Someone will have to prove the RIAA is not operating in 'Good Faith' based on the facts available at the time. Really hard to do in the US, less of an issue in say GB. I am wondering at what point they will find my anonymous ftp with just the standard disclaimer for private authorized use, and the 20 gb of legally owned music I have placed there for my streaming use at work. Windows Media player is approved for use and streams thru the corporate firewall but MP3's/Ogg's on your machine will trigger an audit flag, so I stream it and it is viewed as a temp file. When did it become the crime to display merchandise vs stealing it ? I can produce a purchased legal copy of every track of music I have on my drive, excluding the Public Domain and artist authorized stuff I have. My question is this, I have a reel-to-reel player and working copies of lots of music I bought many years ago, I've hooked the old dog into my system before but it was a pain, can I download an MP3 copy of that same material legally ? What about the 8 track cassettes I have by the hundreds ? Much of the music is not aquirable anymore even if I wanted to buy it again ? Where does fair use start and end, if it in fact does start in the US anymore...There was no concept of the license to physical media BS that is being disputed today so there is not a question of violating an agreement made at purchase time for the original source. I am sure that there is some sort of imbedded id that can determin that many of the MP3 copies I have are not from the SAME actual source I own but is the same tune from the same MASTER copy/performance recording or some digital descendent of it. Musicians and Artists deserve a decent living, but the fact that they are getting screwed is NOT NEW, or unique to the technical age. They've been dying penniless or even worse killed off by nobility after producing somthing great to keep them from reproducing it, or over some difference of asthetic opinion. Like the size of the king's nose or the fact that the queen resembles a rodent:)
History,
we are doomed to repeat it because we keep re-writing to fit the view we want rather than deal with the reality we create.
err are you just trying to be obtuse or is it a natural gift. While I don't support pirating music in any form, I've not seen anyone on./ EVER advocate ripping tunes and then using them for commercial gain. The core of the./ argument rational or not, is the PRIVATE PERSONAL USE involving format shifting, and the PURE OUTRAGE at the music industries monopolistic market manipulationn and continued gouging of both the consumers AND the producers.
DS9 made me ill. I love the old trek's, but I'd MUCH rather watch TNG, or heck even LOST in SPACE over DS9. Voyager was probably the only thing worse than DS9, I have got to back you there. As for recent Sci-Fi check out Tripping the Rift, I am really enjoying that, hope it lasts, and Red Dwarf is also very much worth seeing.
1080 native support is out there and you CAN get a plasma that will do a respectable 1280X1024, but even at the $8K range the ghosting and blurring on fast video is VERY NOTICEABLE. If you've got money to burn more power to ya. I'd suggest a digi projector for half the cost, and wait for the LCD's to exceed the plasma's in quality, cost and lifetime...very soon...
Although the Apple 23" Cinema display is hard to not LOVE:)
you speak the truth, the ONLY PC level OS that was stable enough for business use at the time was OS/2. It did WINDOWS better than WINDOWS did. All that does however is just6 highlight Bill's greatest strength, not programming, not design, but sales and MARKETING. Everything else was VMS, IBM VM or MVS, or ohh it hurts to think about it..CPM:( Amazing but give M$ 30 years of practice and they will have a ROCK SOLID, secure kernel, comparable to UNIX, the difference is they will ALSO 10's of thousands of APPS and 100 million desktop users to go with it, somthing the UNIX engineers on a superior code base never managed to get:( The answer for Linux lies in gaming and somehow beating the DIRECTX juggernaut. Get the kids at home on the games and they will force it elsewhere due to experience and familiarity.
D&D has been gone for a 2 decades
on
D&D Is 30
·
· Score: 3, Informative
years now folks, it was AdvancedD&D because of ownership disputes arising from the original Gygax play group. It is now officially the 'D20 system' and not even a game anymore but a set of leaseable rules.
