I don't believe "copyright violation" is defined in the law, so it is merely a colloquial term. I think a reasonable definition for "copyright violation" would be "a violation of copyright law", and you agree with me that the DMCA is part of copyright law, right?
Sure, but that's irrelevent. I assumed you were using "violation" and "infringement" interchangeably. Now I see that your whole argument was baseless to begin with, since only by conflating DMCA violation with Copyright Infringement were you able to have a point.
I have a real hard time believing that you really think Sec. 1201 which says "No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that-- `(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological protection measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;" is talking about copyright infringement.
Well good, because I don't. I said it was a copyright violation, as in a violation of copyright law, not copyright infringement, which is defined in the code.
Fantastic! Then I should be able to wrap this up neatly:
1) Violating the access control provisions of the DMCA is not Copyright Infringement -- mutually agreed.
2) Fair Use is a defense only against Copyright Infringement -- U.S. Code Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107: "Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."
3) Fair Use is not a defense against DMCA access control provision violations -- by (1) and (2)
Q.E.D.
No, I certainly didn't say that. You never have to accept the GPL. Of course, if you do run free software in a way which creates copies not explicitly provided by the GPL, then the GPL is automatically revoked.
You certainly did! Prepare to get pwned by the power of Google!
Okay, you said "modify" not "copy", but essentially the same baseless argument.
I know it isn't really relevent since I've already proven you wrong. It was still funny seeing how you used very similar word games to make it look like you had a point there, too, only to have it evaporate.
Filipak was trafficking in circumvention tools for commercial purposes, not merely using the tools for non-profit purposes. So I don't see how fair use defenses would apply. Also, a quick google search for "Sony filipak "fair use"" yields nothing, so I don't see that fair use was even raised in that case.
It wasn't raised in the case because copyright infringement wasn't in the case! Fair use defenses would not apply because there is no fair use defense against things that aren't copyright infringement!
That's exactly the point. It was a DMCA case that was prosecuted without any instance of copyright infringement being alleged.
Did you know that fair use didn't come up once in Timothy McVeigh's trial? I guess the jury is still out on whether fair use is a valid defense against murder.
I assumed at first that they were referring to the control interface and using the Sixaxis controller's motion sensing ability. Which on the one hand would be good, get a more immersive experience by bludgeoning hookers. But then I remembered that this is Rockstar, the guys who came up with the control scheme in GTA, so "natural" would be the last term applied to it. They'd have you jerking the controller up and down to shoot your weapon while on foot, but you'd have to spin it around your head to do the same thing while driving, unless it was a motorcycle and then spinning it around your head would make you pop wheelies.
I believe the point of attacking America isn't to kill Americans. It is to change our way of life. They have done that by attacking us on our own soil.
Yes, they turned us into the frightened hateful warmongers that all their propaganda said we were. Again, the reason they don't have to attack us again is because we gave them exactly what they wanted.
As for no need to attack the US directly since we have made it so easy to attack us abroad, isn't that a good thing? Keep the battle off our soil?
Uh, I wouldn't call one one attack every eight years a "battle". This is exactly the kind of crazy-stupid illogical thinking that led us to attack Iraq as part of the War on Terror. What, you think that if we didn't invade Iraq, that we'd be facing exactly the same degree of warfare over here? Are you really that crazy-stupid?
We have created a net increase in the amount of battle going on in the world. Some would consider that a bad thing. If the tradeoff was attacks in the U.S. that killed between 6 and 3,000 people every 8 years (average: 375/yr) then I'd say that was a good idea.
The analogy that we are the giant lured from our own land is totally rediculous.
That's a weird way to spell "apt". But hey, let's just keep getting beat up in Iraq, a land we don't understand and can't blend into so we're constantly harrassed by insurgents, losing people, money, and influence every day. It isn't an analogy, it's a strategy, and it's working perfectly for our enemies.
As for killing innocents, that is only a rule that the US and Israel must follow, or apologize to hell for should someone "innocent" die. Terrorists kill innocents the majority of the time. They TARGET innocents.
WRONG! It is not a rule the US must follow, it is a REALITY that the US thinks it can absolve itself from. Everyone knows that when you kill innocents, the survivors will hate you. Al Qaeda knows they're fucking hated by every Shia (and many Sunni) in Iraq, but they don't care. Pratical countries like Israel or Russia just deal with the fact. The U.S. is the only one who thinks that the survivors should love us even though we killed innocents, because we're the good guys! The U.S. is the one who thought that the people of Iraq would thank us for bombing them! It's insane.
You really want to prove how morally superior the U.S. is? Do you believe that we are? Well I do to, but the only thing that can possibly show this is actions. So how about this: When terrorists kill innocents, we don't kill any innocents in return. I know it sounds crazy -- what, don't lash out randomly in a blind rage when someone hurts you? -- but I think it would work.
But that's ok, cause if we stick our heads in the sand maybe it won't be us that gets attacked. Unfortunately for you, it was us.
You aren't paying attention. If you follow what I'm saying, I'm saying that if we ignored the terrorists, if we stopped invading Arab nations in the name of terror, then we WOULD be attacked again. If we stopped giving the terrorists exactly what they wanted in response to 9/11, then it would be worth their while to attempt to do it again and get the crazy-stupid behavior that we've been showing for the last 5 years.
So when that happens, you have to ask yourself: Are you going to give the terrorists what they want? Are you going to dance to their tune? Are you going to become, once again, that which they say you are?
And the blame for all our actions, right or wrong, is the fault of the terrorists.
Well, you could certainly call the invasion of Iraq an effect of the terrorists' actions, for sure. Yet I don't think you're going to win any hearts and minds in Sadr City by telling them that soldiers are shooting at them because of Osama bin Laden.
I think background radiation will be one of its main reasons it will fail for a CPU and RAM. With a structure 1 atom thick there is no room for failure. Either an atom exists or it doesn't. Knock an atom out of place then it fails. With a conventional transistor as its bulk material all that happens is it degrades its performance but it can take it (most of the time).
That's true, and actually with current silicon device sizes a single alpha particle strike has the possibility of flipping a bit in an SRAM. This is one part of why NASA uses old cpus -- one of the simplest methods of radiation hardening is to simply use larger structures that require a larger amount of energy to change state. Then they add more shielding and such on top of course.
