Yes, it has. Last big instance I remember was a certain law firm hawking green cards.
Polluting USENET is not the answer to censorship. However, posting to the approprate groups as opposed to "every" group would be acceptable, and, in fact, laudable.
Hemos editorialized that "This is the first major book in electronic format" at the end of this story.
This is most certainly NOT true. In fact, I submitted a story two weeks ago about Baen Books and their 'webscription' service. EVERY title Baen has published since Jan 2000 hits their website a month before it hits the bookstores. 'Ashes of Victory' by David Weber (currently at #20 on the NYT hardcover fiction list) would have to qualify as 'the first major book to be released in electronic format.'
You know, I admit I was kind of annoyed when my Baen submission was rejected, but since when is Stephen King news for nerds, and one of the largest sci-fi only publishers left not?
Anyway, if anyone's interested, go to Baen Books Online and take a look. Four books for ten bucks, every month, formatted in HTML or plain text, and available to read on the web, or via downloaded zip.
It's comments like this that make the software industry what it is today. If more companies spent the time and energy to create excellent, nearly bug-free games (which Blizzard has an excellent history ot doing) the world would be a much better place. I am perfectly willing to wait for a game that works out-of-box, without having to download a patch before I can play the thing
Hey, I have no problem with software companies "getting it right" and wish more would do so. But give me a break, how many times has this thing been redone? Has anyone at Blizzard actually heard the phrase "feature freeze?"
As another posted refered to it, "The most anticipated game of 1998, 1999, AND 2000!" From what I understand, Blizzard was gearing up to release well over a year ago, and decided against it after seeing what Interplay was doing in the form of Baldur's Gate.
Why does this annoy me? I honestly don't know. Maybe I'm just pissed off after being deluged by the Blizzard marketting machine from Hell(tm) for the past three years. Maybe I'm just annoyed at Blizzard in general for ripping out the extra expansion pack promised in the Warcraft II platinum edition (later to be known as Battle.net edition). Maybe I'm just pissed that my girlfriend put down cash at Software Etc. for a pre-order after the promised Dec24 1999 ship date?
You know, Blizzard should probably spend more time actually getting the game ready to ship than worrying about "special collector's editions." There is STILL no actual release date listed on the website!
It's almost amusing how they can spare staff to produce 70 minute soundtrack CDs, 24 minute DVD titles, a f*cking DnD based paper RPG, and a manual signed by the development team when they can't even get product out the door. I think a better use of developer time would be finishing off the code, not signing autographs.
Blizzard has been claiming the game is coming "real soon now" for an even longer period than Origin did with that classic piece of vaporware, Strike Commander.
You know, I wonder if they'll still be comparing themselves to Baldur's Gate...
Thanks Zack. I made a serious typo which completely distorts the information. Directly from the book now, with no extractions: "... access to large quantities of ancient timber for an average price of a dollar and a half per thousand board feet." So, the wood is sold to the privatized corporations for $1.50 per board foot, when the worth is $700 per thousand board feet. I didn't actually how shocking that was until you made me correct it. A dollar and a half spent for roughly $700 worth of raw materials... Damn.
On the surface, that's downright horrifying, and tends to speak of the mismanagement our government has been engaging in for most of the century. However, to be fair, there are two points that need to be made.
1) The 50 year contracts were signed in the 1950s, which means they are due to expire in this decade. Any idea exactly when they were signed? This tends to limit the actual future damage implied by the author's choice of words. However, something to look at would be whether or not there are plans to renew this contract, and at what cost. If the plan is "as is" then publicizing this widely before it can happen is necessary. I am not a tree hugger, but the public should receive fair value for the private use of public lands.
2) What was the going rate for timber half a century ago? It's distinctly possible that when you take into account inflation, higher demand, and any other possible economic factors, $1.50 per thousand board feet was actually a reasonable price.
In Alaska's panhandle, the 17 mil acre Tongass National Forest is the continent's last resovoir of ancient timber. Fifty year contracts signed in the 50s guarantee two companies (one Japanese owned) access to large quantities of timber for avg. $1.50 per board foot. The wood is worth $700 per thousand board feet. The Tongass sells more timber and loses more money than any other national forest, forty to sixty million dollars a year. In some years, it has lost 99 cents on every dollar it spent to sell trees." In other words, it short sells ancient timber from parklands (public land) at a loss to private corporations. Ho hum.
