While in many cases you probably aren't going to see real-life physics in a game, I'd imagine that one could apply some knowledge of real-life physics+math to games, and vise-versa. Being able to calculate complicated vectors, as well as environmental physics, would be a boon both for gaming and rocketry. Who knows, perhaps the "advanced physics" engine used by rocketeers today might be commonplace in the games of the next decade, or a little bit of vector-math used in a game might come in quite handy at calculating rocket angles/etc.
Just out of curiosity, what happens when you play music that has DRM? I don't have Vista so I can't test it out for myself, but most speculation has lent that it's likely the DRM that causes these issues, so perhaps it doesn't occur on non-DRM music?
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, last month, Coupons Inc. accuses Stottlemire of creating and giving away a program that erases the unique identifier, allowing consumers to repeatedly download and print as many copies of a particular coupon as they want.
So no, it's not just "deleting a registry key" or "uninstalling software." It's writing a program deliberately targeted at a particular registry key, belonging to a particular piece of software, for the particular intent of circumventing the controls on said software. Ergo, it wouldn't count if you deleted the key without printing more coupons. It probably wouldn't even have become an issue if he had been deleting his own keys, or at least it would have been an issue of breach-of-contract rather than one of circumvention. However, since he built a program specifically targeted at circumventing the ID system unique to the Coupons Inc's software, then yes, that particular combination of events is a violation.
So to recap:
a) Deleting a registry key is not bad. Deleting a specific registry key of this program is bad... when in combination of
b) Doing so to breach the integrity of the program. Not to remove the software, but use it in a way that breaches the attached contract, thus
c) Breaking any copyright attached to the software itself, not necessarily the coupons in question. Roundabout... but the last part is of course
c) Distributing the crack to others, allowing them to similarly abuse the software.
Why is it that slashdot insists on attacking things components, rather than a view of the overall picture. Do you think that somebody could cite this case a precedent?
Is that an option in any of these cases, where an existing contract exists?
As This posts mentions (and the child post asks), what if I send in a document with my bill payment stating that I do not accept the new terms, but wish to continue with the old?
IMHO, Opt-out contract changes should not be allowed in cases wherein they remove rights or assess unreasonable additional costs to the consumer.
Not where I'm from. A short bit of facial hair is actually quite nice at concealing small blemishes, adjusting age, or in general filling out ones face or appearing more rugged.
My girlfriend actually likes the way I look with some facial hair, though more of the under-the-nose variety as opposed to the full-face beard. I prefer shaving because beards, and goatees etc, just tend to be itchy, sweaty, and harder to maintain properly. At the moment I'm holding on to some of the fuzz, but we have an agreement that I can shave it in a month or two, which saves me the itchiness and saves her getting facial scratches from coarse face-fur.
Well, while you might not actually hear something traveling through space, you could - for example - hear the explosion within the vessel being hit or nearly hit (the stress of the shockwave perpetrating through the ship itself) or possibly depending on location the sound of weapons being fired from a ship.
Still, overall I've always been rather fond of firefly for giving it a good go. My favorite scene is where Jane has a gun bubbled in a breather-bag so that it actually has the oxygen to ignite the gunpowder, etc. Of course, most sci-fi's don't have actual contemporary guns in space, but it was fun to see that somebody said "oops, that wouldn't fire in space without air" and came up with a solution.
I've often considered starting a project to make OCR systems that would be able to read the bills of common vendors for cellular service, etc. It would work best if you had a feed-style scanner (as opposed to a flatbed where you would have to insert each page once per side... not fun with 52 pages), but it could look for inconsistencies like:
- Billing during your non-billable minutes (e.g. free evenings/weekends)
- Billing on incoming calls (for those with free incoming)
- Billing on calls from others on the same carrier (for those with free companycompany calling: you would need to input which friends use the same telco)
- Incorrect tabulation of minutes/costs
- Billing long-distance on calls made in-area
As well as just highlighting suspicious charges.
