In his defense, Schmeiser showed his own farm-based evidence that the fields ranged from nearly zero to 68% Roundup Ready. These tests were confirmed by independent tests performed by research scientists at the University of Manitoba, in Winnipeg, MB.
It makes no sense to plant only a part of crops of a certain variety, and I think this makes a very strong argument in his favor. Actually, the court didn't dispute it. The ruling stated that "the judge agreed a farmer can generally own the seeds or plants grown on his land if they blow in or are carried there by pollen -- but the judge says this is not true in the case of genetically modified seed." And I think it's this part that makes this particular case so nasty...
SkyBitz, a Virginia company, has developed a similar device a few years ago. Last I've heard (late 2000), they've been in talks with the Pentagon to get this device implanted into all soldiers, for more precise command and control.
(I've been following this development for some time, due to the fact that this deal would take the games from under the IDSA protection, where Firaxis is not a mamber.)
That's simple. Even with the deregulation, the government is still mandating the number of available radio frequencies in a particular area, as well as the strength of signals. As a result, due to this governmental regulation, the market is not really free; the only thing that changes is a shift in ownership. As a self-proclaimed libertarian, I would be much more happy with an open market, with almost no or very low barriers to entry.
Now, I am aware that governmental regulation in this case is the necessary evil. Otherwise, we'd have a total chaos in the radio waves - stations trying to broadcast on one frequency, only to have other stations occupying frequencies that are uncomfortably close or even overlapping, whether on purpose or not. The good news is all this is changing. With the advances in wireless Internet access, I can pretty well imagine a time when my car radio will be Internet-enabled (at a very reasonable cost), and I would be able to choose from hundreds of various radio stations, which can operate without any governmental regulation at all.
It can't be any worse than Episode I and II. And, after all, Lucas gives absolutely no freedom to his actors, so replacing them with animated characters wouldn't change a thing.
You are right that the developer was Firaxis. The same Firaxis that did a much better job with Sid Meier's SimGolf, published by Electronic Arts. And the same Firaxis that blamed Infogrames for all the problems with the game. There were four or five patches for Civ III, with the first one appearing the day the game was released (interestingly, the same happened with another game published by Infogrames - Neverwinter Nights), fixing lots of crash and display issues. When Play the World came along, users could not get the multiplayer to run at all, and a patch was quickly released, which fixed the multiplayer issue. Unfortunatelly, after installing the patch, many users complained that the game didn't recognize the CD anymore, and a new patch had to be released. The third patch has been out for quite some time now, fixing many technical and gameplay issues, but it works only with the US edition, and makes cross-Atlantic multiplayer gaming almost impossible. There are rumors that another patch is in production, again for the US only. (For more information, I reviewed the expansion here.
However, I was expecting a review more in the spirit of "I's unfair to compare games that were 20-30kB big with complex games that are over 1GB big when installed." I had a witty answer ready, along the lines of "yet those small games offered more replay value and fun," and I'm disappointed I couldn't use it. Maybe next time;)
Actually, I did, and never had a problem with. However, I was more thinking about the bugginess of Infogrames games and Atari games. I have a whole bunch of games by Infogrames that are so buggy that I either couldn't finish them (Silver) or voluntarily uninstalled and sold on eBay (Civilization III, the Play the World expansion, Master of Orion III to name a few). For some reason, I can still play old Atari ROMs and have much more fun with them.
Speaking of old Atari ROMs: it will be interesting to see whether Infogrames now moves against Atari fan sites or not...
As a longtime Atari fan, I consider this to be a slap in the face. Having barely recovered from the slap caused by Spectrum Holobyte changing its name to Mindscape in 1995, now I need to suffer the gaming company with the worst tech support out there to appropriate the name Atari. Up to this day, Atari had a relatively good reputation, which now goes down the drain.
Broken Sword was always about the production. I still remember the first one - the puzzle elements were pretty weak, but the production was awesome. The music, animation, voiceovers and even such small perks like allowing you to play a breakout game while installing Broken Sword made it one of my most favorite games. In addition, I had (and still have) a huge crush on Nico. The second game was more of the same, and quite frankly, it was getting old. I'm wondering whether switching to a 3D engine would resurrect the game...