Actually, from the figures you just posted, they're selling the wood at twice it's actual value. Your figure for a long term contract ($1.50/board foot) works out to a total of $1500/thousand board feet. If the wood is actually worth $700/thousand board feet, where's the problem?
I've never quite figured out how the US government can restrict Apple from selling the G4/500. The friggin CPU was designed by a Japanese company (Motorola), and the only thing the government can achieve is HURTING an american company by not allowing it to sell a readily available piece of equipment.
Actually, now that I think about it, a 500MHz G4 is anything BUT readily available:)
Even under DMCA it is legal to reverse-engineer for reasons of interoperability. (as per my understanding)
>>
Fortunately, (or unfortunately, depending on what side of this issue you're on) even if the DMCA DOES disallow reverse engineering in this instance (considering that the bill was designed to "protect" IP for corporations, I'd personally say that if upheld as constitutional, reverse engineering CSS would be illegal under this act, but IANAL) it would STILL be a moot point. The DMCA des not apply outside of the US, and the actual reverse engineering was done in Norway, by someone who is not a US citizen.
Hmm. Which brings up an interesting point. In the past, the US has gone out of it's way to enforce laws on it's citizens even when they leave the country to do things which are not illegal in whatever jurisdiction they travel to.
If the reverse engineering of a piece of software was done, that was directly illegal under the DCMA, abroad, by a US citizen, would the fruits of that labor be legal unusable in the US?
Just a question to anyone who might know anything about trade secret law, but can the fact that the MPAA did not ask for these records to be sealed when they were submitted as evidence be considered neglect?
If you neglect to protect your trade secrets, don't they lose trade secret protection?
This, frankly, can actually be beneficial to the CCA case.
IANAL, but it does seem somewhat clear cut to me.
Re:Somewhere in the world...
on
The Regulon
·
· Score: 2
The internet is the new city.
Does this mean it is destined to be destroyed, as Nostradamus predicted?:)
I appologize for posting while contributing nothing to the discussion, but that comment just jumped out at me. The lack of doom-and-gloom-end-of-the-world-y2k/y2k1-predictio ns that I have grown used to hearing over and over for the last ten years has obviously gotten to me.:)
"Employees aren't there to subsidize the companies to make better profits by helping them to reduce costs of managing an office building."
Pardon me while I say "huh?"
Is this the Amazon.com method of HR management that says, "We'll hire X employees at $50k/yr each in order to save $1k/yr each in plant management. We lose $49k/yr per employee, but we'll make it up in volume!"
If a company REQUIRES you to work from your home, then I can see SOME merit in having ergo standards in place for a workstation. especially if the organization requires you to have a real office in your home (it has a locking door, your kids dont go into it, etc.)
However, in the long term, if this stands, this will do much to REDUCE any incentive for your organization to offer you the ability to telework. And let's not even talk about the potential for abuse (okay, let's talk about it:)
I can SEE the following lawsuit and OSHA investigation:
Teleworking employee of Acme Consulting has his child in his home office during work hours. The child is not doing much besides playing with his toys. However, he leaves his toys in the office, which said employee trips over and breaks his leg. This is obviously an unsafe working environment because of the clutter that caused the injury.
Absurd? Definately. Unlikely? Nope. I give it 6 months before it happens.
>> I was going to title this: "Msft solutions are Msft's problems" - but my first voyage into the world of FreeBSD years ago came with instructions to use the Microsoft® undocumented "fdisk/mbr" command - which taught me that those bastards take over the master boot record of you hard disk and don't even tell you about it! Talk about getting your foot in the door to leverage a monopoly... >>
You know, it's stuff like this that makes me not want to read Slashdot. Anything REMOTELY anti-Linux is automatically called FUD, and in the process even MORE FUD is produced. Fdisk/MBR is an undocumented command meant to be used to rebuild a trashed boot sector. PERIOD. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with monopoly leveraging, has NOTHING to do with "taking over your master boot record" and has NOTHING to do with the people in Redmond being "bastards."