The whole mess is tied up in court over ownership between Gary Gygax, David Cook, some original investors in what used to be TSR, who filed a law suit following the sale to WoTC, and Hasbro INC, the newest 'owners'. Hasbro brought in BIG LAWYERS and claimed ownership over EVERYTHING involving D&D, even stuff which was taken from public domain, or history texts. Much of the legal battle involved the Bioware engine and the rights over use of names and such in electronic publishing. The 'NEW' Pools of Radiance game and publishing house did not help to clear matters at all. Spell names and character names in the background that were allowed for use to Gary, or David but never allowed for transfer, Many things involving games used at CONS that were NEVER licensed for commercial use, or things from the old dragon/dungeon mags that were adopted into the game or offered for non-commerical use to GM's were co-opted by WotC or Hasrbo. In some cases the true owners were even legally threatened by either company, and they did not even know the source of the material they were claiming.
I have been playing since the blue book days and have numerous modules and other minor components published under TSR's aegis, or used at cons or tournaments, and yes I have run many GENCON games as well as RPGA tournaments , that were then 'adopted', used, modified, and then my name was eventually removed totally, while they continue to use the items and spells bearing the characters' name I own and created. It is frustrating and somewhat insulting but I never expected make a profit, I did it for the 'love' of the game. I had an EQ char's last name changed following a report by 'someone', when I am in fact the legal owner. I've had ZERO luck getting the name back as Sony Online Entertainment claims OWNERSHIP of everything that passes a chat screen in EQ.
Sadly the 3rd ed system is aimed at the video game crowd and rather silly in many places, we speculate jokingly that the authors were obviously playing Diablo2 during the development period of the new system. Our long time gaming group, the Saturday Knights, playing continuously for 20 years now, has adopted the GURPS system and we continue in the same game world we've been playing in for almost the entire time.
BTW we are always looking for good roleplayers, we are listed on Steve Jackson's find a game/player service or can be reached at the above email, make sure to put a RPG reference in the title or it will likely get de-spam'd. We are located in California, East of SF, meet at least once every 2 weeks for 8+hours sessions, require mature gamers but age is not the primary factor, and have a family environment to play in. Our group consists of several married couples as well as some younger singles. We've tried remote play but have not found any medium which can yet support the needed presence to really make ROLE-PLAYING possible, and We DEMAND roleplaying over stat-playing. A good guideline to our game style is the Char's disadvantages DEFINE them, and EVERY action has long term consequences in game. Uncle Figgie's guide to power gamers is recommended reading, and you should 'KNOW' what type of player you are:)
They should try and get a creative sound card to work properly under a current M$ OS or any other application. It is not the OS's problem, it is the MORON's at creative, their crappy hardware and really CRAPPY drivers....
That's the true measure. I used to game on the NET quite extensively and then the broadband was a god-send. I still have it but don't game anymore, and find that the extra speed is really not used very much except to download the 4 tons of spam I am served daily by MORON providers incapable of securing their own connections. If my connection providers increases my cost just once, I will cancel it and go back to dial up. Lan gaming is better than net gaming, and I can do that without PacSmell or COMCRAP. The promise of low-cost broadband has like every other self regulated industry dried up and turned into a profit trap by greedy corporations bent on control, and greatly assisted by the Choad licking FCC in Washington.
I am ahead of 2/3rds the Sheeple out there... The point being you must exercise your brain and seek more than a single point of view to get the facts. Any media source be it traditional or web are ALL BIASED in one way or another, whether it is towards commerical sponsorship, or personal agenda's. I honestly don't think that things have changed that much, the proliferation of the web has allowed the light to shine on the problems that have been present all along....
Sorry I pay for NET ACCESS, talk to my GREEDY A$$ net provider. They get 50$ a month to sit on their colons and collect for other people's content. TV worked it out somehow, so the ISP and content providers on the net better figure somthing out. I have ABSOLUTLEY HAD it with micro-payments nickle and diming me to death and I've canceled ALL SUCH arrangements, this place included. If cable TV and the networks can manage to make it using a NON FEEDBACK advertising model then the NET had better figure it out or just perish. As for AD words and such that takes some Browser Helper or the page provider coding all the links, NO 3rd party installs on this browser, no ad words, NO POPUPS, NO cookies NOT FROM the originating DOMAIN, no cross domain data refresh, NO STORED DATA...
