If you have games for several different emulated platforms, each emulator will need it set up once. In addition, each native PC game supporting gamepads will need it set up once.
I summed this up in my previous post, you can pick convenience or choice. You seem to be against the choice of using your desired input method, why? If people want convenience they have it (why not simply use an original system, best of both worlds, authentic control and convenience of things just working!) I think options are a good thing and the emulation scene is bigger than ever with more games, more emulators, more people interested.
I own an Xbox 360 Controller and have found its directional pad imprecise compared to Nintendo 64 and PlayStation controllers run through adapters, and I seem to remember other reviewers agreeing with me.
It's a valid observation and I've encountered this as well. At least there is an option of using the N64 controller on a PC unlike the Wii.
Did the defendants in Sony v. Tenenbaum and Capitol v. Thomas-Rasset like free?
Must be why The Pirate Bay is not a popular site any longer?
XInput works only with the Xbox 360 Controller on Windows operating systems
I was under the impression that building a business around providing "an old modded XBOX" to customers would get one arrested under anti-circumvention statutes.
Who said anything about building a business? I thought we were discussing playing games many people may have already purchased (especially if you're 30+) and I'm recommending using things most people already have or can acquire cheaply. Not everyone wants or needs to buy a Wii just to play old games when they've got something around the house which'll do the job.
I was under the impression that Nintendo tended to avoid "emulation" in marketing materials for Virtual Console so as to distance Virtual Console from community-made emulators that rely on (usually illegally traded) ROM images.
Regardless if they call it one or not it remains a software based emulator. It's unfortunate the duration of copyright otherwise these (arguably classic) games might be in the public domain.
Emulators can't tell in general which button is in which position on each brand of controller or adapter [pineight.com]. This means the user has to set up the button mappings for each PC game or emulator. I'm told people don't have much patience to set up in every single game or every single emulator, and that's why they use official emulators on consoles.
Even the official emulators have problems with control schemes for multiple platforms (Virtual Console supports multiple platforms, although, not as many as the PC). You have preconceived notions about how Emulators work but your scenario isn't based in reality. Fortunately one doesn't need to keep remapping things per game, once configured for the emulator the profile works for all games loaded. For newer titles Xinput handles things automagically. Most people turn to Google or Youtube when they need answers, and there are plenty of helpful people out there with easy to follow instructions for those not savvy enough to navigate the emulator options on their own.
All Virtual Console games have their buttons mapped to the respective buttons on the controllers, however, in certain circumstances users can use X and Y instead of A and B, if the original controller does not have X and Y buttons (for example the NES).[40] In certain titles, such as Nintendo 64 games, there may be specific controls tailored to the Classic Controller or GameCube Controller. Nintendo 64 titles that originally provided force feedback via the Nintendo 64 controller's Rumble Pak peripheral however, are not supported by the built-in "Rumble" feature of the GameCube controller despite its capability of doing so.
The button mapping has become the cause of problem and concern, however. The button mapping is rigid and is not customizable. Because of this, many games are difficult to play. All Neo Geo fighting games have very awkward control schemes and glitches when changed to GameCube controllers. Nintendo has acknowledged this issue but has not put any efforts towards fixing it. (wiki source)
Pick your poison, Virtual Console with no setup, known awkward controls, and the joy of (re)buying titles OR some setup, excellent controls (especially if you already have originals, also working rumble!), and no out of pocket for titles. People seem to like "free." At least there are options out there, ultimately nothing compares to the authentic experience.
In addition, a console is more likely to have a case designed to fit in well next to a television (as opposed to a typical tower PC case), which is important if a game uses offline multiplayer.
Very true. I'd recommend something like an old modded XBOX which lets you rock nearly every emulator and as a bonus sits right next to your TV. One downside is a console also requires an additional investment.
From where I sit, he should be given the benefit of the doubt unless and until he's convicted of a crime.
You're a fair person, unfortunately, the court of public opinion is merciless, see OJ Simpson or Casey Anthony. This is also why Jurors are not allowed media access and are instructed to make decisions based upon the law, evidence, and arguments. It's not perfect but its better than the other systems we've tried. Doesn't exactly instill confidence does it?
It seems to me that this guy deserves the same protections under the law that I would like to have in a similar situation. Whether he was encouraging and/or profiting from copyright infringement (which, IMHO, should be a civil not a criminal matter) or not is irrelevant.
It's always at least a civil matter, however it may become criminal if a . Section 501(b) of the Copyright Act details the mechanisms by which an owner of a copyright may file a civil suit
However, under certain circumstances, it may also be a federal crime. Section 506a of the Copyright Act provides that copyright infringement is subject to criminal prosecution if infringement is willful and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain. If the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution, during any 180-day period, of 10 or more copies having a retail value of more than $2,500, the offense is a felony; otherwise, the offense is a misdemeanor.
