An approx 50-year-old American patent is going to be pressed again a Taiwanese foudry.
I mean, c'mon... not even a chance that they ever would have heard of this... and not really a huge chance America succeeding in patent litigation that is plainly retarded again a company not even on native soil.
Anonymous FTP'ing or such things. It took us one weekend with somebody leaving the anon FTP open for a nice 7200 new folders to be found on the server at work (no, it wasn't me)
Indeedy. But the drug-campaign is filled with FUD. We need people to realize more about the problems associated with piracy. I'm not really so concerned with music (it's a dying industry) as the illegal copies of software that tend to float around. How many home uses actually buy their copy of MS Office, and if they really were forced to do so, would they perhaps be more likely to look into a GPL solution?
such as fines, suspension of internet service, etc.
Really, shutting down the kids probably won't happen anyhow, but one of the issues with this is still the concern of a trial before punishment.
If somebody can cut off my 'net, or confiscate my computers on the basis that they suspect me of illegally downloading copyrighted material because I use Kazaa... that's not right. You see, I download lots on kazaa, most of which is stuff from overseas like fansubs that are not available here. While at sometime the DVD's usually emerge in the US/Canada, in the meantime I'm "watching TV on my PC." As for music, I've found that anti-copying measure screw up my Mp3's that I rip from my own CD's, so I have to go on Kazaa just to get a decent copy (I prefer to use an MP3-CD player for my car&portable as it holds more tunes).
However, just the implications that I do have a lot of traffic on the P2P networks might be enough to one day have enforcement infiltrate my computers, possibly my home.
Given the current actions by the RIAA, with misdirected C&D letters, this is not a good trend. I have no problem with the law enforcement "educating" the public about piracy, it's wrong, but I don't want said education to involve any loss of my own rights, privacy, or my ability to feel secure surfing online.
OK, I guess this isn't quite what I mean. What I am worrying about is the FBI becoming too involved in minor copyright issues. A lot of copyrights aren't even documented (so how the hell do you know if you're violating them) and the system is problem. The FBI has better things to do than police a broken system - it needs to be fixed first and some of the more idiotic copyright laws gotten rid of.
We don't need the FBI breaking into kids houses, seizing the family computer, and indicting people for copyright violation. It's like the VCR wars, except this time the movie/music industry are winning.
(1) develop a program to deter members of the public from committing acts of copyright infringement by--
(A) offering on the Internet copies of copyrighted works, or
(B) making copies of copyrighted works from the Internet
This sounds a little odd to me, more like the're trying to deter members of the public by offering copies of copyrighted works. Shouldn't this be something more like
To deter members of the public who are committing acts of copyright infringement such as: (etc etc).
Laws only seem to be as good as the wording they are written with - until a lawyer with better skills at manipulating said wording come around. Therefore, it makes sense to word them a little more intelligently.
develop a program to deter members of the public from committing acts of copyright infringement
What exactly qualifies as a "program?"
I know a lot of us are picturing armed FBI raids, computer seizures, kids being drug down the streets in chains for the crime of filesharing and being made into examples. It's possible... hell it's already happening.
However, I'm hoping it's more something like the current drug compaigns. Public awareness on "filesharing" and "piracy" as a crime. Consequences, that type of thing. I also hope that if it becomes obvious enough, people will wake up and Joe Average (tm) will finally realize the type of bullsh*t that corps like the RIAA are trying to pull with the law.
SERIOUSLY, the FBI has no place at all getting involved with copyright issues. There are a lot more things they can do that are a hell of a lot more productive, like preventing 9-11 mark II. We don't need them tapping our internet lines, tracing our IP's, or dragging more people in to court.
I think the USA needs a little bit of seperation between government and corporation - thought by now we all know who is really running the country anyways.
Unless it was showing graphic images, it's not really anything more than you would see on the cover of a newspaper, sports mag, etc - publicly available in a corner store or magazine section of chapters.
Indeedy. I used this one for over a year, on an old P120 that had only a FDD and no hard drive. I've since switched to a full linux distro to handle my routing/firewall needs, but mainly because I also use samba/etc and like the idea of a centralized server for my network.
Leaf is great if you're got an old machine sitting around (I think even a 486 will work nicely) with 2 NICS. Whip out that old computer from the attic, build a boot-floppy, and then stick those vulnerable windows boxes behind leaf - it kept me safe and sound for over a year.