BTW NEWS PROVIDERS ARE AD WHORES Morris, owned by the same companies and providing an 'approved' view of things both video and byline. If it wasn't so then maybe we'd see some unique words in any publications, instead of someone elses interpretation of an API by-line, or even more common, just the by-line and some local author taking credit...not implying anything about you personally mind you.
yah the quality sucks, the lifetime SUCKS, the refresh and video rates suck, they COST twice as much but yeah help the F'n vendors push useless crap by buying an inferior product so they don't have to work at making CRT's enviro friendly. Personally I've noticed there IS NOT AN LCD manufacturing plant in the WESTERN WORLD. So let's all buy a foreign made electronic device to help the environment, whomever wrote this article is getting a kickback or just plain works for the LCD companies.
and watch half the world SLOWLY starve to death as our grain rots away stateside...Our economy would take a HUGE hit, NO DOUBT but our population would survive. Name 5 other countries that produce enough food to survive on their own ? Very few nations of ANY size or economic might are NOT on the receiving end of US grain, while we import electronics and CRAP, that yes we americans LOVE, but can do without, food is another story...
in carrying over real world interactions ? I don't want to have to virtually flip thru my cd's, if I wanted that I'd just flipp thru them. I want cross linked DB structures, with dynamic associations that can be linked, cross linked and grouped on the fly, and by profiling. I want free of the traditional cumbersome interface, not chained to its' physical representation...
in which a virus exploited windows prior to a patch would be what ? Installation ? That HUGE BLOATED mass of corpse white infected code is by its very nature a virus, that just happens to have some useable features:) LOL
If they were pirated, does that not imply someone has to make a profit or use for a NON fair use purpose ? IE NOT poking fun at his retangular face in the time honored form of Satire ? So if someone profited, who ? and get a subpeona for records, businesses keep them, and you are only protected if operating under good faith, buying from the back of a van implies you KNEW it was stolen. If they can't point to someone who profited how do they justify/support the piracy angle. Sounds like a valid issue, but another place in which the terminally stupid piece of legislation previous known as the DMCA will be mis-applied to everyone NOT a CONSULTING LAWYER for either party or firms involved....
At what point does construct of stupidity, layed on a ground of venal greed, to a philosophy of deniability become a solid doctrine to manage society by/with ?
I should have been born wealthy, or too stupid to appreciate the difference...
They are forbidden by Fed regs from utilizing part of it, sensitive info you supply as part of signing up, etc, referred to as non-experience data. They do share everything else with NCAG, the National Consumer Advertising Group. We dump the info into a HUGE 50+ node Teradata 5200 and let the pinhead (L)users go crazy submitting queries. BTW the patypoint network is ALSO owned by the same big bank I work for and all the data..IE grocery transactions are captured that way as well. If you want to avoid the grocery card tracking just use a common phone number say popcorn, SOMEONE is sure to have reg'd it and you can access your so-called profile by keyying in your # number as well. I always get strange looks because whomever did it here used Mrs Neusbaum, wonder if they had a voucher, obscure movie reference a free bonus. Treading water in Calif. for the time being. Any FDIC insured, thus regulated instituition is required by law to provide a PRIVACY POLICY and INFORMATION SHARING document for user view.
