I disagree. The enrichment of the public domain is the entire reason for the existence of copyright law. "To promote the progress of science and the useful arts..." so that We, the people, have access to that progress at some later point. A temporary monopoly is granted to ensure permanent enrichment of the people. DRM changes that, and means that a permanent monopoly is granted to ensure permanent enrichment of the monopoly holder.
You must not have read the article (yes yes, I'm new here). One page is devoted to people who think it is important, and another where developers (including me!) say it isn't. Some people echo your basic sentiments about gameplay being important. And the purpose of the question, just like Zonk's posting of it, was to generate discussion on this point, rather than to tell you what to believe.
The problem isn't the power they have, it's the fact that Hollywood cares, and the electronics industry doesn't... Or doesn't as much. They can make nearly as much money selling people DRMed devices as non, and it's great for them when there are legally-forced upgrades. It's a bit short-sighted, since things like the PC industry wouldn't have even arisen if laws like this had been in place. But of course very few businesses like to bet on the long term when they can profit in the short term.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, as I've been checking out Freenet. Theoretically it would be a great place for people to step forward with information about government conspiracies and so forth, but the problem is that since they're anonymous, they have no credentials. They could be senior government officials letting the truth out, or they could just be internet whackjobs.
On the other hand, if you go to a reporter Deep Throat-style, you have to worry about the reporter being arrested and revealing you as the source.
So basically, in order to successfully reveal information, you have to reveal somehow that you're in a position to know that information... very hard to do anonymously.
Can anyone think of a secure way to enable whistleblowing without retaliation?
So maybe the correct medium for the Ender story was actually a novel? Maybe trying to shoehorn a story best told as an adults' novel into a mass-market two-hour movie is futile?
Maybe Card should write a new story, one that lends itself to the strengths of the film medium?
Trying to adapt certain books into movies is like trying to adapt paintings into novels, or sculptures into music. Very occasionally it can be done, but most often you can't express the ideas that made the original great in a new medium.
Even disregarding the curious interpretation of "force" in the language you cited, the resolution is limited to apply only to those who had a direct hand in the attacks on 9/11. That doesn't even apply to future terrorists if they weren't involved in that attack (although perhaps the "in order to prevent..." language could be twisted).
I think it's beyond question, though, that the President exceeded the authority that Congress believed it was granting with that resolution, and his attempt to find legal loopholes in it is outrageous.
No, the real problem, from my point of view, is that the President apparently considers himself above the law.
Irrespective of whether the surveillance was justified, whether it's a good thing or not, or even whether he's spying on terrorists or political opponents, the President does not have the authority to disregard laws. One of the important founding principles of this country is that no one is above the law, even the President.
It's especially bad in this case because the FISA requirements are so easy to meet. You can't argue that wiretaps would be delayed, because you're allowed to get approval after the fact. Plus the FISA court has mostly rubber-stamped requests as they come through, so there's very little reason to break the law in this regard.
But break the law he did, and hopefully he will answer for it.
Actually, a number of great philosophical thinkers have considered the teleological argument, or "Argument from Design" in reflections on the existence of God. In fact, prior to Darwin it was very difficult to answer the argument - our only experience with the creation of complex things was manmade items.
I discussed the argument many times in my philosophy classes, and I don't think you could teach Philosophy of Religion or History of Philosophy without touching on it.
If this is true, I saw something where the StarForce developers were offering $1000 dollars if anyone could show them their software caused hardware failure. So you should look that up and collect!
That's impossible. There will always be a situation in which the right thing is NOT in their best interest, no matter how you work it. Or to put it another way, dishonesty is often much more profitable than honesty.
The reason I use FLAC is not for rebuilding my CDs in pristine state, but to more easily enable transcoding to the format-du-jour. If I had music in MP3 and wanted to move it to Ogg, it would sound ugly, and vice versa. This way I can store my music on my HDD, but still be able to use whatever format I need for my DAP or other device.
