does mean they get publicity. The only alternative is we stop talking about what companies do completely.
Well if you use drugs you are funding terrorist organizations, that much is for sure.
Just becuase some terrorist organisations use organsised crime for funding does not mean all crimanal organisations are terrorists. Some terrorist organisations avoid drugs, many drug selling organisations are not terroristss (until all crime is classified as terrorism). Of course, not all drugs come from organisations anyway.
One of the wisest things Bush ever said was "The day you stop doing drugs, is the day you join the War against Terror."
The phrase "Damning with faint praise" springs to mind.
What's more kids nowadays understand this.
Yep, kids these days don't do drugs, no sir.
In 30 years time, far from thinking that the War on Drugs was a bad idea, the self indulgent baby boomers will be dead, and their drug taking funding of terrorist organizations will be a thing of the past.
Yep, it isn't like drug taking is part of human history for as long as we have had human history, and even prehistory. It isn't like the baby boomers succesors, generation X, haven't taken drugs, or whatever we call the generation after them.
Taking drugs will be seen as a really bad (not to mention un-patriotic) idea, just like trepanation or blood-letting.
As opposed to good ol' traditional booze and cigarettes that fund the War on Terror with taxes?
I this is really your view of reality, sounds like you need to stop the drugs, or start, whatever.
You're wrong. Books and inventions have been protected since the 1790...that's almost as long as this country has existed.
And that's relevant to the claim "aren't copyrights a rather new idea with respect to MUSIC, BOOKS, and INVENTIONS" how? Although copyright doesn't really apply to invetions (that's patents), books and music have been around long, long before copyright, becuase, I hate to break it to you, they existed long before America.
I know they speak in funny languages, but the rest of the world has done pretty well at producing music and literature. I highly sceptical of claims the US has turned out better quality, and if so it's down to IP laws.
Copyright allows me to play works in progress at coffee house open mics without fear of having my half-baked ideas stolen for somebody else's profit.
Generally perfomances are not protected by copyright unless recorded, so this is not true.
Nobody's in dispute on the right to protect copyright, either.
But plenty of people are in dispute about how much protection, where to strike a balance and so on. Groups like the BSA are very pro copyright holders, even when that means effective removal of fair use for consumers.
Copyright is freeing...unless you believe you should be free to do whatever you can do with anybody else's work
Good copyright laws are about a compromise of freedoms, the creators and the public both give up some to try and provide the best balance and public interest. However you strike it, it will be freeing to some, and removing freedom from others.
It isn't freeing when big companies own copyright for a hundred years or however much they extend it too. It's ironic when Disney pushes for extending copyright after building it's fortune on non-copyright material (the source for most of it's animated movies, the music for Fantasia). Disney were free to use it becuase it
How many books, or movies, or TV shows have used characters like Holmes, Dracula or Frankenstien? Now imagine if they had been created under current copyright laws, most of that wouldn't exist (ok a lot of bad horror movies would go at no great loss, but the point remains :) ).
How about attempts to change the law so that recording artsits would never regaing (copy)rights to their own work? Would that be freeing? It's all about how they are implemented, and not as simple as copyrights = good.
All it does is breed a group of kids that will not challenge the system and sit around all day thinking certain laws are okay when in fact they may not be so perfect.
This assumes it is effective. Adults telling kids not to do drugs, or have sex, has been pretty ineffective. Once kids realise they can get stuff they want for free, at little risk (nobody has sued downloaders), I can't imagine what they were told stopping many of them.
It's true they will get less money from you, although I'm pretty sure there are statutory damages for copyright infringemnet, that apply whatever the value of the item.
IIRC in America the winner doesn't get legal fees automatically, but can sue again for legal costs. So it may cost you less if it was zero value, but could still be expensive.
The point is not the Microsoft is going to be bothered to take anyone to court over this, we all know they aren't.
The point it, it was supposed to be an example of legal use of p2p. It isn't. If you are trying to make a case for p2p software to legislators or courts, or even the public, this is not a good example becuase it is breaking the law.
The only people likely to think it is a legitamate use of p2p are those who don't think much of current copyright, and they hardly need convincing about p2p anyway.
