Actually I'd say "nagging" is a better option that either a governor or immediately contacting the police.
I don't exactly like the idea myself, and I think it's addressing the wrong part of the problem in the wrong way. But something which ultimately leaves the decision up to the driver is better than the alternatives.
There have been dicussions here on Slashdot before about such speed limiters. And (usual/. silliness notwithstanding) a lot of good points are brought up as to why there are defintiely times when if you're in control of your vehivcle you need to be in control of your vehicle. And such a speed limiter could easily cut in whilst you're trying to overtake, or quickly move away from an unexpected obstacle.
This is exactly why a "You Are Speeding" alert would be the lesser of the evils. Sure it'll get very annoying very fast if you're constantly informed of your "excessive" speed, but I still think it's better than having the final speed decisions being out of your hands.
Plus (as was also brought up in the linked discussion) there's too much scope for error. Underpasses, overpasses, a misreading saying you're on the parallel road with half the speed limit, roadworks-related updates not hitting everyone in time. (Doing the legal 70mph and suddenly hitting a zone your car still thinks is reduced to 40mph 'cos of the weekend's resurfacing works, it wouldn't be pretty) Until a system can be accurate enough it's better to be told you're "wrong" than forced to be "right" - as the latter could be fatal if the system is the one that's wrong.
Plus there's always the chance that some people would slow down for no other reason than to get the darn thing to shut up.
I still think the real solution to traffic safety is to slightly increase the speed limits and tell people how to safely drive at higher speeds. Dropping speed limits simply won't stop the people who are reckless drivers and makes people who are comparitively safe break the law if they can't agree with the limits.
The simple fact is that these days many people want to drive faster. I'm also sure I'm not alone in wanting to drive fast safely. Now if the answer to "How do I stay safe if i want to drive fast?" is "Don't drive fast" then it's gonna get ignored. But a decent set of guidelines about how to safely drive at higher speeds (and when and where is is/isn't advisable to do so) would probably be at least somewhat more effective at reducing accidents.
Sony is and allways has been a japanese company. For anything important any division of sony will allways have to get the go ahead from Sony St in Tokyo.
True. But it doesn't really change the bulk of the point. If anything Sony America does has to be approved by Sony Japan then anything they do as part of the RIAA obviously is done with Sony Japan's knowledge/consent. But that still means that decisions they make for one market won't necessarily reflect a worldwide policy.
This can have it's downsides, like when certain music/films/whatever won't appear in every country. But in this case I sitll think it's a positive sign that the higher-ups at Sony don't think that copy-protections id an end-all solution despite what some of their divisions think.
As a side note to your well put remark - whatever happened to/. crowd's usual dislike of Sony (member RIAA)? To read most comments posted here would make you think Sony is the New Angles Co. (tm).
I think it's because it shows one (or both) of two things.
Sony might be an RIAA affiliate but that doesn't influence Sony Japan's decision-making. Which means that the worldwide company isn't having it's decisions dictated by its American arm. This is good in that if more and more regional divisions of Sony decide it's better not to copy-protect CDs then their American arm might follow suit out of sheer convenience. Oh and as a Brit I admit to having a little bit of bias in thinking that it's good that non-American arms of international countries don't always follow the "bad" decisions of their American counterparts.
They realise that DRM isn't a perfect solution whether they like it or not. (See below)
This is just a simple decision to end a failing practice in the marketplace. Nothing more.
Coming from a company so involved in the industry I see this as a good thing. If nothing else it's a pleasant change to the usual story of trying to prolong the failing practice at the expense of customer irritation.
Even if it is "a simple decision to end a failing practice" it would be a very welcome decision if more companies would realise that irritating your customers isn't going to increase sales.
The movies make a big point of having little bits of the background world intrude into the films to create an interesting universe - the rubbish collecting gnome creatures in episode 4, all the aliens living their lives in the background. But, just like episodes 1-2(+3 probably), if you concentrate too much on that background, you realise it's not as interesting as it appeared from a distance.
I think this is a really valid point, and maybe one that gets overlooked. The main drawback to Episodes 1-3 is that they are primarily backstory. And not only that, but backstory to a hugely popular and well-known story.
And that's a very dangerous step to try and take, as fans will obviously have their own ideas about various ideas and motivations. And to suddenly go back and make what are probably some huge changes to preconceptions that people have held for some twenty-odd years is inevitably going to get backlash.
A TV series would have similar problems. For the Star Wars name it would inevitably have to deal with something major. But prequels have been done, and any sequels that dealt too closely with the events of RoTJ would be too far in the shadow of the original trilogy. Plus with the novels and stuff you'd risk either alienating a lot of their fans if you deviated too far from them or risk retreading material that many already know if you followed their ideas too closely.
To me it seems the bast way would be if they purposely aimed for something low-key. Maybe focus on one or two planets in the aftermath of Jedi. Make it part of the Universe without it having to be The Next Big Adventure. (You're right that background details really don't work for an attempt at a major movie trilogy, but a weekly TV show has a somewhat higher chance of making it work.)
Unfortunately that idea wouldn't have the brand identity and would probably alienate some fans, many fanboys, and any chance of commercial backing.
You're probably[*] right right that it should be happening in other places, but I'm not sure that it shouldn't be happening in California.
It might not need it, but that might work in it's favour. If one State does it by choice then it weakens arguments by other states if they try to claim it's not feasible. Plus it's Arnie, so it's bound to get slightly higher profile coverage than if it was J. Random-Governor from elsewhere. And it's about time that good policies started getting as high a profile as bad policies - or how else will people know thet there are good alternatives to things out there?