Two e-ink based readers are supposed to be released soon: The Hanlin V8/V2 and a device from iRex. The iRex reader is supposed to support Linux and be released in "early 2006" in Europe. The Hanlin V8 with a proprietary OS is supposed to be released "by the end of this year" in China for around $300, with the Linux-based V2 being released in May worldwide at about $320.
My money is on iRex, since they're backed by Philips and have a larger screen, but they might be more expensive than the Hanlin device. We'll see!
So where do you draw the line to defend oneself? Handguns are OK, what about machine guns? What about tanks? What about anthrax or nuclear weapons? Sure, if Timmy the Meth Head goes crazy with his rifle, a few people are dead and he gets punished, but if he goes crazy with his Scud launcher or warhead, what then?
At some point you have to draw a line, and then you get regulation all over again. The only system you've ended up with is one with slightly fewer regulations than previously - and once you've made allowances for outlawing certain types of weapons, there's room for people to outlaw more types.
Maybe crime will go down if people can carry handguns, or maybe criminals will shoot first, then search the body. Maybe muggers will wire themselves with C4 and a dead-man's switch.
I don't think that relaxed gun laws are necessarily the solution to society's problems.
Yes, that's exactly what I want in a game, how'd you guess?
Seriously, people who are into the quick hack-n-slash aren't going to quit playing WoW and start Galaxies, the people who are still playing Galaxies are probably doing so because of everything other MMOs don't offer, like the complex crafting system or player-created content.
Making your game a thoughtless treadmill won't help, at this point.
Actually, yes. The fact of the matter is that kids don't have any money. Once or twice a year, maybe a little more, they can convince their parents to spend $50 on a videogame for them.
18-35 year olds, on the other hand, buy new games every week, potentially. They have a lot of disposable income, and so they're a better target.
Hmm. I don't know if I *like* the idea of easy ports. One of the strengths of the DS, in my opinion, is that it forces developers to think at least somewhat about the new games they're making, and NOT just port over GBA games or N64 games.
I wonder, do I really want to play the games that are going to be coming out for all three platforms? Or would I rather play games that have been designed from the ground up to take advantage of the exciting new features of the Revolution?
About the only benefit I can see is that cross-platform ports will help the system survive if there aren't enough fantastic unique games made for it.
Tipper Gore, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Lieberman are the republican wing of the democratic party. They're not "liberal" by any stretch, and their awful attempts to censor Americans are pandering to the middle, not the left.
The "free love" leftists aren't be in favor of this sort of thing.
John Stuart Mill said, paraphrased, that the only speech that needs protecting is unpopular speech. When something is believed by the majority, it usually requires no protection - if I were to hold a protest with signs saying "Killing healthy human adults is MURDER!", probably no one would try to repress my ideas. However, if I had a sign saying "Fur is MURDER!" (or "Abortion is MURDER!") it would be a lot more popular to try to prevent me... despite the fact that the act itself is the same!
It's interesting to look at civil liberties in that light - 50 years ago, the speech that needed defending was black people standing up for their rights. Today, the speech that needs defending *based on the same principle* is the marching of neo-nazis and the KKK. Is it strange that the ACLU could have been on both sides in that issue? Not when you realize that they're defending the same essential thing in both cases, but the tide of public opinion has shifted.
Think bigger. VR Glasses? Plug 'em into the controller, give them the same position tracking as the controller has. Instant Augmented Reality gaming. Of course, you'd still have to be in front (or near) to the TV (or wherever you've got the pad locators) and it depends on having the locators be micro-acurate.
Actually, that's interesting, because Miyamoto recently said something about wanting to have a new and different type of display, but then said "I can't say anything more about that right now.", or something similar. So it's possible!
Slashdot Mirror
Drinking coffee for the taste is like shooting heroin to lose weight.
I disagree. The enrichment of the public domain is the entire reason for the existence of copyright law. "To promote the progress of science and the useful arts..." so that We, the people, have access to that progress at some later point. A temporary monopoly is granted to ensure permanent enrichment of the people. DRM changes that, and means that a permanent monopoly is granted to ensure permanent enrichment of the monopoly holder.