I'm pretty sure they'll be seeing a lawsuit over this soon. The idea of "only one brain in the whole damn place" is obviously stolen from either SCO or possibly the RIAA...
You know, the ones using the earth as a gigantic supercomputer in order to find out the question for the universal answer.
I'd write more about it, but I have to go stop somebody from bulldozing my house is about to be bulldozed and a friend of mine is trying to drag me off the bar for some reason...
Instead of everybody bitching and whining about the failure of the project, why not take up the flag? You can still find the code out there, and since it's OS one of the nice things is that anyone can take up the reins on a dying project before it hits the great void.
If you think that Blizzard isn't justified in any way, you could even continue with the "freecraft" name. If you think the developer wasn't 100% correct in tailing on the warcraft name, but that the project still has meritt, then just pick it up as a new name (with credit to the original form).
Indeed, we gripe about Blizzard and the RIAA because their practices are evil, not because their product always sucks (though in RIAA it's an often).
When you go to epinions.com and look up a car, digital camera, or whatever, you're not checking to see whether Honda/Kodak has a reputation for their execs running over small babies, you're checking on the quality/popularity of the product.
Similarly, if I am "Joe Average" checking music, somebody ranting about the evils of the RIAA whilst I'm trying to see if the newest "Santana" CD is any good, they're likely to get ignored. A comment like "RIAA is evil, sued a college kid for his life savings" just doesn't pierce most people' s intent to get a product. However, a comment such as "disc was nice on my CD player, but copy-protection made it f*** up in my home theatre, computer, and car CD-changer" is much more likely to be relevant to the person making the purchase - due to personal impact.
Now, part of the problem is when you get suckish product that you pay good money for. Crippled CD's etc are part of the reason we hate the RIAA. If they made discs worth the $20 they cost (a really good CD would be worth it to me, not just a mix/w a 1-hit-wonder) - then the whole issue with filesharing would be much less. I decided a long time ago I wouldn't buy new CD's, and not because I knew anything about evil RIAA practices at the time, but actually because the products sucked.
One little article about the RIAA sueing college kids isn't going to sink them when little Suzi still asks for a BSB CD for her birthday. However, as the amount of these practices increase in conjunction with other sliminess, I think we can expect the proliferation of reviews to finally clue people in - it will just take a few years.
Yes indeedy, maybe they should analyse the sales on used music to get a real clue. I think they'll find that
a) Price is killing them
b) New stuff is mostly crap, a lot of the oldies likely still sell in the good ol' used CD/tape stores.
First of all - this is definately one of the cooler home-brewed inventions I've seen in the last while. Yes, it uses lego, but the actual result is quite impressive.
It seems that the developer used a scanning bar from a flatbed scanner to make this work though. It also mentions that calibration is a problem do to the issue with the scanner's initial alignment routine.
I have in my possession an old LogiTech hand-scanner, you just scan it over the paper onto the screen (slowly). I am wonder if this would be better, since it requires no such calibration - just has a roller which tells it when movement occurs.
I'm not sure how powerful these scanners are though - never tried them on anything non-flat - so how far away can an object be before the scanning depth goes to crap?
I was assuming that it would be using something more along the lines of a ball+socket joint with a rotator mechanism as opposed to multiple sockets.
If the ball is held by 3 rotator wheels it should stay in place well enough, and the wheels could be turned to swivel an attached rod. Lubrication could be a problem, but in space there should be less need? Think of it as a reverse-mouse. Rather than the ball rotating the rollers, the rollers rotate the ball - which in turn has a rod (antenna) pointing out the bottom of the mouse (satellite).
And yet many RPG's could make good movies (FF movie was never an RPG first, just took the name and stepped on it). FFX was packed with cinimatics, it might have made a good flic.
In the same idea, there was a german CGI movie shown on/. (forget name) that looked like it would have made a cool RPG. Wonder if that one is ever going to be subbed and available in english? Kazaa fansubs anyone?
In all fairness... when you first heard there was going to be a "tomb raider" movie, was it better or worse than expected. My first reaction was "cheap knockoff movie of a simple game. Some explosions, and boobs" - but really the movie did have more plot than that and wasn't so bad. Now the sequel, not sure if its worthy.
Oh, and you forgot to add "Final Fantasy" in there... though again it wasn't too bad for anyone who wasn't an FF fan, and would have been less disappointing had it not born the expectations of the FF name.
