DRM in the case of Steam gives you MORE rights than you have otherwise.
No, Steam (not it's DRM) gives you more convenience than you have otherwise. Convenience != rights.
Steam is incredibly customer friendly.
We'll assume for the purposes of this discussion that this is true (although I disagree), but even so, that's despite the DRM, not because of it!
In fact the publishers hate Steam because it removes the middleman, puts more $$ in the hands of the game companies...
Note: DRM is not necessary for this.
...and gives you more rights to install the software than the traditional EULA of any game ever gives you.
EULAs are unenforcible and irrelevant. Steam's DRM does not give you more rights than the Doctrine of First Sale; on the contrary, it gives you significantly fewer rights!
well unless you take your position that DRM is evil without regard to the law or logic.
Oh yeah? What "law or logic" claims that DRM is good?!
DRM on products that have never been traditionally licensed (ie music and movies) and DRM applied to licensed products (software) are completely different games.
Bullshit! There is no difference between stuff like music and stuff like software. Sure, one dumb-ass judge set a bad precedent, but that makes the distinction no less ridiculous!
but there's also nothing wrong with a company selling abroad with terms of its choice, including licensing restrictions you might not like
WRONG! The company in question has to, at the very least, disclose those licensing restrictions! And even then, since they're selling (not "licensing," regardless of their BS claims), such restrictions aren't legal anyway!
Imagine if you bought a shirt while you were on vacation in another country. Then you try to wear the shirt after returning home, and the manufacturer comes and rips it off your back and refuses to let you wear it because he thinks you should have paid more by buying it locally. Is that wrong? Fuck yes, it is! AND VALVE IS DOING EXACTLY THE SAME THING!
Indeed: the proper standard response to these unenforcable "C&D" (cease and desist) letters should be "FOaD" (fuck off and die) letters, especially when the entity sending the C&D is in another country.
I was born in 1981, yet I think that the best music era was the 1950s to the 1970s...
I'll bet your parents used to listen to the "oldies" station when you were little. That's what my parents did, and is probably why I prefer music from the '60s today.
Actually there is a new physics engine debuting in Force Unleashed (Emotion engine perhaps?) that will try to animate on the fly to realistically simulate a response to falling. Stormtroopers would try to cling to a beam when force-pushed to avoid tumbling to their doom, another sent that way would try to cling to the ankle of the stormtrooper on the beam, that sort of thing.
That's a pretty neat idea, but it doesn't seem to me like it would apply to portals in particular (e.g., since Star Wars doesn't have them). It would make just as much since to apply to (HL) Episode 3 regardless. Also, does a portal even have a well-defined, "grabbable" edge? I could easily see Valve simplifying the problem just by declaring that, no, it does not.
The trickier part is getting up...
I hadn't really thought about that being a problem. I guess I learned something!
Examples of AI issues, how does an AI stay on its feet when passing through a portal like Chell (the protagonist of Portal, who is unlikely to ever see herself do the 360-twist flip as she exits an upside down portal on a wall)?
Obviously, it shouldn't. It should crumple to the ground in a heap (using the normal ragdoll physics) and then pick itself back up again (unless the fall killed it). Maybe it could put out its arms (if applicable) to brace itself, or something, but that should be the extent of the extra animation.
If you don't have the hottest video card(s) in your rig, just turn off the "High Dynamic Lighting Effects"...
By the way, what's the minimum graphics card you can have that does support HDR (and has a reasonable framerate at a reasonable resolution)? According to the Lost Coast demo, my integrated 6150 doesn't quite cut it (although it plays HL2 just fine).
Let it be known that I bought a physical instance of The Orange Box from Amazon (and it arrived today! Yay!), so I know.
Faster: The stuff we're talking about isn't "several" GB; it's twelve (installed). It comes on, not one, but two DVD-ROMs! Even at fast broadband speeds, that's not a quick download.
On the other hand, I got it mail-order with the (slow) free shipping, so obviously I wasn't concerned with speed.