This act has already infringed on many peoples freedom,... Has it overall had a positive or negative effect?
Uhhh. Speaking as a freedom-lover, I think you just answered that question right there.
WTF is wrong with you people?
You must not have read the article (yes yes, I'm new here). One page is devoted to people who think it is important, and another where developers (including me!) say it isn't. Some people echo your basic sentiments about gameplay being important. And the purpose of the question, just like Zonk's posting of it, was to generate discussion on this point, rather than to tell you what to believe.
The problem isn't the power they have, it's the fact that Hollywood cares, and the electronics industry doesn't... Or doesn't as much. They can make nearly as much money selling people DRMed devices as non, and it's great for them when there are legally-forced upgrades. It's a bit short-sighted, since things like the PC industry wouldn't have even arisen if laws like this had been in place. But of course very few businesses like to bet on the long term when they can profit in the short term.
I heard that Juniper's CEO was involved in the Kennedy assassination...
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, as I've been checking out Freenet. Theoretically it would be a great place for people to step forward with information about government conspiracies and so forth, but the problem is that since they're anonymous, they have no credentials. They could be senior government officials letting the truth out, or they could just be internet whackjobs.
On the other hand, if you go to a reporter Deep Throat-style, you have to worry about the reporter being arrested and revealing you as the source.
So basically, in order to successfully reveal information, you have to reveal somehow that you're in a position to know that information... very hard to do anonymously.
Can anyone think of a secure way to enable whistleblowing without retaliation?
So maybe the correct medium for the Ender story was actually a novel? Maybe trying to shoehorn a story best told as an adults' novel into a mass-market two-hour movie is futile?
Maybe Card should write a new story, one that lends itself to the strengths of the film medium?
Trying to adapt certain books into movies is like trying to adapt paintings into novels, or sculptures into music. Very occasionally it can be done, but most often you can't express the ideas that made the original great in a new medium.
Even disregarding the curious interpretation of "force" in the language you cited, the resolution is limited to apply only to those who had a direct hand in the attacks on 9/11. That doesn't even apply to future terrorists if they weren't involved in that attack (although perhaps the "in order to prevent..." language could be twisted).
I think it's beyond question, though, that the President exceeded the authority that Congress believed it was granting with that resolution, and his attempt to find legal loopholes in it is outrageous.
No, the real problem, from my point of view, is that the President apparently considers himself above the law.
Irrespective of whether the surveillance was justified, whether it's a good thing or not, or even whether he's spying on terrorists or political opponents, the President does not have the authority to disregard laws. One of the important founding principles of this country is that no one is above the law, even the President.
It's especially bad in this case because the FISA requirements are so easy to meet. You can't argue that wiretaps would be delayed, because you're allowed to get approval after the fact. Plus the FISA court has mostly rubber-stamped requests as they come through, so there's very little reason to break the law in this regard.
But break the law he did, and hopefully he will answer for it.
Actually, a number of great philosophical thinkers have considered the teleological argument, or "Argument from Design" in reflections on the existence of God. In fact, prior to Darwin it was very difficult to answer the argument - our only experience with the creation of complex things was manmade items.
I discussed the argument many times in my philosophy classes, and I don't think you could teach Philosophy of Religion or History of Philosophy without touching on it.
Hi,
If this is true, I saw something where the StarForce developers were offering $1000 dollars if anyone could show them their software caused hardware failure. So you should look that up and collect!
That's impossible. There will always be a situation in which the right thing is NOT in their best interest, no matter how you work it. Or to put it another way, dishonesty is often much more profitable than honesty.
The reason I use FLAC is not for rebuilding my CDs in pristine state, but to more easily enable transcoding to the format-du-jour. If I had music in MP3 and wanted to move it to Ogg, it would sound ugly, and vice versa. This way I can store my music on my HDD, but still be able to use whatever format I need for my DAP or other device.
Exciting developments on that front, actually!
