There's no mention of this in the article, but I'm beginning to wonder if MS is the "secret" company that licensed the Doom 3 engine for use with the new versions of Solitaire and Minesweeper.
The WinXP version was kick ass and had better AI than the POS 9x equivalents.
I dunno, I just hope they do something besides put in a great new engine.. maybe do something about the deck-hackers on the internet. They really like to ruin everyone's fun and it pisses me off.
The amount of people that support indie labels/artists are in the extreme minority compared to those who purchase big label acts. Chances are, if you support indie artists/labels, you don't really buy many big label CDs to begin with. Likewise, if everyone in the majority listened to indie artists, then there wouldn't be assloads of shitty music.
So, that's not really a solution.
Suggesting "don't support the RIAA, buy indie!" isn't very helpful to those trying to fight them, because if you like some bands on the big labels (and let's be honest, not all of them suck), you can't really help it if you do decide to purchase a CD.
Instead, what you CAN do is download the music anyway, and support the artist by going to the concerts, buying the shirts, etc.. You spend $30 on tix, $15 on a shirt, they get a bigger portion of that even if you spent the equivalent amount ($45) on 3 CDs.
Download a few CDs, if ya like em, go to the concert. Easy!
It's already illegal to obtain or redistribute copyrighted material, so why the supplemental laws?
Like the whole "no open alcohol container in a car"... these are just useless "babysitting" laws. It's already illegal to drive drunk, so why keep making laws?
In any case, people worry for nothing about these laws. IF this got passed (at that point you might as well call this country a failure), it would just spawn more desire for open source anonymous P2P networks.
Once those are released, then what? They will NOT be able to stop it or track piracy. They're just backing themselves into a corner.
There's only so much you can do to the general public before they just fucking snap and do something right back at you. They'll get theirs.
Why is this a story? Seriously... This is pure BS. You KNOW tomorrow will come and go and nothing will happen.
Might as well report that the Apocalypse is supposed to happen sometime between 7 PM and 12 AM on Friday.
Personally, I hope it does happen. There hasn't really been any interesting attacks since Code Red. I'm always looking forward to what attackers will come up with next.
If they could actually cause a "meltdown", then that would be purely amazing.
Take Al, for instance... most of his parodies aren't making fun of the original song. The parody of Eminem's "Lose Yourself" is not making fun of the song, but talking about a guy being a couch potato.
That is covered, but under the definition you gave, it would be "satire".
There is no format war. I heard this same story back when DVD+/- R first came out. Guess what? Out of the 7 or 8 dvd playing devices I've ever owned, not ONE of them fails to read either format (including PS2).
Reason being, the big companies want to sell their drives and will almost always make them both + and - compatible.
The reason I say most and not all is because there's always some goon out there creating drives that can only read one format (for whatever reason). These drives never usually sell very well.
It was only a virtual Baghdad, baking under a virtual sun. As in real life, though, troops were dodging gunfire. I was at the Institute for Creative Technologies in Marina Del Rey, Calif., playing a new X box video game called Full Spectrum Warrior. Leading eight men in an Army squad on a patrol of the war-torn city, I got a taste, however approximate, of why Iraq is such a hard place to be a soldier these days. My job, as squad leader, was to order my soldiers where to go and what to do. First, I sent half of my men into an alleyway, where they immediately came under fire from insurgents hiding nearby. Scrambling for safety, I ordered us to duck into a building, pausing to marvel at the detail of the architecture. I then led us back out onto the street, directing my team to crouch behind a car while we tried to locate the snipers. This was a bad idea. Despite what you see in action movies and other video games, cars do not provide good cover from bullets. The snipers cut loose, and my troops crumpled to the ground. It was surprisingly distressing. In barely three minutes, I had led every single one of my soldiers to his death.
I play video games regularly and, modesty aside, usually do quite well. Though this was my first attempt at Full Spectrum Warrior, the reason that I played poorly was not that I was inexperienced but that the game was not designed solely for entertainment. Full Spectrum Warrior was created by the Institute for Creative Technologies, with help from the Army, to teach soldiers realistic strategies for surviving what the armed forces call ''military operations in urban terrain.'' As a result, the game is unforgivingly precise. The soldiers you command are programmed to respond the way a real soldier would. There are no magic weapons to bail you out. All you have going for you is the real world. ''This is what you'll really see when you're out there,'' said Maj. Brent Cummings, a soldier then stationed at Fort Benning, Ga., who worked as a consultant on the game and walked me through it.