Whenever I buy a new CD, I immediatelly rip all its songs into mp3 files, so that I can mix them into the music I listen to on a constant loop. By ow, I have over 5GB of such mp3 files. If the RIAA really releases that "silencer" how will it determine whether my files are legal or not?
Disclaimer: I've been using this method for a few months now, but I've heard the term "whitelisting" to describe this method only yesterday on CNN Headline News. I don't take any credit for it.
Anyway, here is how it works: Set up filters for people who you want to get messages from. I personally have several different mailboxes - for family, work, newsletters I subscribed to, etc. Everything else goes by default to the trash. Operating several Web sites, I needed to make sure that strangers can contact me, too, which is shy I set up links to my e-mail to include a standard subject, and I set up a filter to look for those subjects. This way, I'm able to eliminate 99% of spam (the rest is a combination of viruses (virii?) and spams the spoof the sender's address to someone who's on my list. In turn, I lose less than 1% of messages that I'd actually want to receive. Considering that I was getting 50-70 spams per day and only 3-5 real e-mails, the numbers are on my side.
Your argument would hold, if the letter was actually protecting the IDSA members' property. However, that may not be the case. Having had my own abandonware page (until I switched to review-only format) and still being active in the abandonware community, I've had enough exposure to IDSA and their letters that I know now that the vast majority of their letters is pure harrassment, not based on facts. They love to make two mistakes in their letters:
Name confusion. Often, there are several games with the same name, from different developers. IDSA automatically assumes that when a site offers a 32kB download of, let's say, Wizards and Warriors, they automatically assume that it's the modern game and not an old ZX Spectrum title. I assume that this was the case here as well.
Fraudulent copyright appropriation. (Sorry, there's a legalese term for it; I just can't remember it right now.) Up to 1985, many games were created by a single person or a small team of people, who kept the copyright, regardless of who published the game. For example, the copyright for the well-known (and loved) Pinball Construction Set (published in 1985 by Electronic Arts) is owned by its designer, Bill Budge, and not Electronic Arts. Yet, I still remember a letter where the IDSA asked a site to remove the game.
Be it as it is, until I see the letter, I can't tell. True, the site is breaking the law, but by the same token, the IDSA isn't much better if they try to shut down a site because of a software that the IDSA members have no copyright for.
This case is a little confusing, but from what I gathered on German game-related message boards, football licenses are handled by UEFA. This goes for simulations, as well as management games. UEFA has the right to sell a license that covers player names and club jerseys, but not the players' likeness. Supposedly, Oliver Kahn sued under the "personal damage" statute for using his likeness, a fact that has caused quite an amusement.
Disclaimer: n-tv.de claims something different, that EA had no right to use the name of the player, either. I am not one to dispute what such a respectable news outlet is saying, but it strikes me as weird that nobody has sued EA before if that were the case.
But how do you know the CD's you are buying a that used CD store are not pirated?
That's exactly why I'm doing it. I don't view the Internet as the only means to obtain illegal products; I view the Internet as a means for others to find it out. I personally don't know whether I have anything illegal or not. I have two choices how to deal with it: I can either try to find out and get rid of anything illegal, or I can try to prevent anybody from knowing. I simply chose the easier way - without being connected to the Internet, it's impossible for corporations to monitor me.
...the source of the story: Democracy Now radio. It's a show at Pacifica.org, probably the most left-wing radio you can think of. While Democracy Now is still pretty decent by the radio's standards (for example, when a caller said that he wished more people died in the 9/11 attacks, the talk host didn't expressly agree with him as it happened on other shows of that radio), they are still highly unreliable. I don't trust some of the right-wing media, such as FOX News, but I trust even less what is being said on Democracy Now. Move on; there's nothing to see; the whole thing is most likely a hoax.
Oh wow... If everybody had criteria like this, I'd be in so many beta tests... Anyway, there's two main criteria I'd like to point out, as I'm using one myself, and the other is very rare, but very important:
1. Good correspondence skills. Notice how many negative points were given for poor spelling, "l33t" talk, not using real name, profanities, etc. I admit I'm far from perfect in spelling myself, but I cannot tolerate deliberate misspelling. I'm often getting resumes from hopefull applicants (people who would like to write investment reports, of all things), which are full of "U" instead of "you" and "pls" instead of "please". Those resumes go straight into the trash; I don't even bother replying.