I'm not so sure it requires a rational universe as a consistent one. That is, the rules don't arbitarily change on you. You can't, of course, prove the universe is like this, even though it appears to be. It's rather like Soliphism, where you can't prove anything your sense tell is real. Both are kinda interesting to talk about, but philosphical dead ends, if the universe really isn't rational/consistent or doesn't exist, if you can't trust your senses or experience you might as well give up on thinking about the whole thing, you can't get anywhere.
So while it is somewhat an act faith to rely on what we see (or hear etc) and experience, it is at least based on something (experience, and things we can replicate). It seems to me a big gap between this and religious faith, which is not based on either. In short, I disagree "faith is faith", it requires rather less faith on my part to assume if a drop an object it will fall (unless its a feather held over a fan or something equally contrived), based on lifetime of experience, than God exists, of which I have no experience.
I think it is important to recognise this degree of faith in science, but I do think it is important to recognise the difference between faith in evidence, and faith without evidence.
As for you suggestion a limitless existence implies God, I can't agree there either. Just because something is limitless, or infinate, doesn't mean it covers all possibilities. Consider, the number of whole, positive numbers is limitless, but none of them include -1. You could have a universe limitless in size, or time, or parallel universes with no God anywhere.
What if the FBI had a history of abusing powers to spy on people for polical reasons, not becuase they were criminals?
Oh wait, they do. So why assume they will behave differently? Isn't suggesting they will only use it on criminals rather more speculative than assuming they won't, based on past experience?
Or do civil rights activists, anti-war activists and those with socialist political beleifs not deserve privacy either?
But you're on a space station, filled with monsters... what else is there to do?
I find this logic very strage. The game designers chose to set the game there. If the setting limited what they could do, they should have changed or expanded the setting. If someone made a game set in one room with nothing in it, and people complained there was nothing to do, would you reply "well you are in empty room, what else is there to do?"
Can't have the flashlight out with the gun? That adds to the fear...
Or the frustration. Not to mention detracting from the realism and immersion when you're character can't do something they really should be able to. It's like those games that don't let you jump, and you can't get passed 1ft walls in them.
People who complain about that stuff, as far as I'm concerned are "spoiled" by shit like that...
Yeah, I'm spoiled by playing these games that have things I enjoy. I really should stop it and play more things I don't.
if you're in a riot situation are you gonna bitch that the pistol you grabbed and the maglight you found can't be one unit? No. You use what you have and deal with it.
Oh, so you hold the light in your off arm, and use that formarm to support the arm with pistol. Like police are trained to do, and you see in movies and TV all the time. Except your marine can't, so much for immersion.
Thats call "immersion" you stop thinking like a spoiled little person with unlimited resources and start thinking like a marine stuck out in space with only a few tools at his disposal...
That would be why Doom 3 limits the weapons you can carry at a time, right? And has scarce ammo. Oh wait...
Instead of realizing the amount of work and study that went into this, people are brats.
Well, if games were graded on effort, A+. It's results that count though, not the effort going into it. I don't care if the game was made by God and the hosts of heaven, it has to be fun to play. You can respect the person and still think the game sucks.
I'm looking forward to a generation of games built on this tech, that will look stunning and offer some great gameplay and new ideas. Not yet another corridor shooter.
If $1 a song is too expensive, it should come down, unless online operators start colluding. Still, it is cheap, in Europe we pay a lot more.
Remember also Apple are only making a small profit at the moment. At $.50 they would lose money. If you have no interest, don't buy. I don't. Just accept you aren't part of their target market. I'm puzzled why people need to keep saying they wouldn't buy something, just don't buy it.
You can get Windows programs that act as 'fake' sound drivers. Set them as your machine's sound out, and play anything protected, iTunes, WMP, Real, whatever, and it will save it out as a wav file. Instant DRM avoidance, as DRM doesn't yet extend that far into the computer.
That's why folks like the RIAA want "trusted" computing. Your trusted sound card won't work without a trusted driver, that won't non-trusted things have the sound info. That's the pipe dream of DRM.
Contrary to popular belief, you don't have an inherent right to music, just like the RIAA has no right to sales. Listen to non RIAA bands, or go out and make your own music.....
