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User: LostCluster

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  1. Re:Why rent? on Bleak Future for Videogame Customers · · Score: 1

    Yep, and there was nothing to copy in your home, you'd have to go out in public to even play. Yeah, I don't think the value of video games will ever get back to that far in favor of the publishers...

  2. Re:Physcal media is dead, long live the bit... on Bleak Future for Videogame Customers · · Score: 1

    This is just like trying to figure out how much or how little DRM to apply to music... right now there are several different models floating out there waiting for the market to pick the winner.

  3. Re:Physcal media is dead, long live the bit... on Bleak Future for Videogame Customers · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's why they realized that serial numbers had to be washed against a list of compromised numbers in some sort of revocation process. The result of that is known as "software activation"... phoning home with the CD key to see if that key is still valid.

  4. Re:More restrictive technology = more returns on Bleak Future for Videogame Customers · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Or they call the police to have you removed from their store. No refunds and no exchanges except for the same title has been the policy for software since the beginning of time.

  5. Physcal media is dead, long live the bit... on Bleak Future for Videogame Customers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This isn't purely a gaming industy trend, but an overall trend in the software industry as a whole. Everything sold as retail software now comes with at least a CD key, if not an activiation system. Software publishers have always hated piracy, and always hated the idea of selling used software.

    I don't see much of a difference between a play-for-play model, and the rental model... both leave you with nothing after your allotted time has expired. The Blockbusters of the world are the ones who are really shaking over the death of physical media, because they're not needed if everybody gets their rental content delivered online.

    The divorce of software from physical media is a result of a shift in business models, but I don't think there's any more reason to cry over the loss of the console gaming cart than there is to cry over the death of the RIAA-backed music CD. We're just getting deeper and deeper into the information age, and if we want our high-speed networks to be any good, we've gotta have data availalbe on it...

  6. Re:Copyright? on Student Fights University Over Plagiarism-Detector · · Score: 1

    What's keeping students from putting a copyright notice on the front page of all their papers, with some boilerplate text like "Reproduction of any type without the express written permission of me is prohibited"? If it works for Major League Baseball, why can't it work for a student?

    Because the student has already signed a statement agreeing to the school's policies, and those policies already contained contradictory terms. The university would also have a right to consider any paper handed in with an unacceptable license term worthy of a grade of 0.

  7. Re:How do you monitor the anti-cheating service? on Student Fights University Over Plagiarism-Detector · · Score: 1

    But the student in question hasn't been accused by the system of anything, he's refusing to submit to the system.

    There is a way around it... go to some other university.

  8. Re:hmmmm.... on Tom's Reviews Expensive, Noiseless Case · · Score: 1

    Who says you'd have to run back to the box to get the to a CD drive?

    Simply run a USB2 or FireWire line from the remote box to the actual desk, set up a hub at the other end of it, and you can run an external CD/DVD burning drive, an external floppy drive, an external sound-card, and even an external video capture device. Of course, trying to use all of those devices at once might lead to a slowdown, but you at least are available to avoid having to get up and walk just to insert a disk for a small file transfer.

  9. Re:Quiet! on Tom's Reviews Expensive, Noiseless Case · · Score: 3, Informative

    Another way to do it would be under the "dumb terminal" model. The computer in front of you having very little power, and the computer that actually does the work sitting somewhere in the house. Doesn't quite work for those who need high-end video cards, but for your typical office PC, there's several solutions which allow you to have the real work be done in another room...

  10. Re:After years of listening to my computer's hum on Tom's Reviews Expensive, Noiseless Case · · Score: 1

    Yeah, a computer hum equates to a white noise to the typical geek...

  11. Re:The Mars Rover does not use Java on NASA Cancels Hubble Mission, and Other Space Bits · · Score: 3, Informative

    The rover is supposed to have the onboard smarts needed to discover steep cliffs, and refuse to follow an order that'd lead to it falling off one. Since there's quite a long ping time from here to Mars, true realtime control is impossible. They send it carefully-thought-out vector commands more than actually "driving" it.

  12. Re:So, anyone want to be the first to assume? on NASA Cancels Hubble Mission, and Other Space Bits · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There's already a huge "safety" issue blocking this project... the fact that it depends on a space shuttle to get the people who are going to do a repair mission up there. With all those grounded, and a backlog of missions building up, we knew that somebody wasn't going to make the cut...

  13. Re:failure not an option on NASA Cancels Hubble Mission, and Other Space Bits · · Score: 4, Funny

    Furthermore, it was "Connie Chung Christmas" being rerun in January...

  14. Re:What do you think it would take to get Microsof on Open Source in Government: Newport News, Va. · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Governments like to buy "complete solutions", which is to say, they'll take whatever OS comes on the computer so long as it does everything they want. What it'll take is somebody willing to sell PCs pre-loaded with OS software that fully duplicates the functionality of a standard Windows PC, and able to produce them in mass quanities.