Printed literature and swag: The box contains the two discs and a single sheet with installation instructions, control mappings, and the CD key on it. No literature, no swag. Sorry.
Store discounts: Amazon has it for $40 with no tax and free shipping. That and the fact that I distrust Steam and insist on a physical copy is why I bought it there.
Actually, intercepting communications of American citizens is explicitly allowed in the Fourth Amendment, with a valid warrant. (That limitation doesn't even apply in the case of foreign communications - that's simply called espionage.) All that the Constitution requires for the issuance of a warrant is "probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized". As long as that criteria is fulfilled, then the warrant is valid.
Since when were "communications" classified as places, persons, or things? It's nonsensical to talk about siezing a physical instance of a conversation, therefore the Constitution does not allow wiretapping!
If you're going to talk to an audience of scientific engineers, then dressing in a suit puts the audience on edge because their uniform is casual.
Surely, the kind of suit (or approximation thereof) makes a difference. I could see engineers distrusting some schmuck in an Armani, but what about a guy who dressed like he'd just walked out of Apollo Mission Control (i.e., short-sleeve dress shirt, narrow tie, pocket protector, black plastic-frame glasses, etc.)?
If you really had fifty-one stations all competing independently, you'd have to have an extremely large market area to support anything approaching that level of competition effectively.
I don't believe it. No, you'd instead have stations lowering their costs by running more esoteric programming, sort of like NPR or college radio.
Also, some markets are fairly large geographically. Limiting it to a single station in a market would likely mean that some areas of the population would not have any radio stations that are less than an hour away.
That's a manufactured problem, an artifact of the status quo. Instead of fretting about stations requiring too much power, you just break up the "market" into smaller chunks! Then you solve the "station too far away" problem and "equipment cost (for high-power broadcasts) too high" problem all at once!
Besides, your statement doesn't make sense anyway -- we're talking about single stations per owner, not single stations per market, and I already rejected your assertion that stations would go out of business.
For example, my home town of 8,000 people had radio stations. The most significant grouping of independent stations was the Thunderbolt Broadcasting family of stations, which consisted of four FM and one AM. That didn't seem too far out. They had one country, one oldies, one adult contemporary, and one classic hits. Going much beyond that number of stations in a single market, however, would be too much.
You're not making any sense. If my idea were implemented, you'd still have four FM and one AM stations; they'd just be owned by five different companies! And they wouldn't have any national conglomerates to compete with In fact, far from destroying your favorite stations, it would make every station more like your favorites!
Hell, I think we ought to not only break up ownership of the individual stations, but also bar the original conglomerate from maintaining ownership of even a single one, by revoking its business license!
Limit the number of radio stations in a single market by any single entity to three sets of call letters (which might each include one FM and one AM station with the same call letters).
The fact that new technology gets publically disclosed allowing others to build on it still makes patents a useful thing.
But it doesn't! The sheer amount of bullshit and legalese that patent applications are stuffed full of nowadays means that they're obfuscated to the point of utter uselessness. This isn't [supposed to be] Bizarro land; obfuscation should not count as disclosure!
Your lawyers were simply trying to get the broadest patent coverage for your device.
And that's what's fucked up about it! What those lawyers are doing is antithetical to the purpose of patents, and the USPTO should enact a policy to summarily reject any application that has more than a trace of such bullshit!
Let's look at the issue here in all seriousness (yes, I know this is Slashdot). Who benefits from patents the most? The rich and a few independent inventor types. Who pays for patents? Citizens. Now why should citizens support (taxes) a system that costs them money? Seriously.
Even further evidence that the whole system is so fucked-up that it should be abolished in its entirety!
Do you realize that -- if the patent system worked as it was intended -- you'd be completely 180-degrees wrong? The way it's supposed to work is that the inventor pays for the patent and the citizens get most of the benefit! The emphasis is supposed to be on encouraging a larger volume of innovation and giving the public the use of the technology once the patent expires, not handing the inventor a monopoly.