I'm NOT pro-Microsoft, but shit like this just annoys the hell out of me. I've heard it said around here that the FUD will eventually come back to haunt MS. How about we try to avoid the same mistakes so FUD doesn't come back to haunt US?
The downside to this (for the Chinese) is that they'd get their asses kicked by Charlie Sheen and Patrick Swayze.
Sorry, I couldn't resist that. Your scenario just sounded too much like Red Dawn, especially the Cuban tie-in, front line on the Rockies, and the limited nuke strikes, and the chartered commercial aircraft.
I've often wondered if such a scenario would work. The one big problem with your scenario, however, is America is just too damn big. There are too many army bases, navy bases, gun stores, police stations, National Guard armories, etc. for any force to take more than a tithe of them before organized resistance could form around them.
How about MAME? If a camera can do it, an Aio probably can too... You know, it would be pretty amusing to see what happened to it's behavior with different ROMs loaded into it. Here are some examples::)
Tapper: Your Aibo runs around serving beers to your poker/football buddies. If he does not do it fast enough, they beat him senseless.
Mr. Doo's wild Ride: Your Aibo heads to Six Flags, where it runs rampant on the roller coasters. Any beings it encounters in the course of these travels is whacked with a hammer.
Rampage: Aibo heads for downtown Detroit to destroy buildings. After getting there, it leaves, realizing it is too late.
Robotron: Odd sounds that disturbingly resemble "Kill the humanoid" issue from it's speakers. Aibo gains the ability to walk and aim in different directions.
I recall it being mentioned about a year or so ago (sorry, don't remember the source) that IBM was pretty much the red-headed step-child of the PPC development group.
Back when PPC was being developed, there was alot of hype how these three companies (IBM, Motorola, Apple) were going to revolutionize computing, to the benifet of the entire world (And IBM, Motorola, and Apple).
What has happened is there is colaboration amongst all three in the design phase. When it comes to actually SELLING the things, Motorola becomes Apple's "Preferred" supplier (i.e. 100%) and IBM gets left out in the cold.
Big Blue has refocused in more recent years to create embedded PPC, and has been doing a pretty damn good job of it. I'm sure there are still plenty of burned asses over at IBM that would love to stick it to Apple and Motorola, though...
Maybe one of the reasons IBM signed up with Nintendo to design and fab Dolphin?
While the Windows UI may be pretty bad, everyone and their dog is famillar with it. If KDE and Gnome really ARE going to take over the desktop, they need to conform to the de facto standard.
The need for QWERTY keyboards is past, it has been for at -least- 20 years. But here we are, with 99.99% of (US) keyboards conforming to the standard. Why? Because everyone who will use a PC, or a typewriter, or word processor is -trained- to that standard. Any 90% of the PC using world is -trained- to the windows GUI standard.
If Linux is ever to succeed outside the server, embedded, or technogeek markets, it's interface will become MORE like MS's, not less.
Anyone who believes in the Antichrist, etc can now breath easier. Who'd have thought! All it takes to learn who the spawn of the devil is, is to look at a patent application!:-)
The full abstract from the us patent office reads:
A digital replacement for an analog audio tape recorder can record audio programming digitally in a faster than real time format and can play back audio programming, where such programming has been digitized and stored in data files using a variety of compression/decompression algorithms. Audio programming is stored digitally on a non-volatile medium, such as a hard drive, or in a flash EPROM, or other solid state non-volatile memory. The device includes a hard drive, a modem for connection to a data base via an on-line service, a keyboard, a display, and an audio system. The device uniquely combines the remote data access capability resident in a personal computer with a set of tailored, streamlined control functions to simplify, automate, and render seamless the process of selecting audio program material; ordering the program material from a service; receiving acknowledgment of the order and receiving the program material via automatic download for storage in a hard drive; playback of the program material when and where the user desires, with fully streamlined control functions; and control of the user interface functionality on the keyboard through a setup mode of operation.