Copyright infringement is a strict liability offense. That means, you don't actually have to know you're infringing in order to be guilty of infringement. As they say, "Ignorance of the law is no defense".
Liability for copyright infringement isn't necessarily limited to the direct infringer. One who, with knowledge of the infringing activity, induces, causes, or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another, may be held liable as a 'contributory infringer'. One who has the right and ability to supervise the infringing activity and who also has a direct financial interest in the activity, may be held liable as a 'vicarious infringer'.
The DOJ shut him down and seized his assets, destroying his business (and that of an uncounted number of perfectly legitimate people who used his service and didn't bother to retain back ups) without the evidence required to take him to trial and convict him. That's just wrong.
The collateral damage is unfortunate, and they are right to be upset, ultimately it was their choice to use the service and not to keep backups; Just as much as it was Megaupload's choice to operate their business the way they did. This underlines the importance of keeping backups in a safe place. The DOJ does have evidence, what has bungled matters is how things were handled by the New Zealand government. They royally screwed up at multiple levels.
How would you like it if jack-booted thugs came to your business, removed the tools of your trade, seized your bank accounts and had you thrown in jail without having the evidence needed to convict you?
It wouldn't be any fun. I wouldn't say its fun if its your work out there either, guess you can view it as free advertising and hope for the best. Needless to say I wouldn't operate a business which involves my organization paying users for ultimately uploading files which haven't been reviewed (think a site like 4chan and advertising money). I've hosted websites but they're not hosting 3rd party content without a license nor am I paying users of the site so it's a little different. Before a conviction can happen he needs to be extradited. If there is legislation voted for by the people New Zealand that allows extradition for what he is being charged for and there
You are aware that BSD software is free and you're commenting on a paid Free Software Developer's post? Might be you're reading too deeply into what he's saying, the sentence which directly follows the line you have an issue with elaborates on this:
people work on free software for love, and they work on the hard problems and productization [sic] in exchange for money, since no one is going to do scut work for free unless they're a masochist
Most of the heavy lifting in software revolves around paid developers because they're working on highly specialized things. He mentions that his project specifically was not free for commercial use to cover the cost of development; He is working on free software and being paid. If they're getting paid then they're not spending "10 years of their free time neglecting their families so that all this stuff could be free, but no one really wants to be that idiot" 10 years of your time on something that you're not compensated for is arguably idiotic if its to the detriment of your family (not just talking software here, "Where was your Dad/Mom when you were growing up?" "He was never home")
Please point me at the jury verdict or court ruling that MegaUpload and/or Kim Dotcom was engaged in illegal activities.
There is plenty of evidence, perhaps you're aware of the ~500 servers on US soil which were involved. The mess in New Zealand relating to warrants and seizures is the result of incompetence. The seizures in the US were done with evidence. Nearly every site out there has Terms of Service which forbid certain uses, plus as a business you wont get very far with a defense along the lines of I didn't know it was illegal. Part of operating a successful business is knowing what is legal where you have a business presence. It's a little different when the business model is based around knowingly engaging in these behaviors, especially to the tune of millions of dollars. It's not like Kim is spotless, he's a history of embezzlement and fraud. That's a red flag for any business dealings, were you born yesterday, or did you lose access to some files you didn't make a backup of like their service explicitly told you to?
I know that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing is just so darn inconvenient.
The presumption of innocence is how it works within the courts, where the accused is presumed innocent until the government meets the highest burden of proof known in American law: proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a moral certainty. As an individual you're allowed right or wrong to think as you like.
In most EU countries, higher education is either free or cheap. That makes it available to practically everyone, which makes the EU countries the true lands of equal opportunity.
Spoken like someone who doesn't live there and is speaking from the outside. Education is not free, it's paid for by taxes - which Europe has no lack of and are far from cheap. If you think Europe is a bastion of opportunity and equality you're sorely mistaken. Racism and Nationalism are alive and well, if you're an outsider you will forever be a foreigner there. Look at France, Germany, Norway.
All countries have their faults, this isn't some broad claim that Europe should be avoided, far from it. This is like someone misunderstanding the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit.
Ignorant? I know plenty of people whose actions fit this description. Be they a mechanic who works late, an artist who is trying to make a name for themselves, or a developer who is passionate. When you're on your deathbed will you lament that you wished you would've worked more to your family?
On the other hand, Nintendo's Wii Shop Channel has the Virtual Console categories with officially emulated games dating back to the fourth quarter of 1985 when the NES was released.
That's pretty amazing, especially if you aren't aware of emulation. Now, if you include emulators which run on the PC (there are titles that come bundled with dosbox so it's point and click, ready to go, available on Steam or GOG.com like Space Quest) you have pretty much all of the systems covered since gaming began. Use a USB controller adapter to enhance the experience with your actual contollers. Bummer you have to rebuy your titles, it would be very cool if you could easily uniquely identify cartridges and unlock what you've already purchased.