I recently had an issue with my cellular carrier. They happily send me a bill showing the minutes I'm being charged for (aka in excess of my 150 weekday/1000 evening/weekend+free incoming+free in-carrier calling), but they do NOT send me an accounting of the calls that used up the minutes in my plan. That means that I'm forced to trust their honesty in tabulating when my initial minutes are used up. *yeah right*
I'm got a new bill coming in the mail, this one describing when and where the minutes of my plan were used up... it'll be interesting to see if there are any discrepancies.
I paid out one of my cards just before I cancelled it, but apparently overpaid by a few cents. I now get a regular "bill" from the CC company stating that I have a $0.03 credit on my card, which I can't get them to ignore, and can't pull off because I don't have that card anymore.
The second time I wanted someone to mediate between a tenant and a landlord, they wouldn't do it.
Well if you called me to do that, I wouldn't either. Why? For the same reason the cops won't... it's not their job!
Unless the dispute between the landlord and tenant became abuse/violent, or there was an actual crime being committed, then it's not a job for the police. It may be a job for the courts system, but it's not something I'd expect the cops to shop up and deal with.
Now for all those computer/techie types, how many bugs or problems/issues seemed remarkably simple after you noticed/fixed them? How many times have you slapped your head and said "geeze, that was really simple."
Sometimes it just helps to have somebody checking up on your work, even if that "somebody" is an automated process or machine.
What exactly is so unalterable about paper? If you're keeping huge lines of paper with all the tabs unbroken or a single long sheet, maybe. If you're printing out pages, etc, then the easiest way to "alter" a piece of paper would be to just print out a new copy with different data, and replace the old. No, the old copy can't really be changed, but who can tell whether the current copy is in fact the original?
Just like DVD burners still cost the same as 5 years ago? Oh wait, those are like $50 now. While automotive technology might not quite correspond to the same price-drop as computer technology, mass-production tends to greatly reduce unit costs of most products. End result, the initial models cost a lot, but if it catches on then they'll eventually reach mainstream price ranges and probably be around the same as most regular gasoline vehicles cost today.
I was just talking to a co-worker about this. As expected, one thing to keep in mind would be that with different lasers there are different filters for eye protection (for all the other readers out there wanting to play with lasers).
A lot of people here have mentioned how dangerous this laser is in terms of the ability to fry eyes and/or cause blindness. Is there anyone here who can indicate what the proper safety gear would be when dealing with lasers of this variety? I'm guessing that anti-UV sun-glasses aren't quite good enough... and welders goggles perhaps a bit too dark to accomplish any work?
From a quick look at your site, it mostly seems to be a message/bulletin-board type list. The search didn't turn up any of the recruiters I've had experience with either (albeit this is limited to only about 3-5, and Canadian ones at that).
How about something that lets you add a recruiter name with some comments, and a x/10 rating? Put that with an alphabetized master-list of recruiters, and then a search capability, and it might be a much more powerful tool than just something forum-like? I do notice a star-rating on some of the comments, but I think that's tied to the individual comments rather than the recruiter themselves.
Indeed, it has been much the same for me, which always seems to confirm the old adage "it's not what you know, it's who you know."
This is understandable, as having somebody with a solid reputation who can vouch for you is generally the best form of reference, and a more reliable one than a resume that might be 10% fiction and 50% exaggeration.
However, there are many situations where one ends up without references. In my case I'm in BC, Canada, and I'm nosing around positions in the Toronto, Ontario region (about 4000km away). The only people I know there are a few family members and my girlfriend, both of whom have tried to offer help but unfortunately aren't really connected with my industry. So it's just my resume against a few thousand others.
I've gone so far as hooking up with the LUG in Toronto, but thus far I've found little in the way of permanent position (just some contract work filtering through). I was even there on holidays for awhile, and while I met a bunch of people who were also interested in contract or general-tech type work, there's nothing for a SysAdmin/Developer type person that I've run across. The question becomes, where does one search, or what is the magic gem (short of lying) to put on one's resume?