I should have a right to the music I have paid for though. That's what anti-DRM people are usually complaining about.
Novell can't have copyrights or patents involved with Linux. Under the GPL you can't release code with such things, and Novell release Linux under the GPL.
Funny, reviewing bad movies for my friends webiste I've noticed the exact opposite. Brit actors will work in complete shite. For some reason, it doesn't damage their reputation, probably becuase they also go and do things like Shakespear plays, and are regarded as actors, not movie stars.
They come pretty cheap too, for the talent, so some relative low budget stuff can afford them.
I don't think anyone was saying there isn't huge difference between the best and worse programmers.
The point of contention was trying to use "do you like Java?" as a means to seperate one from the other.
I assume that it is the general consensus of the population of the world that viewing graphic sexual or violent content isn't beneficial, and if anything, harmful.
Quite a few places seem pretty relaxed about graphic sexual content, and the idea about what is "graphic" varies quite a lot as well. Countries where more graphic sexual content is around tend to have lower rates of teenage pregnancy too. To be fair it probably isn't a case of one causing the other, but both reflecting healthier attitudes to sex.
It's worth noting that despite their much more open attitudes toward sex Europe has a lower rate of teen pregnancy than the US.
Even in Europe, countries like the UK which are much more uptight about sex have much higher teenage pregancy then places like Sweden, which are much more relaxed.
Maybe its the lure of the forbiden, if you make sex a big deal it becomes more attractive. Or maybe if people are just used to seeing sex, where people use protection, teenages are more likely to emulate that.
I'm pretty sure if you go to Windows Update with an earlier Windows OS, it will install Windows Critical Update Notification Utility.
You looked at Freelance and X2? Sound a lot like what you want.
I rather liked it :) I like the original AvP's lack of save points too, both for me, created tension.
Sure, it got kinda frustrating at times, like the bit where you come out the ship and the helicopter is above you. These bits were basically puzzles, you couldn't just barge through, so you had to figure out another way. If you kept getting killed, you were probably doing something wrong.
You wouldn't get far with your suugested 'bot' approach, as the game rewarded having a think about how to handle each bit. Sneak past, leg it, snipe some guys, make raids from the undergrowth. In many FPS with quick save you can just kill one guy, quick save, kill the next, quick save, and so on. You don't need much thought or skill.
It's a trade off of accessabilty and challenge, and not everyone will like it. The best choice I think it to offer both, easy mode with quicksave, normal with checkpoints.
If I'm playing a game, and someone walks into the room to talk to me, I don't have to scrabble for the pause button, or whatever, I just drop the joystick, release the mouse, hands off the keyboard, whatever, turn and talk to them.
I guess I can't see how 'scrabling' for the pause button is a big deal. On most PC games it's 'pause', you just reach out and hit it. It takes a second. No scrabling involved, very quick and easy.
Those may be your terms, but frankly I think they are pretty unworkable for most games, and unreasonably too. I suppose you could have a dead man's switch on the mouse, but really it's total overkill (and will probably hurt you hand afer a while) for a total non-issue to the vast majority of gamers.
Giving good bug reports is putting in an effort, so is constructive criticism. For the vast majority of users for the vast majority of OSS projects, that is the most they can do. Even if they are coders, they aren't experts in every bit of OSS software they use.
You can put 'realistic' in quotes as often as you like, but you name a major piece of open source software where most of the user contribute code? It seems to me what is happening is that you have small groups of developers who, if you are lucky, listen to the users, and if not, ignore them. That's the reality.
And how is capitalism going to make them magically go away?
Or are you saying not that capitalism will solve the problems, as a future prediction, but that it could solve them, if the corrupt government wasn't there to stop it? Which just comes back to, the problem is the governement (well, and often the ethnic hatred and civil war, also things capitalism won't solve).
I'm not anti-capitalist, its the least worse system IMO, if properly regulated. It is not a silver bullet though.
Rocks may look old, but there wouldn't be any reason for a fossel record and things like dinosaur bones. Unless God just likes messing with our heads.
Which if you beleive the bible is literally true is certainly possible.