A 20-year library would include DOS games and Windows 3.1 games, and 64-bit Windows can't run those without an emulator.
But still, the whole argument that someone acting improperly on company time deserves punishment really only extends as far as reprimanding them, giving them a pay cut or demotion, or firing them.
Do you still feel this way if they were employed in the Military or worked for the state (Police Officer etc.)? What about someone who failed to secure a laptop with 1 million SSNs? There is such a thing as criminal negligence. HIPAA is very specific how it comes to handling data, in cases making the worker responsible for fines - not the organization alone. I realize this isn't a HIPAA issue.
As far as the level of criminal punishment these guys would/should get for this stunt? I'm of the opinion it's not extremely serious, actually. Stupid and immature? Sure... But on the scale of illegal activities, I think it really does rank among the minor issues. If these guys proceeded to leverage the photos to attempt to extort money from the woman, or started making money with a pay web site featuring "stolen cellphone nude pics" or something? Now THAT would take it to the next level. As it is, what we've got here is a woman who was really too careless or trusting with what she kept on her phone, handing it over to a couple guys who took advantage of the situation for kicks.
I agree with the criminal punishment being a bit much, fines would be more appropriate in this case. I'm against having people labeled as sex offenders for minor infractions (it waters down what it was intended to do - identify serious creeps). It's a bit ridiculous that human intervention is needed to facilitate copies since this is a solved problem. They have HD duplicators which are appliances, is it really such a leap to make exporting or syncing of data? Apple can do it easily.
If you want to criticize someone, please provide some arguments. Until then, the man did nothing bad. In fact, of the moderately rich people, he is one of the few that arrived to his riches with honest work.
Insider trading and embezzlement isn't honest work. To be clear we're not discussing moral behavior, but legal. Kim Dotcom's wiki page second sentence:
He rose to fame in Germany in the 1990s as a teenage internet tycoon, but was subsequently convicted of insider trading and embezzlement.
More on that is:
Kim was arrested for insider trading and embezzlement in 2003, he bought shares worth €375,000 of bankrupt company LetsBuyIt and announced that he would buy shares worth €50 Million more which led to the price of share to increase by 300%. Kim neither had the funds nor any intentions to buy more shares of LetsBuyIt and sold his shares worth €375,000. He was held guilty for insider trading and embezzlement case in November, 2003.
I'm not sure if you're aware how most of the far east works but if you look at diversity they're not full of immigrants. China has ~500,000 foreign nationals out of 1.2 billion people. Let's use another example, Japan. 1.6% of Japan's legal residents are foreign nationals. You're arguing that the 'outside world' is xenophobic of the East? Traditionally both of these countries have been isolationists and not exactly hospitable to "barbarians".
Ethnocentric view points are nothing new. Many cultures have tales of hermits, strangers, foreigners that are viewed with suspicion. Grossly simplified international politics can be likened to schoolyard behavior. Its not much a of a leap to see why xenophobia exists; fear of the unknown. An interesting article relating to racism in China which might be of interest.
But he isn't acting as an individual, he's a representative of the company, he was paid during this time. This occurred at a company location, with company equipment. There must be protocols for proper use which were not followed so the employee most likely knew better. If the company made and distributed unauthorized copies of data from your phone and even showed other customers, would you be so lenient had this been your wife/girlfriend/daughter/sister/mother? What if it was tax information?
Let me guess "It's nothing we haven't seen before!"
Honestly, I think PlusFiveTroll is right, old software will stay as long as physically possible, after which it will move to virtual machines.
I completely agree with this too. I've had success using a webcam through a VM which the host was unable to use because the vendor refuses to release new drivers.
Windows does it wrong, because they break compatibility with every version they release. Then again, that's their business model, and it's making them craploads of money.
Out of all of those operating systems Windows sucks the least (hear me out!). It runs more hardware, has more applications, and is supported far longer. Windows has the best backwards compatibility of any of the popular commercial operating systems out there. Lets see you run a binary from 1998 on a Mac today, Rosetta is being phased out and support for it is lacking in Lion, and not to mention they've switched architectures; or Linux for that matter, good luck piecing together ancient libraries. Your comment is more appropriate directed at their development tools. On the OS side Microsoft has steadily made improvements, most of the woes were from Microsoft enforcing good development practices, (example, see the "Store Application Data in the Correct Location", or Microsoft's general programming guidelines.) why do you think initially many applications required administrator access to run? Sloppy programmers.
The issue is that serious news gathering, in the old way, is expensive. Keeping a network of reporters distributed round the world in places where news events are liable to happen costs money.
