Asking for permission or lawyering up are good options. But if you just want to put it out there do this:
First, rename your game. Make it something completely unrelated to what the old one was called.
Second, change the play a bit more and for your sake change the cut scenes and art work so as not to look like the old game. If they used an old west theme you go with art deco.
Third, once you've completed your changes then only copy off the finished game from your computer and then melt the old drives on your computer into aluminum ingots and melted slag. Or use shred: less fun but not so messy.
Fourth never use this account again. Ever. Better yet change your name and move to a different state. If anyone knows you by sight and knows you used this account then consider plastic surgery.
If the owners of the game ever decide to sue you and they have any way to prove that you made your game from their game they will claim derivative rights or some other ass puckering term to get what they can from you.
if you do make inquiries for permission they will want to see your game so they will know what to look for if you decide to release it anyway after they deny your request.
If you must make inquiries for permission then frame your questions as though you are considering making this game and ask what would their response be to a hypothetical game that you are not yet working on: use an alias and go through a law firm so that you may be insulated so that if they say no and you want to do it anyway then they don't have your address and real name and the law firm has the right to claim confidentiality to keep your real contact information hidden.
Absolutely. This point can not
be stressed enough. M$FT is not
innovative, M$FT is not
responsive to its users, M$FT is not
cooperative with anyone, and M$FT is not not your (or anyone else's)
friend. It is lazy where there
is nothing to prod it into action. It is
aggressive beyond the limits of the law where it believes some else is
cutting in on it's 'action'. It is
arrogant, belligerent, and conceited. I for one don't trust it. Neither should you.
Maybe FireFox contains vulnerabilities as numerous as IE. Maybe FireFox is no more secure than IE. Maybe it's even worse in these areas. Even if this is true, FireFox is a better long term solution because the development team is responsive to these issues and is actively engaged in fixing the holes where the viruses get in and keep my system from working. M$FT does not care about you or your system. It wants your wallet now and for all time. For M$FT 'good enough' is the enemy of 'better' and apparently IE is 'good enough'. M$FT says "That's all you need, that's all you deserve. Be quiet and I'll get around to fixing these bits after I've conquered a few more markets. Really."
Unlike M$FT effort if you find a bug and are willing to do something about you can fixit.
With M$FT you grovel at the gates and hope it gets fixed.
In the early days of M$FT's existence I used to report bugs I found in it's products. Some times I would get a reply stating that the fix for a particular bug is in the next version. With hope and as it turns out naivety I would buy the next version only to find it did not correct the bugs. The version had new features and some of them even worked. But the old bugs were still there. So then I was out more money for something I really didn't need (the new features) and it has more bugs. Great.
Oh, back to the point. If you don't like what you get with FOSS you can go back to an older version(for less cost that the purchase price of software that does not work as advertised), fix it, or live with it. With M$FT you are out the money, true you can go back or live with it but you can't fix it. If you wait for M$FT to fix it you will most likely wait, for a very long time.
______________________________________
There are 10 kinds of people,
Those who know binary and those who don't.
Sort of. These 'agents' know how you access their systems and when. But your privacy is not invaded to any appreciable degree. This type of information is analogous (loosely mind you) to your appearance at the local store. The merchant (and anyone paying attention) knows what you look like, (your ethnicity, gender etc.) what clothes you wear, when you came in, what you bought, etc. But do either of them know who are your friends are or where you live or what you had for breakfast or even what political party you belong to? Maybe, what bumper stickers do you have on your car when you drive up. Oh no, the local merchant may now also know what car you drive and it's license tag. Even if you pay cash you've given away quite a bit. Pay by credit card and you may (depending on the scruples the merchant) have given away much much more. It's possible that in either realm you are giving away more information about you than you may believe you are giving away. Both types of presence require that your contacts know something about you. In both worlds you can achieve total anonymity if you work for it. But is it worth the hassle?
Just be careful not to hand out sensitive information on line just like you would in the real world.
______________________________________
There are 10 kinds of people,
Those who know binary and those who don't.
Not a DDoS. I was thinking millions of hotmail accounts gathering tons of spam over several days would clog up hot mail storage capacity.
Let's see, one of my accounts got out and it receives about 200 spams/day and they are roughly 5k apeice. So that's 200 * 5,000 or about a megabyte/day. At that rate it would take about 3 years to even fill up a single gigabyte. So, if 100 people set up 10 accounts and these accounts are flooded like mine was, that would only be a gigabyte per day. Well looks like if 10,000 people could set up 100 accounts then that will burn up 1 tera byte/day. Well it's unlikely that so many would do so much for just a terabyte per day. Oh well.
If it can do what it likes then so can we. Everybody who is put off by M$FT's behavior should open up a hundred or a thousand hot mail accounts, and subscribe to every spam list there is. Subject these accounts to every bad practice regarding smap avoidance. Fill up all of M$FT's hotmail drive space. I bet it won't take more that a week to bring hotmail down this way.