Now yeah, it would proably be nice/useful/important if it could happen for the upcoming election. But given the timescale that might not be viable. But, if this works well in California in 2006 then it might well catch on across more of America in the next elections. (2008?)
Quoting the article:
"This will definitely help advance the paper trail issue elsewhere," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. "California represents a huge part of the voting equipment market, and all the major vendors have equipment here. If they want to keep their business here, they'll have to come up with a paper trail feature."
If California does hold such a big part of the voting equipment market then it probably is a good place to start. 'Cos once the feature crops up in more hardware then it's more likely to be used elsewhere too. And even if it the advantages it provides can't help in this election, they'd hopefully be there for subsequent ones.
[*]I'm a Brit, so I don't know enough to categorically state one way or the other.
And so we need to be highly friendly on both the lowest and highest levels e.g. with AD in Samba or with formats in OpenOffice.org.
Actually having StarOffice/OpenOffice.org able to fully work with MS Word's format is just one thing that would help.
What would be really nice (a pipedream, but nice) would be if MS had/chose to allow Word to open other formats suck or OpenOffice's format, or KOffice's format, or Abiword's format. because that would then allow Linux users to really play to the strengths of their chosen applications.
Currently although my main computer is a Linux box I like to be able to read my documents anywhere. My work PC does have OOo installed to that I can open SXW files in a hurry, but it still means that if I want to ensure that my documents will open on anyone's computer then I kinda have to save in DOC. OK so there is RTF which just about anything can read/write, but I still think that's too limiting.
Now if MS Word could read files from Open/StarOffice, or from KOffice then having to "Save As..." just so that people can read your documents would be uneccesary. I could write stuff in OOo and know that people stuck on MS Office could still open the files. Same if I chose to write a document in KOffice instead. I could use the native document formats.
This is what would really help Linux I think. Not just being able to read MS formats in open applications, but being able to read the open formats in MS applications.
Sadly Microsoft do seem to make out that other formats don't matter. So sometimes being "compatible with Microsoft's siblings" is essential, as being compatible with what other people use is essential but I personally like being able to be so whilst still using non-MS products myself.
Plus getting someone to migrate is a lot easier if they don't lose their older documents.
It doesn't always get it right though. Back in 2001 I picked up the legal download of the Gorillaz/D12 collaboration 9/11. It was a protected WMA. Certainly for that file I could not get it to run under Winamp.
Maybe it worked under Winamp3, I dunno. But it certainly would work under the latest 2.x release at the time. So I waited and grabbed the inevitable cracked MP3 off P2P instead.
Now I've never had a problem playing non-protected WMA under Winamp. So the format itself isn't that bad - I just avoided it on principle.
rzei has a point though. People don't want to install multiple media players. Heck I hate having to do so, but luckily know enough to conveniently install things or locate the (safe) workarounds to get my choice of player to work.
But if there's a choice between downloading/streaming a WMV or a MOV or RM then unless they already have RealPlayer or Quicktime installed they're probably going to go for the WMV as they already have the correct player to do so.
Plus apparently it's not just geek-types who dislike RealPlayer. So again given a choice between getting a RealMedia file or a Windows Media file then they're likely to go with the latter as it's already on there. (Better just the one evil player on your system than the two)
The 17 year term might have been justifiable in the 18th century when trading ships took many weeks to cross the Atlantic, but now, overall progress would be improved if the terms were reduced to something more like 2 years.
It's a nice idea, but suffers from the same shortsightedness as the current limit does - albeit from the opposite direction.
You can't put one blanket length for exlusivity for every type of industry and invention.
OK, 17 years may still be a little excessive. But there are some industries where a 10-year period would be justified. Another reply to your post mentions medecine - and the various time periods involved due to FDA testing. But then for some industries, like software, a two-year exclusivity period would be a lot more appropriate. Time enough to try and establish your solution as being the best before letting other people jump in.
Maybe for some circumstances a variable length would be appropriate. Basically as another reply suggests a short period that begins once a product comes to market. So it would allow a company to maintain exclusivity on their software method whilst developing their application, but as soon as it hits the shelves then the (much shorter) clock starts ticking.
I defintitely believe in one of the concepts from TFA. In that "One Size Fits All" doesn't work in the Patent system.
Although there are probably many things wrong with the Patent system the main one probably is that they try to treat hardware, software, medecine and just about everything under one broad set of rules.
As you say in some of the engineering industries the costs involved in development and the timespan that ideas last for are such that patents probably work well. In software there are less costs and the playing field changes so fast that to exlcusively lock out competition for the usual span of time can only be harmful.
For example given a ten-year period a mechanical device would probably still be viable, a medecine would almost defintiely still be useful, but quite a bit of software would have been obsoleted or superceded by then.
I think there needs to be different criteria and different exclusivity-periods for different types of patents. I can't see patents going away any time soon - too many companies and lawyers would rather they stayed around. And I also can't see software patents disappearing. But therefore if the system has to stay then it needs a bloody great clearout - especially making sure that if they really must allow software to be patentable then the exclusivity/licensing period must be dropped to a much lower length that's actually realistic in the world of software. Basically changes to make the patent concept what it was meant to be - to inspire people to build on ideas, rather than effectively banning them from doing so.
OK, this is where I get confused. Very confused.
I freely admit that I know little-to-nothing about the patenting process, but I still find that some of this looks very odd and need to make sure that it is what it looks like.
So from the looks of things someone can apply for a patent in Year 1, but then it not be granted any time soon. (How long does it usually take for patents to be approved or denied anyway?)