Yep, those are all realistic concerns and issues that must be addressed before this will really become a silicon killer.
At the same time, look at the amazing technology that goes into producing silicon chips today. Something that seems ludicrous to mass produce today may just take a decade or so of process and manufacturing technology advancements. On the other hand more research will also probably give silicon a longer life than what anyone predicts (since the death of the silicon CMOSFET has been predicted for decades).
So I agree, what comes in the future will be interesting.
The primary difference that I see if Gore had been president instead of Bush is that we would not have gone into Iraq. Afghanistan was the "you must do something about this attack now, damnit!" war. Iraq was the wet dream of the neo-cons.
In 2000 I didn't see any significant difference between the two. In 2007, with hindsight, even just the difference of Iraq vs no Iraq is huge. Think if we could have been devoting all our effort to Afghanistan these past years.
Why is it that there seems to be two responses from these anti-Bush/anti-patriot act groups? "Terror laws don't work" where as the last full scale terror attack on our country was 5 years ago. The second response is usually "Well the world hates us" and you look again and there hasn't been an attack on US soil since 9/11. So why hasn't terrorism reigned supreme here if everyone hates us and Homeland security isn't working? We aren't fighting the three stogies here.
Well the last attack by foreign terrorists on US soil before 9/11 was in 1993, so eight years. Clearly the policies initiated after 9/11 were not necessary to provide 8 years of no attacks. Arguing that 5 years of no attacks since in any way validates those policies is the most falacious of reasoning.
And why have attacks not been more frequent? Well first there is the planning involved -- again, 8 years between the failed WTC bombing and 9/11. And more importantly, since 9/11 there has been no need to attack the US on its own soil!
Let me make this as clear as possible: Afghanistan and Iraq have caused more harm to the United States that a hundred attacks like 9/11. In response to 9/11, the U.S. did to itself more than al Qaeda could ever dream of doing just on its own capacities. Not only in material costs but in the all-important propaganda war. The credibility the US has lost in the last 5 years is a huge boon to our enemies. Our status as world leader is
It's a classic strategy, and the same one used by Hezbollah against Israel. You can't effectively attack the giant on its home turf, so you poke at it to enrage it and lure it into your home turf where the giant is at a disadvantage. In their attempts to stomp you out, the giant innevitably stomps on the innocent and thus further increases resentment of the giant. Two wins, military and PR, from one strategy.
The whole purpose of terrorism is to make your enemy crazy-stupid with fear. The U.S. is still behaving crazy-stupid, and paying for it. Why attack again? It would be a waste of resources; they are still getting everything from the one attack 5 years ago that they could hope to get from a new one. If we ever get our heads out of our asses, if we ever get people to think longer than "well no attacks it the last 5 years, so USAPATRIOT must work!", THEN maybe they'll see a need to attack us again.
It wasn't whether or not you were watching DVDs on Linux, but whether you were breaking the law by doing so.
Sorry, I thought you were asking something that the post you replied to hadn't already stated plainly.
So there is a contradiction, and it comes down to which part overrides the other. Since the part about fair use explicitly references the rest of the DMCA, I'd say it's pretty obvious that part overrides the other parts: "Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title."
There's no contradiction at all. Fair use is a valid defense against copyright infringement, but it is not a valid defense against circumventing an access control because circumventing an access control is not copyright infringement. Describing how to circumvent an access control is not copyright infringement. It is a new, separate crime created by the DMCA. At no point does the actual creation of an unauthorized copy, public performance, or other copyright violations have to come into play for the actions defined by the DMCA to be illegal.
Violating the DMCA is a copyright violation.
No, it isn't, and I challenge you to show the language that says it is. Breaking an access control mechanism is a crime unto itself, separate from copyright. You're argument is akin to arguing that a defense against theft is a defense against B&E since B&E is theft. No, B&E is a separate crime, one that is often applied on top of theft but can also be charged separately if theft cannot be proven but B&E can. Similarly, you can violate a provision of the DMCA without comitting copyright infringement.
I have a real hard time believing that you really think Sec. 1201 which says "No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that-- `(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological protection measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;" is talking about copyright infringement. How is manufacturing such a device an act of copyright infringement? It isn't. The only copyright work involved is one that the device could hypothetically be used to acces. It is, however, a crime to manufacture such a device. In Sony vs Filipak exactly this came up, and Filipak lost despite not actually violating copyright. Their devices violated the DMCA.
But speed limits can be enforced to some extent
Many things, including the DMCA, can be enforced to some extent, it's just obviously difficult to prove that someone at some point broke an access control. Many things, including speed limits or jay walking, are as a practical matter not strictly enforced because they're hard to prove without an officer of the law standing there watching you do it. Depending on where you go, e.g. Montana interstates, they may not be enforced to any significant extent. Enforcement is really irrelevent to the question of legality. An impossible to enforce law may be a bad law, but it is still law.
If you want to keep the speeding analogy though, would you complain that it's illegal to rush your
Not sure where you were going, but it sounds like you're going to ask me something irrelevent, like "such and such is illegal, do you mind?" Maybe, maybe not, either way it has nothing to do with the question of what the DMCA does or does not make illegal. If they made wearing orange socks illegal I would complain, they probably couldn't enforce it either, but it would still be illegal.
I'm sorry, but until you show me some shred of evidence that the DMCA makes it illegal to watch DVDs using Linux, I'm not going to buy it.
You know I seem to remember you arguing that you had to accept the GPL to run free software because the act of running the program created
Assuming you don't mean right now, fucking of course I am. It's a ludicrous law, and I will not respect it. I bought the fucking DVD, I'm going to watch it and not feel guilty. I also occasionally travel in my motor vehicle above the posted speed limit, should I feel the safety considerations allow for it, and that's pretty well established in case law as illegal I would say. Just call me a rebel.
The problem is, I bet you can't come up with a single instance of someone who was convicted or even charged with copyright infringement simply because they watched a DVD on their computer. You can't point out how crazy a law is by making up a hypothetical situation and then claiming that the law covers it. The DMCA says quite plainly that it does not affect fair use. If you want to claim otherwise, the burden is on you to prove that your interpretation is correct.
The DMCA also says quite plainly that breaking an access control without permission is a crime regardless of whether or not you subsequently violate copyright. The DMCA makes criminal things that have nothing to do with copyright violation.