In fact, I just had a recruiter call+email me yesterday offering a position that seems to involve:
- AJAX, Dojo Toolkit
- JavaScript
- Simple HTML/CCS stuff
- Travel to various N. American major cities
Now I've communicated with the recruiter, and she hasn't really been able to explain the position beyond that. I'm sure that there must be some database work involved, and likely some scripting... but they couldn't tell me anything more about the position. It's really hard to get or provide more info if you don't know whether you'll be using MySQL, Oracle, PHP, or ASP. Actually I've worked with all of those, but some more than others (haven't used ASP for a long time).
So today the recruiter sends me a form (from the employer) that has a bunch of Java-related questions and some database related stuff (it doesn't say which database though). It's a "matrix chart" done in excel, which doesn't even add up the scores in the columns. You fill in a score (which I'm assuming is your comfort-level/experience on a given topic) and add comments. Add to that it's by email, so if I wanted I could have googled for appropriate BS to fill the thing in and really known nothing. I emailed back saying that I don't know Java, and that JavaScript and Java are two quite different things. The response is that the only requirements are: HTML, JavaScript, AJAX, and Dojo, but the client supplied this general form and fill it out anyways please.
So I fill it out, filling in some of the stuff in the Java sections, and add comments giving myself 10/10 on stuff like typecasting or overloading, but add comment on the java-specific stuff as "Java Related, not JS/AJAX related." I'm rather sure that the position itself does involve Java work and the recruiter just doesn't understand the different between JavaScript and Java, but saw that I've used Dojo and it was a required buzzword.
Seems like we've just wasted a whole lot of my time, and the employer's. It could be that the employer didn't state the position requirements well enough either, but for a "technical-position based recruiting company" the recruiter really seemed to not understand a whole lot.
I'm hoping I get to talk to the employer so I can discuss this, and politely decline the position but ask them to hold onto my resume. I'm more in the SysAdmin game these days, and even if the job was just basic web stuff I think I'd be a little overqualified, even at the offered $62k/year. All in all the company itself is supposed to be in the top 100 employers, and would probably be a nice place to work for, so I'm just going to be honest and polite about things, and maybe it'll net me a good job contact for some other position that I'm more suited to...
It's sad though, because at first I was rather happy to be contacted. Despite having my resume+covers updated, checked, and generally looking pretty darn good, I've had much luck getting past the recruiters or tier-1 HR people. I wonder how many people nowadays BS their way into a position like these, and/or if I'm being too honest in general, but I really hope that recruiters/HR-people that are looking me up for other position are a little more knowledgeable of the what to look for in candidates.
Heck, I setup a wiki so that my girlfriend and I could swap notes (we're currently at distance and see each other irregularly during the year until I find a new job closer to her). She ended up using it quite a bit, and not minding at all that it was rather geeky of me to set it up in the first place. It's actually one of the things I love about her most, I do something quite geeky without realizing it, and she's interested in it anyhow. She's not a techno-geek either, but rather works in marketing,and has little of the fear of technology that most people on here seem to believe is implicit in the female gender. You don't always have to be a geek yourself to enjoy a little tinkering or semi-geeklike activities, and that applies to both men and women.
If you can be geeky and have fun with your girlfriend, why not? Not all women are just into shiny shoes and tupperware parties, ya know.
You do realize that your first two sentences raised the hopes of geeks everywhere, only to leave them shattered with the third, and somewhat revived with the possibility of pictures in the fourth:-)
I don't think the problem is half so much that women are technically inept as that socially inept men make the technical environment unpleasant to work in...
It still seems very odd to me. Humans in general are having a lot more contact across large areas, as well as more interracial relationships. Wouldn't that imply that we are, in fact, building genetic combinations within a bigger pool than, say, hundreds or thousands of years ago?
The RIAA are like sharks, seeking out a lone victims and quickly eviscerating them, particularly the weak or the slow, and those already leaving a tempting blood-trail in the water.
By contrast, the defendents are starting to behave like dolphins, which individually will easily fall prey to sharks, but as a group may band together to rapidly ram the sharks in the gills or other sensitive organs until they break off, or eventually, due.
Give 'em another jab in the gills boys, and we'll see if the sharks will learn to stay away.
I could be wrong, but I think that in terms of both picture and print, there are government laws controlling the sale and public display of pornography? Not that it makes the game-violence bill any different, and it still makes games the only legislation-enforced anti-violence medium.