If another company uses the same process in 4 that at the time wasn't covered by patent but the original company applies for a new patent in 5 that is granted in Year 6 extending the original application concept then the new device infringes the patent even if it was created before the succesful patent application was filed?
It just looks rather strange to me. It makes it seem that patents can then go retroactive, which looks like potentially dangerous gorund for anyone trying to develop soemthing in an area that someone else is working in.
It's also interesting to note that something like a dozen Immersion patents specifically reference the Nintendo Rumble Pak, Sony Dual Shock, and sometimes the Sega Jump Pack. Clearly Immersion was well aware of force feedback devices and who was actually using them. I'm not sure what took them so long to try to make a claim on it.
OK, now that's just taking the mick - certainly if any of those patents were before this first one of their's (May 2000).
'Cos by acknowledging and referencing another company's device it then seems very unfair to then turn around and sue said company for infringing with that very device.
What Immersion patents do reference other company's controllers (especially Sony's DualShock) anyway?
Immersion filed the suit in 2002 if I remember correctly. So after that point they may simply have been referencing a known implementation of a similar technology. (It's only before May 2000 where it would be dubious)
Not knowing all of the details I can't be sure, but if this is to do with the DualShock controller and vibrational feedback in games then the timing has to be in Sony's favour.
I followed the links to the two patent applications, and the earlier of the two was filed in May 2000. The DualShock controller and games were out before that. I know that Final Fantasy VIII was out in Japan in 1999, and that definitely had feedback during the Summons.
Having said that the article (and other articles linked from it) don't clarify whether it was the DualShock or the DualShock2 that was the culprit. Changes for the PS2 may well have infringed on the claims - but otherwise the controller was out before the claim was made.
It seems to me, then, that either the judges goofed or that there's more to this than is apparent from what the media are telling us.
Either that or you can sue for infringement fo a patent in a device that was built before your claim - which seems kinda daft to me, but wouldn't exactly surprise me anymore.
It is high time that we start accepting the idea that we MUST limit the "rights" of consumers if intellectual property is to retain any value at all. Information is may be easy to distribute, but anything that is truly valuable to people is NOT by any means easy to create or find. If we are to make it worth people's while to create music, art, databases, or any other kind of intellectual pursuit, we MUST come up with a way to limit the ability of information consumers to re-distribute such things on their own without payment to the person to created the information.
Wrong. That wouldn't solve anything. In fact that is the problem at the moment.
You're advocating artificial limitations to force people to pay for things that, rightly or wrongly, they can obtain with minimal effort.
The problem with your suggestion is that it is what the "problem" already is. The limitations and restrictions are seen as being artificial. Rightly or wrongly people don't want to pay what they feel are over-the-odds prices. People don't see that much value in songs that they already hear on the radio in heavy rotation. People don't think they should have to wait extra weeks/months for a local release, or pay over-market-price to import a CD when it's simply data on a bit of plastic. People don't want to buy CDs that they can't rip to their personal non-shared collection on their computer.
People are turning to P2P because they feel that the limitations are artificial. Adding more restrictions (see: DRM) just ticks people off all the more.
At this point, the ONLY way we can now make intellectual property "scarce" or have any real economic value, is by trying to limit or deprive people of "natural rights" that they otherwise would have.
People don't believe in intelletual Property to that extreme any more. And people do believe in the rights they believe they should have. It might be right. It might be wrong. But it simply is.
The Internet changed the world. Yes, some of the reasoning is purely selfish. Some of the reasoning isn't. But trying to make it so that people have less rights when they're already breaking the laws because they feel they should have more rights is futile.
As people have said before, the genie is out of the bottle. There's no getting it back. There's no return to the old business models. It doesn't matter who's "right" and who's "wrong". But this current mess isn't benefitting anyone.
Maintaining the old model is broken. Never paying for anything is counter-productive. A third option has to be found. Probably with compromises on both sides. Expecting totally unencumbered downloads in online shops is unreasonable. But similarly using overly restrictive formats or platforms is also unreasonable. And, basically, adding more limitations to what people can do will only irritate more people into breaking the law. (And most of those who "Stay Legal" will probably do so by only ever buying stuff they can actually use - which isn't going to increase sales for those setting restrictions)
That's what I liked about FFX-2. It was fun. I enjoyed it, it gave me a laugh. Plus it didn't ignore the previous game and contradict the ending.
Too many sequels fall into the trap that would have been the equivalent of having Tidus, Auron and a full complement on Summons back before the first chapters finished and have the party fighting some impossible remnant of Sin.
OK, FFX-2 was cheesy. I admit that. I also admit that I do enjoy cheesy things on occasion. And as cheesy games go, it was one of the enjoyable and thought-out ones.
Only for some interpretations. This is the reason why making a sequel to FF7 is a bad idea, though; it completely ruins the ambiguity of the ending.
I think this is the problem with FF7. Being the first PS/3D/UK Final Fantasy it gained a place in a lot of people's hearts, and of course people wanted a sequel. No-one likes a story they enjoy to end so soon.
However much as it broke from the earlier FF mould it still had one major factor in common with it's predecessors. It was a self-contained story, and it was designed to be so. The story of the characters ended with the game.
As a result this new game and Advent Children will have to be extremely good (and damned lucky) to work as a sequel without seeming like either an afterthought or a contradiction.
FF10, on the other hand, looks like it had the various plot-hooks for sequels worked in from the beginning. So even if they didn't always know there'd defintiely be a sequel it looks like they'd prepared for the possibility.
Yes I guess FFX-2 could be considered a cash-in. But it does look like it was planned in advanced rather than tacked on after they realised the extra cash they could make.