It can't be enforced, just like speed limits can't beyond a limited extent, but it's still a criminal act. I may speed, but I don't flaunt it in front of the cops. If you're going to tell me something is legal, when there are penalties for an incorrect interpretation of the law, then I'm sorry but it's you who hold the burden of proof.
You mean like they are now.. because of the other drugs that are prohibited?
They've done a better job of stigmatizing those drugs than they did with alcohol and pushing the users underground, and organized crime isn't quite so prevelent. Though to get at the real reason, I'll have to steal from Bill Hicks by saying: Ever notice how the drugs that are legal, like alcohol and cigarettes, are the ones that do absolutely nothing for you, while the ones that can expand your mind like LSD are banned? It's almost like they want to keep us sick and stupid instead of having us wake up and realize how badly we're being screwed...;)
The problem is that, certainly from the point of view of the consumer, PS3 isn't anything new. It's a PS2 with a few generations of silicon advancements incorporated, just like the Xbox 360 is an Xbox with newer silicon. Oh, and better online support and other minor tech, but it's still fundamentally more of the same.
Cell doesn't bring anything to the table but the possibility of more MIPS. As a computer architect, more MIPS is of course interesting to me, and the particulars of how the Cell works are fascinating. As a gamer, it's just more MIPS. Just like the Xbox 360 is more MIPS. That's no more a "new direction" than the PS2 was when it was released. It's the same direction, just trudging along Moore's Law silicon improvements and little else changes. The only difference is that Sony jumped out further ahead on the technology curve this time, getting something new and paying a price premium for it. Riding the bleeding edge is great if you are a hardcore gamer who buys Alienware boxes, but it is a terrible place to be for what is supposedly a mass-market consumer electronic device.
BluRay is the same deal -- all it really does is offer more storage. New direction? PS1 was CD, PS2 was DVD, PS3 is bigger DVD. Sounds like more of the same to me. Yet unlike CD with PS1 or DVD with PS2, BluRay is brand-new technology and thus much more expensive than a more established technology would be, and this is a premium the consumer is paying for.
The fact is that both Microsoft and Sony are greedy, and neither is trying anything new. Both are operating under the "same as before * Moore's Law improvement ratio" scheme of simply pursuing more performance. Sony thought they could beat MS by jumping out ahead on the curve, hoping consumers would be willing to pay the price premium for that decision. They also thought they could leverage the PS3 into victory for BluRay over HD-DVD, again charging consumers for that decision. Going faster down the same path is not the same as a change of direction. The only difference between MS and Sony this generation is that Microsoft executed on the bog-standard console game plan more intelligently than Sony did.
The only one actually trying anything different this generation is Nintendo. Which I'm grateful for, because the Gamecube was essentially the same as the PS2 and Xbox, a "me too" bog-standard console upgrade if ever there was one. It was N's worst console. Now they're back where they were from the NES to N64 days, as leaders and definers of industry standards. Whether it works for them or not, if you really want to give credit to those trying a new path, there is nobody to pick but Nintendo.
maybe back in the early 20th century politicians actually cared more about their constituants than their contributors? i don't know. but the whole "if enough of us do it, it will become legal" strategy doesn't seem to be working anymore.
I'm not an expert on the subject and it isn't entirely clear to me why prohibition ended. I do think the negative effects of prohibition -- e.g. entire cities falling under the sway of organized crime -- was more severe and certainly more obvious than the rather ephemeral harm of my not being able to legally watch DVDs on my Ubuntu box. The violation of the law was more blatant -- Speakeasys were prolific, and they were social, so you were basically surrounded by fellow law breakers. Copyright violation is more private, more furtive.
One difference I'm sure of is that with music, we aren't going outside the normal sources to get what we want. We're getting it illegally, but what we are consuming is still the mainstream media. During prohibition people just went to illegal sources for booze, so the huge alcohol-related economy was happening entirely outside of traditional (taxable) avenues. Here, while piracy may mean somewhat fewer sales for the studios (and arguably it means the opposite), the fact is that the majority of people still get their music by giving money to RIAA studios. If we responded to laws like the DMCA by going to completely separate sources of music, ones that didn't feel a need to treat us like criminals, then we would definitely have an effect. This is happening already, but it is slow and not guaranteed to end with the death of the RIAA. Yet if it does, then we might see a reaction more like that at the end of prohibition, with the Big Money seeing their Money going someplace else and not liking it.
Basically what I'm suggesting is that the DMCA will be repealed when, practically speaking, it is completely irrelevent.
Our society has come to tolerate the idea that arguing to win is the only thing that is important.
Aren't you worried that you're coming to embody that idea?
You have valid points, but my original idea was that such sensationalism is bad even if a part of your message is accurate.
And a message can be accurate even if it is sensational. It goes both ways. You accept that the GP has valid points, but can you accept that the group in question also has valid points -- specifically that many parents are not aware of what the Wii is capable of, and should be educated so that they can decide what to do, including using the parental controls that they also may not be aware of? Or must you argue to win, and completely deny any legitimacy to your opponent even though it doesn't make sense to do so?
Frankly I see most of the sensationalism coming from the Kotaku article, but I also see that as trained conditioning to a world in which Jack Thompson and people like him will decry video games themselves as the finger of Satan diddling your kids. Does that sensationalism thus mean that we should not be cautious of these Christian activism groups?
Would I still be breaking the law every time I play a legally purchased DVD on my Linux-based computer using decss-derived software?
It sounds like it. It sounds like the bill wouldn't even allow you to play a DRM-encumbered CD, unless the DRM was a Sony rootkit or other security problem. Lame.
Though on the other hand, being able to say "I am breaking the law every time I watch a DVD on my computer" is a simple and clear way to demonstrate how crazy copyright has become by outlawing what is so obviously ethical behavior. Since I will still be able to say that should this bill be passed, I have an equally simple way of expressing how copyright law is still screwed up, and how this bill completely failed to fix it.
Much better than having it partially fix the main problem so that it still isn't adequate, but becomes harder to explain. To put it another way: If you're going to suck, suck hard, so the slurping noise gives you away.
Now if we could find something that kills off English sparrows and starlings in large numbers. Honeybees at least provide honey, but nobody can think of anything that those two kinds of birds are good for.