  15. Re:Health care as well on Open Source in Government: Newport News, Va. · · Score: 2, Funny

    Ask yourself just what non-profit means though. All it is in reality is a tax classification. For instance, the largest HMO in our area is classified as non-profit, but the principals of that organization have S-class Benz's as company cars and make high six figure salaries. Non-profit does not mean lower costs of healthcare.

    Yes, but that HMO still feels the natural competitive pressure from other HMOs to ensure they keep costs as low as possible. That doesn't forbid them from hiring high-salary execs, but it does keep those high salaries from being higher than they are...

  16. Re:Only on Slashdot... on Open Source in Government: Newport News, Va. · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Government operations in the USA strive to be as transparent as possible, or at least that's what they're supposed to be doing. What better way to prove that the tax-bill issuing software the town uses doesn't have an easter egg that marks the bills that should go to friends of the software development paid automatically, than to be able to display the source code for anybody who cares to inspect?

  17. Re:Health care as well on Open Source in Government: Newport News, Va. · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The irony is, most health insurance-issuing companies are non-profits because for-profits cannot possibly make a profit when there are non-profits providing the same service and health insurance is something good for society to have in existance.

    It's true that there are many medical processes and office visits that cost more to file the surrounding paperwork than to provide the actual service, and that has to be reflected in the pricing of the services.

    If even the existing medical-records systems could be ported to Linux, that'd eliminate $200 from the cost of each computer in the doctor's office, and that'd be a savings that'd add up over time... and just think what'd happen if the interchange between care providers and insurance companies happened over open source protocols...

  18. Re:Food Safety? on Lawsuit Filed Against Unregulated GloFish · · Score: 1

    The makers claim that, so more likely than not it's true. However, who's doing the audits on those claims? That's why the government needs to come up with a regulartory structure for these things fast, because even if this maker is honest, the next one to come out of the woodwork might not be.

  19. Re:Glo-Fish Don't Glow in the dark on Lawsuit Filed Against Unregulated GloFish · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Which brings up an interesting point... they're not emitting light (as a firefly can) but they simply reflect a rather unusual color.

    Still, we've used GM to create a fish that hasn't occured in the wild... no natrual zebra fish comes out with that color. Was anything else changed in the process? We're not sure about that...

  20. Re:Food Safety? on Lawsuit Filed Against Unregulated GloFish · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Who the heck is eating any fish that glows? So, what does "food safety" have to do with anything?

    What if a GloFish is released into a fishing pond? Where it's likely to either be eaten by another fish, or worse, mate. We need to figure out if this GloFish has to be considered a polutant...

  21. Re:9th Circuit famous for bad decisions on Web Ad Trademark Law To Be Retested · · Score: 1

    Which is another way of saying, the 9th Circuit is a great place to take a case that flys in the face of what the other circuit courts have happened to agreed upon, but the Supreme Court has never had a chance to speak upon. You've got the highest chance of getting a "bad" decision, which results in a validated ticket to take the case to the SCOTUS for a final ruling that could flip around all of the other circuit courts... or at worst call the 9th Circuit wrong yet again and end all false hope of a US court ever agreeing with that argument.

    Chosing the 9th is a longshot course of action to be used only when you're desperate for an against-the-odds upset, but it's also the place where you're most likely to get an against-the-odd upset to happen...

  22. Re:Playboy on Web Ad Trademark Law To Be Retested · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Go to your local McDonald's, and ask for a SuperSized cup of Pepsi. If the clerks are properly trained, they will inform you that Pepsi is not available there and immediately offer you Coca-Cola instead. Your improper request for Pepsi is interpreted as a request for generic cola products, rather than simply responed to with a blank stare or a yell of "No soft drinks for you!"

    If you want Playboy content, you must go to the proper places where Playboy content is sold... Excite and Google are not such places. So, the user very well could be requesting "Who around here has Playboy-like content?"...

  23. Looking for X? Why not try Y instead? on Web Ad Trademark Law To Be Retested · · Score: 1

    Companies do have a limited right to refer to their competitors, especially when it's clear that they're talking about the competitor rather than claiming to be the competitor.

    So, even if this case is lost, I think the worst damage that's going to occur is such ambush keyword buyers are just going to have to ad a fine-print statement saying X is a trademark of X Inc., and Y is a product of Y Inc., which has no relationship to X Inc.

  24. Re:Would you want such a volunteer? on One-Way Ticket to Mars? · · Score: 1

    If the idea is to launch a one-way manned mission with perpetual resupply flights behind them, then in theory the people sent could survive indefinitely, until a disaster or disease does each person in just like on Earth. At that point, they could restaff the planet with another human on the next resupply launch.

    Basically, we'd be skipping the idea of researching before we go, and instead jumping straight to trying to start a colony. Of course, job 1 for the first humans sent will be to construct a base camp for themselves. Eventually, they'll have the resouces assembled to build a return ship that can land on Earth from Mars, and 2-way traffic between earth and Mars can really begin...

  25. Re:'course! on Internet Users Are More Social Than Non-Users · · Score: 1

    Clearly the /. editors don't.... DUPE!