I'd heard about the early plans they apparently had to do graphically updated remakes of VII and VIII. Shame these never panned out.
Personally I'd love to see FF8 redone FF10-style.
Realtime generated areas rather than the pre-rendered fixed-perspective rooms which occasionally made it hard to figure out where the screen-exit was. Voices (optional). New battle engine. (I did like the ability to swap-in warriors)
But keeping the world-map - probably my only major letdown about FF10.
Same with FF7 really. update the game engine to the never version, but keep the plot and map the same.
I can see it becoming a problem. I'm not sure that there is a viable solution though.
The main problem is that more and more people don't want to be advertised at, but in response adverts in general are getting more and more in-your-face. And especially where the Internet allows you to find things according to your own criteria you find adverts more annoying as it's more people trying to tell you what you should be looking at.
I do prefer sites where the adverts are relevant to the page subject. If I'm looking for information or walkthroughs for a video game then an advert for the latest console may well interest me. However if I was looking for a recipe for a good pasta sauce, for example, then the games console advert wuold be more likely to tick em off.
Although I can see how although this works for specific-topic sites it falls down on "free page hosting" sites like Geocities or whatever as any page could be about any subject.
I'd rather have sites stay around longer because they are supported by advertising revenue. I don't mind a few ads as a price, and I would mind whatever payment scheme would have to replace them.
Payment schemes very much depend on how much they cost, and what other benefits there are. If "Ad-free Browsing" is a bonus of a subscription that brings other features then fine. Paying simply to not get adverts seems stupid to me because of the following reasoning.
Adverts are usually trying to persuade me to spend money. Adverts have little effect on me as I don't usually want to spend much money - certainly not through other people trying to persuade me. Plus if I really want to know about a product I'll do my own research.
So the "Pay money so that you don't see adverts" approach is completely lost on me, as it's being persuaded to part with my money so that I don't get people persuading me to part with my money. Or, to put it another way, if I wanted to spend money I'd have bought a subscription. So the adverts are totally lost on me.
On the whole I don't block banner adverts though. Well except for Flash ones. But that's mainly 'cos they take time to download and are too damn distracting.
The ads here on/. aren't too bad. Most are interesting, and the ones that aren't are at least relevant. (No-one trying to sell me cheap air-fares or ringtones on a site where that's totally irrelevant) Plus they remind me I really must wisit ThinkGeek when I've got a bit of spare cash.
And on sites where the ads are annoying? Well I just do what many other people do and simply avoid those sites.
This is about rebooting. A crash is not the only time Windows forces you to reboot. You say you shut down daily - only Windows users would regard that as normal.
Not entirely true.
Personally I rarely shut down the home PC - even back when I was running Windows I'd hardly ever shut it down overnight. But I know that some people have issues like electricity costs or sleeping in the same room and can't shut out fan-noise. Plus at work I always shutdown when I leave. And were I running Linux on my work desktop (and I so wish that was a viable option, but I digress...) then I'd still shut down overnight.
I would suggest that my "per session" rate of failures in Linux is quite high. Sure, I don't get kernel panics, but if X locks badly (locking out the keyboard) then my session is pretty much gone. Rebooting X is considerably faster than rebooting the machine.
True. But I beleive the article did go by when a failure required a full reboot. And in this Linux does have the advantage - or at least has in my experience.
Yes I have had applications die on me under Linux. And I have indeed had sessions die on me - although all but the worst ones could be recovered from by quitting the X Session.
True this does count as a lost user session. But I do at least like that there aren't quite as many times when I've lost the entire OS session.
In Windows' defense I have to admit that XP does seem to be a lot more stable than 2000. A logoff/on cycle will fix more problems in XP than it ever did for me in 2K requiring less complete reboots. It's just a shame about the politics of Windows (activation, etc) that have put me off the platform.
But since switching from 2K to FC1 I've defitely reached a point where more reboots are due to hardware changes or power-cuts than down to a session crash. Wheras under Windows 2000 it was usually the other way around.
This is one of those thigns I'm in two minds about. On the one hand being a private person and somewhat paranoid about quite how much information people can get/keep I have to admit being rather worried about something like this being abused.
However I've been a youth leader on a trip to a theme park this summer, trying to round up the final stragglers about half an hour after the deadline to get back to the coach.
And when we finally found them? They were queueing up for food - which in turn they'd have to finish before being allowed back on the coach. (Terms of hiring)
There was also the point on the same trip where all of the leaders were on the lookout for the trip organiser. Half an hour of searching and I bumped into him by accident by the front gates.
So yeah. On the one hand I don't like the idea of people being able to track me, and i am concerned about the security of such a system making sure that only party members could find people - not stalkers and the like.
But on the other hand I've recently been in a position of being unable to track down party members at such a place. And if you've booked a coach for a certain time you have to be able to round everybody up by a set time.
It's been a problem for a while. It seems to be a known bug related to a major shift in how sections and topics are handled.
I do kinda wish it'd get fixed soon, as well as adding a setting to decide whyether or not you want to see links to stories from other sections.
Oh it's a great feature if you don't habitually check every subsection, but when you do then you end up seeing most stories multiple times. Not to mention that on a busy news day (or weekend) you'll lose the non-specific stories from the front page due to overspill from the sections.
I've encountered this bug for a while using Firefox (0.8 and up, I think) under XP. No problem under Linux (GNOME on FC1).