Maybe we could list movies that came from games and vise-versa that were actually good? I doubt DN3D would be overly great, but a doom movie could be cool if done right (no worse than a typical flash/bang blood/guts movie).
Oh, and I think that the game "Nocturne" was loosely based on an old TV series/movie. The gameplay was crap but the overall theme/plot/atmosphere of the game was pretty good. Too bad the sequel never emerged (that I can see, though it ended with a TO BE CONTINUED).
It seems somewhat similar to Microsoft sueing on the grounds of OS themes with a similar "Look and Feel." Being that Lindows, iceWM/w XP theme, and many others are still around today - I don't think that this is going to fly.
What can they claim? Some of the commands are the same? You can't copyright "use 'ls' to list directory contents." or something dumb like that. And this is about kernel, so in essence any modern Operating System is going to spring from similar roots. I suppose that on this basis, the inventor of the first on/off switch should sue SCO for using binary bits in their coding.
by making it a crime to circumvent copyright protection
Oh, you mean something like putting in place of the reg key this: the source code on Hatch's site contained the line: "* i am the license for the menu (duh) *"
Don't know if it requires the license to be non-null, or if licensing code was just plain nuked, but it should fill the requirement anyhow.
No, actually, we don't want to destroy the computers of spammers. Why? Because a lot of hosts that actually do the spamming are not owned by the spammer, they are simply hacked servers.
Now, being able to press a monentary damage against a spammer, or charge them for hacking an open relay... that's a little better.
It should work for most methods of spam. If you're Joe average using Outlook (gasp), then you can even filter with it.
Tools->Message Rules->Mail
Where the Subject line contains specific words
(add words, "enlarge", "penis") - That takes care of those
Add another "horse", "cum" (or something else common) byebye.
Make the default action to move such messages to "trash" or a "spam" folder.
You can also filter by message body...
Slashdot Mirror
An approx 50-year-old American patent is going to be pressed again a Taiwanese foudry.
I mean, c'mon... not even a chance that they ever would have heard of this... and not really a huge chance America succeeding in patent litigation that is plainly retarded again a company not even on native soil.
It's the answer to the question of what the question to the answer to the question of the meaning of life is.
*ouch*
I think that Adams must have been a programmer at one point... he has this knack for literary loops...
Anonymous FTP'ing or such things. It took us one weekend with somebody leaving the anon FTP open for a nice 7200 new folders to be found on the server at work (no, it wasn't me)
Because if that were the answer - then 5 minute prior to you posting it the earth would have been destroyed to make well for an interstellar highway.
Geeze, I just finish reading hitchhiker and realize just how many quotes I've been missing out on
Indeedy. But the drug-campaign is filled with FUD. We need people to realize more about the problems associated with piracy. I'm not really so concerned with music (it's a dying industry) as the illegal copies of software that tend to float around. How many home uses actually buy their copy of MS Office, and if they really were forced to do so, would they perhaps be more likely to look into a GPL solution?
such as fines, suspension of internet service, etc.
Really, shutting down the kids probably won't happen anyhow, but one of the issues with this is still the concern of a trial before punishment.
If somebody can cut off my 'net, or confiscate my computers on the basis that they suspect me of illegally downloading copyrighted material because I use Kazaa... that's not right. You see, I download lots on kazaa, most of which is stuff from overseas like fansubs that are not available here. While at sometime the DVD's usually emerge in the US/Canada, in the meantime I'm "watching TV on my PC." As for music, I've found that anti-copying measure screw up my Mp3's that I rip from my own CD's, so I have to go on Kazaa just to get a decent copy (I prefer to use an MP3-CD player for my car&portable as it holds more tunes).
However, just the implications that I do have a lot of traffic on the P2P networks might be enough to one day have enforcement infiltrate my computers, possibly my home.
Given the current actions by the RIAA, with misdirected C&D letters, this is not a good trend. I have no problem with the law enforcement "educating" the public about piracy, it's wrong, but I don't want said education to involve any loss of my own rights, privacy, or my ability to feel secure surfing online.
OK, I guess this isn't quite what I mean. What I am worrying about is the FBI becoming too involved in minor copyright issues. A lot of copyrights aren't even documented (so how the hell do you know if you're violating them) and the system is problem. The FBI has better things to do than police a broken system - it needs to be fixed first and some of the more idiotic copyright laws gotten rid of.