Target practice! At least in Michigan, and at least according to my memory, those two were the only birds that you could kill indiscriminately. Starlings are better target practice, since they're bigger and more difficult to confuse with native birds that you could get in trouble for shooting.
Why can't we have socialism for the little guy? Why is it always handouts for the ones that need them the least?
Well for the ones that really do suffer from this little piece of apparent hypocrisy, it's the very idea of handouts going to the poor that irks them.
It's why you'll hear this type of person rail against the idea of public healthcare, because they don't want to pay for someone else's health care. Yet they'll buy insurance, and do exactly that. The difference? With insurance, everyone else has paid the premiums too, so you at least know your money is going to help someone who is your economic equal.
This mentality is at its worst in the upper levels of corporations and government. They will see no hypocrisy in lobbying for and receiving tax breaks, tarrifs, or whatever other handouts while lobbying against anything that benefits the truly needy. Because business is good, poor people are bad. Helping business financially is good (spurs entrepeneurship!), helping poor people financially is bad (spurs depedence!).
Not to imply that being against handouts for the poor implies this kind of hypocrisy; there are valid reasons too. It's just this kind of hypocrisy is rampant and insulting.
Of course this is pretty off-topic. But there's not much to say about the topic itself except: Boo-fucking-hoo.
It doesn't matter. That's the point - a battleship that can only go in circles at 1/4 surface speed while involved in a battle is completely and utterly useless for all practical purposes.
Yes, obviously the rudder of a ship is a tremendous weak point inherent in pretty much all designs. No matter how well designed the Bismark and whether it's other systems continued to work, taking out the ability to steer was crippling to the vessel. This is trivial.
The point is to have as few such weak spots as possible.
What we're talking about is an entire ship being crippled because there was an unecessary weak spot introduced in a non-critical subsystem, such that when that system failed it caused failures in many other systems. This is why they try to design the ship so that the fuel, ammunition, engines, etc are as separate as possible so a blow to one doesn't take out all the rest. These are all weaknesses, some essential, others maybe not so like with the dangers posed by ammo explosions, which rail guns are in part a solution for. Badly designed computer systems where a minor failure in a non-critical subsystem causes failures across every computer system on the ship should not be considered an essential weakness.
So yes, you can effectively disable a ship by destroying the rudder, the engine, the flight deck of an air craft carrier, or by splitting the ship in half with a single cut of a huge laser, the kind that's so awesome it seems to take the ship a few seconds just to realize that it's been cut in half. None of those facts are an excuse for the ship being effectively disabled by a toilet backing up.
It's a simple point, and arguing that being crippled by damage to the rudder is comparable to being crippled because your software couldn't handle a single divide by zero is to completely miss it.
Not to be an ass or anything, but what is worth watching OTA? Heroes, Family Guy, and The Simpsons are the only things that come to mind.
And those are pretty much the only shows I actually watch, as in make an effort to see. There's a half dozen other shows that are entertaining if the TV happens to be on when they come on. Studio 60, Lost (mostly because of its crazy-ridiculous plot), Numb3rs (though it's getting worse season to season), Supernatural, and uh... that's all I can think of.
And what's wrong with that? With only three shows, I don't waste a lot of time in front of the boob toob (meaning more time for WoW:P), and best of all it is free. If I paid for cable/dish I'd have to justify the expense by having lots of shows to watch, and barring the obvious candidates on Comedy Central and Cartoon Network, I'm just not convinced that those shows are there. So instead I get a moderate amount of quality TV for free. What's the problem?
Oh, right, if I'm going to only have 3 shows I watch then there isn't much sense in buying an HDTV and an HD Tuner. Oh well.
Seriously though, I think the set of people who watch OTA progamming is one of the least likely to spring for an HDTV, which is why I find the whole discussion sort of funny.
Who said anything about problems? It's just consistant and i don't mind consistancy. But do you mean that in Ruby constructors aren't called automagically and are handled explicitly by the programmer? That'd be a difference. Otherwise, C++ doesn't have particularly special syntax for constructors and it isn't a "problem", but neither would it be a problem if they did.
And it wasn't an Xbox 360; it was a Wii. Once its fan failed, even 20 watts was too much for the heat sink alone to dissipate, and it turned itself off after 30 minutes.
My Gamecube died the same way after 5 years. It didn't shut itself off, it just started crashing. Didn't take long to figure out why. I think it suffered some damage (partly because I tried using a box fan next to the intake opening as a low-rent replacement so that I could finish a boss fight in Baten Kaitos... too bad it didn't last long enough to get to a save point), because after I replaced the fan it suffered from disk read failures and it never had before the fan failed.
Sucks that your fan in your Wii would die so soon. I hope it turning itself off means it will still work when the fan is replaced -- not important when its under warranty, but at the 5 year mark.
The quests where you're trying to find -one- random drop are a little different, because the drop rate obviously isn't going to be very high so you could really get screwed by the RNG. At least it's one item. If you have to collect a few dozen items, and the drop rate is still low, then that's just ridiculous.
One nice thing they have done is that usually when you're looking for one rare item it's multi-drop, so everyone in your party can loot it. I've duoed quests where it's "find X common items and 1 really rare item" and been done with the 1 rare item much earlier because both of us got it at once, whereas we'd spend forever getting one of us the last two "common" items.
It's in groups in particular that the "get X items" quests are obnoxious. Personally I think all quest items should be multi-drop.
That's a fantastic idea. The global LFG channel was obnoxious, but at least it functioned. The new tool is practically worthless. It's better to just go to the zone with the instance/nearest capital city and ask in general chat.
They should definitely implement your idea, and then make it so that auto-join/auto-invite is not enabled by default.
killing monsters to collect X number of items. That particular kind of quest has to be the most tedious and absolutely frustrating quest available. I read the interview with the Warhammer Online team and they seem to have gotten it right. In their game, if you go on a quest like that, then EVERY SINGLE MONSTER that you have to kill will drop the item you need to collect.
Well at that point it's no different than the "kill X monsters", uh, not that "kill an unknown number of monsters to get X items" is really "different".
One thing I like about BC is that so far the drop rates of all the quest items have been fairly high. I have dropped quests like a bad habit when I realised that I was going to have to kill a ridiculous number of enemies to get a few items. I remember one very bad one in Hillsbrad where I had to collect tokens from farmers, and after killing about 20 I had one token, and I had to collect some 20-30 total. Uh, screw that I said.