not sure I'd agree with that but the continued erosion of personal freedom, the unchecked corporate greed and political malfeseance(SP?) is reaching a point of prevalence that demands direct action... Somewhere along the way the part about all freedoms NOT EXCLUSIVELY DOCUMENTED and GRANTED to the government WERE RESERVED FOR THE PEOPLE, got lost, and a new part about the CORPORATE RIGHT TO PROFIT seems to have been GRAFTED (pun INTENDED) in its place. Our founding forefather's, WISER, BRAVER, and with infinitely more personal integrity saw fit to revoke the so-called rights of chartered companies(corporations)tea anyone ? Forcing them to rely on the individuals of which they were comprised. We all have a BOSS TWEED-like JUDGE from NY state to thank for the fact that corporations have once again assumed an equal legal standing as a person, while retaining the protections and lack of accountabilty given an institution.
especially considering the treatment the Roma's regularly receive in Europe, not just Germany either, denied citizenship anywhere, their childeren deneied schooling and the same treatment any other kids born in the country to non-citizens. As for the US we are currently so close to treating those of Arab descent as criminals just as we did such a DIS-SERVICE to the Japanease in WW2....We are not in any position to start throwing many stones, with non-citizens sitting in internment camps in Guantanamo Bay, never charged, denied any of the BASIC human rights we so LOUDLY TOUT...
uses an amatuer rocket setup and lauches say 5000 lbs of NON-METALLIC ball bearings into HEAVILY used geo-synch orbits patterns at decent relative velocity and tears holes in Trillions of $$$'s worth of satelites, making the area unuseable for orbiters or requiring a HUGE expenditure to clean....Seems like a relatively under the radar way to really HURT a huge number of companies, and government services. Obviously the NSA, CIA etc has 'other' resources but physics determines the LIMITED location and availability of stable accessible orbit slots...
everything you fill out is just verification of what your employer reported already...and they are hoping you will voluntarily pay more...95% of the people are just wasting time effort and paper, it's really only the self employed who do not regularly report during the year and the poor service people, waiters etc that they are busy screwing...
had anything directly to do with quality ? If that held true I'd never go with either the top or bottom bidders but that 80% er would get my business. In either light OSS and control over the source looks good, the support you get then depends on how stingy, stupid, or serious you are about succeeding, businesses cost money to operate...
still think unix automounting FS's predates all of this. When a NFS system is initialized my system detects the mounted media and mounts it for me without any user interference or action. But I do remember the MAC chunking away on the floppy upon insertion as well. IBM Mainframe machines required the controller to let the machine know new media or devices had been attached as far back as 3081's, based on my admittedly flawed memory...
they can't even manage their own people properly much less make any sort of constructive changes tio the game. Whatever BS they pass off to the public, if you play EQ for a while you see the truth...Trial and error, mostly error, greed, and stupidity rule the SoE world. SoE is barely able to keep up with the exploits that are pointed out to them and documented by someone else much less find, derive, or intuit any themselves, don't make me laugh:)
Slashdot Mirror
Musicians and Artists deserve a decent living, but the fact that they are getting screwed is NOT NEW, or unique to the technical age. They've been dying penniless or even worse killed off by nobility after producing somthing great to keep them from reproducing it, or over some difference of asthetic opinion. Like the size of the king's nose or the fact that the queen resembles a rodent
History,
we are doomed to repeat it because we keep re-writing to fit the view we want rather than deal with the reality we create.
err are you just trying to be obtuse or is it a natural gift. While I don't support pirating music in any form, I've not seen anyone on ./ EVER advocate ripping tunes and then using them for commercial gain. The core of the ./ argument rational or not, is the PRIVATE PERSONAL USE involving format shifting, and the PURE OUTRAGE at the music industries monopolistic market manipulationn and continued gouging of both the consumers AND the producers.
DS9 made me ill. I love the old trek's, but I'd MUCH rather watch TNG, or heck even LOST in SPACE over DS9. Voyager was probably the only thing worse than DS9, I have got to back you there. As for recent Sci-Fi check out Tripping the Rift, I am really enjoying that, hope it lasts, and Red Dwarf is also very much worth seeing.