A lot of people always mention being "confused" about who to cheer for in these cases, but it's really not that hard. MS - in this case - really doesn't seem to be doing anything hard. They did in fact even license the Fraunhofer codecs for their mp3-related software in windows. Now it doesn't really mention exact what patents Alcatel-Lucent is pursuing (or suing per), but as they are mp3-related it seems that their behavior definitely seems like a cash-grab.
It's not a case of "Microsoft VS Patent Troll," it's simply a case of "a large company VS patent troll." There's no need to stick it to MS in this case, as they're in the right and a victory for A-L would have a negative impact upon the rest of the industry. Personally I think that suing for improper/trollish/crap patents should leave one open to double-damage-countersuits. It might cost a lot to defend and rebut, but if you've got an obvious patent troll simply trying to hone in on some cash, making them bleed a bit of money and setting an example for the rest of their ilk might be a good investment (and if anyone can afford to spend cash on anti-troll lawyers, it's MS). As it stands, the way the current patent system is used/abused many of these cases are little more than vaguely veiled extortion, and should in the courts be treated as such.
I remember that some of the best strategies came into play when playing between teams. If one player was, for example, massing carriers, one strategy that often worked was to sneak up (or unhide) a devourer which would cast dark swarm (no hits from air) and then plague. That one will happily suck down the life of enemy units, which to add to it your terran ally can sneak up a science-vessel, dump an EMP, and basically drop that annoying carrier-rush-force down to nearly nothing for life.
End-result is that the rush fails nicely.
Yes, there was always a lot of build-build-build-rush-rush in the RTS genre, which tends to have a lot to do with the mentality of the players involved. Anyone playing on the "much money" maps was pretty much interested in that form of strategy, whereas under normal maps a good strategy could often undermine rushers quite well. There was, of course, also a good factor of luck or recon involved as to whether one should build defences against early rushing VS focussing on getting their base/units levelled.
Slashdot Mirror
While in many cases you probably aren't going to see real-life physics in a game, I'd imagine that one could apply some knowledge of real-life physics+math to games, and vise-versa. Being able to calculate complicated vectors, as well as environmental physics, would be a boon both for gaming and rocketry. Who knows, perhaps the "advanced physics" engine used by rocketeers today might be commonplace in the games of the next decade, or a little bit of vector-math used in a game might come in quite handy at calculating rocket angles/etc.
Iron Maiden's mpr DRM free of course
Just out of curiosity, what happens when you play music that has DRM? I don't have Vista so I can't test it out for myself, but most speculation has lent that it's likely the DRM that causes these issues, so perhaps it doesn't occur on non-DRM music?
Here's the line that hits the DMCA:
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, last month, Coupons Inc. accuses Stottlemire of creating and giving away a program that erases the unique identifier, allowing consumers to repeatedly download and print as many copies of a particular coupon as they want.
So no, it's not just "deleting a registry key" or "uninstalling software." It's writing a program deliberately targeted at a particular registry key, belonging to a particular piece of software, for the particular intent of circumventing the controls on said software. Ergo, it wouldn't count if you deleted the key without printing more coupons. It probably wouldn't even have become an issue if he had been deleting his own keys, or at least it would have been an issue of breach-of-contract rather than one of circumvention. However, since he built a program specifically targeted at circumventing the ID system unique to the Coupons Inc's software, then yes, that particular combination of events is a violation.
So to recap:
a) Deleting a registry key is not bad. Deleting a specific registry key of this program is bad... when in combination of
b) Doing so to breach the integrity of the program. Not to remove the software, but use it in a way that breaches the attached contract, thus
c) Breaking any copyright attached to the software itself, not necessarily the coupons in question. Roundabout... but the last part is of course
c) Distributing the crack to others, allowing them to similarly abuse the software.
Why is it that slashdot insists on attacking things components, rather than a view of the overall picture. Do you think that somebody could cite this case a precedent?
Is that an option in any of these cases, where an existing contract exists?
As This posts mentions (and the child post asks), what if I send in a document with my bill payment stating that I do not accept the new terms, but wish to continue with the old?