The problem comes in when the quest is part of a chain -- a fact that you may not know from looking at the quest itself, which is another complaint. The follow-ons may be easier, have good loot, or take you to an instance. Without looking the quests up online, you would never know.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, but that's irrelevent. I assumed you were using "violation" and "infringement" interchangeably. Now I see that your whole argument was baseless to begin with, since only by conflating DMCA violation with Copyright Infringement were you able to have a point.
Fantastic! Then I should be able to wrap this up neatly:
1) Violating the access control provisions of the DMCA is not Copyright Infringement -- mutually agreed.
2) Fair Use is a defense only against Copyright Infringement -- U.S. Code Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107: "Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."
3) Fair Use is not a defense against DMCA access control provision violations -- by (1) and (2)
Q.E.D.
You certainly did! Prepare to get pwned by the power of Google!
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=61839&thr
"Which is exactly what the GPL does implicitly by stating that "by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so." I'd like to see you install something without modifying it."
Okay, you said "modify" not "copy", but essentially the same baseless argument.
I know it isn't really relevent since I've already proven you wrong. It was still funny seeing how you used very similar word games to make it look like you had a point there, too, only to have it evaporate.
It wasn't raised in the case because copyright infringement wasn't in the case! Fair use defenses would not apply because there is no fair use defense against things that aren't copyright infringement!
That's exactly the point. It was a DMCA case that was prosecuted without any instance of copyright infringement being alleged.
Did you know that fair use didn't come up once in Timothy McVeigh's trial? I guess the jury is still out on whether fair use is a valid defense against murder.
I assumed at first that they were referring to the control interface and using the Sixaxis controller's motion sensing ability. Which on the one hand would be good, get a more immersive experience by bludgeoning hookers. But then I remembered that this is Rockstar, the guys who came up with the control scheme in GTA, so "natural" would be the last term applied to it. They'd have you jerking the controller up and down to shoot your weapon while on foot, but you'd have to spin it around your head to do the same thing while driving, unless it was a motorcycle and then spinning it around your head would make you pop wheelies.
I believe the point of attacking America isn't to kill Americans. It is to change our way of life. They have done that by attacking us on our own soil.
Yes, they turned us into the frightened hateful warmongers that all their propaganda said we were. Again, the reason they don't have to attack us again is because we gave them exactly what they wanted.
As for no need to attack the US directly since we have made it so easy to attack us abroad, isn't that a good thing? Keep the battle off our soil?
Uh, I wouldn't call one one attack every eight years a "battle". This is exactly the kind of crazy-stupid illogical thinking that led us to attack Iraq as part of the War on Terror. What, you think that if we didn't invade Iraq, that we'd be facing exactly the same degree of warfare over here? Are you really that crazy-stupid?
We have created a net increase in the amount of battle going on in the world. Some would consider that a bad thing. If the tradeoff was attacks in the U.S. that killed between 6 and 3,000 people every 8 years (average: 375/yr) then I'd say that was a good idea.
The analogy that we are the giant lured from our own land is totally rediculous.
That's a weird way to spell "apt". But hey, let's just keep getting beat up in Iraq, a land we don't understand and can't blend into so we're constantly harrassed by insurgents, losing people, money, and influence every day. It isn't an analogy, it's a strategy, and it's working perfectly for our enemies.
As for killing innocents, that is only a rule that the US and Israel must follow, or apologize to hell for should someone "innocent" die. Terrorists kill innocents the majority of the time. They TARGET innocents.
WRONG! It is not a rule the US must follow, it is a REALITY that the US thinks it can absolve itself from. Everyone knows that when you kill innocents, the survivors will hate you. Al Qaeda knows they're fucking hated by every Shia (and many Sunni) in Iraq, but they don't care. Pratical countries like Israel or Russia just deal with the fact. The U.S. is the only one who thinks that the survivors should love us even though we killed innocents, because we're the good guys! The U.S. is the one who thought that the people of Iraq would thank us for bombing them! It's insane.
You really want to prove how morally superior the U.S. is? Do you believe that we are? Well I do to, but the only thing that can possibly show this is actions. So how about this: When terrorists kill innocents, we don't kill any innocents in return. I know it sounds crazy -- what, don't lash out randomly in a blind rage when someone hurts you? -- but I think it would work.
But that's ok, cause if we stick our heads in the sand maybe it won't be us that gets attacked. Unfortunately for you, it was us.
You aren't paying attention. If you follow what I'm saying, I'm saying that if we ignored the terrorists, if we stopped invading Arab nations in the name of terror, then we WOULD be attacked again. If we stopped giving the terrorists exactly what they wanted in response to 9/11, then it would be worth their while to attempt to do it again and get the crazy-stupid behavior that we've been showing for the last 5 years.
So when that happens, you have to ask yourself: Are you going to give the terrorists what they want? Are you going to dance to their tune? Are you going to become, once again, that which they say you are?
And the blame for all our actions, right or wrong, is the fault of the terrorists.
Well, you could certainly call the invasion of Iraq an effect of the terrorists' actions, for sure. Yet I don't think you're going to win any hearts and minds in Sadr City by telling them that soldiers are shooting at them because of Osama bin Laden.
I think background radiation will be one of its main reasons it will fail for a CPU and RAM. With a structure 1 atom thick there is no room for failure. Either an atom exists or it doesn't. Knock an atom out of place then it fails. With a conventional transistor as its bulk material all that happens is it degrades its performance but it can take it (most of the time).
That's true, and actually with current silicon device sizes a single alpha particle strike has the possibility of flipping a bit in an SRAM. This is one part of why NASA uses old cpus -- one of the simplest methods of radiation hardening is to simply use larger structures that require a larger amount of energy to change state. Then they add more shielding and such on top of course.
Yep, those are all realistic concerns and issues that must be addressed before this will really become a silicon killer.
At the same time, look at the amazing technology that goes into producing silicon chips today. Something that seems ludicrous to mass produce today may just take a decade or so of process and manufacturing technology advancements. On the other hand more research will also probably give silicon a longer life than what anyone predicts (since the death of the silicon CMOSFET has been predicted for decades).
So I agree, what comes in the future will be interesting.