1080 native support is out there and you CAN get a plasma that will do a respectable 1280X1024, but even at the $8K range the ghosting and blurring on fast video is VERY NOTICEABLE. If you've got money to burn more power to ya. I'd
:)
suggest a digi projector for half the cost, and wait for the LCD's to exceed the plasma's in quality, cost and lifetime...very soon...
Although the Apple 23" Cinema display is hard to not LOVE
you speak the truth, the ONLY PC level OS that was stable enough for business use at the time was OS/2. It did WINDOWS better than WINDOWS did. All that does however is just6 highlight Bill's greatest strength, not programming, not design, but sales and MARKETING. Everything else was VMS, IBM VM or MVS, or ohh it hurts to think about it..CPM :( Amazing but give M$ 30 years of practice and they will have a ROCK SOLID, secure kernel, comparable to UNIX, the difference is they will ALSO 10's of thousands of APPS and 100 million desktop users to go with it, somthing the UNIX engineers on a superior code base never managed to get :( The answer for Linux lies in gaming and somehow beating the DIRECTX juggernaut.
Get the kids at home on the games and they will force it elsewhere due to experience and familiarity.
The whole mess is tied up in court over ownership between Gary Gygax, David Cook, some original investors in what used to be TSR, who filed a law suit following the sale to WoTC, and Hasbro INC, the newest 'owners'. Hasbro brought in BIG LAWYERS and claimed ownership over EVERYTHING involving D&D, even stuff which was taken from public domain, or history texts. Much of the legal battle involved the Bioware engine and the rights over use of names and such in electronic publishing. The 'NEW' Pools of Radiance game and publishing house did not help to clear matters at all. Spell names and character names in the background that were allowed for use to Gary, or David but never allowed for transfer, Many things involving games used at CONS that were NEVER licensed for commercial use, or things from the old dragon/dungeon mags that were adopted into the game or offered for non-commerical use to GM's were co-opted by WotC or Hasrbo. In some cases the true owners were even legally threatened by either company, and they did not even know the source of the material they were claiming.
I have been playing since the blue book days and have numerous modules and other minor components published under TSR's aegis, or used at cons or tournaments, and yes I have run many GENCON games as well as RPGA tournaments , that were then 'adopted', used, modified, and then my name was eventually removed totally, while they continue to use the items and spells bearing the characters' name I own and created. It is frustrating and somewhat insulting but I never expected make a profit, I did it for the 'love' of the game. I had an EQ char's last name changed following a report by 'someone', when I am in fact the legal owner. I've had ZERO luck getting the name back as Sony Online Entertainment claims OWNERSHIP of everything that passes a chat screen in EQ.
Sadly the 3rd ed system is aimed at the video game crowd and rather silly in many places, we speculate jokingly that the authors were obviously playing Diablo2 during the development period of the new system. Our long time gaming group, the Saturday Knights, playing continuously for 20 years now, has adopted the GURPS system and we continue in the same game world we've been playing in for almost the entire time.
BTW we are always looking for good roleplayers, we are listed on Steve Jackson's find a game/player service or can be reached at the above email, make sure to put a RPG reference in the title or it will likely get de-spam'd. We are located in California, East of SF, meet at least once every 2 weeks for 8+hours sessions, require mature gamers but age is not the primary factor, and have a family environment to play in. Our group consists of several married couples as well as some younger singles. We've tried remote play but have not found any medium which can yet support the needed presence to really make ROLE-PLAYING possible, and We DEMAND roleplaying over stat-playing. A good guideline to our game style is the Char's disadvantages DEFINE them, and EVERY action has long term consequences in game. Uncle Figgie's guide to power gamers is recommended reading, and you should 'KNOW' what type of player you are
in my front room still works, and the FDR speeches still play in tinny glory :)
They should try and get a creative sound card to work properly under a current M$ OS or any other application. It is not the OS's problem, it is the MORON's at creative, their crappy hardware and really CRAPPY drivers....