For the past three years, the military has been entertaining the surprising idea that video games, even those that you play on a commerical system like Microsoft's Xbox, can be an effective way to train soldiers. In fact, the Army is now one of the industry's most innovative creators, hiring high-end programmers and designers from Silicon Valley and Hollywood to devise and refine its games. Some of these games are action-packed, like Full Spectrum Warrior. Others, like one that the military's Special Operations Command is currently designing to help recruits practice their Arabic, are less so. All the games, however, speak to the military's urgent need to train recruits for the new challenges of peacekeeping efforts in places like Iraq.
Teaching someone to be an accurate shot is not particularly hard to do. Military trainers have learned that if you put someone through a week of intensive work with a point-and-shoot simulator (not unlike today's commerically available shoot-'em-up video games), he will be reasonably good with a rifle. Teaching judgment, however, is much harder than teaching hand-eye coordination. Today's military is in the market for games that train soliders, in effect, how not to shoot -- how to avoid conflict whenever possible, to recognize danger and find a route around it. As a squad leader in Full Spectrum Warrior, you do not even carry a gun that fires, which makes it the first military-action video game in which the player never discharges a weapon.
Some skeptics worry that if the military's games are not realistic enough, they will encourage bad habits and incorrect strategy -- tactics that work on the screen but get soldiers killed on the battlefield. It is certainly true that many video games for sale in stores would be disastrous for training and would trivialize a task that is literally a matter of life and death. James Korris, the creative director of the Institute for Creative Technologies, said that he once anal
I have PLPD coverage (which is the minimum you can have in my state), and they want to charge me $100!!! I have a perfect driving record, too.
I only live a few miles from work, so I'm not gonna pay $100 just to drive that distance. It's actually cheaper for me to get pulled over once every 3 months than it would be to pay the insurance.
We also have no-fault here, so if you get into an accident, it is covered.
I'd gladly take a "pay as you drive" policy, but instead of some whacked out GPS, they could just check the odometer instead. That's a bit more realistic and harder to set back (turning back the odometer is illegal anyway)...and no, I don't fuckin feel like walking/riding a bike to work, so don't even bother:)
I hate this whole "don't buy from them/don't download from them" mentality. Don't buy from them? Agreed. Don't download? Hahaha, no. Download all ya want.
It never occurred to the author that a title like "Nintendo Patents Online Gaming" won't immediately spark a flood of "fuck those assholes" even though the article isn't even remotely about that?
It's not the fault of the people who didn't RTFA, but the fault of the author for purposely misleading others.
Yeah, I don't even bother with activation. I have a valid CD key and all (came w/ the computer), but I just choose to install the copy of XP with the activation bypass and a keygen.
The only thing I have to do is change CD Key when I install SP1 after a format.
Think of it this way: they spend weeks implementing and thinking out an activation scheme only to have it completely and utterly CRACKED within hours of the product being leaked/released.
The fact is, it doesn't affect piracy one bit, but now users gotta deal with additional BS. For example, piece together a new PC and put your copy of XP on it. Now, after activation fails, try to convince Microsoft that you destroyed or got rid of the old computer!
It's not the fact that activation makes it easier, it's that the second a company boasts of having software that's uncrackable, it makes headlines and is often one of the first things to be cracked. In addition, the crack is often spread around so much to the point where it's hard NOT to find it.
All because they decided to announce to the world that their new copy-protection/activation scheme is the shit.
If a person knows enough to be using Linux AND this application, chances are they can easily get around the watermark, so what's the point in it?
I don't understand when companies go off on this tangent and act as if what they're doing will combat piracy. Piracy will always exist. No matter what you do, you can't get rid of it.
Yeah, it's wrong, but people will do it. Just be thankful EVERYONE isn't doing it. Bottom line: it will not bring back your "lost" sales, and people will have a workaround in a matter of hours.
There's also a reason why Microsoft more or less turns a blind eye to it - the more people who pirate a particular piece of software just means it's on that many more computers. MS would rather you have a pirated copy of Windows XP than to flat out run Linux simply because it gives them more of a place in the market.
No one likes to think on the flipside of things, so go on and mod this as troll;)
I dunno, these people aren't exactly Microsoft. They can't fund development forever.
To license the Doom 3 engine.. I imagine would cost a FORTUNE, and on top of that to completely scrap what they've done? Not so sure.
I could see id doing something like that since they definitely have the money, but 3D Realms isn't exactly THAT popular outside of the Duke Nukem crowd, and that game was SO 7 years ago.
Sounds good on paper, but in reality probably wouldn't turn out so well.
If you block american IPs, you block sales. With the amount of sales that could be made in a day, I do believe those people would rather stomach the spam than to put a dent in their income.