The primary difference that I see if Gore had been president instead of Bush is that we would not have gone into Iraq. Afghanistan was the "you must do something about this attack now, damnit!" war. Iraq was the wet dream of the neo-cons.
In 2000 I didn't see any significant difference between the two. In 2007, with hindsight, even just the difference of Iraq vs no Iraq is huge. Think if we could have been devoting all our effort to Afghanistan these past years.
Why is it that there seems to be two responses from these anti-Bush/anti-patriot act groups? "Terror laws don't work" where as the last full scale terror attack on our country was 5 years ago. The second response is usually "Well the world hates us" and you look again and there hasn't been an attack on US soil since 9/11. So why hasn't terrorism reigned supreme here if everyone hates us and Homeland security isn't working? We aren't fighting the three stogies here.
Well the last attack by foreign terrorists on US soil before 9/11 was in 1993, so eight years. Clearly the policies initiated after 9/11 were not necessary to provide 8 years of no attacks. Arguing that 5 years of no attacks since in any way validates those policies is the most falacious of reasoning.
And why have attacks not been more frequent? Well first there is the planning involved -- again, 8 years between the failed WTC bombing and 9/11. And more importantly, since 9/11 there has been no need to attack the US on its own soil!
Let me make this as clear as possible: Afghanistan and Iraq have caused more harm to the United States that a hundred attacks like 9/11. In response to 9/11, the U.S. did to itself more than al Qaeda could ever dream of doing just on its own capacities. Not only in material costs but in the all-important propaganda war. The credibility the US has lost in the last 5 years is a huge boon to our enemies. Our status as world leader is
It's a classic strategy, and the same one used by Hezbollah against Israel. You can't effectively attack the giant on its home turf, so you poke at it to enrage it and lure it into your home turf where the giant is at a disadvantage. In their attempts to stomp you out, the giant innevitably stomps on the innocent and thus further increases resentment of the giant. Two wins, military and PR, from one strategy.
The whole purpose of terrorism is to make your enemy crazy-stupid with fear. The U.S. is still behaving crazy-stupid, and paying for it. Why attack again? It would be a waste of resources; they are still getting everything from the one attack 5 years ago that they could hope to get from a new one. If we ever get our heads out of our asses, if we ever get people to think longer than "well no attacks it the last 5 years, so USAPATRIOT must work!", THEN maybe they'll see a need to attack us again.
It wasn't whether or not you were watching DVDs on Linux, but whether you were breaking the law by doing so.
Sorry, I thought you were asking something that the post you replied to hadn't already stated plainly.
So there is a contradiction, and it comes down to which part overrides the other. Since the part about fair use explicitly references the rest of the DMCA, I'd say it's pretty obvious that part overrides the other parts: "Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title."
There's no contradiction at all. Fair use is a valid defense against copyright infringement, but it is not a valid defense against circumventing an access control because circumventing an access control is not copyright infringement. Describing how to circumvent an access control is not copyright infringement. It is a new, separate crime created by the DMCA. At no point does the actual creation of an unauthorized copy, public performance, or other copyright violations have to come into play for the actions defined by the DMCA to be illegal.
Violating the DMCA is a copyright violation.
No, it isn't, and I challenge you to show the language that says it is. Breaking an access control mechanism is a crime unto itself, separate from copyright. You're argument is akin to arguing that a defense against theft is a defense against B&E since B&E is theft. No, B&E is a separate crime, one that is often applied on top of theft but can also be charged separately if theft cannot be proven but B&E can. Similarly, you can violate a provision of the DMCA without comitting copyright infringement.
I have a real hard time believing that you really think Sec. 1201 which says "No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that-- `(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological protection measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;" is talking about copyright infringement. How is manufacturing such a device an act of copyright infringement? It isn't. The only copyright work involved is one that the device could hypothetically be used to acces. It is, however, a crime to manufacture such a device. In Sony vs Filipak exactly this came up, and Filipak lost despite not actually violating copyright. Their devices violated the DMCA.
But speed limits can be enforced to some extent
Many things, including the DMCA, can be enforced to some extent, it's just obviously difficult to prove that someone at some point broke an access control. Many things, including speed limits or jay walking, are as a practical matter not strictly enforced because they're hard to prove without an officer of the law standing there watching you do it. Depending on where you go, e.g. Montana interstates, they may not be enforced to any significant extent. Enforcement is really irrelevent to the question of legality. An impossible to enforce law may be a bad law, but it is still law.
If you want to keep the speeding analogy though, would you complain that it's illegal to rush your
Not sure where you were going, but it sounds like you're going to ask me something irrelevent, like "such and such is illegal, do you mind?" Maybe, maybe not, either way it has nothing to do with the question of what the DMCA does or does not make illegal. If they made wearing orange socks illegal I would complain, they probably couldn't enforce it either, but it would still be illegal.
I'm sorry, but until you show me some shred of evidence that the DMCA makes it illegal to watch DVDs using Linux, I'm not going to buy it.
You know I seem to remember you arguing that you had to accept the GPL to run free software because the act of running the program created
Are you doing so now?
Assuming you don't mean right now, fucking of course I am. It's a ludicrous law, and I will not respect it. I bought the fucking DVD, I'm going to watch it and not feel guilty. I also occasionally travel in my motor vehicle above the posted speed limit, should I feel the safety considerations allow for it, and that's pretty well established in case law as illegal I would say. Just call me a rebel.
The problem is, I bet you can't come up with a single instance of someone who was convicted or even charged with copyright infringement simply because they watched a DVD on their computer. You can't point out how crazy a law is by making up a hypothetical situation and then claiming that the law covers it. The DMCA says quite plainly that it does not affect fair use. If you want to claim otherwise, the burden is on you to prove that your interpretation is correct.
The DMCA also says quite plainly that breaking an access control without permission is a crime regardless of whether or not you subsequently violate copyright. The DMCA makes criminal things that have nothing to do with copyright violation.
It can't be enforced, just like speed limits can't beyond a limited extent, but it's still a criminal act. I may speed, but I don't flaunt it in front of the cops. If you're going to tell me something is legal, when there are penalties for an incorrect interpretation of the law, then I'm sorry but it's you who hold the burden of proof.
You mean like they are now.. because of the other drugs that are prohibited?