That's the true measure. I used to game on the NET quite extensively and then the broadband was a god-send. I still have it but don't game anymore, and find that the extra speed is really not used very much except to download the 4 tons of spam I am served daily by MORON providers incapable of securing their own connections. If my connection providers increases my cost just once, I will cancel it and go back to dial up. Lan gaming is better than net gaming, and I can do that without PacSmell or COMCRAP. The promise of low-cost broadband has like every other self regulated industry dried up and turned into a profit trap by greedy corporations bent on control, and greatly assisted by the Choad licking FCC in Washington.
I am ahead of 2/3rds the Sheeple out there... The point being you must exercise your brain and seek more than a single point of view to get the facts. Any media source be it traditional or web are ALL BIASED in one way or another, whether it is towards commerical sponsorship, or personal agenda's. I honestly don't think that things have changed that much, the proliferation of the web has allowed the light to shine on the problems that have been present all along....
Sorry I pay for NET ACCESS, talk to my GREEDY A$$ net provider. They get 50$ a month to sit on their colons and collect for other people's content. TV worked it out somehow, so the ISP and content providers on the net better figure somthing out. I have ABSOLUTLEY HAD it with micro-payments nickle and diming me to death and I've canceled ALL SUCH arrangements, this place included. If cable TV and the networks can manage to make it using a NON FEEDBACK advertising model then the NET had better figure it out or just perish. As for AD words and such that takes some Browser Helper or the page provider coding all the links, NO 3rd party installs on this browser, no ad words, NO POPUPS, NO cookies NOT FROM the originating DOMAIN, no cross domain data refresh, NO STORED DATA...
BTW NEWS PROVIDERS ARE AD WHORES Morris, owned by the same companies and providing an 'approved' view of things both video and byline. If it wasn't so then maybe we'd see some unique words in any publications, instead of someone elses interpretation of an API by-line, or even more common, just the by-line and some local author taking credit...not implying anything about you personally mind you.
yah the quality sucks, the lifetime SUCKS, the refresh and video rates suck, they COST twice as much but yeah help the F'n vendors push useless crap by buying an inferior product so they don't have to work at making CRT's enviro friendly. Personally I've noticed there IS NOT AN LCD manufacturing plant in the WESTERN WORLD. So let's all buy a foreign made electronic device to help the environment, whomever wrote this article is getting a kickback or just plain works for the LCD companies.
and watch half the world SLOWLY starve to death as our grain rots away stateside...Our economy would take a HUGE hit, NO DOUBT but our population would survive. Name 5 other countries that produce enough food to survive on their own ? Very few nations of ANY size or economic might are NOT on the receiving end of US grain, while we import electronics and CRAP, that yes we americans LOVE, but can do without, food is another story...
in carrying over real world interactions ? I don't want to have to virtually flip thru my cd's, if I wanted that I'd just flipp thru them.
I want cross linked DB structures, with dynamic associations that can be linked, cross linked and grouped on the fly, and by profiling. I want free of the traditional cumbersome interface, not chained to its' physical representation...
in which a virus exploited windows prior to a patch would be what ? Installation ? That HUGE BLOATED mass of corpse white infected code is by its very nature a virus, that just happens to have some useable features :) LOL
If they were pirated, does that not imply someone has to make a profit or use for a NON fair use purpose ? IE NOT poking fun at his retangular face in the time honored form of Satire ? So if someone profited, who ? and get a subpeona for records, businesses keep them, and you are only protected if operating under good faith, buying from the back of a van implies you KNEW it was stolen. If they can't point to someone who profited how do they justify/support the piracy angle. Sounds like a valid issue, but another place in which the terminally stupid piece of legislation previous known as the DMCA will be mis-applied to everyone NOT a CONSULTING LAWYER for either party or firms involved....
At what point does construct of stupidity, layed on a ground of venal greed, to a philosophy of deniability become a solid doctrine to manage society by/with ?
I should have been born wealthy, or too stupid to appreciate the difference...