I'd like to expand upon this point, many news organizations don't do expensive journalism. They use news stories from the wire (Associated Press) and unlike a newspaper, a news wire organization does not have its own product. Nearly every newspaper across the world is a member of the Associated Press. The AP, like Reuters and other wire services, supplies stories, photographs and photos to newspapers. Most newspapers can't afford to send reporter(s) overseas to cover a war or an economic summit, however the AP has employees who do just that. For most newspapers, the news wire is the "official" source. Nothing is "official" until AP or another news wire picks up the story.
In a nutshell: The wire reporter covers an event and writes about it, then story is filed and edited. After that, it is submitted (electronically) to member newspapers, who choose to print the story or not. The process also works in reverse. For example a reporter for a local newspaper covers an interesting event and sends it to AP, where the story is picked up and possibly sent to the national wire. Local television stations work their news in much the same way. Because a news wire reporter works for his organization and not for a particular newspaper, his coverage is considered more unbiased than a local reporter's coverage.
But as disruptive technologies like Twitter affect the way people consume news, the number of eyeballs on the output produced by those expensive journalistic networks is declining.
Disruptive to established players of an older medium, perhaps? Twitter redefines the roles of publishers, much like blogging, and even YouTube. Why don't we just say the Internet? The Internet enables anyone to become a publisher. Regardless of the medium shouldn't this underline the value of quality content? There are good blogs and bad blogs (referring to informative quality) on a variety of topics. This leads into another point, value. For many price is the single biggest motivating factor in a purchase decision. Price is not the end all be all, but look at cheap import products for a physical analogy. Quality exists but it is at a premium. For many the cheap goods fulfill the role adequately. Conversely there are subscription services available which cater to different audiences much like "expensive" niche goods.
Perhaps the dissatisfaction of paying subscribers or even visitors to traditional news sites is due to people being turned off by bias and agendas which is represented as quality journalism? The demographic which only has a computer at work is shrinking. More eyeballs than ever are coming online everyday with mobile devices. Eyeballs are good, conversions into sales are even better. Besides simply getting the word out Advertisers make money for their clients by bringing in business, this means (typically) understanding your market and knowing where to reach the buyers. Advertising networks deal with market segments, so it's not like everyone deals with the papers/magazines/sites directly.
For example let's take Facebook which has many eyeballs and a company with lots of money, General Motors. They're not as inept as you might believe, GM Spends $1.8 Billion USD annually on advertising. According to GM Facebook's user base doesn't seem to be that interested in buying cars from advertisements. Conversely, look at how effective Amazon is, especially with regards to related products (targeted advertisements).
Also sitting in a seat without break for 8 hours isn't very healthy either.
There are mandated breaks, usually two 10-15 minute breaks and a lunch break. That breaks your day up into 2 hour segments. How about get what you need done on your own time?
Actually, given the US's history, the proper recourse should be...
Let's turn this around. How would the country of origin handle illegal immigration? Let's take a close neighbor, Mexico, it's not like they would they spend $100 million flying people back.
I don't think it's right if you get caught committing a crime that it should be rewarded. You're advocating granting citizenship (or a greencard) ahead of anyone who is 'on the waiting list' who's following the rules? The only people who like waiting seem to be the Star Wars / Trek / LotR fans....
Paying taxes, of course, are optional as an American, as it is considered patriotic not to pay them, or 'in your best interests' to pay them; the choice is yours.
Most other countries require you to be a productive member of society. If you don't have any money, any education, or anything to really offer, most countries won't let you in. Why is that?
Blizzard is not a healthcare provider to their customers (they're arguably detrimental to physical activity wouldn't you say?) and is not subject to HIPPA guidelines for any of their gaming services.
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If you have games for several different emulated platforms, each emulator will need it set up once. In addition, each native PC game supporting gamepads will need it set up once.
I summed this up in my previous post, you can pick convenience or choice. You seem to be against the choice of using your desired input method, why? If people want convenience they have it (why not simply use an original system, best of both worlds, authentic control and convenience of things just working!) I think options are a good thing and the emulation scene is bigger than ever with more games, more emulators, more people interested.
I own an Xbox 360 Controller and have found its directional pad imprecise compared to Nintendo 64 and PlayStation controllers run through adapters, and I seem to remember other reviewers agreeing with me.
It's a valid observation and I've encountered this as well. At least there is an option of using the N64 controller on a PC unlike the Wii.
Did the defendants in Sony v. Tenenbaum and Capitol v. Thomas-Rasset like free?
Must be why The Pirate Bay is not a popular site any longer?
XInput works only with the Xbox 360 Controller on Windows operating systems
Windows is what 90% of people run, especially if you're a gamer, and the Xbox 360 controller is one of the most popular PC gaming input methods. Your argument is about convenience, Xinput makes things pretty convenient. Here is a nice list of emulators including pictures of getting them to work with Xbox 360 controller.