;)
They've done a better job of stigmatizing those drugs than they did with alcohol and pushing the users underground, and organized crime isn't quite so prevelent. Though to get at the real reason, I'll have to steal from Bill Hicks by saying: Ever notice how the drugs that are legal, like alcohol and cigarettes, are the ones that do absolutely nothing for you, while the ones that can expand your mind like LSD are banned? It's almost like they want to keep us sick and stupid instead of having us wake up and realize how badly we're being screwed...
The problem is that, certainly from the point of view of the consumer, PS3 isn't anything new. It's a PS2 with a few generations of silicon advancements incorporated, just like the Xbox 360 is an Xbox with newer silicon. Oh, and better online support and other minor tech, but it's still fundamentally more of the same.
Cell doesn't bring anything to the table but the possibility of more MIPS. As a computer architect, more MIPS is of course interesting to me, and the particulars of how the Cell works are fascinating. As a gamer, it's just more MIPS. Just like the Xbox 360 is more MIPS. That's no more a "new direction" than the PS2 was when it was released. It's the same direction, just trudging along Moore's Law silicon improvements and little else changes. The only difference is that Sony jumped out further ahead on the technology curve this time, getting something new and paying a price premium for it. Riding the bleeding edge is great if you are a hardcore gamer who buys Alienware boxes, but it is a terrible place to be for what is supposedly a mass-market consumer electronic device.
BluRay is the same deal -- all it really does is offer more storage. New direction? PS1 was CD, PS2 was DVD, PS3 is bigger DVD. Sounds like more of the same to me. Yet unlike CD with PS1 or DVD with PS2, BluRay is brand-new technology and thus much more expensive than a more established technology would be, and this is a premium the consumer is paying for.
The fact is that both Microsoft and Sony are greedy, and neither is trying anything new. Both are operating under the "same as before * Moore's Law improvement ratio" scheme of simply pursuing more performance. Sony thought they could beat MS by jumping out ahead on the curve, hoping consumers would be willing to pay the price premium for that decision. They also thought they could leverage the PS3 into victory for BluRay over HD-DVD, again charging consumers for that decision. Going faster down the same path is not the same as a change of direction. The only difference between MS and Sony this generation is that Microsoft executed on the bog-standard console game plan more intelligently than Sony did.
The only one actually trying anything different this generation is Nintendo. Which I'm grateful for, because the Gamecube was essentially the same as the PS2 and Xbox, a "me too" bog-standard console upgrade if ever there was one. It was N's worst console. Now they're back where they were from the NES to N64 days, as leaders and definers of industry standards. Whether it works for them or not, if you really want to give credit to those trying a new path, there is nobody to pick but Nintendo.
maybe back in the early 20th century politicians actually cared more about their constituants than their contributors? i don't know. but the whole "if enough of us do it, it will become legal" strategy doesn't seem to be working anymore.
I'm not an expert on the subject and it isn't entirely clear to me why prohibition ended. I do think the negative effects of prohibition -- e.g. entire cities falling under the sway of organized crime -- was more severe and certainly more obvious than the rather ephemeral harm of my not being able to legally watch DVDs on my Ubuntu box. The violation of the law was more blatant -- Speakeasys were prolific, and they were social, so you were basically surrounded by fellow law breakers. Copyright violation is more private, more furtive.
One difference I'm sure of is that with music, we aren't going outside the normal sources to get what we want. We're getting it illegally, but what we are consuming is still the mainstream media. During prohibition people just went to illegal sources for booze, so the huge alcohol-related economy was happening entirely outside of traditional (taxable) avenues. Here, while piracy may mean somewhat fewer sales for the studios (and arguably it means the opposite), the fact is that the majority of people still get their music by giving money to RIAA studios. If we responded to laws like the DMCA by going to completely separate sources of music, ones that didn't feel a need to treat us like criminals, then we would definitely have an effect. This is happening already, but it is slow and not guaranteed to end with the death of the RIAA. Yet if it does, then we might see a reaction more like that at the end of prohibition, with the Big Money seeing their Money going someplace else and not liking it.
Basically what I'm suggesting is that the DMCA will be repealed when, practically speaking, it is completely irrelevent.
Tener no es feriar. Tu ingles esta roto?
Our society has come to tolerate the idea that arguing to win is the only thing that is important.
Aren't you worried that you're coming to embody that idea?
You have valid points, but my original idea was that such sensationalism is bad even if a part of your message is accurate.
And a message can be accurate even if it is sensational. It goes both ways. You accept that the GP has valid points, but can you accept that the group in question also has valid points -- specifically that many parents are not aware of what the Wii is capable of, and should be educated so that they can decide what to do, including using the parental controls that they also may not be aware of? Or must you argue to win, and completely deny any legitimacy to your opponent even though it doesn't make sense to do so?
Frankly I see most of the sensationalism coming from the Kotaku article, but I also see that as trained conditioning to a world in which Jack Thompson and people like him will decry video games themselves as the finger of Satan diddling your kids. Does that sensationalism thus mean that we should not be cautious of these Christian activism groups?
Would I still be breaking the law every time I play a legally purchased DVD on my Linux-based computer using decss-derived software?
It sounds like it. It sounds like the bill wouldn't even allow you to play a DRM-encumbered CD, unless the DRM was a Sony rootkit or other security problem. Lame.
Though on the other hand, being able to say "I am breaking the law every time I watch a DVD on my computer" is a simple and clear way to demonstrate how crazy copyright has become by outlawing what is so obviously ethical behavior. Since I will still be able to say that should this bill be passed, I have an equally simple way of expressing how copyright law is still screwed up, and how this bill completely failed to fix it.
Much better than having it partially fix the main problem so that it still isn't adequate, but becomes harder to explain. To put it another way: If you're going to suck, suck hard, so the slurping noise gives you away.
Now if we could find something that kills off English sparrows and starlings in large numbers. Honeybees at least provide honey, but nobody can think of anything that those two kinds of birds are good for.
Target practice! At least in Michigan, and at least according to my memory, those two were the only birds that you could kill indiscriminately. Starlings are better target practice, since they're bigger and more difficult to confuse with native birds that you could get in trouble for shooting.
Why can't we have socialism for the little guy? Why is it always handouts for the ones that need them the least?
Well for the ones that really do suffer from this little piece of apparent hypocrisy, it's the very idea of handouts going to the poor that irks them.