The fact that the system's become so bizarre that hardly anyone even realizes this anymore proves that the whole patent system ought to be put down faster than a three-legged horse!
...why that info, when released to the world, becomes taboo for anyone else to use or benefit from without permission. Where is the logic in this?
The logic of it is in the phrase "For Limited Times" in A1, S8, C8 of the U.S. Constitution. Patent and copyright protection is supposed to be short, so that society gets the full benefit of it as soon as possible. Patents are supposed to be just long enough to entice the inventor not to keep his method a secret, and no longer.
The reason it's so hard to see this logic is that it went flying out the window decades ago -- hence the whole fucking problem!
The fundamental nature of the US economy has been shifting towards intellectual property...
Yeah, I completely agree that this is a big deal. However, I think a lot of the people worrying about it are missing the big picture.
And what is the big picture, you ask? The big picture is the simple fact that "IP" is imaginary. It's not real. It doesn't exist! All this bullshit about patents and copyrights and whatnot is only the illusion of property, an illusion created and maintained by government fiat. The trouble is, without a solid basis in real property, created by manufacturing physical objects, that fiat dwindles to nothing. Does China give a damn about our imaginary property? Hell no! Will China care about our imaginary government fiat in the coming years? Hell no! Are we entirely fucked over already, and just don't realize it yet? Hell yes!
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah it is.
No, Steam (not it's DRM) gives you more convenience than you have otherwise. Convenience != rights.
We'll assume for the purposes of this discussion that this is true (although I disagree), but even so, that's despite the DRM, not because of it!
Note: DRM is not necessary for this.
EULAs are unenforcible and irrelevant. Steam's DRM does not give you more rights than the Doctrine of First Sale; on the contrary, it gives you significantly fewer rights!
Oh yeah? What "law or logic" claims that DRM is good?!
Bullshit! There is no difference between stuff like music and stuff like software. Sure, one dumb-ass judge set a bad precedent, but that makes the distinction no less ridiculous!
But it's not their right to do whatever they want with my game! And, once I've purchased it, it is my game!
WRONG! The company in question has to, at the very least, disclose those licensing restrictions! And even then, since they're selling (not "licensing," regardless of their BS claims), such restrictions aren't legal anyway!
Imagine if you bought a shirt while you were on vacation in another country. Then you try to wear the shirt after returning home, and the manufacturer comes and rips it off your back and refuses to let you wear it because he thinks you should have paid more by buying it locally. Is that wrong? Fuck yes, it is! AND VALVE IS DOING EXACTLY THE SAME THING!
Exactly! The real question is, what the heck is taking GEGL so long?!
Indeed: the proper standard response to these unenforcable "C&D" (cease and desist) letters should be "FOaD" (fuck off and die) letters, especially when the entity sending the C&D is in another country.
Or it could be the realization there we already have a war, and it's not helping.
I'll bet your parents used to listen to the "oldies" station when you were little. That's what my parents did, and is probably why I prefer music from the '60s today.
That's a pretty neat idea, but it doesn't seem to me like it would apply to portals in particular (e.g., since Star Wars doesn't have them). It would make just as much since to apply to (HL) Episode 3 regardless. Also, does a portal even have a well-defined, "grabbable" edge? I could easily see Valve simplifying the problem just by declaring that, no, it does not.
I hadn't really thought about that being a problem. I guess I learned something!
Oh, you mean the RadeonHD driver does 3D now? 'Cause otherwise, it's still entirely fucking useless.
Obviously, it shouldn't. It should crumple to the ground in a heap (using the normal ragdoll physics) and then pick itself back up again (unless the fall killed it). Maybe it could put out its arms (if applicable) to brace itself, or something, but that should be the extent of the extra animation.
By the way, what's the minimum graphics card you can have that does support HDR (and has a reasonable framerate at a reasonable resolution)? According to the Lost Coast demo, my integrated 6150 doesn't quite cut it (although it plays HL2 just fine).
Let it be known that I bought a physical instance of The Orange Box from Amazon (and it arrived today! Yay!), so I know.