We don't need the FBI breaking into kids houses, seizing the family computer, and indicting people for copyright violation. It's like the VCR wars, except this time the movie/music industry are winning.
(1) develop a program to deter members of the public from committing acts of copyright infringement by--
(A) offering on the Internet copies of copyrighted works, or
(B) making copies of copyrighted works from the Internet
This sounds a little odd to me, more like the're trying to deter members of the public by offering copies of copyrighted works. Shouldn't this be something more like
To deter members of the public who are committing acts of copyright infringement such as: (etc etc).
Laws only seem to be as good as the wording they are written with - until a lawyer with better skills at manipulating said wording come around. Therefore, it makes sense to word them a little more intelligently.
develop a program to deter members of the public from committing acts of copyright infringement
What exactly qualifies as a "program?"
I know a lot of us are picturing armed FBI raids, computer seizures, kids being drug down the streets in chains for the crime of filesharing and being made into examples. It's possible... hell it's already happening.
However, I'm hoping it's more something like the current drug compaigns. Public awareness on "filesharing" and "piracy" as a crime. Consequences, that type of thing. I also hope that if it becomes obvious enough, people will wake up and Joe Average (tm) will finally realize the type of bullsh*t that corps like the RIAA are trying to pull with the law.
SERIOUSLY, the FBI has no place at all getting involved with copyright issues. There are a lot more things they can do that are a hell of a lot more productive, like preventing 9-11 mark II. We don't need them tapping our internet lines, tracing our IP's, or dragging more people in to court.
I think the USA needs a little bit of seperation between government and corporation - thought by now we all know who is really running the country anyways.
Unless it was showing graphic images, it's not really anything more than you would see on the cover of a newspaper, sports mag, etc - publicly available in a corner store or magazine section of chapters.
Indeedy. I used this one for over a year, on an old P120 that had only a FDD and no hard drive. I've since switched to a full linux distro to handle my routing/firewall needs, but mainly because I also use samba/etc and like the idea of a centralized server for my network.
Leaf is great if you're got an old machine sitting around (I think even a 486 will work nicely) with 2 NICS. Whip out that old computer from the attic, build a boot-floppy, and then stick those vulnerable windows boxes behind leaf - it kept me safe and sound for over a year.
I'm pretty sure they'll be seeing a lawsuit over this soon. The idea of "only one brain in the whole damn place" is obviously stolen from either SCO or possibly the RIAA...
You know, the ones using the earth as a gigantic supercomputer in order to find out the question for the universal answer.
I'd write more about it, but I have to go stop somebody from bulldozing my house is about to be bulldozed and a friend of mine is trying to drag me off the bar for some reason...
Just vote for them in the next election. For some reason those little checkmarks seem to leech off brainpower by the time the candidate makes it in...
Instead of everybody bitching and whining about the failure of the project, why not take up the flag? You can still find the code out there, and since it's OS one of the nice things is that anyone can take up the reins on a dying project before it hits the great void.
If you think that Blizzard isn't justified in any way, you could even continue with the "freecraft" name. If you think the developer wasn't 100% correct in tailing on the warcraft name, but that the project still has meritt, then just pick it up as a new name (with credit to the original form).
Indeed, we gripe about Blizzard and the RIAA because their practices are evil, not because their product always sucks (though in RIAA it's an often).
/w a 1-hit-wonder) - then the whole issue with filesharing would be much less. I decided a long time ago I wouldn't buy new CD's, and not because I knew anything about evil RIAA practices at the time, but actually because the products sucked.
When you go to epinions.com and look up a car, digital camera, or whatever, you're not checking to see whether Honda/Kodak has a reputation for their execs running over small babies, you're checking on the quality/popularity of the product.
Similarly, if I am "Joe Average" checking music, somebody ranting about the evils of the RIAA whilst I'm trying to see if the newest "Santana" CD is any good, they're likely to get ignored. A comment like "RIAA is evil, sued a college kid for his life savings" just doesn't pierce most people' s intent to get a product. However, a comment such as "disc was nice on my CD player, but copy-protection made it f*** up in my home theatre, computer, and car CD-changer" is much more likely to be relevant to the person making the purchase - due to personal impact.