Microsoft has been the *best* and *truest* inovator of the MS Windows desktop (and of MS Windows OSes for that matter) the world has ever seen. Nobody puts more features in to MS windows applications than anybody else. True it does borrow some ideas from *completely* unrelated fields (such as OSX for instance). But putting those features into MS Windows is the real litmus test of MS Windows OS inovation.
$30 rebate at Fry's for a really cool computer tower box. 5 minutes, enbelope and stamp. Two weeks later a check for 30 buck-o-roonies. You must really make a lot of money per hour to top $30/5 minutes! In that case I wish I had your pay scale! You must be a lawyer or something.;-)
I would just like to point out that your last statement about "...losing money paying for our pageviews..." is not at all detrimental to the advertiser. Since it doesn't matter if you have add block enable or not, the add will still be generated on the server. So no matter what you do there is a view and a charge. Now taken in to context with your earlier statement about those who use the add blocker will not patron the advertiser in any case just means that the add will be served and either blocked or ignored. The only one who wins in either case is the website charging for the add view. The only looser in either case the advertiser. The only person who could either win or lose is the viewer. Since the site's and advertiser's fates will not change either way then why not use the add blocker? Now the viewer wins too. Persons who wish to buy products from such advertisers will *not* use the ad blocker. So they also win. Wooo Hooo!
______________________________________
There are 10 kinds of people,
Those who know binary and those who don't.
Polymorphism is not unique to OOP's. Using window functions and version 5.2 of the IBM C compiler I created a system in which window messages were passed through a multi-level multi-branch hierarchy of windows. If a window function didn't have code to deal with a particular message then that message was passed down it's default procedure. I created whole families of window functions to handle messages in this structured way. Some were five or six message functions deep. Most layers of the code didn't know exactly which type of window a particular handle belonged to much less where it was instantiated. A message sent to different parts of the 'class' tree would generate different results based on inheritance: polymorphic behavior. Granted there was no safe type checking or compiler help; the parameters were always cast from a UINT to what ever based on the message id (this would have made anyone with a Worthian complex scream). If I mistakenly placed a handle derived from the wrong part of the tree so that a particular message may not process the compiler had no clue and I would know that a message (method) made no sense in that context. So I had to put in code in the base window function from which everything was derived which put up a WinMessageBox stating that message id xxx was not processed. In this case it was an insurance program and most of the layers represented actual display windows. Some forms were built on top of other forms so that only the changes to the behavior of form x was coded in its window function and its default procedure was the window function for form y from which it was derived'.
The point is since OS/2 supported old school COBOL it is possible to have a polymorphic and object like structure in any language. It's up the developer to make it happen. Eventually everything is machine code so if one wanted to one could do this in assembler. Granted C++ makes it *much* easier and considerably safer but it does not *make* it possible but rather provides a lot of help to make it easier. OOD is a state of mind not a compiler choice; you are correct when you state that it is a paradigm shift.
______________________________________
There are 10 kinds of people,
Those who know binary and those who don't.
In Robo football a field goal is made by kicking what would have been the *ball* held in place by the ball holder with the *head* of the "holder" through the uprights.
A steamroller will really be a steam roller! The Jetsons have this aspect of the future nailed down!
M$FT is innovative in the realm of the MS Windows OSes. It does a better job of adding new innovative features to various MS Windows OSes better than anyone else does.
The iMac had it's share of problems. I installed an external CD rom burner on it. That worked. I wanted to move the burner to a different machine. I followed the un-install procedure as provied. That did not work. So I pulled the physical device off the iMac. That made the OS boot really really slowly. On the order of several minutes. I tried to contact the vendor and they said I should call Apple. Apple said I should contact the vendor. I will never buy an Apple again. It did cost more than a comperable PC at the time. So why was I suckered in to it ? I guess I fell victim to the think different campain. Well now I really do think differently. Macs cost too much and they don't really free users from the problems associated with a PC.
The single source of problems didn't work. Since I couldn't boot the Mac or eject the media I had not choice but to disasemle the device. Going out to the web site was not an option at that point. It wouldn't boot. It wouldn't not power down. What should I have done ? I followed the update instructions to the letter. That's how I got there and Apple wouldn't help me. At all. period. Why pay the premium for a Mac if there's no benifit ? I never will again.
Slashdot Mirror
Asking for permission or lawyering up are good options. But if you just want to put it out there do this:
First, rename your game. Make it something completely unrelated to what the old one was called.
Second, change the play a bit more and for your sake change the cut scenes and art work so as not to look like the old game. If they used an old west theme you go with art deco.
Third, once you've completed your changes then only copy off the finished game from your computer and then melt the old drives on your computer into aluminum ingots and melted slag. Or use shred: less fun but not so messy.