I was under the impression that building a business around providing "an old modded XBOX" to customers would get one arrested under anti-circumvention statutes.
Who said anything about building a business? I thought we were discussing playing games many people may have already purchased (especially if you're 30+) and I'm recommending using things most people already have or can acquire cheaply. Not everyone wants or needs to buy a Wii just to play old games when they've got something around the house which'll do the job.
I was under the impression that Nintendo tended to avoid "emulation" in marketing materials for Virtual Console so as to distance Virtual Console from community-made emulators that rely on (usually illegally traded) ROM images.
Regardless if they call it one or not it remains a software based emulator. It's unfortunate the duration of copyright otherwise these (arguably classic) games might be in the public domain.
Emulators can't tell in general which button is in which position on each brand of controller or adapter [pineight.com]. This means the user has to set up the button mappings for each PC game or emulator. I'm told people don't have much patience to set up in every single game or every single emulator, and that's why they use official emulators on consoles.
Even the official emulators have problems with control schemes for multiple platforms (Virtual Console supports multiple platforms, although, not as many as the PC). You have preconceived notions about how Emulators work but your scenario isn't based in reality. Fortunately one doesn't need to keep remapping things per game, once configured for the emulator the profile works for all games loaded. For newer titles Xinput handles things automagically. Most people turn to Google or Youtube when they need answers, and there are plenty of helpful people out there with easy to follow instructions for those not savvy enough to navigate the emulator options on their own.
All Virtual Console games have their buttons mapped to the respective buttons on the controllers, however, in certain circumstances users can use X and Y instead of A and B, if the original controller does not have X and Y buttons (for example the NES).[40] In certain titles, such as Nintendo 64 games, there may be specific controls tailored to the Classic Controller or GameCube Controller. Nintendo 64 titles that originally provided force feedback via the Nintendo 64 controller's Rumble Pak peripheral however, are not supported by the built-in "Rumble" feature of the GameCube controller despite its capability of doing so.
The button mapping has become the cause of problem and concern, however. The button mapping is rigid and is not customizable. Because of this, many games are difficult to play. All Neo Geo fighting games have very awkward control schemes and glitches when changed to GameCube controllers. Nintendo has acknowledged this issue but has not put any efforts towards fixing it. (wiki source)
Pick your poison, Virtual Console with no setup, known awkward controls, and the joy of (re)buying titles OR some setup, excellent controls (especially if you already have originals, also working rumble!), and no out of pocket for titles. People seem to like "free." At least there are options out there, ultimately nothing compares to the authentic experience.
In addition, a console is more likely to have a case designed to fit in well next to a television (as opposed to a typical tower PC case), which is important if a game uses offline multiplayer.
Very true. I'd recommend something like an old modded XBOX which lets you rock nearly every emulator and as a bonus sits right next to your TV. One downside is a console also requires an additional investment.
From where I sit, he should be given the benefit of the doubt unless and until he's convicted of a crime.
You're a fair person, unfortunately, the court of public opinion is merciless, see OJ Simpson or Casey Anthony. This is also why Jurors are not allowed media access and are instructed to make decisions based upon the law, evidence, and arguments. It's not perfect but its better than the other systems we've tried. Doesn't exactly instill confidence does it?
It seems to me that this guy deserves the same protections under the law that I would like to have in a similar situation. Whether he was encouraging and/or profiting from copyright infringement (which, IMHO, should be a civil not a criminal matter) or not is irrelevant.
It's always at least a civil matter, however it may become criminal if a . Section 501(b) of the Copyright Act details the mechanisms by which an owner of a copyright may file a civil suit
However, under certain circumstances, it may also be a federal crime. Section 506a of the Copyright Act provides that copyright infringement is subject to criminal prosecution if infringement is willful and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain. If the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution, during any 180-day period, of 10 or more copies having a retail value of more than $2,500, the offense is a felony; otherwise, the offense is a misdemeanor.
Copyright infringement is a strict liability offense. That means, you don't actually have to know you're infringing in order to be guilty of infringement. As they say, "Ignorance of the law is no defense".
Liability for copyright infringement isn't necessarily limited to the direct infringer. One who, with knowledge of the infringing activity, induces, causes, or materially contributes to the infringing conduct of another, may be held liable as a 'contributory infringer'. One who has the right and ability to supervise the infringing activity and who also has a direct financial interest in the activity, may be held liable as a 'vicarious infringer'.
(source)
The DOJ shut him down and seized his assets, destroying his business (and that of an uncounted number of perfectly legitimate people who used his service and didn't bother to retain back ups) without the evidence required to take him to trial and convict him. That's just wrong.