2. Hardware requirements. Way too many companies accept only the best hardware for their beta tests. Then we get games that have a Pentium II 400 with 32MB RAM stated as their minimum requirements, but which will not run on anything under P3-800 and 128MB RAM. I'm glad to see someone who wants to test the game on low-end machines.
The one point I haven't seen is a track record in recomputer games. Considering that everybody and their mother has a Web site these days, considering that there are plenty of outlets for reviewing games (from Amazon through Epinions to GameFAQs), if I was a game developer, I'd give bonus points for people who are known for absolutely trashing all games, within reason (good argumentation in favor of their conclusion). Instead of getting "man, I loved the game", I would get responses about how much a certain feature sucks, and work on it.
So the church isn't shy of putting up a bust of the second in command of another religion. I'm wondering whether (and when) they'll add people like Ayatollah Khomeini to the mix...
Actually, the same judge is deciding the Kazaa tial, and it seems that he will be siding with Kazaa.
Other cases that were handled by Judge Willson hint to the fact that he is one of the few liberal and pro-Internet (as in "in favor of freedom of individual Internet users") in the country.
Current laws are so confusing that I don't know anymore whether I have anything illegal on my PC or not. And even if I didn't, this case sets a precedens - if Verizon looses, the RIAA (and anybody else) can ask for the identity of a ISP customer without a proof. (Remember, kids, this case is not about prosecuting a music pirate, but about showing any proof that the person is a music pirate before prosecuting him.) This has been one of my main reasons why I decided not to have Internet access at home. That means a loss for an ISP, all on-line stores and even RIAA members, as the only music store around where I live is a used CDs store. Maybe if there were a few million people like me, the courts will see the foolishness of RIAA's request and rule in favor of Verizon...
Spy Hunter. Max Payne. Hitman. Grand Theft Auto. The Getaway. Driver.
I see no difference between these games and gangster movies since the silend black-and-white movie. Hell, I could name movies with Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris or Clint Eastwood that would fit any of these games. All the producers have to do is to re-release these old movies, slap a new name on them and they are done.
Did anybody consider that games are influenced by movies, and thus making a movie based on a game that was inspired by a movie is a little redundant?
Or you can turn it the other way round. Suddenly, I have the urge to ununstall all my virus protection and run that trojan I found, which automatically downloads mp3s of my favorite artists;)
I think it's a matter of taste. True, the first few issues weren't all that awesome, but the last two gave me a boner every time I read them. (I know, I need to see a sex therapist.) Anyway, I don't consider the art to be particularly sexy - that's the domain of various Crossgen books. However, the writing, which created a certain tension between the characters deffinitelly adds a certain sexy quality. If you feel like giving the series another shot, check out No. 6. For my tastes, that was the pinnacle of the series so far.
First, let me state that I am a huge fan and all those things. The official Transmet T-shirt (big smiley in front and "I hate it here") even got me fired once. Anyway, I have two questions:
1. Why did you end the Transmet comics the way you did? It's been great fun while it lasted, but having such an open-ended last issue makes me think that there is a possibility of another run, which, quite frankly, I would not want to see. (Most classics ended and never were resurrected.)
2. I consider Global Frequency to be one of the sexiest comic books out there right now. I'm no expert, but as a fan, I must admit that I have re-read each issue several times, and always liked it. I was wondering: is there a central story that would tie all the episodes together or not? If so, when will we find out more?
Slashdot Mirror
In his defense, Schmeiser showed his own farm-based evidence that the fields ranged from nearly zero to 68% Roundup Ready. These tests were confirmed by independent tests performed by research scientists at the University of Manitoba, in Winnipeg, MB.
It makes no sense to plant only a part of crops of a certain variety, and I think this makes a very strong argument in his favor. Actually, the court didn't dispute it. The ruling stated that "the judge agreed a farmer can generally own the seeds or plants grown on his land if they blow in or are carried there by pollen -- but the judge says this is not true in the case of genetically modified seed." And I think it's this part that makes this particular case so nasty...
SkyBitz, a Virginia company, has developed a similar device a few years ago. Last I've heard (late 2000), they've been in talks with the Pentagon to get this device implanted into all soldiers, for more precise command and control.
- Sid Meier's Pirates!