Assumably, with that specific wording, your Rio and Nomad players would not be covered (they dont have keyboards, and dont fit the spec)
Of course, you could make the case that what they are talking about is, in fact, a laptop computer equipped with a sound device of some kind. I'd frankly love to see them try to bring someone to court based on this patent. They'd lose, and waste alot of money doing so.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it has. Last big instance I remember was a certain law firm hawking green cards.
Polluting USENET is not the answer to censorship. However, posting to the approprate groups as opposed to "every" group would be acceptable, and, in fact, laudable.
This is most certainly NOT true. In fact, I submitted a story two weeks ago about Baen Books and their 'webscription' service. EVERY title Baen has published since Jan 2000 hits their website a month before it hits the bookstores. 'Ashes of Victory' by David Weber (currently at #20 on the NYT hardcover fiction list) would have to qualify as 'the first major book to be released in electronic format.'
You know, I admit I was kind of annoyed when my Baen submission was rejected, but since when is Stephen King news for nerds, and one of the largest sci-fi only publishers left not?
Anyway, if anyone's interested, go to Baen Books Online and take a look. Four books for ten bucks, every month, formatted in HTML or plain text, and available to read on the web, or via downloaded zip.
Hey, I have no problem with software companies "getting it right" and wish more would do so. But give me a break, how many times has this thing been redone? Has anyone at Blizzard actually heard the phrase "feature freeze?"
As another posted refered to it, "The most anticipated game of 1998, 1999, AND 2000!" From what I understand, Blizzard was gearing up to release well over a year ago, and decided against it after seeing what Interplay was doing in the form of Baldur's Gate.
Why does this annoy me? I honestly don't know. Maybe I'm just pissed off after being deluged by the Blizzard marketting machine from Hell(tm) for the past three years. Maybe I'm just annoyed at Blizzard in general for ripping out the extra expansion pack promised in the Warcraft II platinum edition (later to be known as Battle.net edition). Maybe I'm just pissed that my girlfriend put down cash at Software Etc. for a pre-order after the promised Dec24 1999 ship date?
I don't know, but it bugs me all the same.
You know, Blizzard should probably spend more time actually getting the game ready to ship than worrying about "special collector's editions." There is STILL no actual release date listed on the website!
It's almost amusing how they can spare staff to produce 70 minute soundtrack CDs, 24 minute DVD titles, a f*cking DnD based paper RPG, and a manual signed by the development team when they can't even get product out the door. I think a better use of developer time would be finishing off the code, not signing autographs.
Blizzard has been claiming the game is coming "real soon now" for an even longer period than Origin did with that classic piece of vaporware, Strike Commander.
You know, I wonder if they'll still be comparing themselves to Baldur's Gate...
On the surface, that's downright horrifying, and tends to speak of the mismanagement our government has been engaging in for most of the century. However, to be fair, there are two points that need to be made.
1) The 50 year contracts were signed in the 1950s, which means they are due to expire in this decade. Any idea exactly when they were signed? This tends to limit the actual future damage implied by the author's choice of words. However, something to look at would be whether or not there are plans to renew this contract, and at what cost. If the plan is "as is" then publicizing this widely before it can happen is necessary. I am not a tree hugger, but the public should receive fair value for the private use of public lands.
2) What was the going rate for timber half a century ago? It's distinctly possible that when you take into account inflation, higher demand, and any other possible economic factors, $1.50 per thousand board feet was actually a reasonable price.
Actually, from the figures you just posted, they're selling the wood at twice it's actual value. Your figure for a long term contract ($1.50/board foot) works out to a total of $1500/thousand board feet. If the wood is actually worth $700/thousand board feet, where's the problem?
Care to elaborate? Or post correct figures?
I've never quite figured out how the US government can restrict Apple from selling the G4/500. The friggin CPU was designed by a Japanese company (Motorola), and the only thing the government can achieve is HURTING an american company by not allowing it to sell a readily available piece of equipment.
:)
Actually, now that I think about it, a 500MHz G4 is anything BUT readily available
>>
Even under DMCA it is legal to reverse-engineer for reasons of interoperability.