They are forbidden by Fed regs from utilizing part of it, sensitive info you supply as part of signing up, etc, referred to as non-experience data. They do share everything else with NCAG, the National Consumer Advertising Group. We dump the info into a HUGE 50+ node Teradata 5200 and let the pinhead (L)users go crazy submitting queries. BTW the patypoint network is ALSO owned by the same big bank I work for and all the data..IE grocery transactions are captured that way as well. If you want to avoid the grocery card tracking just use a common phone number say popcorn, SOMEONE is sure to have reg'd it and you can access your so-called profile by keyying in your # number as well. I always get strange looks because whomever did it here used Mrs Neusbaum, wonder if they had a voucher, obscure movie reference a free bonus.
Treading water in Calif. for the time being. Any FDIC insured, thus regulated instituition is required by law to provide a PRIVACY POLICY and INFORMATION SHARING document for user view.
not sure I'd agree with that but the continued erosion of personal freedom, the unchecked corporate greed and political malfeseance(SP?) is reaching a point of prevalence that demands direct action... Somewhere along the way the part about all freedoms NOT EXCLUSIVELY DOCUMENTED and GRANTED to the government WERE RESERVED FOR THE PEOPLE, got lost, and a new part about the CORPORATE RIGHT TO PROFIT seems to have been GRAFTED (pun INTENDED) in its place. Our founding forefather's, WISER, BRAVER, and with infinitely more personal integrity saw fit to revoke the so-called rights of chartered companies(corporations)tea anyone ? Forcing them to rely on the individuals of which they were comprised.
We all have a BOSS TWEED-like JUDGE from NY state to thank for the fact that corporations have once again assumed an equal legal standing as a person, while retaining the protections and lack of accountabilty given an institution.
especially considering the treatment the Roma's regularly receive in Europe, not just Germany either, denied citizenship anywhere, their childeren deneied schooling and the same treatment any other kids born in the country to non-citizens. As for the US we are currently so close to treating those of Arab descent as criminals just as we did such a DIS-SERVICE to the Japanease in WW2....We are not in any position to start throwing many stones, with non-citizens sitting in internment camps in Guantanamo Bay, never charged, denied any of the BASIC human rights we so LOUDLY TOUT...
uses an amatuer rocket setup and lauches say 5000 lbs of NON-METALLIC ball bearings into HEAVILY used geo-synch orbits patterns at decent relative velocity and tears holes in Trillions of $$$'s worth of satelites, making the area unuseable for orbiters or requiring a HUGE expenditure to clean....Seems like a relatively under the radar way to really HURT a huge number of companies, and government services.
Obviously the NSA, CIA etc has 'other' resources but physics determines the LIMITED location and availability of stable accessible orbit slots...
everything you fill out is just verification of what your employer reported already...and they are hoping you will voluntarily pay more...95% of the people are just wasting time effort and paper, it's really only the self employed who do not regularly report during the year and the poor service people, waiters etc that they are busy screwing...
had anything directly to do with quality ? If that held true I'd never go with either the top or bottom bidders but that 80% er would get my business. In either light OSS and control over the source looks good, the support you get then depends on how stingy, stupid, or serious you are about succeeding, businesses cost money to operate...
still think unix automounting FS's predates all of this. When a NFS system is initialized my system detects the mounted media and mounts it for me without any user interference or action. But I do remember the MAC chunking away on the floppy upon insertion as well. IBM Mainframe machines required the controller to let the machine know new media or devices had been attached as far back as 3081's, based on my admittedly flawed memory...
they can't even manage their own people properly much less make any sort of constructive changes tio the game. Whatever BS they pass off to the public, if you play EQ for a while you see the truth...Trial and error, mostly error, greed, and stupidity rule the SoE world. SoE is barely able to keep up with the exploits that are pointed out to them and documented by someone else much less find, derive, or intuit any themselves, don't make me laugh :)
even happier it was not near me..Horrible places that produce huge amounts of heinous sand some really AWFUL smells.