IMHO, Opt-out contract changes should not be allowed in cases wherein they remove rights or assess unreasonable additional costs to the consumer.
Not where I'm from. A short bit of facial hair is actually quite nice at concealing small blemishes, adjusting age, or in general filling out ones face or appearing more rugged.
My girlfriend actually likes the way I look with some facial hair, though more of the under-the-nose variety as opposed to the full-face beard. I prefer shaving because beards, and goatees etc, just tend to be itchy, sweaty, and harder to maintain properly. At the moment I'm holding on to some of the fuzz, but we have an agreement that I can shave it in a month or two, which saves me the itchiness and saves her getting facial scratches from coarse face-fur.
A set of coveralls and a nametag that says "Bob" will get you access that a suit and tie never would.
Well, while you might not actually hear something traveling through space, you could - for example - hear the explosion within the vessel being hit or nearly hit (the stress of the shockwave perpetrating through the ship itself) or possibly depending on location the sound of weapons being fired from a ship.
Still, overall I've always been rather fond of firefly for giving it a good go. My favorite scene is where Jane has a gun bubbled in a breather-bag so that it actually has the oxygen to ignite the gunpowder, etc. Of course, most sci-fi's don't have actual contemporary guns in space, but it was fun to see that somebody said "oops, that wouldn't fire in space without air" and came up with a solution.
I've often considered starting a project to make OCR systems that would be able to read the bills of common vendors for cellular service, etc. It would work best if you had a feed-style scanner (as opposed to a flatbed where you would have to insert each page once per side... not fun with 52 pages), but it could look for inconsistencies like:
- Billing during your non-billable minutes (e.g. free evenings/weekends)
- Billing on incoming calls (for those with free incoming)
- Billing on calls from others on the same carrier (for those with free companycompany calling: you would need to input which friends use the same telco)
- Incorrect tabulation of minutes/costs
- Billing long-distance on calls made in-area
As well as just highlighting suspicious charges.
I recently had an issue with my cellular carrier. They happily send me a bill showing the minutes I'm being charged for (aka in excess of my 150 weekday/1000 evening/weekend+free incoming+free in-carrier calling), but they do NOT send me an accounting of the calls that used up the minutes in my plan. That means that I'm forced to trust their honesty in tabulating when my initial minutes are used up. *yeah right*
I'm got a new bill coming in the mail, this one describing when and where the minutes of my plan were used up... it'll be interesting to see if there are any discrepancies.
I paid out one of my cards just before I cancelled it, but apparently overpaid by a few cents. I now get a regular "bill" from the CC company stating that I have a $0.03 credit on my card, which I can't get them to ignore, and can't pull off because I don't have that card anymore.
The second time I wanted someone to mediate between a tenant and a landlord, they wouldn't do it.
Well if you called me to do that, I wouldn't either. Why? For the same reason the cops won't... it's not their job!
Unless the dispute between the landlord and tenant became abuse/violent, or there was an actual crime being committed, then it's not a job for the police. It may be a job for the courts system, but it's not something I'd expect the cops to shop up and deal with.
Now for all those computer/techie types, how many bugs or problems/issues seemed remarkably simple after you noticed/fixed them? How many times have you slapped your head and said "geeze, that was really simple."
Sometimes it just helps to have somebody checking up on your work, even if that "somebody" is an automated process or machine.
What exactly is so unalterable about paper? If you're keeping huge lines of paper with all the tabs unbroken or a single long sheet, maybe. If you're printing out pages, etc, then the easiest way to "alter" a piece of paper would be to just print out a new copy with different data, and replace the old. No, the old copy can't really be changed, but who can tell whether the current copy is in fact the original?
Just like DVD burners still cost the same as 5 years ago? Oh wait, those are like $50 now. While automotive technology might not quite correspond to the same price-drop as computer technology, mass-production tends to greatly reduce unit costs of most products. End result, the initial models cost a lot, but if it catches on then they'll eventually reach mainstream price ranges and probably be around the same as most regular gasoline vehicles cost today.