(as per my understanding)
>>
Fortunately, (or unfortunately, depending on what side of this issue you're on) even if the DMCA DOES disallow reverse engineering in this instance (considering that the bill was designed to "protect" IP for corporations, I'd personally say that if upheld as constitutional, reverse engineering CSS would be illegal under this act, but IANAL) it would STILL be a moot point. The DMCA des not apply outside of the US, and the actual reverse engineering was done in Norway, by someone who is not a US citizen.
Hmm. Which brings up an interesting point. In the past, the US has gone out of it's way to enforce laws on it's citizens even when they leave the country to do things which are not illegal in whatever jurisdiction they travel to.
If the reverse engineering of a piece of software was done, that was directly illegal under the DCMA, abroad, by a US citizen, would the fruits of that labor be legal unusable in the US?
Just a question to anyone who might know anything about trade secret law, but can the fact that the MPAA did not ask for these records to be sealed when they were submitted as evidence be considered neglect?
If you neglect to protect your trade secrets, don't they lose trade secret protection?
This, frankly, can actually be beneficial to the CCA case.
IANAL, but it does seem somewhat clear cut to me.
Does this mean it is destined to be destroyed, as Nostradamus predicted? :)
I appologize for posting while contributing nothing to the discussion, but that comment just jumped out at me. The lack of doom-and-gloom-end-of-the-world-y2k/y2k1-predictio ns that I have grown used to hearing over and over for the last ten years has obviously gotten to me. :)
"Employees aren't there to subsidize the companies to make better profits by helping them to reduce costs of managing an office building."
:)
Pardon me while I say "huh?"
Is this the Amazon.com method of HR management that says, "We'll hire X employees at $50k/yr each in order to save $1k/yr each in plant management. We lose $49k/yr per employee, but we'll make it up in volume!"
If a company REQUIRES you to work from your home, then I can see SOME merit in having ergo standards in place for a workstation. especially if the organization requires you to have a real office in your home (it has a locking door, your kids dont go into it, etc.)
However, in the long term, if this stands, this will do much to REDUCE any incentive for your organization to offer you the ability to telework. And let's not even talk about the potential for abuse (okay, let's talk about it
I can SEE the following lawsuit and OSHA investigation:
Teleworking employee of Acme Consulting has his child in his home office during work hours. The child is not doing much besides playing with his toys. However, he leaves his toys in the office, which said employee trips over and breaks his leg. This is obviously an unsafe working environment because of the clutter that caused the injury.
Absurd? Definately. Unlikely? Nope. I give it 6 months before it happens.
>> /mbr" command - which taught me that those bastards take over the master boot record of you hard disk and don't even tell you about it! Talk about getting your foot in the door to leverage a monopoly...
/MBR is an undocumented command meant to be used to rebuild a trashed boot sector. PERIOD. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with monopoly leveraging, has NOTHING to do with "taking over your master boot record" and has NOTHING to do with the people in Redmond being "bastards."
I was going to title this: "Msft solutions are
Msft's problems" - but my first voyage into the world of FreeBSD years ago came with instructions to use the Microsoft® undocumented "fdisk
>>
You know, it's stuff like this that makes me not want to read Slashdot. Anything REMOTELY anti-Linux is automatically called FUD, and in the process even MORE FUD is produced. Fdisk
I'm NOT pro-Microsoft, but shit like this just annoys the hell out of me. I've heard it said around here that the FUD will eventually come back to haunt MS. How about we try to avoid the same mistakes so FUD doesn't come back to haunt US?
The downside to this (for the Chinese) is that they'd get their asses kicked by Charlie Sheen and Patrick Swayze.
Sorry, I couldn't resist that. Your scenario just sounded too much like Red Dawn, especially the Cuban tie-in, front line on the Rockies, and the limited nuke strikes, and the chartered commercial aircraft.
I've often wondered if such a scenario would work. The one big problem with your scenario, however, is America is just too damn big. There are too many army bases, navy bases, gun stores, police stations, National Guard armories, etc. for any force to take more than a tithe of them before organized resistance could form around them.
Forgive me if I am incorrect, but I am pretty sure it IS illegal to use the seven dirty words on the telephone.