The collateral damage is unfortunate, and they are right to be upset, ultimately it was their choice to use the service and not to keep backups; Just as much as it was Megaupload's choice to operate their business the way they did. This underlines the importance of keeping backups in a safe place. The DOJ does have evidence, what has bungled matters is how things were handled by the New Zealand government. They royally screwed up at multiple levels.
How would you like it if jack-booted thugs came to your business, removed the tools of your trade, seized your bank accounts and had you thrown in jail without having the evidence needed to convict you?
It wouldn't be any fun. I wouldn't say its fun if its your work out there either, guess you can view it as free advertising and hope for the best. Needless to say I wouldn't operate a business which involves my organization paying users for ultimately uploading files which haven't been reviewed (think a site like 4chan and advertising money). I've hosted websites but they're not hosting 3rd party content without a license nor am I paying users of the site so it's a little different. Before a conviction can happen he needs to be extradited. If there is legislation voted for by the people New Zealand that allows extradition for what he is being charged for and there
It's, sadly, typical of BSD-proponents.
You are aware that BSD software is free and you're commenting on a paid Free Software Developer's post? Might be you're reading too deeply into what he's saying, the sentence which directly follows the line you have an issue with elaborates on this:
people work on free software for love, and they work on the hard problems and productization [sic] in exchange for money, since no one is going to do scut work for free unless they're a masochist
Most of the heavy lifting in software revolves around paid developers because they're working on highly specialized things. He mentions that his project specifically was not free for commercial use to cover the cost of development; He is working on free software and being paid. If they're getting paid then they're not spending "10 years of their free time neglecting their families so that all this stuff could be free, but no one really wants to be that idiot" 10 years of your time on something that you're not compensated for is arguably idiotic if its to the detriment of your family (not just talking software here, "Where was your Dad/Mom when you were growing up?" "He was never home")
Please point me at the jury verdict or court ruling that MegaUpload and/or Kim Dotcom was engaged in illegal activities.
There is plenty of evidence, perhaps you're aware of the ~500 servers on US soil which were involved. The mess in New Zealand relating to warrants and seizures is the result of incompetence. The seizures in the US were done with evidence. Nearly every site out there has Terms of Service which forbid certain uses, plus as a business you wont get very far with a defense along the lines of I didn't know it was illegal. Part of operating a successful business is knowing what is legal where you have a business presence. It's a little different when the business model is based around knowingly engaging in these behaviors, especially to the tune of millions of dollars. It's not like Kim is spotless, he's a history of embezzlement and fraud. That's a red flag for any business dealings, were you born yesterday, or did you lose access to some files you didn't make a backup of like their service explicitly told you to?
I know that whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing is just so darn inconvenient.
The presumption of innocence is how it works within the courts, where the accused is presumed innocent until the government meets the highest burden of proof known in American law: proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to a moral certainty. As an individual you're allowed right or wrong to think as you like.
In most EU countries, higher education is either free or cheap. That makes it available to practically everyone, which makes the EU countries the true lands of equal opportunity.
Spoken like someone who doesn't live there and is speaking from the outside. Education is not free, it's paid for by taxes - which Europe has no lack of and are far from cheap. If you think Europe is a bastion of opportunity and equality you're sorely mistaken. Racism and Nationalism are alive and well, if you're an outsider you will forever be a foreigner there. Look at France, Germany, Norway.
All countries have their faults, this isn't some broad claim that Europe should be avoided, far from it. This is like someone misunderstanding the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit.
Ignorant? I know plenty of people whose actions fit this description. Be they a mechanic who works late, an artist who is trying to make a name for themselves, or a developer who is passionate. When you're on your deathbed will you lament that you wished you would've worked more to your family?
On the other hand, Nintendo's Wii Shop Channel has the Virtual Console categories with officially emulated games dating back to the fourth quarter of 1985 when the NES was released.
That's pretty amazing, especially if you aren't aware of emulation. Now, if you include emulators which run on the PC (there are titles that come bundled with dosbox so it's point and click, ready to go, available on Steam or GOG.com like Space Quest) you have pretty much all of the systems covered since gaming began. Use a USB controller adapter to enhance the experience with your actual contollers. Bummer you have to rebuy your titles, it would be very cool if you could easily uniquely identify cartridges and unlock what you've already purchased.
A 20-year library would include DOS games and Windows 3.1 games, and 64-bit Windows can't run those without an emulator.
Neither can Nintendo, without an emulator.
But still, the whole argument that someone acting improperly on company time deserves punishment really only extends as far as reprimanding them, giving them a pay cut or demotion, or firing them.
Do you still feel this way if they were employed in the Military or worked for the state (Police Officer etc.)? What about someone who failed to secure a laptop with 1 million SSNs? There is such a thing as criminal negligence. HIPAA is very specific how it comes to handling data, in cases making the worker responsible for fines - not the organization alone. I realize this isn't a HIPAA issue.