Two e-ink based readers are supposed to be released soon: The Hanlin V8/V2 and a device from iRex. The iRex reader is supposed to support Linux and be released in "early 2006" in Europe. The Hanlin V8 with a proprietary OS is supposed to be released "by the end of this year" in China for around $300, with the Linux-based V2 being released in May worldwide at about $320.
My money is on iRex, since they're backed by Philips and have a larger screen, but they might be more expensive than the Hanlin device. We'll see!
So where do you draw the line to defend oneself? Handguns are OK, what about machine guns? What about tanks? What about anthrax or nuclear weapons? Sure, if Timmy the Meth Head goes crazy with his rifle, a few people are dead and he gets punished, but if he goes crazy with his Scud launcher or warhead, what then?
At some point you have to draw a line, and then you get regulation all over again. The only system you've ended up with is one with slightly fewer regulations than previously - and once you've made allowances for outlawing certain types of weapons, there's room for people to outlaw more types.
Maybe crime will go down if people can carry handguns, or maybe criminals will shoot first, then search the body. Maybe muggers will wire themselves with C4 and a dead-man's switch.
I don't think that relaxed gun laws are necessarily the solution to society's problems.
Wow! I'm jumping for joy, I'll tell you.
Kill, get treasure, repeat.
Yes, that's exactly what I want in a game, how'd you guess?
Seriously, people who are into the quick hack-n-slash aren't going to quit playing WoW and start Galaxies, the people who are still playing Galaxies are probably doing so because of everything other MMOs don't offer, like the complex crafting system or player-created content.
Making your game a thoughtless treadmill won't help, at this point.
Actually, yes. The fact of the matter is that kids don't have any money. Once or twice a year, maybe a little more, they can convince their parents to spend $50 on a videogame for them.
18-35 year olds, on the other hand, buy new games every week, potentially. They have a lot of disposable income, and so they're a better target.
BTW, the "Game experience may change due to online play" is mandated by the ESRB in all titles that connect online. So it's not just Nintendo.
Hmm. I don't know if I *like* the idea of easy ports. One of the strengths of the DS, in my opinion, is that it forces developers to think at least somewhat about the new games they're making, and NOT just port over GBA games or N64 games.
I wonder, do I really want to play the games that are going to be coming out for all three platforms? Or would I rather play games that have been designed from the ground up to take advantage of the exciting new features of the Revolution?
About the only benefit I can see is that cross-platform ports will help the system survive if there aren't enough fantastic unique games made for it.
Tipper Gore, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Lieberman are the republican wing of the democratic party. They're not "liberal" by any stretch, and their awful attempts to censor Americans are pandering to the middle, not the left.
The "free love" leftists aren't be in favor of this sort of thing.
John Stuart Mill said, paraphrased, that the only speech that needs protecting is unpopular speech. When something is believed by the majority, it usually requires no protection - if I were to hold a protest with signs saying "Killing healthy human adults is MURDER!", probably no one would try to repress my ideas. However, if I had a sign saying "Fur is MURDER!" (or "Abortion is MURDER!") it would be a lot more popular to try to prevent me... despite the fact that the act itself is the same!
It's interesting to look at civil liberties in that light - 50 years ago, the speech that needed defending was black people standing up for their rights. Today, the speech that needs defending *based on the same principle* is the marching of neo-nazis and the KKK. Is it strange that the ACLU could have been on both sides in that issue? Not when you realize that they're defending the same essential thing in both cases, but the tide of public opinion has shifted.
Think bigger. VR Glasses? Plug 'em into the controller, give them the same position tracking as the controller has. Instant Augmented Reality gaming. Of course, you'd still have to be in front (or near) to the TV (or wherever you've got the pad locators) and it depends on having the locators be micro-acurate.
Actually, that's interesting, because Miyamoto recently said something about wanting to have a new and different type of display, but then said "I can't say anything more about that right now.", or something similar. So it's possible!
Sorry, but I find it very hard to take anyone seriously who styles themselves a 'killologist'...
Of course, Penny Arcade has words of wisdom on this matter.