If it was any other card w/ 16 pipelines then I wouldn't have made mention of it, but you get a LOT out of the 6800 GT. Not very many graphics cards (that I know of, anyway) are easily overclockable to the one above it like this one is.
After Doom 3, games will no doubt start really pushing the limits when it comes to graphics. How long will an 8 pipeline card be able to hold its own?
It might be good for another year or two, but beyond that you're gonna end up pushing it to the limits, or at the very least wish you had a card that had double the amount of pipelines.
Of course, if you don't have the money then you don't have the money, but if you DO or you wanna wait another month or so to save up the extra $200, this card might be the better bang for your buck.
Right on, I definitely understand where you're coming from, however...
17 USC 506(a)(1) states: "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or"
What would someone have to gain (commercially or financially) by sharing SP2 on a P2P network?
I think it's all a matter of how the law is interpreted at this point. Since there could be no financial gain (by the sharer) or financial loss by the company at hand (Microsoft), what would anyone have to gain by prosecuting the sharer? There is no actual crime at this level. Even if you took a step back at what the sharer was intending to do with this action, there would be an exception.
I still wholeheartedly belive that this is a perfect example of legitimate P2P use regardless of how much copyright law is nitpicked.
The fact is, while "technically" illegal in SOME way, shape, or form in a copyright law somewhere, you won't be seeing warning sent to those sharing the update or cases in court involving "criminals" who helped share a free Service Pack over a P2P network. Why? Because it's not a criminal action. Sharing a free update is vastly different from sharing something like Windows XP itself, or a game.
A lot of people like to sound like they know what they are talking about on here, but they forget a little something called common sense.
Slashdot Mirror
I got a nice laugh from it *shrug*
No need to be negative against someone with some wacky accusations just because someone made a mindless joke.
Lighten up.
There's no mention of this in the article, but I'm beginning to wonder if MS is the "secret" company that licensed the Doom 3 engine for use with the new versions of Solitaire and Minesweeper.
The WinXP version was kick ass and had better AI than the POS 9x equivalents.
I dunno, I just hope they do something besides put in a great new engine.. maybe do something about the deck-hackers on the internet. They really like to ruin everyone's fun and it pisses me off.
That suggestion has always been kinda pointless.
The amount of people that support indie labels/artists are in the extreme minority compared to those who purchase big label acts. Chances are, if you support indie artists/labels, you don't really buy many big label CDs to begin with. Likewise, if everyone in the majority listened to indie artists, then there wouldn't be assloads of shitty music.
So, that's not really a solution.
Suggesting "don't support the RIAA, buy indie!" isn't very helpful to those trying to fight them, because if you like some bands on the big labels (and let's be honest, not all of them suck), you can't really help it if you do decide to purchase a CD.
Instead, what you CAN do is download the music anyway, and support the artist by going to the concerts, buying the shirts, etc.. You spend $30 on tix, $15 on a shirt, they get a bigger portion of that even if you spent the equivalent amount ($45) on 3 CDs.
Download a few CDs, if ya like em, go to the concert. Easy!
JUSTIN BAILEY
------ ------
...am I the only one that immediately thought of this?
It's already illegal to obtain or redistribute copyrighted material, so why the supplemental laws?
Like the whole "no open alcohol container in a car"... these are just useless "babysitting" laws. It's already illegal to drive drunk, so why keep making laws?
In any case, people worry for nothing about these laws. IF this got passed (at that point you might as well call this country a failure), it would just spawn more desire for open source anonymous P2P networks.
Once those are released, then what? They will NOT be able to stop it or track piracy. They're just backing themselves into a corner.
There's only so much you can do to the general public before they just fucking snap and do something right back at you. They'll get theirs.
Why is this a story? Seriously... This is pure BS. You KNOW tomorrow will come and go and nothing will happen.
Might as well report that the Apocalypse is supposed to happen sometime between 7 PM and 12 AM on Friday.
Personally, I hope it does happen. There hasn't really been any interesting attacks since Code Red. I'm always looking forward to what attackers will come up with next.
If they could actually cause a "meltdown", then that would be purely amazing.
Are you positive about that?
Take Al, for instance... most of his parodies aren't making fun of the original song. The parody of Eminem's "Lose Yourself" is not making fun of the song, but talking about a guy being a couch potato.
That is covered, but under the definition you gave, it would be "satire".
Case in point, Weird Al. He doesn't have to get permission to make a parody of someone's song.
It would've been dismissed either way regardless of whether or not the song was public domain.
Where can you purchase the media for these drives, and how much do they cost?
Will they be competitive with DVD5's (as in $1-$2 per disc) or will they be astronomical since it's new?