- Sid Meier's Colonization
- Covert Action
- Gunship
- Silent Service
- F-19 Stealth Fighter
- F-15 Strike Eagle
- CPU Bach
(I've been following this development for some time, due to the fact that this deal would take the games from under the IDSA protection, where Firaxis is not a mamber.)Now, I am aware that governmental regulation in this case is the necessary evil. Otherwise, we'd have a total chaos in the radio waves - stations trying to broadcast on one frequency, only to have other stations occupying frequencies that are uncomfortably close or even overlapping, whether on purpose or not. The good news is all this is changing. With the advances in wireless Internet access, I can pretty well imagine a time when my car radio will be Internet-enabled (at a very reasonable cost), and I would be able to choose from hundreds of various radio stations, which can operate without any governmental regulation at all.
It can't be any worse than Episode I and II. And, after all, Lucas gives absolutely no freedom to his actors, so replacing them with animated characters wouldn't change a thing.
Everybody knows that it's because Apple II runs on Energizer batteries.
However, I was expecting a review more in the spirit of "I's unfair to compare games that were 20-30kB big with complex games that are over 1GB big when installed." I had a witty answer ready, along the lines of "yet those small games offered more replay value and fun," and I'm disappointed I couldn't use it. Maybe next time ;)
Speaking of old Atari ROMs: it will be interesting to see whether Infogrames now moves against Atari fan sites or not...
As a longtime Atari fan, I consider this to be a slap in the face. Having barely recovered from the slap caused by Spectrum Holobyte changing its name to Mindscape in 1995, now I need to suffer the gaming company with the worst tech support out there to appropriate the name Atari. Up to this day, Atari had a relatively good reputation, which now goes down the drain.
Broken Sword was always about the production. I still remember the first one - the puzzle elements were pretty weak, but the production was awesome. The music, animation, voiceovers and even such small perks like allowing you to play a breakout game while installing Broken Sword made it one of my most favorite games. In addition, I had (and still have) a huge crush on Nico. The second game was more of the same, and quite frankly, it was getting old. I'm wondering whether switching to a 3D engine would resurrect the game...
Whenever I buy a new CD, I immediatelly rip all its songs into mp3 files, so that I can mix them into the music I listen to on a constant loop. By ow, I have over 5GB of such mp3 files. If the RIAA really releases that "silencer" how will it determine whether my files are legal or not?
Anyway, here is how it works: Set up filters for people who you want to get messages from. I personally have several different mailboxes - for family, work, newsletters I subscribed to, etc. Everything else goes by default to the trash. Operating several Web sites, I needed to make sure that strangers can contact me, too, which is shy I set up links to my e-mail to include a standard subject, and I set up a filter to look for those subjects. This way, I'm able to eliminate 99% of spam (the rest is a combination of viruses (virii?) and spams the spoof the sender's address to someone who's on my list. In turn, I lose less than 1% of messages that I'd actually want to receive. Considering that I was getting 50-70 spams per day and only 3-5 real e-mails, the numbers are on my side.
- Name confusion. Often, there are several games with the same name, from different developers. IDSA automatically assumes that when a site offers a 32kB download of, let's say, Wizards and Warriors, they automatically assume that it's the modern game and not an old ZX Spectrum title. I assume that this was the case here as well.
- Fraudulent copyright appropriation. (Sorry, there's a legalese term for it; I just can't remember it right now.) Up to 1985, many games were created by a single person or a small team of people, who kept the copyright, regardless of who published the game. For example, the copyright for the well-known (and loved) Pinball Construction Set (published in 1985 by Electronic Arts) is owned by its designer, Bill Budge, and not Electronic Arts. Yet, I still remember a letter where the IDSA asked a site to remove the game.
Be it as it is, until I see the letter, I can't tell. True, the site is breaking the law, but by the same token, the IDSA isn't much better if they try to shut down a site because of a software that the IDSA members have no copyright for.Thanks, that was really helpful :) English being my fifth language, I'm thankful for any help I can get with my grammar.
Disclaimer: n-tv.de claims something different, that EA had no right to use the name of the player, either. I am not one to dispute what such a respectable news outlet is saying, but it strikes me as weird that nobody has sued EA before if that were the case.