However I still find that annoying as the bug is (and it is very annoying at times) it's still offset by other advantages such as tabbed browsing - which I can't do without when using Slashdot. I'll regularly fire off the article links into a new tab, so unless there's a way of capturing a linked cliked in IE to open in a new Firefox tab then I think I'll be sticking with FF.
I simply can't abide IE anymore - except for connecting to OWA. I'm too used to using Firefox these days.
Having said all of that, I can't wait until the damn bug gets fixed.
But some of us are a bit pants at cutting things straight. So being able to grab a nice even slice straight from the packet to stick into the toaster is quite useful - especially when you hate having to spand too much time at all on food prep.
Open-sourcing the bare player is a good move on one hand. A linux-compatible player with commercial input can only be a good thing in the long run. But why is it the player itself that's been open-sourced (when there are already many many media players out there) yet the codecs remain proprietary?
Why I (and I think many others) resent having to install RealPlayer on any platform is that when you have a media-player of choice you want to run everything through that player. Helix provides another player to choose from, but what would really be more useful to many people is to have the codecs available for whatever they already use.
An official codec-pack for Linux or Windows or a plugin for WinAmp or XMMS (or whatever) would really go down well. As would a standalone plugin for most major browsers.
I know I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said before, but surely that's the point in this case. As good as the steps that Real/Helix has taken in recent year are they don't address some of the issues that have been bugging people for years.
Finally, if you're in the middle of the article, it makes it harder for you to back out (which is a pain for you, but marketing people would love it).
Heh. Whenever I find an article like that linked from/. I always cause page 2 to open in a new tab, then send the first one back to wherever I linked from (unless I'd already opened in a new tab).
I guess if I was browsing Slashdot from IE then I'd do a similar thing opening into a new window instead.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually I'd say "nagging" is a better option that either a governor or immediately contacting the police.
I don't exactly like the idea myself, and I think it's addressing the wrong part of the problem in the wrong way. But something which ultimately leaves the decision up to the driver is better than the alternatives.
There have been dicussions here on Slashdot before about such speed limiters. And (usual /. silliness notwithstanding) a lot of good points are brought up as to why there are defintiely times when if you're in control of your vehivcle you need to be in control of your vehicle. And such a speed limiter could easily cut in whilst you're trying to overtake, or quickly move away from an unexpected obstacle.
This is exactly why a "You Are Speeding" alert would be the lesser of the evils. Sure it'll get very annoying very fast if you're constantly informed of your "excessive" speed, but I still think it's better than having the final speed decisions being out of your hands.
Plus (as was also brought up in the linked discussion) there's too much scope for error. Underpasses, overpasses, a misreading saying you're on the parallel road with half the speed limit, roadworks-related updates not hitting everyone in time. (Doing the legal 70mph and suddenly hitting a zone your car still thinks is reduced to 40mph 'cos of the weekend's resurfacing works, it wouldn't be pretty) Until a system can be accurate enough it's better to be told you're "wrong" than forced to be "right" - as the latter could be fatal if the system is the one that's wrong.
Plus there's always the chance that some people would slow down for no other reason than to get the darn thing to shut up.
I still think the real solution to traffic safety is to slightly increase the speed limits and tell people how to safely drive at higher speeds. Dropping speed limits simply won't stop the people who are reckless drivers and makes people who are comparitively safe break the law if they can't agree with the limits.
The simple fact is that these days many people want to drive faster. I'm also sure I'm not alone in wanting to drive fast safely. Now if the answer to "How do I stay safe if i want to drive fast?" is "Don't drive fast" then it's gonna get ignored. But a decent set of guidelines about how to safely drive at higher speeds (and when and where is is/isn't advisable to do so) would probably be at least somewhat more effective at reducing accidents.
True. But it doesn't really change the bulk of the point. If anything Sony America does has to be approved by Sony Japan then anything they do as part of the RIAA obviously is done with Sony Japan's knowledge/consent. But that still means that decisions they make for one market won't necessarily reflect a worldwide policy.
This can have it's downsides, like when certain music/films/whatever won't appear in every country. But in this case I sitll think it's a positive sign that the higher-ups at Sony don't think that copy-protections id an end-all solution despite what some of their divisions think.
I think it's because it shows one (or both) of two things.
Coming from a company so involved in the industry I see this as a good thing. If nothing else it's a pleasant change to the usual story of trying to prolong the failing practice at the expense of customer irritation.
Even if it is "a simple decision to end a failing practice" it would be a very welcome decision if more companies would realise that irritating your customers isn't going to increase sales.
I think this is a really valid point, and maybe one that gets overlooked. The main drawback to Episodes 1-3 is that they are primarily backstory. And not only that, but backstory to a hugely popular and well-known story.
And that's a very dangerous step to try and take, as fans will obviously have their own ideas about various ideas and motivations. And to suddenly go back and make what are probably some huge changes to preconceptions that people have held for some twenty-odd years is inevitably going to get backlash.
A TV series would have similar problems. For the Star Wars name it would inevitably have to deal with something major. But prequels have been done, and any sequels that dealt too closely with the events of RoTJ would be too far in the shadow of the original trilogy. Plus with the novels and stuff you'd risk either alienating a lot of their fans if you deviated too far from them or risk retreading material that many already know if you followed their ideas too closely.
To me it seems the bast way would be if they purposely aimed for something low-key. Maybe focus on one or two planets in the aftermath of Jedi. Make it part of the Universe without it having to be The Next Big Adventure. (You're right that background details really don't work for an attempt at a major movie trilogy, but a weekly TV show has a somewhat higher chance of making it work.)
Unfortunately that idea wouldn't have the brand identity and would probably alienate some fans, many fanboys, and any chance of commercial backing.