I was just talking to a co-worker about this. As expected, one thing to keep in mind would be that with different lasers there are different filters for eye protection (for all the other readers out there wanting to play with lasers).
A lot of people here have mentioned how dangerous this laser is in terms of the ability to fry eyes and/or cause blindness. Is there anyone here who can indicate what the proper safety gear would be when dealing with lasers of this variety? I'm guessing that anti-UV sun-glasses aren't quite good enough... and welders goggles perhaps a bit too dark to accomplish any work?
From a quick look at your site, it mostly seems to be a message/bulletin-board type list. The search didn't turn up any of the recruiters I've had experience with either (albeit this is limited to only about 3-5, and Canadian ones at that).
How about something that lets you add a recruiter name with some comments, and a x/10 rating? Put that with an alphabetized master-list of recruiters, and then a search capability, and it might be a much more powerful tool than just something forum-like? I do notice a star-rating on some of the comments, but I think that's tied to the individual comments rather than the recruiter themselves.
Indeed, it has been much the same for me, which always seems to confirm the old adage "it's not what you know, it's who you know."
This is understandable, as having somebody with a solid reputation who can vouch for you is generally the best form of reference, and a more reliable one than a resume that might be 10% fiction and 50% exaggeration.
However, there are many situations where one ends up without references. In my case I'm in BC, Canada, and I'm nosing around positions in the Toronto, Ontario region (about 4000km away). The only people I know there are a few family members and my girlfriend, both of whom have tried to offer help but unfortunately aren't really connected with my industry. So it's just my resume against a few thousand others.
I've gone so far as hooking up with the LUG in Toronto, but thus far I've found little in the way of permanent position (just some contract work filtering through). I was even there on holidays for awhile, and while I met a bunch of people who were also interested in contract or general-tech type work, there's nothing for a SysAdmin/Developer type person that I've run across. The question becomes, where does one search, or what is the magic gem (short of lying) to put on one's resume?
In fact, I just had a recruiter call+email me yesterday offering a position that seems to involve:
- AJAX, Dojo Toolkit
- JavaScript
- Simple HTML/CCS stuff
- Travel to various N. American major cities
Now I've communicated with the recruiter, and she hasn't really been able to explain the position beyond that. I'm sure that there must be some database work involved, and likely some scripting... but they couldn't tell me anything more about the position. It's really hard to get or provide more info if you don't know whether you'll be using MySQL, Oracle, PHP, or ASP. Actually I've worked with all of those, but some more than others (haven't used ASP for a long time).
So today the recruiter sends me a form (from the employer) that has a bunch of Java-related questions and some database related stuff (it doesn't say which database though). It's a "matrix chart" done in excel, which doesn't even add up the scores in the columns. You fill in a score (which I'm assuming is your comfort-level/experience on a given topic) and add comments. Add to that it's by email, so if I wanted I could have googled for appropriate BS to fill the thing in and really known nothing. I emailed back saying that I don't know Java, and that JavaScript and Java are two quite different things. The response is that the only requirements are: HTML, JavaScript, AJAX, and Dojo, but the client supplied this general form and fill it out anyways please.
So I fill it out, filling in some of the stuff in the Java sections, and add comments giving myself 10/10 on stuff like typecasting or overloading, but add comment on the java-specific stuff as "Java Related, not JS/AJAX related." I'm rather sure that the position itself does involve Java work and the recruiter just doesn't understand the different between JavaScript and Java, but saw that I've used Dojo and it was a required buzzword.
Seems like we've just wasted a whole lot of my time, and the employer's. It could be that the employer didn't state the position requirements well enough either, but for a "technical-position based recruiting company" the recruiter really seemed to not understand a whole lot.
I'm hoping I get to talk to the employer so I can discuss this, and politely decline the position but ask them to hold onto my resume. I'm more in the SysAdmin game these days, and even if the job was just basic web stuff I think I'd be a little overqualified, even at the offered $62k/year. All in all the company itself is supposed to be in the top 100 employers, and would probably be a nice place to work for, so I'm just going to be honest and polite about things, and maybe it'll net me a good job contact for some other position that I'm more suited to...