Faster: The stuff we're talking about isn't "several" GB; it's twelve (installed). It comes on, not one, but two DVD-ROMs! Even at fast broadband speeds, that's not a quick download.
On the other hand, I got it mail-order with the (slow) free shipping, so obviously I wasn't concerned with speed.
Since when were "communications" classified as places, persons, or things? It's nonsensical to talk about siezing a physical instance of a conversation, therefore the Constitution does not allow wiretapping!
Obviously, RMS ought to be wearing well-maintained jeans and T-shirts, then.
Surely, the kind of suit (or approximation thereof) makes a difference. I could see engineers distrusting some schmuck in an Armani, but what about a guy who dressed like he'd just walked out of Apollo Mission Control (i.e., short-sleeve dress shirt, narrow tie, pocket protector, black plastic-frame glasses, etc.)?
I don't believe it. No, you'd instead have stations lowering their costs by running more esoteric programming, sort of like NPR or college radio.
That's a manufactured problem, an artifact of the status quo. Instead of fretting about stations requiring too much power, you just break up the "market" into smaller chunks! Then you solve the "station too far away" problem and "equipment cost (for high-power broadcasts) too high" problem all at once!
Besides, your statement doesn't make sense anyway -- we're talking about single stations per owner, not single stations per market, and I already rejected your assertion that stations would go out of business.
You're not making any sense. If my idea were implemented, you'd still have four FM and one AM stations; they'd just be owned by five different companies! And they wouldn't have any national conglomerates to compete with In fact, far from destroying your favorite stations, it would make every station more like your favorites!
And the problem is...?
Hell, I think we ought to not only break up ownership of the individual stations, but also bar the original conglomerate from maintaining ownership of even a single one, by revoking its business license!
Why three? Why not one?
But it doesn't! The sheer amount of bullshit and legalese that patent applications are stuffed full of nowadays means that they're obfuscated to the point of utter uselessness. This isn't [supposed to be] Bizarro land; obfuscation should not count as disclosure!
And that's what's fucked up about it! What those lawyers are doing is antithetical to the purpose of patents, and the USPTO should enact a policy to summarily reject any application that has more than a trace of such bullshit!
Even further evidence that the whole system is so fucked-up that it should be abolished in its entirety!
Do you realize that -- if the patent system worked as it was intended -- you'd be completely 180-degrees wrong? The way it's supposed to work is that the inventor pays for the patent and the citizens get most of the benefit! The emphasis is supposed to be on encouraging a larger volume of innovation and giving the public the use of the technology once the patent expires, not handing the inventor a monopoly.
The fact that the system's become so bizarre that hardly anyone even realizes this anymore proves that the whole patent system ought to be put down faster than a three-legged horse!
The logic of it is in the phrase "For Limited Times" in A1, S8, C8 of the U.S. Constitution. Patent and copyright protection is supposed to be short, so that society gets the full benefit of it as soon as possible. Patents are supposed to be just long enough to entice the inventor not to keep his method a secret, and no longer.
The reason it's so hard to see this logic is that it went flying out the window decades ago -- hence the whole fucking problem!
Yeah, I completely agree that this is a big deal. However, I think a lot of the people worrying about it are missing the big picture.
And what is the big picture, you ask? The big picture is the simple fact that "IP" is imaginary. It's not real. It doesn't exist! All this bullshit about patents and copyrights and whatnot is only the illusion of property, an illusion created and maintained by government fiat. The trouble is, without a solid basis in real property, created by manufacturing physical objects, that fiat dwindles to nothing. Does China give a damn about our imaginary property? Hell no! Will China care about our imaginary government fiat in the coming years? Hell no! Are we entirely fucked over already, and just don't realize it yet? Hell yes!
Can they even legally do that? I mean, the Firewire port was mandated by law; what the fuck was the point if they're allowed to just turn it off?!
Yeah, but forging RST packets isn't QoS. Forging RST packets is forgery.