You're probably[*] right right that it should be happening in other places, but I'm not sure that it shouldn't be happening in California.
It might not need it, but that might work in it's favour. If one State does it by choice then it weakens arguments by other states if they try to claim it's not feasible. Plus it's Arnie, so it's bound to get slightly higher profile coverage than if it was J. Random-Governor from elsewhere. And it's about time that good policies started getting as high a profile as bad policies - or how else will people know thet there are good alternatives to things out there?
Now yeah, it would proably be nice/useful/important if it could happen for the upcoming election. But given the timescale that might not be viable. But, if this works well in California in 2006 then it might well catch on across more of America in the next elections. (2008?)
If California does hold such a big part of the voting equipment market then it probably is a good place to start. 'Cos once the feature crops up in more hardware then it's more likely to be used elsewhere too. And even if it the advantages it provides can't help in this election, they'd hopefully be there for subsequent ones.
[*] I'm a Brit, so I don't know enough to categorically state one way or the other.
Actually having StarOffice/OpenOffice.org able to fully work with MS Word's format is just one thing that would help.
What would be really nice (a pipedream, but nice) would be if MS had/chose to allow Word to open other formats suck or OpenOffice's format, or KOffice's format, or Abiword's format. because that would then allow Linux users to really play to the strengths of their chosen applications.
Currently although my main computer is a Linux box I like to be able to read my documents anywhere. My work PC does have OOo installed to that I can open SXW files in a hurry, but it still means that if I want to ensure that my documents will open on anyone's computer then I kinda have to save in DOC. OK so there is RTF which just about anything can read/write, but I still think that's too limiting.
Now if MS Word could read files from Open/StarOffice, or from KOffice then having to "Save As..." just so that people can read your documents would be uneccesary. I could write stuff in OOo and know that people stuck on MS Office could still open the files. Same if I chose to write a document in KOffice instead. I could use the native document formats.
This is what would really help Linux I think. Not just being able to read MS formats in open applications, but being able to read the open formats in MS applications.
Sadly Microsoft do seem to make out that other formats don't matter. So sometimes being "compatible with Microsoft's siblings" is essential, as being compatible with what other people use is essential but I personally like being able to be so whilst still using non-MS products myself.
Plus getting someone to migrate is a lot easier if they don't lose their older documents.
It doesn't always get it right though. Back in 2001 I picked up the legal download of the Gorillaz/D12 collaboration 9/11. It was a protected WMA. Certainly for that file I could not get it to run under Winamp.
Maybe it worked under Winamp3, I dunno. But it certainly would work under the latest 2.x release at the time. So I waited and grabbed the inevitable cracked MP3 off P2P instead.
Now I've never had a problem playing non-protected WMA under Winamp. So the format itself isn't that bad - I just avoided it on principle.
rzei has a point though. People don't want to install multiple media players. Heck I hate having to do so, but luckily know enough to conveniently install things or locate the (safe) workarounds to get my choice of player to work.
But if there's a choice between downloading/streaming a WMV or a MOV or RM then unless they already have RealPlayer or Quicktime installed they're probably going to go for the WMV as they already have the correct player to do so.
Plus apparently it's not just geek-types who dislike RealPlayer. So again given a choice between getting a RealMedia file or a Windows Media file then they're likely to go with the latter as it's already on there. (Better just the one evil player on your system than the two)
It's a nice idea, but suffers from the same shortsightedness as the current limit does - albeit from the opposite direction.
You can't put one blanket length for exlusivity for every type of industry and invention.
OK, 17 years may still be a little excessive. But there are some industries where a 10-year period would be justified. Another reply to your post mentions medecine - and the various time periods involved due to FDA testing. But then for some industries, like software, a two-year exclusivity period would be a lot more appropriate. Time enough to try and establish your solution as being the best before letting other people jump in.
Maybe for some circumstances a variable length would be appropriate. Basically as another reply suggests a short period that begins once a product comes to market. So it would allow a company to maintain exclusivity on their software method whilst developing their application, but as soon as it hits the shelves then the (much shorter) clock starts ticking.
I defintitely believe in one of the concepts from TFA. In that "One Size Fits All" doesn't work in the Patent system.
Although there are probably many things wrong with the Patent system the main one probably is that they try to treat hardware, software, medecine and just about everything under one broad set of rules.
As you say in some of the engineering industries the costs involved in development and the timespan that ideas last for are such that patents probably work well. In software there are less costs and the playing field changes so fast that to exlcusively lock out competition for the usual span of time can only be harmful.
For example given a ten-year period a mechanical device would probably still be viable, a medecine would almost defintiely still be useful, but quite a bit of software would have been obsoleted or superceded by then.
I think there needs to be different criteria and different exclusivity-periods for different types of patents. I can't see patents going away any time soon - too many companies and lawyers would rather they stayed around. And I also can't see software patents disappearing. But therefore if the system has to stay then it needs a bloody great clearout - especially making sure that if they really must allow software to be patentable then the exclusivity/licensing period must be dropped to a much lower length that's actually realistic in the world of software. Basically changes to make the patent concept what it was meant to be - to inspire people to build on ideas, rather than effectively banning them from doing so.
OK, this is where I get confused. Very confused.
I freely admit that I know little-to-nothing about the patenting process, but I still find that some of this looks very odd and need to make sure that it is what it looks like.
So from the looks of things someone can apply for a patent in Year 1, but then it not be granted any time soon. (How long does it usually take for patents to be approved or denied anyway?)