It's sad though, because at first I was rather happy to be contacted. Despite having my resume+covers updated, checked, and generally looking pretty darn good, I've had much luck getting past the recruiters or tier-1 HR people. I wonder how many people nowadays BS their way into a position like these, and/or if I'm being too honest in general, but I really hope that recruiters/HR-people that are looking me up for other position are a little more knowledgeable of the what to look for in candidates.
Heck, I setup a wiki so that my girlfriend and I could swap notes (we're currently at distance and see each other irregularly during the year until I find a new job closer to her). She ended up using it quite a bit, and not minding at all that it was rather geeky of me to set it up in the first place. It's actually one of the things I love about her most, I do something quite geeky without realizing it, and she's interested in it anyhow. She's not a techno-geek either, but rather works in marketing,and has little of the fear of technology that most people on here seem to believe is implicit in the female gender. You don't always have to be a geek yourself to enjoy a little tinkering or semi-geeklike activities, and that applies to both men and women.
If you can be geeky and have fun with your girlfriend, why not? Not all women are just into shiny shoes and tupperware parties, ya know.
You do realize that your first two sentences raised the hopes of geeks everywhere, only to leave them shattered with the third, and somewhat revived with the possibility of pictures in the fourth :-)
I don't think the problem is half so much that women are technically inept as that socially inept men make the technical environment unpleasant to work in...
It still seems very odd to me. Humans in general are having a lot more contact across large areas, as well as more interracial relationships. Wouldn't that imply that we are, in fact, building genetic combinations within a bigger pool than, say, hundreds or thousands of years ago?
The RIAA are like sharks, seeking out a lone victims and quickly eviscerating them, particularly the weak or the slow, and those already leaving a tempting blood-trail in the water.
By contrast, the defendents are starting to behave like dolphins, which individually will easily fall prey to sharks, but as a group may band together to rapidly ram the sharks in the gills or other sensitive organs until they break off, or eventually, due.
Give 'em another jab in the gills boys, and we'll see if the sharks will learn to stay away.
I could be wrong, but I think that in terms of both picture and print, there are government laws controlling the sale and public display of pornography? Not that it makes the game-violence bill any different, and it still makes games the only legislation-enforced anti-violence medium.
A lot of people always mention being "confused" about who to cheer for in these cases, but it's really not that hard. MS - in this case - really doesn't seem to be doing anything hard. They did in fact even license the Fraunhofer codecs for their mp3-related software in windows. Now it doesn't really mention exact what patents Alcatel-Lucent is pursuing (or suing per), but as they are mp3-related it seems that their behavior definitely seems like a cash-grab.
It's not a case of "Microsoft VS Patent Troll," it's simply a case of "a large company VS patent troll." There's no need to stick it to MS in this case, as they're in the right and a victory for A-L would have a negative impact upon the rest of the industry. Personally I think that suing for improper/trollish/crap patents should leave one open to double-damage-countersuits. It might cost a lot to defend and rebut, but if you've got an obvious patent troll simply trying to hone in on some cash, making them bleed a bit of money and setting an example for the rest of their ilk might be a good investment (and if anyone can afford to spend cash on anti-troll lawyers, it's MS). As it stands, the way the current patent system is used/abused many of these cases are little more than vaguely veiled extortion, and should in the courts be treated as such.
I remember that some of the best strategies came into play when playing between teams. If one player was, for example, massing carriers, one strategy that often worked was to sneak up (or unhide) a devourer which would cast dark swarm (no hits from air) and then plague. That one will happily suck down the life of enemy units, which to add to it your terran ally can sneak up a science-vessel, dump an EMP, and basically drop that annoying carrier-rush-force down to nearly nothing for life.
End-result is that the rush fails nicely.
Yes, there was always a lot of build-build-build-rush-rush in the RTS genre, which tends to have a lot to do with the mentality of the players involved. Anyone playing on the "much money" maps was pretty much interested in that form of strategy, whereas under normal maps a good strategy could often undermine rushers quite well. There was, of course, also a good factor of luck or recon involved as to whether one should build defences against early rushing VS focussing on getting their base/units levelled.