It's why you'll hear this type of person rail against the idea of public healthcare, because they don't want to pay for someone else's health care. Yet they'll buy insurance, and do exactly that. The difference? With insurance, everyone else has paid the premiums too, so you at least know your money is going to help someone who is your economic equal.
This mentality is at its worst in the upper levels of corporations and government. They will see no hypocrisy in lobbying for and receiving tax breaks, tarrifs, or whatever other handouts while lobbying against anything that benefits the truly needy. Because business is good, poor people are bad. Helping business financially is good (spurs entrepeneurship!), helping poor people financially is bad (spurs depedence!).
Not to imply that being against handouts for the poor implies this kind of hypocrisy; there are valid reasons too. It's just this kind of hypocrisy is rampant and insulting.
Of course this is pretty off-topic. But there's not much to say about the topic itself except: Boo-fucking-hoo.
It doesn't matter. That's the point - a battleship that can only go in circles at 1/4 surface speed while involved in a battle is completely and utterly useless for all practical purposes.
Yes, obviously the rudder of a ship is a tremendous weak point inherent in pretty much all designs. No matter how well designed the Bismark and whether it's other systems continued to work, taking out the ability to steer was crippling to the vessel. This is trivial.
The point is to have as few such weak spots as possible.
What we're talking about is an entire ship being crippled because there was an unecessary weak spot introduced in a non-critical subsystem, such that when that system failed it caused failures in many other systems. This is why they try to design the ship so that the fuel, ammunition, engines, etc are as separate as possible so a blow to one doesn't take out all the rest. These are all weaknesses, some essential, others maybe not so like with the dangers posed by ammo explosions, which rail guns are in part a solution for. Badly designed computer systems where a minor failure in a non-critical subsystem causes failures across every computer system on the ship should not be considered an essential weakness.
So yes, you can effectively disable a ship by destroying the rudder, the engine, the flight deck of an air craft carrier, or by splitting the ship in half with a single cut of a huge laser, the kind that's so awesome it seems to take the ship a few seconds just to realize that it's been cut in half. None of those facts are an excuse for the ship being effectively disabled by a toilet backing up.
It's a simple point, and arguing that being crippled by damage to the rudder is comparable to being crippled because your software couldn't handle a single divide by zero is to completely miss it.
Not to be an ass or anything, but what is worth watching OTA? Heroes, Family Guy, and The Simpsons are the only things that come to mind.
:P), and best of all it is free. If I paid for cable/dish I'd have to justify the expense by having lots of shows to watch, and barring the obvious candidates on Comedy Central and Cartoon Network, I'm just not convinced that those shows are there. So instead I get a moderate amount of quality TV for free. What's the problem?
And those are pretty much the only shows I actually watch, as in make an effort to see. There's a half dozen other shows that are entertaining if the TV happens to be on when they come on. Studio 60, Lost (mostly because of its crazy-ridiculous plot), Numb3rs (though it's getting worse season to season), Supernatural, and uh... that's all I can think of.
And what's wrong with that? With only three shows, I don't waste a lot of time in front of the boob toob (meaning more time for WoW
Oh, right, if I'm going to only have 3 shows I watch then there isn't much sense in buying an HDTV and an HD Tuner. Oh well.
Seriously though, I think the set of people who watch OTA progamming is one of the least likely to spring for an HDTV, which is why I find the whole discussion sort of funny.
Who said anything about problems? It's just consistant and i don't mind consistancy. But do you mean that in Ruby constructors aren't called automagically and are handled explicitly by the programmer? That'd be a difference. Otherwise, C++ doesn't have particularly special syntax for constructors and it isn't a "problem", but neither would it be a problem if they did.
Because they brought the technology from their society that didn't have to develop in that environment, obviously.
And it wasn't an Xbox 360; it was a Wii. Once its fan failed, even 20 watts was too much for the heat sink alone to dissipate, and it turned itself off after 30 minutes.
My Gamecube died the same way after 5 years. It didn't shut itself off, it just started crashing. Didn't take long to figure out why. I think it suffered some damage (partly because I tried using a box fan next to the intake opening as a low-rent replacement so that I could finish a boss fight in Baten Kaitos... too bad it didn't last long enough to get to a save point), because after I replaced the fan it suffered from disk read failures and it never had before the fan failed.
Sucks that your fan in your Wii would die so soon. I hope it turning itself off means it will still work when the fan is replaced -- not important when its under warranty, but at the 5 year mark.
The quests where you're trying to find -one- random drop are a little different, because the drop rate obviously isn't going to be very high so you could really get screwed by the RNG. At least it's one item. If you have to collect a few dozen items, and the drop rate is still low, then that's just ridiculous.
One nice thing they have done is that usually when you're looking for one rare item it's multi-drop, so everyone in your party can loot it. I've duoed quests where it's "find X common items and 1 really rare item" and been done with the 1 rare item much earlier because both of us got it at once, whereas we'd spend forever getting one of us the last two "common" items.
It's in groups in particular that the "get X items" quests are obnoxious. Personally I think all quest items should be multi-drop.
That's a fantastic idea. The global LFG channel was obnoxious, but at least it functioned. The new tool is practically worthless. It's better to just go to the zone with the instance/nearest capital city and ask in general chat.
They should definitely implement your idea, and then make it so that auto-join/auto-invite is not enabled by default.
killing monsters to collect X number of items. That particular kind of quest has to be the most tedious and absolutely frustrating quest available. I read the interview with the Warhammer Online team and they seem to have gotten it right. In their game, if you go on a quest like that, then EVERY SINGLE MONSTER that you have to kill will drop the item you need to collect.
Well at that point it's no different than the "kill X monsters", uh, not that "kill an unknown number of monsters to get X items" is really "different".
One thing I like about BC is that so far the drop rates of all the quest items have been fairly high. I have dropped quests like a bad habit when I realised that I was going to have to kill a ridiculous number of enemies to get a few items. I remember one very bad one in Hillsbrad where I had to collect tokens from farmers, and after killing about 20 I had one token, and I had to collect some 20-30 total. Uh, screw that I said.
The problem comes in when the quest is part of a chain -- a fact that you may not know from looking at the quest itself, which is another complaint. The follow-ons may be easier, have good loot, or take you to an instance. Without looking the quests up online, you would never know.