There is no format war. I heard this same story back when DVD+/- R first came out. Guess what? Out of the 7 or 8 dvd playing devices I've ever owned, not ONE of them fails to read either format (including PS2).
Reason being, the big companies want to sell their drives and will almost always make them both + and - compatible.
The reason I say most and not all is because there's always some goon out there creating drives that can only read one format (for whatever reason). These drives never usually sell very well.
Wish becomes rumor.
Rumor becomes reality.
Think "Diablo II" and "cow level".
The Making of an X Box Warrior
It was only a virtual Baghdad, baking under a virtual sun. As in real life, though, troops were dodging gunfire. I was at the Institute for Creative Technologies in Marina Del Rey, Calif., playing a new X box video game called Full Spectrum Warrior. Leading eight men in an Army squad on a patrol of the war-torn city, I got a taste, however approximate, of why Iraq is such a hard place to be a soldier these days. My job, as squad leader, was to order my soldiers where to go and what to do. First, I sent half of my men into an alleyway, where they immediately came under fire from insurgents hiding nearby. Scrambling for safety, I ordered us to duck into a building, pausing to marvel at the detail of the architecture. I then led us back out onto the street, directing my team to crouch behind a car while we tried to locate the snipers. This was a bad idea. Despite what you see in action movies and other video games, cars do not provide good cover from bullets. The snipers cut loose, and my troops crumpled to the ground. It was surprisingly distressing. In barely three minutes, I had led every single one of my soldiers to his death.
I play video games regularly and, modesty aside, usually do quite well. Though this was my first attempt at Full Spectrum Warrior, the reason that I played poorly was not that I was inexperienced but that the game was not designed solely for entertainment. Full Spectrum Warrior was created by the Institute for Creative Technologies, with help from the Army, to teach soldiers realistic strategies for surviving what the armed forces call ''military operations in urban terrain.'' As a result, the game is unforgivingly precise. The soldiers you command are programmed to respond the way a real soldier would. There are no magic weapons to bail you out. All you have going for you is the real world. ''This is what you'll really see when you're out there,'' said Maj. Brent Cummings, a soldier then stationed at Fort Benning, Ga., who worked as a consultant on the game and walked me through it.
For the past three years, the military has been entertaining the surprising idea that video games, even those that you play on a commerical system like Microsoft's Xbox, can be an effective way to train soldiers. In fact, the Army is now one of the industry's most innovative creators, hiring high-end programmers and designers from Silicon Valley and Hollywood to devise and refine its games. Some of these games are action-packed, like Full Spectrum Warrior. Others, like one that the military's Special Operations Command is currently designing to help recruits practice their Arabic, are less so. All the games, however, speak to the military's urgent need to train recruits for the new challenges of peacekeeping efforts in places like Iraq.
Teaching someone to be an accurate shot is not particularly hard to do. Military trainers have learned that if you put someone through a week of intensive work with a point-and-shoot simulator (not unlike today's commerically available shoot-'em-up video games), he will be reasonably good with a rifle. Teaching judgment, however, is much harder than teaching hand-eye coordination. Today's military is in the market for games that train soliders, in effect, how not to shoot -- how to avoid conflict whenever possible, to recognize danger and find a route around it. As a squad leader in Full Spectrum Warrior, you do not even carry a gun that fires, which makes it the first military-action video game in which the player never discharges a weapon.
Some skeptics worry that if the military's games are not realistic enough, they will encourage bad habits and incorrect strategy -- tactics that work on the screen but get soldiers killed on the battlefield. It is certainly true that many video games for sale in stores would be disastrous for training and would trivialize a task that is literally a matter of life and death. James Korris, the creative director of the Institute for Creative Technologies, said that he once anal
Right now, I'm driving without insurance.
..and no, I don't fuckin feel like walking/riding a bike to work, so don't even bother :)
I have PLPD coverage (which is the minimum you can have in my state), and they want to charge me $100!!! I have a perfect driving record, too.
I only live a few miles from work, so I'm not gonna pay $100 just to drive that distance. It's actually cheaper for me to get pulled over once every 3 months than it would be to pay the insurance.
We also have no-fault here, so if you get into an accident, it is covered.
I'd gladly take a "pay as you drive" policy, but instead of some whacked out GPS, they could just check the odometer instead. That's a bit more realistic and harder to set back (turning back the odometer is illegal anyway).
Not the downloaders, so... download all you want.
Just don't share.
I hate this whole "don't buy from them/don't download from them" mentality. Don't buy from them? Agreed. Don't download? Hahaha, no. Download all ya want.
Just don't share.