That's exactly why I'm doing it. I don't view the Internet as the only means to obtain illegal products; I view the Internet as a means for others to find it out. I personally don't know whether I have anything illegal or not. I have two choices how to deal with it: I can either try to find out and get rid of anything illegal, or I can try to prevent anybody from knowing. I simply chose the easier way - without being connected to the Internet, it's impossible for corporations to monitor me.
...the source of the story: Democracy Now radio. It's a show at Pacifica.org, probably the most left-wing radio you can think of. While Democracy Now is still pretty decent by the radio's standards (for example, when a caller said that he wished more people died in the 9/11 attacks, the talk host didn't expressly agree with him as it happened on other shows of that radio), they are still highly unreliable. I don't trust some of the right-wing media, such as FOX News, but I trust even less what is being said on Democracy Now. Move on; there's nothing to see; the whole thing is most likely a hoax.
1. Good correspondence skills. Notice how many negative points were given for poor spelling, "l33t" talk, not using real name, profanities, etc. I admit I'm far from perfect in spelling myself, but I cannot tolerate deliberate misspelling. I'm often getting resumes from hopefull applicants (people who would like to write investment reports, of all things), which are full of "U" instead of "you" and "pls" instead of "please". Those resumes go straight into the trash; I don't even bother replying.
2. Hardware requirements. Way too many companies accept only the best hardware for their beta tests. Then we get games that have a Pentium II 400 with 32MB RAM stated as their minimum requirements, but which will not run on anything under P3-800 and 128MB RAM. I'm glad to see someone who wants to test the game on low-end machines.
The one point I haven't seen is a track record in recomputer games. Considering that everybody and their mother has a Web site these days, considering that there are plenty of outlets for reviewing games (from Amazon through Epinions to GameFAQs), if I was a game developer, I'd give bonus points for people who are known for absolutely trashing all games, within reason (good argumentation in favor of their conclusion). Instead of getting "man, I loved the game", I would get responses about how much a certain feature sucks, and work on it.
So the church isn't shy of putting up a bust of the second in command of another religion. I'm wondering whether (and when) they'll add people like Ayatollah Khomeini to the mix...
Other cases that were handled by Judge Willson hint to the fact that he is one of the few liberal and pro-Internet (as in "in favor of freedom of individual Internet users") in the country.
Current laws are so confusing that I don't know anymore whether I have anything illegal on my PC or not. And even if I didn't, this case sets a precedens - if Verizon looses, the RIAA (and anybody else) can ask for the identity of a ISP customer without a proof. (Remember, kids, this case is not about prosecuting a music pirate, but about showing any proof that the person is a music pirate before prosecuting him.) This has been one of my main reasons why I decided not to have Internet access at home. That means a loss for an ISP, all on-line stores and even RIAA members, as the only music store around where I live is a used CDs store. Maybe if there were a few million people like me, the courts will see the foolishness of RIAA's request and rule in favor of Verizon...
I see no difference between these games and gangster movies since the silend black-and-white movie. Hell, I could name movies with Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris or Clint Eastwood that would fit any of these games. All the producers have to do is to re-release these old movies, slap a new name on them and they are done.
Did anybody consider that games are influenced by movies, and thus making a movie based on a game that was inspired by a movie is a little redundant?
Or you can turn it the other way round. Suddenly, I have the urge to ununstall all my virus protection and run that trojan I found, which automatically downloads mp3s of my favorite artists ;)
I think it's a matter of taste. True, the first few issues weren't all that awesome, but the last two gave me a boner every time I read them. (I know, I need to see a sex therapist.) Anyway, I don't consider the art to be particularly sexy - that's the domain of various Crossgen books. However, the writing, which created a certain tension between the characters deffinitelly adds a certain sexy quality. If you feel like giving the series another shot, check out No. 6. For my tastes, that was the pinnacle of the series so far.
1. Why did you end the Transmet comics the way you did? It's been great fun while it lasted, but having such an open-ended last issue makes me think that there is a possibility of another run, which, quite frankly, I would not want to see. (Most classics ended and never were resurrected.)
2. I consider Global Frequency to be one of the sexiest comic books out there right now. I'm no expert, but as a fan, I must admit that I have re-read each issue several times, and always liked it. I was wondering: is there a central story that would tie all the episodes together or not? If so, when will we find out more?