Fourth never use this account again. Ever. Better yet change your name and move to a different state. If anyone knows you by sight and knows you used this account then consider plastic surgery.
If the owners of the game ever decide to sue you and they have any way to prove that you made your game from their game they will claim derivative rights or some other ass puckering term to get what they can from you. if you do make inquiries for permission they will want to see your game so they will know what to look for if you decide to release it anyway after they deny your request. If you must make inquiries for permission then frame your questions as though you are considering making this game and ask what would their response be to a hypothetical game that you are not yet working on: use an alias and go through a law firm so that you may be insulated so that if they say no and you want to do it anyway then they don't have your address and real name and the law firm has the right to claim confidentiality to keep your real contact information hidden.
What about prior art on this one? Doesn't the DOM for XML do just this very thing ?
Absolutely. This point can not be stressed enough. M$FT is not innovative, M$FT is not responsive to its users, M$FT is not cooperative with anyone, and M$FT is not not your (or anyone else's) friend. It is lazy where there is nothing to prod it into action. It is aggressive beyond the limits of the law where it believes some else is cutting in on it's 'action'. It is arrogant, belligerent, and conceited. I for one don't trust it. Neither should you.
I'm a chinese fighter pilot.
Maybe FireFox contains vulnerabilities as numerous as IE. Maybe FireFox is no more secure than IE. Maybe it's even worse in these areas. Even if this is true, FireFox is a better long term solution because the development team is responsive to these issues and is actively engaged in fixing the holes where the viruses get in and keep my system from working. M$FT does not care about you or your system. It wants your wallet now and for all time. For M$FT 'good enough' is the enemy of 'better' and apparently IE is 'good enough'. M$FT says "That's all you need, that's all you deserve. Be quiet and I'll get around to fixing these bits after I've conquered a few more markets. Really."
Unlike M$FT effort if you find a bug and are willing to do something about you can fixit.
With M$FT you grovel at the gates and hope it gets fixed.
In the early days of M$FT's existence I used to report bugs I found in it's products. Some times I would get a reply stating that the fix for a particular bug is in the next version. With hope and as it turns out naivety I would buy the next version only to find it did not correct the bugs. The version had new features and some of them even worked. But the old bugs were still there. So then I was out more money for something I really didn't need (the new features) and it has more bugs. Great.
Oh, back to the point. If you don't like what you get with FOSS you can go back to an older version(for less cost that the purchase price of software that does not work as advertised), fix it, or live with it. With M$FT you are out the money, true you can go back or live with it but you can't fix it. If you wait for M$FT to fix it you will most likely wait, for a very long time. ______________________________________ There are 10 kinds of people, Those who know binary and those who don't.
So if this movie is as even nearly as good as K.S. seems to go on about then maybe suffering through the first two will seem less painful.
Sort of. These 'agents' know how you access their systems and when. But your privacy is not invaded to any appreciable degree. This type of information is analogous (loosely mind you) to your appearance at the local store. The merchant (and anyone paying attention) knows what you look like, (your ethnicity, gender etc.) what clothes you wear, when you came in, what you bought, etc. But do either of them know who are your friends are or where you live or what you had for breakfast or even what political party you belong to? Maybe, what bumper stickers do you have on your car when you drive up. Oh no, the local merchant may now also know what car you drive and it's license tag. Even if you pay cash you've given away quite a bit. Pay by credit card and you may (depending on the scruples the merchant) have given away much much more. It's possible that in either realm you are giving away more information about you than you may believe you are giving away. Both types of presence require that your contacts know something about you. In both worlds you can achieve total anonymity if you work for it. But is it worth the hassle?
Just be careful not to hand out sensitive information on line just like you would in the real world.
______________________________________
There are 10 kinds of people,
Those who know binary and those who don't.
Not a DDoS. I was thinking millions of hotmail accounts gathering tons of spam over several days would clog up hot mail storage capacity.
/day. Well it's unlikely that so many would do so much for just a terabyte per day. Oh well.
Let's see, one of my accounts got out and it receives about 200 spams/day and they are roughly 5k apeice. So that's 200 * 5,000 or about a megabyte/day. At that rate it would take about 3 years to even fill up a single gigabyte. So, if 100 people set up 10 accounts and these accounts are flooded like mine was, that would only be a gigabyte per day. Well looks like if 10,000 people could set up 100 accounts then that will burn up 1 tera byte
Banned from life is my vote.
If it can do what it likes then so can we. Everybody who is put off by M$FT's behavior should open up a hundred or a thousand hot mail accounts, and subscribe to every spam list there is. Subject these accounts to every bad practice regarding smap avoidance. Fill up all of M$FT's hotmail drive space. I bet it won't take more that a week to bring hotmail down this way.