As far as the level of criminal punishment these guys would/should get for this stunt? I'm of the opinion it's not extremely serious, actually. Stupid and immature? Sure... But on the scale of illegal activities, I think it really does rank among the minor issues. If these guys proceeded to leverage the photos to attempt to extort money from the woman, or started making money with a pay web site featuring "stolen cellphone nude pics" or something? Now THAT would take it to the next level. As it is, what we've got here is a woman who was really too careless or trusting with what she kept on her phone, handing it over to a couple guys who took advantage of the situation for kicks.
I agree with the criminal punishment being a bit much, fines would be more appropriate in this case. I'm against having people labeled as sex offenders for minor infractions (it waters down what it was intended to do - identify serious creeps). It's a bit ridiculous that human intervention is needed to facilitate copies since this is a solved problem. They have HD duplicators which are appliances, is it really such a leap to make exporting or syncing of data? Apple can do it easily.
If you want to criticize someone, please provide some arguments. Until then, the man did nothing bad. In fact, of the moderately rich people, he is one of the few that arrived to his riches with honest work.
Insider trading and embezzlement isn't honest work. To be clear we're not discussing moral behavior, but legal. Kim Dotcom's wiki page second sentence:
He rose to fame in Germany in the 1990s as a teenage internet tycoon, but was subsequently convicted of insider trading and embezzlement.
More on that is:
Kim was arrested for insider trading and embezzlement in 2003, he bought shares worth €375,000 of bankrupt company LetsBuyIt and announced that he would buy shares worth €50 Million more which led to the price of share to increase by 300%. Kim neither had the funds nor any intentions to buy more shares of LetsBuyIt and sold his shares worth €375,000. He was held guilty for insider trading and embezzlement case in November, 2003.
Not to mention the whole business model based around copyright infringement. He had ~500 servers on US soil and a business presence in the US which directly profited from these activities. While these activities are not 'wrong' they aren't legal. While the FBI isn't everyone's favorite organization and there is a reason why they have a 90%+ conviction rate.
I'm not sure if you're aware how most of the far east works but if you look at diversity they're not full of immigrants. China has ~500,000 foreign nationals out of 1.2 billion people. Let's use another example, Japan. 1.6% of Japan's legal residents are foreign nationals. You're arguing that the 'outside world' is xenophobic of the East? Traditionally both of these countries have been isolationists and not exactly hospitable to "barbarians".
Ethnocentric view points are nothing new. Many cultures have tales of hermits, strangers, foreigners that are viewed with suspicion. Grossly simplified international politics can be likened to schoolyard behavior. Its not much a of a leap to see why xenophobia exists; fear of the unknown. An interesting article relating to racism in China which might be of interest.
Is it xenophobia or ethnic nepotism?
But he isn't acting as an individual, he's a representative of the company, he was paid during this time. This occurred at a company location, with company equipment. There must be protocols for proper use which were not followed so the employee most likely knew better. If the company made and distributed unauthorized copies of data from your phone and even showed other customers, would you be so lenient had this been your wife/girlfriend/daughter/sister/mother? What if it was tax information?
Let me guess "It's nothing we haven't seen before!"
You're leaving out practically all Strategy/RTS games. Could you imagine the rage of a PC vs Console Starcraft classic battle, er slaughter?
Honestly, I think PlusFiveTroll is right, old software will stay as long as physically possible, after which it will move to virtual machines.
I completely agree with this too. I've had success using a webcam through a VM which the host was unable to use because the vendor refuses to release new drivers.
Windows does it wrong, because they break compatibility with every version they release. Then again, that's their business model, and it's making them craploads of money.
Out of all of those operating systems Windows sucks the least (hear me out!). It runs more hardware, has more applications, and is supported far longer. Windows has the best backwards compatibility of any of the popular commercial operating systems out there. Lets see you run a binary from 1998 on a Mac today, Rosetta is being phased out and support for it is lacking in Lion, and not to mention they've switched architectures; or Linux for that matter, good luck piecing together ancient libraries. Your comment is more appropriate directed at their development tools. On the OS side Microsoft has steadily made improvements, most of the woes were from Microsoft enforcing good development practices, (example, see the "Store Application Data in the Correct Location", or Microsoft's general programming guidelines.) why do you think initially many applications required administrator access to run? Sloppy programmers.
Windows doesn't have a monopoly on sloppy programmers. Whether this is due to ease of development or coder competency is a different topic. Sloppy programming plagues companies big and small - just a few months ago ATI had drivers which would BSOD if ASLR and DEP were enabled.
Wouldn't it be Google who would be crawling? *hides*
The issue is that serious news gathering, in the old way, is expensive. Keeping a network of reporters distributed round the world in places where news events are liable to happen costs money.