If another company uses the same process in 4 that at the time wasn't covered by patent but the original company applies for a new patent in 5 that is granted in Year 6 extending the original application concept then the new device infringes the patent even if it was created before the succesful patent application was filed?
It just looks rather strange to me. It makes it seem that patents can then go retroactive, which looks like potentially dangerous gorund for anyone trying to develop soemthing in an area that someone else is working in.
OK, now that's just taking the mick - certainly if any of those patents were before this first one of their's (May 2000).
'Cos by acknowledging and referencing another company's device it then seems very unfair to then turn around and sue said company for infringing with that very device.
What Immersion patents do reference other company's controllers (especially Sony's DualShock) anyway?
Immersion filed the suit in 2002 if I remember correctly. So after that point they may simply have been referencing a known implementation of a similar technology. (It's only before May 2000 where it would be dubious)
Not knowing all of the details I can't be sure, but if this is to do with the DualShock controller and vibrational feedback in games then the timing has to be in Sony's favour.
I followed the links to the two patent applications, and the earlier of the two was filed in May 2000. The DualShock controller and games were out before that. I know that Final Fantasy VIII was out in Japan in 1999, and that definitely had feedback during the Summons.
Having said that the article (and other articles linked from it) don't clarify whether it was the DualShock or the DualShock2 that was the culprit. Changes for the PS2 may well have infringed on the claims - but otherwise the controller was out before the claim was made.
It seems to me, then, that either the judges goofed or that there's more to this than is apparent from what the media are telling us.
Either that or you can sue for infringement fo a patent in a device that was built before your claim - which seems kinda daft to me, but wouldn't exactly surprise me anymore.
Wrong. That wouldn't solve anything. In fact that is the problem at the moment.
You're advocating artificial limitations to force people to pay for things that, rightly or wrongly, they can obtain with minimal effort.
The problem with your suggestion is that it is what the "problem" already is. The limitations and restrictions are seen as being artificial. Rightly or wrongly people don't want to pay what they feel are over-the-odds prices. People don't see that much value in songs that they already hear on the radio in heavy rotation. People don't think they should have to wait extra weeks/months for a local release, or pay over-market-price to import a CD when it's simply data on a bit of plastic. People don't want to buy CDs that they can't rip to their personal non-shared collection on their computer.
People are turning to P2P because they feel that the limitations are artificial. Adding more restrictions (see: DRM) just ticks people off all the more.
People don't believe in intelletual Property to that extreme any more. And people do believe in the rights they believe they should have. It might be right. It might be wrong. But it simply is.
The Internet changed the world. Yes, some of the reasoning is purely selfish. Some of the reasoning isn't. But trying to make it so that people have less rights when they're already breaking the laws because they feel they should have more rights is futile.
As people have said before, the genie is out of the bottle. There's no getting it back. There's no return to the old business models. It doesn't matter who's "right" and who's "wrong". But this current mess isn't benefitting anyone.
Maintaining the old model is broken. Never paying for anything is counter-productive. A third option has to be found. Probably with compromises on both sides. Expecting totally unencumbered downloads in online shops is unreasonable. But similarly using overly restrictive formats or platforms is also unreasonable. And, basically, adding more limitations to what people can do will only irritate more people into breaking the law. (And most of those who "Stay Legal" will probably do so by only ever buying stuff they can actually use - which isn't going to increase sales for those setting restrictions)
That's what I liked about FFX-2. It was fun. I enjoyed it, it gave me a laugh. Plus it didn't ignore the previous game and contradict the ending.
Too many sequels fall into the trap that would have been the equivalent of having Tidus, Auron and a full complement on Summons back before the first chapters finished and have the party fighting some impossible remnant of Sin.
OK, FFX-2 was cheesy. I admit that. I also admit that I do enjoy cheesy things on occasion. And as cheesy games go, it was one of the enjoyable and thought-out ones.
I think this is the problem with FF7. Being the first PS/3D/UK Final Fantasy it gained a place in a lot of people's hearts, and of course people wanted a sequel. No-one likes a story they enjoy to end so soon.
However much as it broke from the earlier FF mould it still had one major factor in common with it's predecessors. It was a self-contained story, and it was designed to be so. The story of the characters ended with the game.
As a result this new game and Advent Children will have to be extremely good (and damned lucky) to work as a sequel without seeming like either an afterthought or a contradiction.
FF10, on the other hand, looks like it had the various plot-hooks for sequels worked in from the beginning. So even if they didn't always know there'd defintiely be a sequel it looks like they'd prepared for the possibility.
Yes I guess FFX-2 could be considered a cash-in. But it does look like it was planned in advanced rather than tacked on after they realised the extra cash they could make.
Oh yeah!
I'd heard about the early plans they apparently had to do graphically updated remakes of VII and VIII. Shame these never panned out.
Personally I'd love to see FF8 redone FF10-style.
Realtime generated areas rather than the pre-rendered fixed-perspective rooms which occasionally made it hard to figure out where the screen-exit was. Voices (optional). New battle engine. (I did like the ability to swap-in warriors)
But keeping the world-map - probably my only major letdown about FF10.
Same with FF7 really. update the game engine to the never version, but keep the plot and map the same.
I can see it becoming a problem. I'm not sure that there is a viable solution though.
The main problem is that more and more people don't want to be advertised at, but in response adverts in general are getting more and more in-your-face. And especially where the Internet allows you to find things according to your own criteria you find adverts more annoying as it's more people trying to tell you what you should be looking at.
I do prefer sites where the adverts are relevant to the page subject. If I'm looking for information or walkthroughs for a video game then an advert for the latest console may well interest me. However if I was looking for a recipe for a good pasta sauce, for example, then the games console advert wuold be more likely to tick em off.