It never occurred to the author that a title like "Nintendo Patents Online Gaming" won't immediately spark a flood of "fuck those assholes" even though the article isn't even remotely about that?
It's not the fault of the people who didn't RTFA, but the fault of the author for purposely misleading others.
Yeah, I don't even bother with activation. I have a valid CD key and all (came w/ the computer), but I just choose to install the copy of XP with the activation bypass and a keygen.
The only thing I have to do is change CD Key when I install SP1 after a format.
Think of it this way: they spend weeks implementing and thinking out an activation scheme only to have it completely and utterly CRACKED within hours of the product being leaked/released.
The fact is, it doesn't affect piracy one bit, but now users gotta deal with additional BS. For example, piece together a new PC and put your copy of XP on it. Now, after activation fails, try to convince Microsoft that you destroyed or got rid of the old computer!
It's not the fact that activation makes it easier, it's that the second a company boasts of having software that's uncrackable, it makes headlines and is often one of the first things to be cracked. In addition, the crack is often spread around so much to the point where it's hard NOT to find it.
All because they decided to announce to the world that their new copy-protection/activation scheme is the shit.
If a person knows enough to be using Linux AND this application, chances are they can easily get around the watermark, so what's the point in it?
;)
I don't understand when companies go off on this tangent and act as if what they're doing will combat piracy. Piracy will always exist. No matter what you do, you can't get rid of it.
Yeah, it's wrong, but people will do it. Just be thankful EVERYONE isn't doing it. Bottom line: it will not bring back your "lost" sales, and people will have a workaround in a matter of hours.
There's also a reason why Microsoft more or less turns a blind eye to it - the more people who pirate a particular piece of software just means it's on that many more computers. MS would rather you have a pirated copy of Windows XP than to flat out run Linux simply because it gives them more of a place in the market.
No one likes to think on the flipside of things, so go on and mod this as troll
I dunno, these people aren't exactly Microsoft. They can't fund development forever.
To license the Doom 3 engine.. I imagine would cost a FORTUNE, and on top of that to completely scrap what they've done? Not so sure.
I could see id doing something like that since they definitely have the money, but 3D Realms isn't exactly THAT popular outside of the Duke Nukem crowd, and that game was SO 7 years ago.
Most new gamers say, "Duke who?"
How about anonymous P2P instead?
Sounds good on paper, but in reality probably wouldn't turn out so well.
If you block american IPs, you block sales. With the amount of sales that could be made in a day, I do believe those people would rather stomach the spam than to put a dent in their income.
If it was any other card w/ 16 pipelines then I wouldn't have made mention of it, but you get a LOT out of the 6800 GT. Not very many graphics cards (that I know of, anyway) are easily overclockable to the one above it like this one is.
After Doom 3, games will no doubt start really pushing the limits when it comes to graphics. How long will an 8 pipeline card be able to hold its own?
It might be good for another year or two, but beyond that you're gonna end up pushing it to the limits, or at the very least wish you had a card that had double the amount of pipelines.
Of course, if you don't have the money then you don't have the money, but if you DO or you wanna wait another month or so to save up the extra $200, this card might be the better bang for your buck.
Not to take points away from the article, but if you're looking to get a graphics card, take a peek at Nvidia's 6800 GT.
s .html
16 pipelines AND it can *easily* be overclocked from it's 350Mhz core / 1000 Mhz memory to the 425/1100 speeds of a 6800 Ultra (which is $150 more).
Compare benchmarks: http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_doom3_benchmark
ATI's X800 Pro has 12 pipelines.
I dunno, if you're gonna spend money on a graphics card, might as well go balls-out with this one. Best deal I've seen on a card in quite some time.
Right on, I definitely understand where you're coming from, however...
17 USC 506(a)(1) states: "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or"
What would someone have to gain (commercially or financially) by sharing SP2 on a P2P network?
I think it's all a matter of how the law is interpreted at this point. Since there could be no financial gain (by the sharer) or financial loss by the company at hand (Microsoft), what would anyone have to gain by prosecuting the sharer? There is no actual crime at this level. Even if you took a step back at what the sharer was intending to do with this action, there would be an exception.
I still wholeheartedly belive that this is a perfect example of legitimate P2P use regardless of how much copyright law is nitpicked.
Bingo. Right on the money.
The fact is, while "technically" illegal in SOME way, shape, or form in a copyright law somewhere, you won't be seeing warning sent to those sharing the update or cases in court involving "criminals" who helped share a free Service Pack over a P2P network. Why? Because it's not a criminal action. Sharing a free update is vastly different from sharing something like Windows XP itself, or a game.
A lot of people like to sound like they know what they are talking about on here, but they forget a little something called common sense.