I'd like to expand upon this point, many news organizations don't do expensive journalism. They use news stories from the wire (Associated Press) and unlike a newspaper, a news wire organization does not have its own product. Nearly every newspaper across the world is a member of the Associated Press. The AP, like Reuters and other wire services, supplies stories, photographs and photos to newspapers. Most newspapers can't afford to send reporter(s) overseas to cover a war or an economic summit, however the AP has employees who do just that. For most newspapers, the news wire is the "official" source. Nothing is "official" until AP or another news wire picks up the story.
In a nutshell: The wire reporter covers an event and writes about it, then story is filed and edited. After that, it is submitted (electronically) to member newspapers, who choose to print the story or not. The process also works in reverse. For example a reporter for a local newspaper covers an interesting event and sends it to AP, where the story is picked up and possibly sent to the national wire. Local television stations work their news in much the same way. Because a news wire reporter works for his organization and not for a particular newspaper, his coverage is considered more unbiased than a local reporter's coverage.
But as disruptive technologies like Twitter affect the way people consume news, the number of eyeballs on the output produced by those expensive journalistic networks is declining.
Disruptive to established players of an older medium, perhaps? Twitter redefines the roles of publishers, much like blogging, and even YouTube. Why don't we just say the Internet? The Internet enables anyone to become a publisher. Regardless of the medium shouldn't this underline the value of quality content? There are good blogs and bad blogs (referring to informative quality) on a variety of topics. This leads into another point, value. For many price is the single biggest motivating factor in a purchase decision. Price is not the end all be all, but look at cheap import products for a physical analogy. Quality exists but it is at a premium. For many the cheap goods fulfill the role adequately. Conversely there are subscription services available which cater to different audiences much like "expensive" niche goods.
Perhaps the dissatisfaction of paying subscribers or even visitors to traditional news sites is due to people being turned off by bias and agendas which is represented as quality journalism? The demographic which only has a computer at work is shrinking. More eyeballs than ever are coming online everyday with mobile devices. Eyeballs are good, conversions into sales are even better. Besides simply getting the word out Advertisers make money for their clients by bringing in business, this means (typically) understanding your market and knowing where to reach the buyers. Advertising networks deal with market segments, so it's not like everyone deals with the papers/magazines/sites directly.
For example let's take Facebook which has many eyeballs and a company with lots of money, General Motors. They're not as inept as you might believe, GM Spends $1.8 Billion USD annually on advertising. According to GM Facebook's user base doesn't seem to be that interested in buying cars from advertisements. Conversely, look at how effective Amazon is, especially with regards to related products (targeted advertisements).
Even up to the Middle Ages Europe had no real technical advantage over the East Asian civilizations.
I'd like to point out the importance of (quality) Steel. Clip of a Katana vs a broadsword (related discussion here). Also, European Maritime History is worth a mention.
Also sitting in a seat without break for 8 hours isn't very healthy either.
There are mandated breaks, usually two 10-15 minute breaks and a lunch break. That breaks your day up into 2 hour segments. How about get what you need done on your own time?
Came for the Buckaroo Bonzai reference. Also, greetings from San d'Oria =)
I see someone doesn't play Minecraft. How else are you supposed to transport water or lava? ;)
(makes me feel a bit better about the lifetime Hellgate subscription).
=(
Uh, they can already check this by going to the meter box and checking the spin on the current types of meters.
One situation requires them to trespass to get the information.
Actually, given the US's history, the proper recourse should be...
Let's turn this around. How would the country of origin handle illegal immigration? Let's take a close neighbor, Mexico, it's not like they would they spend $100 million flying people back.
America lets in more people than any other country in the world combined. Borders need to be enforced and laws applied evenly, to everyone. America granted amnesty to everyone who entered the country before, see Regan's Reform and Control Act of 1986. 35+ million people have immigrated since 1965. That's more than Canada's entire population which is currently estimated at 34 million. Imagine if 10% of your population wasn't there legally, California is near the same size population wise as Canada but has a larger economy.
I don't think it's right if you get caught committing a crime that it should be rewarded. You're advocating granting citizenship (or a greencard) ahead of anyone who is 'on the waiting list' who's following the rules? The only people who like waiting seem to be the Star Wars / Trek / LotR fans....
Paying taxes, of course, are optional as an American, as it is considered patriotic not to pay them, or 'in your best interests' to pay them; the choice is yours.
Most other countries require you to be a productive member of society. If you don't have any money, any education, or anything to really offer, most countries won't let you in. Why is that?
Soon.
Blizzard is not a healthcare provider to their customers (they're arguably detrimental to physical activity wouldn't you say?) and is not subject to HIPPA guidelines for any of their gaming services.