Although I can see how although this works for specific-topic sites it falls down on "free page hosting" sites like Geocities or whatever as any page could be about any subject.
Payment schemes very much depend on how much they cost, and what other benefits there are. If "Ad-free Browsing" is a bonus of a subscription that brings other features then fine. Paying simply to not get adverts seems stupid to me because of the following reasoning.
Adverts are usually trying to persuade me to spend money. Adverts have little effect on me as I don't usually want to spend much money - certainly not through other people trying to persuade me. Plus if I really want to know about a product I'll do my own research.
So the "Pay money so that you don't see adverts" approach is completely lost on me, as it's being persuaded to part with my money so that I don't get people persuading me to part with my money. Or, to put it another way, if I wanted to spend money I'd have bought a subscription. So the adverts are totally lost on me.
On the whole I don't block banner adverts though. Well except for Flash ones. But that's mainly 'cos they take time to download and are too damn distracting. /. aren't too bad. Most are interesting, and the ones that aren't are at least relevant. (No-one trying to sell me cheap air-fares or ringtones on a site where that's totally irrelevant) Plus they remind me I really must wisit ThinkGeek when I've got a bit of spare cash.
The ads here on
And on sites where the ads are annoying? Well I just do what many other people do and simply avoid those sites.
Not entirely true.
Personally I rarely shut down the home PC - even back when I was running Windows I'd hardly ever shut it down overnight. But I know that some people have issues like electricity costs or sleeping in the same room and can't shut out fan-noise.
Plus at work I always shutdown when I leave. And were I running Linux on my work desktop (and I so wish that was a viable option, but I digress...) then I'd still shut down overnight.
True. But I beleive the article did go by when a failure required a full reboot. And in this Linux does have the advantage - or at least has in my experience.
Yes I have had applications die on me under Linux. And I have indeed had sessions die on me - although all but the worst ones could be recovered from by quitting the X Session.
True this does count as a lost user session. But I do at least like that there aren't quite as many times when I've lost the entire OS session.
In Windows' defense I have to admit that XP does seem to be a lot more stable than 2000. A logoff/on cycle will fix more problems in XP than it ever did for me in 2K requiring less complete reboots. It's just a shame about the politics of Windows (activation, etc) that have put me off the platform.
But since switching from 2K to FC1 I've defitely reached a point where more reboots are due to hardware changes or power-cuts than down to a session crash. Wheras under Windows 2000 it was usually the other way around.
This is one of those thigns I'm in two minds about. On the one hand being a private person and somewhat paranoid about quite how much information people can get/keep I have to admit being rather worried about something like this being abused.
However I've been a youth leader on a trip to a theme park this summer, trying to round up the final stragglers about half an hour after the deadline to get back to the coach.
And when we finally found them? They were queueing up for food - which in turn they'd have to finish before being allowed back on the coach. (Terms of hiring)
There was also the point on the same trip where all of the leaders were on the lookout for the trip organiser. Half an hour of searching and I bumped into him by accident by the front gates.
So yeah. On the one hand I don't like the idea of people being able to track me, and i am concerned about the security of such a system making sure that only party members could find people - not stalkers and the like.
TiggsBut on the other hand I've recently been in a position of being unable to track down party members at such a place. And if you've booked a coach for a certain time you have to be able to round everybody up by a set time.
It's been a problem for a while. It seems to be a known bug related to a major shift in how sections and topics are handled.
I do kinda wish it'd get fixed soon, as well as adding a setting to decide whyether or not you want to see links to stories from other sections.
Oh it's a great feature if you don't habitually check every subsection, but when you do then you end up seeing most stories multiple times. Not to mention that on a busy news day (or weekend) you'll lose the non-specific stories from the front page due to overspill from the sections.
I've encountered this bug for a while using Firefox (0.8 and up, I think) under XP. No problem under Linux (GNOME on FC1).
However I still find that annoying as the bug is (and it is very annoying at times) it's still offset by other advantages such as tabbed browsing - which I can't do without when using Slashdot. I'll regularly fire off the article links into a new tab, so unless there's a way of capturing a linked cliked in IE to open in a new Firefox tab then I think I'll be sticking with FF.
I simply can't abide IE anymore - except for connecting to OWA. I'm too used to using Firefox these days.
Having said all of that, I can't wait until the damn bug gets fixed.
But some of us are a bit pants at cutting things straight. So being able to grab a nice even slice straight from the packet to stick into the toaster is quite useful - especially when you hate having to spand too much time at all on food prep.
Open-sourcing the bare player is a good move on one hand. A linux-compatible player with commercial input can only be a good thing in the long run. But why is it the player itself that's been open-sourced (when there are already many many media players out there) yet the codecs remain proprietary?
Why I (and I think many others) resent having to install RealPlayer on any platform is that when you have a media-player of choice you want to run everything through that player. Helix provides another player to choose from, but what would really be more useful to many people is to have the codecs available for whatever they already use.
An official codec-pack for Linux or Windows or a plugin for WinAmp or XMMS (or whatever) would really go down well. As would a standalone plugin for most major browsers.
I know I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said before, but surely that's the point in this case. As good as the steps that Real/Helix has taken in recent year are they don't address some of the issues that have been bugging people for years.
Heh. Whenever I find an article like that linked from /. I always cause page 2 to open in a new tab, then send the first one back to wherever I linked from (unless I'd already opened in a new tab).
TiggsI guess if I was browsing Slashdot from IE then I'd do a similar thing opening into a new window instead.