Microsoft has been the *best* and *truest* inovator of the MS Windows desktop (and of MS Windows OSes for that matter) the world has ever seen. Nobody puts more features in to MS windows applications than anybody else. True it does borrow some ideas from *completely* unrelated fields (such as OSX for instance). But putting those features into MS Windows is the real litmus test of MS Windows OS inovation.
I've always heard your tag line the other way 'round. That's a very nice zinger. I'll save that one for a special occasion.
______________________________________
There are 10 kinds of people,
Those who know binary and those who don't.
Don't speculate. Assert. You know it's true. Couple that with ignorance and you've got the typical large ISP admin.
$30 rebate at Fry's for a really cool computer tower box. 5 minutes, enbelope and stamp. Two weeks later a check for 30 buck-o-roonies. You must really make a lot of money per hour to top $30/5 minutes! In that case I wish I had your pay scale! You must be a lawyer or something. ;-)
Well said.
I would just like to point out that your last statement about "...losing money paying for our pageviews..." is not at all detrimental to the advertiser. Since it doesn't matter if you have add block enable or not, the add will still be generated on the server. So no matter what you do there is a view and a charge. Now taken in to context with your earlier statement about those who use the add blocker will not patron the advertiser in any case just means that the add will be served and either blocked or ignored. The only one who wins in either case is the website charging for the add view. The only looser in either case the advertiser. The only person who could either win or lose is the viewer. Since the site's and advertiser's fates will not change either way then why not use the add blocker? Now the viewer wins too. Persons who wish to buy products from such advertisers will *not* use the ad blocker. So they also win.
Wooo Hooo!
______________________________________
There are 10 kinds of people,
Those who know binary and those who don't.
Polymorphism is not unique to OOP's. Using window functions and version 5.2 of the IBM C compiler I created a system in which window messages were passed through a multi-level multi-branch hierarchy of windows. If a window function didn't have code to deal with a particular message then that message was passed down it's default procedure. I created whole families of window functions to handle messages in this structured way. Some were five or six message functions deep. Most layers of the code didn't know exactly which type of window a particular handle belonged to much less where it was instantiated. A message sent to different parts of the 'class' tree would generate different results based on inheritance: polymorphic behavior. Granted there was no safe type checking or compiler help; the parameters were always cast from a UINT to what ever based on the message id (this would have made anyone with a Worthian complex scream). If I mistakenly placed a handle derived from the wrong part of the tree so that a particular message may not process the compiler had no clue and I would know that a message (method) made no sense in that context. So I had to put in code in the base window function from which everything was derived which put up a WinMessageBox stating that message id xxx was not processed. In this case it was an insurance program and most of the layers represented actual display windows. Some forms were built on top of other forms so that only the changes to the behavior of form x was coded in its window function and its default procedure was the window function for form y from which it was derived'.
The point is since OS/2 supported old school COBOL it is possible to have a polymorphic and object like structure in any language. It's up the developer to make it happen. Eventually everything is machine code so if one wanted to one could do this in assembler. Granted C++ makes it *much* easier and considerably safer but it does not *make* it possible but rather provides a lot of help to make it easier. OOD is a state of mind not a compiler choice; you are correct when you state that it is a paradigm shift.
______________________________________
There are 10 kinds of people,
Those who know binary and those who don't.
Perhaps the WMSCI is really a computer generated society and the 'acceptance board' is software that picks entries based on word scores.
In Robo football a field goal is made by kicking what would have been the *ball* held in place by the ball holder with the *head* of the "holder" through the uprights.
A steamroller will really be a steam roller! The Jetsons have this aspect of the future nailed down!
You forgot the read the fine print.
M$FT is innovative in the realm of the MS Windows OSes. It does a better job of adding new innovative features to various MS Windows OSes better than anyone else does.
It's a very narrow scope.
I don't have these problems on PCs. So the common vector is Apple.
That's my point. If there's no real benifit to owning a mac in terms of a better computer experience then why pay the apple premium ?
Where were you three months ago ?
copy cat.
The iMac had it's share of problems. I installed an external CD rom burner on it. That worked. I wanted to move the burner to a different machine. I followed the un-install procedure as provied. That did not work. So I pulled the physical device off the iMac. That made the OS boot really really slowly. On the order of several minutes. I tried to contact the vendor and they said I should call Apple. Apple said I should contact the vendor. I will never buy an Apple again. It did cost more than a comperable PC at the time. So why was I suckered in to it ? I guess I fell victim to the think different campain. Well now I really do think differently. Macs cost too much and they don't really free users from the problems associated with a PC.
The single source of problems didn't work. Since I couldn't boot the Mac or eject the media I had not choice but to disasemle the device. Going out to the web site was not an option at that point. It wouldn't boot. It wouldn't not power down. What should I have done ? I followed the update instructions to the letter. That's how I got there and Apple wouldn't help me. At all. period. Why pay the premium for a Mac if there's no benifit ? I never will again.