There wasn't an internet in 1992? Shit, now you tell me! All those years wasted using a resource that didn't exist! :-)
How about MAME? If a camera can do it, an Aio probably can too... You know, it would be pretty amusing to see what happened to it's behavior with different ROMs loaded into it. Here are some examples: :)
:)
Tapper: Your Aibo runs around serving beers to your poker/football buddies. If he does not do it fast enough, they beat him senseless.
Mr. Doo's wild Ride: Your Aibo heads to Six Flags, where it runs rampant on the roller coasters. Any beings it encounters in the course of these travels is whacked with a hammer.
Rampage: Aibo heads for downtown Detroit to destroy buildings. After getting there, it leaves, realizing it is too late.
Robotron: Odd sounds that disturbingly resemble "Kill the humanoid" issue from it's speakers. Aibo gains the ability to walk and aim in different directions.
Well, you get the idea
I recall it being mentioned about a year or so ago (sorry, don't remember the source) that IBM was pretty much the red-headed step-child of the PPC development group.
Back when PPC was being developed, there was alot of hype how these three companies (IBM, Motorola, Apple) were going to revolutionize computing, to the benifet of the entire world (And IBM, Motorola, and Apple).
What has happened is there is colaboration amongst all three in the design phase. When it comes to actually SELLING the things, Motorola becomes Apple's "Preferred" supplier (i.e. 100%) and IBM gets left out in the cold.
Big Blue has refocused in more recent years to create embedded PPC, and has been doing a pretty damn good job of it. I'm sure there are still plenty of burned asses over at IBM that would love to stick it to Apple and Motorola, though...
Maybe one of the reasons IBM signed up with Nintendo to design and fab Dolphin?
While the Windows UI may be pretty bad, everyone and their dog is famillar with it. If KDE and Gnome really ARE going to take over the desktop, they need to conform to the de facto standard.
The need for QWERTY keyboards is past, it has been for at -least- 20 years. But here we are, with 99.99% of (US) keyboards conforming to the standard. Why? Because everyone who will use a PC, or a typewriter, or word processor is -trained- to that standard. Any 90% of the PC using world is -trained- to the windows GUI standard.
If Linux is ever to succeed outside the server, embedded, or technogeek markets, it's interface will become MORE like MS's, not less.
Just a rather amusing scooby-doo tie-in:
:)
Cartoon Network ha sbeen running commercials for their newest "Cartoon Theater" production. A parody of Blair Witch entitled "The Scooby-Doo Project"
The logo kicks serious ass.
Well, there's one upside to all of this....
:-)
Anyone who believes in the Antichrist, etc can now breath easier. Who'd have thought! All it takes to learn who the spawn of the devil is, is to look at a patent application!
The full abstract from the us patent office reads:
P TO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/sr chnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='5,914,941'.WKU.&OS=PN/5 ,914,941&RS=PN/5,914,941
A digital replacement for an analog audio tape recorder can record audio programming digitally in a faster than real time format and can play back audio programming, where such programming has been digitized and stored in data files using a variety of compression/decompression algorithms. Audio programming is stored digitally on a non-volatile medium, such as a hard drive, or in a flash EPROM, or other solid state non-volatile memory. The device includes a hard drive, a modem for connection to a data base via an on-line service, a keyboard, a display, and an audio system. The device uniquely combines the remote data access capability resident in a personal computer with a set of tailored, streamlined control functions to simplify, automate, and render seamless the process of selecting audio program material; ordering the program material from a service; receiving acknowledgment of the order and receiving the program material via automatic download for storage in a hard drive; playback of the program material when and where the user desires, with fully streamlined control functions; and control of the user interface functionality on the keyboard through a setup mode of operation.
Assumably, with that specific wording, your Rio and Nomad players would not be covered (they dont have keyboards, and dont fit the spec)
Of course, you could make the case that what they are talking about is, in fact, a laptop computer equipped with a sound device of some kind. I'd frankly love to see them try to bring someone to court based on this patent. They'd lose, and waste alot of money doing so.
The full text of the patent can be read at:
http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=