Now, part of the problem is when you get suckish product that you pay good money for. Crippled CD's etc are part of the reason we hate the RIAA. If they made discs worth the $20 they cost (a really good CD would be worth it to me, not just a mix
One little article about the RIAA sueing college kids isn't going to sink them when little Suzi still asks for a BSB CD for her birthday. However, as the amount of these practices increase in conjunction with other sliminess, I think we can expect the proliferation of reviews to finally clue people in - it will just take a few years.
Yes indeedy, maybe they should analyse the sales on used music to get a real clue. I think they'll find that
a) Price is killing them
b) New stuff is mostly crap, a lot of the oldies likely still sell in the good ol' used CD/tape stores.
First of all - this is definately one of the cooler home-brewed inventions I've seen in the last while. Yes, it uses lego, but the actual result is quite impressive.
It seems that the developer used a scanning bar from a flatbed scanner to make this work though. It also mentions that calibration is a problem do to the issue with the scanner's initial alignment routine.
I have in my possession an old LogiTech hand-scanner, you just scan it over the paper onto the screen (slowly). I am wonder if this would be better, since it requires no such calibration - just has a roller which tells it when movement occurs.
I'm not sure how powerful these scanners are though - never tried them on anything non-flat - so how far away can an object be before the scanning depth goes to crap?
I was assuming that it would be using something more along the lines of a ball+socket joint with a rotator mechanism as opposed to multiple sockets.
If the ball is held by 3 rotator wheels it should stay in place well enough, and the wheels could be turned to swivel an attached rod. Lubrication could be a problem, but in space there should be less need? Think of it as a reverse-mouse. Rather than the ball rotating the rollers, the rollers rotate the ball - which in turn has a rod (antenna) pointing out the bottom of the mouse (satellite).
And yet many RPG's could make good movies (FF movie was never an RPG first, just took the name and stepped on it). FFX was packed with cinimatics, it might have made a good flic.
/. (forget name) that looked like it would have made a cool RPG. Wonder if that one is ever going to be subbed and available in english? Kazaa fansubs anyone?
In the same idea, there was a german CGI movie shown on
In all fairness... when you first heard there was going to be a "tomb raider" movie, was it better or worse than expected. My first reaction was "cheap knockoff movie of a simple game. Some explosions, and boobs" - but really the movie did have more plot than that and wasn't so bad. Now the sequel, not sure if its worthy.
Oh, and you forgot to add "Final Fantasy" in there... though again it wasn't too bad for anyone who wasn't an FF fan, and would have been less disappointing had it not born the expectations of the FF name.
Maybe we could list movies that came from games and vise-versa that were actually good? I doubt DN3D would be overly great, but a doom movie could be cool if done right (no worse than a typical flash/bang blood/guts movie).
Oh, and I think that the game "Nocturne" was loosely based on an old TV series/movie. The gameplay was crap but the overall theme/plot/atmosphere of the game was pretty good. Too bad the sequel never emerged (that I can see, though it ended with a TO BE CONTINUED).
It seems somewhat similar to Microsoft sueing on the grounds of OS themes with a similar "Look and Feel." Being that Lindows, iceWM /w XP theme, and many others are still around today - I don't think that this is going to fly.
What can they claim? Some of the commands are the same? You can't copyright "use 'ls' to list directory contents." or something dumb like that. And this is about kernel, so in essence any modern Operating System is going to spring from similar roots. I suppose that on this basis, the inventor of the first on/off switch should sue SCO for using binary bits in their coding.
by making it a crime to circumvent copyright protection
Oh, you mean something like putting in place of the reg key this:
the source code on Hatch's site contained the line: "* i am the license for the menu (duh) *"
Don't know if it requires the license to be non-null, or if licensing code was just plain nuked, but it should fill the requirement anyhow.
No, actually, we don't want to destroy the computers of spammers. Why? Because a lot of hosts that actually do the spamming are not owned by the spammer, they are simply hacked servers.
Now, being able to press a monentary damage against a spammer, or charge them for hacking an open relay... that's a little better.
It should work for most methods of spam. If you're Joe average using Outlook (gasp), then you can even filter with it.
Tools->Message Rules->Mail
Where the Subject line contains specific words (add words, "enlarge", "penis") - That takes care of those
Add another "horse", "cum" (or something else common) byebye.
Make the default action to move such messages to "trash" or a "spam" folder.
You can also filter by message body...