I consider buying used to be the equivalent of just downloading something. Either way, you're denying the original creators fair compensation.
Ha! And buying from the RIAA is not denying the original creators fair compensation?
How is this - I mail one check to Band A for $20-$30. In return, I get to download all their music for free for the rest of my life. I get music, they get better compsensation then they would have if I just bought their CDs.
I play SW:G, played it for a week, and so far, I really like the game. I play a rifleman armourcrafter, and am part of a 20 person or so guild, so I get a good feel for a lot of the different aspects of the game.
I started on Naboo, on the Chilestra (sp?) server. Hunting with a rifle on Naboo to me feels like African safari hunting in the Star Wars galaxy. With a crew of people, the blaster fire, and the animals - the animals! - it is just incredible. Seeing some massive creature stand from laying down and running at you is just incredible. The blaster fire sounds just so bloody cool - *exactly* the way it sounds in the movies. I like the lair aspect of hunting; animals spawn from a lair, if you shoot the lair, they rush you, if you kill the lair, they don't spawn. That makes sense.
I like the crafting aspect, as well - it is more interactive than the crafting of DAoC and people actually use your items! This was a huge problem with DAoC before spellcrafting came out - loot was better than crafts. Mind you, this is one of the problems with SW:G - no loot. People *have* to use your equipment, because if they don't, they hunt in their clothes. Luckily, SW:G has a workable in-game free market that seems to be good enough for buyers and sellers to meet. And, I get usage experience if people actually use my armour!
Mind you, I am slanted toward crafting, so I like the system that makes my skills in demand. But, for people that like loot, this game will hurt them. I would consider loot important - to me, the loot lottery known as Diablo 2 is still being played mainly because of this reason.
The experience system is new to me, and I really like it. I use rifle, and get rifle experience for using it. When I get enough rifle experience, I can train my rifle to the next level. That makes sense. I like how you can train people, and have other people train you - it beats paying for training, and the experience you get from training you need.
My biggest complaints currently are the number of bugs in the game, especially with the chat and trading. Chat is so buggy that when people join the guild channel, the greeting is "test?". Some things I could perceive as problems are the rarity of money and the lack of dungeons.
About the rarity of money - I never see any. I either find or am given the materials to craft. I never pay for training - except for purchasing the base level skill so I can start a profession - because for the most skills I need, someone will train me for free. I rarely use money for upkeep for buildings (miners) because our guild architect needs the building experience for building new miners. Our guild makes everything we need for the most part - I haven't bought a single item since I started playing. The only service I have purchased is tipping dancers in cantinas.
So far, it is a new game, and due to that, it is all bright and shiny. But, I really like the game, and hope to play it for some time.
Because "stealing" is taking something from a rightful that denies the rightful owner the ability to use said item. For example, if I take your keys out of your pocket, but left them on your table, I haven't stolen from you, because I have not denied you the ability to use said keys. At this point, it is mischief.
Take it one step further, if I take your keys, and made a copy of them without your permission, and then returned the keys to you by putting them on your table, I haven't stolen from you. I have made a copy of your keys without your express permission - but it isn't theft. The theft part happens when I take the copy of your keys and clean your house out. Now, I'll admit that making a copy of your keys without your permission is probably not a good thing - it probably is a very bad thing. But it isn't theft.
Now, "taking" a song is not taking something tangible. I've made a copy. That isn't theft, as the rightful owners still have not lost the ability to use the item. However, it is copyright violation. Now, whether copyright violation is morally equivalent to theft is something each person has to decide for themselves. I do not think it is equivalent.
Uh...MS Office isn't installed by default on a Windows box. Therefore, had this been a vanilla installation of Windows, he would have had to install Office for his Mother anyways. Ergo, while you may be correct in saying that the test failed because he had to manually install Open Office prior to Mom, Windows would have failed the exact same way.
Another major problem is that for intra-urban commuting, this may be okay, but what about inter-city communiting? There are some places where cars are the right tool for the job - such as driving from the city to visit family and friends in rural areas. We would need to keep the original infrastructure for automobiles, as well as building an additional infrastructure for the "car-free" mass-transit system.
Error in his calculations
on
Making Change
·
· Score: 1
He has an error in his calculations. Try the following program:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void) { int money = 0; int ii = 0; int coins = 0; float average = 0.0;
for( ii = 1; ii < 100; ii++) { coins = 0; money = ii; while ( money >= 25 ) {money-=25;coins++;} while ( money >= 10 ) {money-=10;coins++;} while ( money >= 5 ) {money-=5;coins++;} while ( money >= 1 ) {money--;coins++;} printf("%i change is %i coins.\n",ii,coins); average+=(float)coins; } a verage = average / (float)(ii-1); printf("Average coins per transaction is %f.\n",average); return (0);}
This gives 4.75 coins per transaction. He must have a fencepost error, because 4.70 coins per transaction is true if you determine that there are 100 transactions, rather than 99 transactions. In my code, that is dividing average by ii-1 (giving 99) rather than ii.
Please excuse the shitty format of the code. Slashdot has a lameness filter. Everything below this post is unnecessary to read, feel free to ignore it.
lalala, typing a bunch of garbage because posting code makes this stupid slashcode shit itself. Oh, no! [b]Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted.[/b] Whatever shall I do? Post some more biting social commentary like I am now? The hideousness! The humanity! Won't someone please think of the children?
Yes, this is totally useless, so I have to post more. And more. And on the seventh day, Taco said, "Let there be lameness filters". And so it was, and much ass was sucked. Ass suckage like was foretold in the holy books.
Should we try it now? Will my completely relevant post that I had to butcher and rape because of this useless filter finally be allowed to post? Stay tuned, same bat channel, same bat time!
Strike 2! What a fucking joke. This bites ass. I just want to post some completely relevant code! That's it! But, no, I can't. I have to keep typing and typing useless shit. Why? We have a lameness filter. Which is working just fine, because I have to add a shitload of lameness just to satisfy it. La la la. This sucks ass. Grrr. I know, let's post a block of useless text from somewhere else! TORONTO - Another round of weak economic news from the United States helped send the Canadian dollar on an upward charge on Friday as it breached 73 cents US.<http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/photos/dollar_030516.jpg > The dollar finished Friday at 73.28 cents US, up 0.95 of a cent from Thursday's close. One U.S. dollar was worth $1.3647 Canadian. The loonie's last flight above 73 cents US was on July 14, 1997, when it closed at 73.03 cents US. Friday's close was the dollar's highest since March 12, 1997, when it was worth 73.37 cents US. The Canadian dollar took off after the U.S. Labor Department reported that consumer prices south of the border fell by 0.3 per cent in April. That touched off more speculation the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates in June to spur the American economy.* FROM May 16, 2003: U.S. consumer prices dropped in April The poor economic data coming from the U.S. has sent the greenback plunging this year against many major currencies. The widening gap between U.S. and Canadian interest rates has helped lure investors to buy the loonie. The Bank of Canada has raised rates twice this year to keep control of inflation, while the Fed has left rates at lows not seen in more than 40 years.
The short story is indeed called "Paycheck". A copy of the story is in a Dick anthogoly called The Phillip K. Dick Reader (ISBN 0-8065-1856-1). The anthogoly contains other short stories such as "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (the basis for Total Recall), "Second Variety" (basis for that piece of drek Screamers), and "The Minority Report", which the recent movie is based on.
Here is a brief summary of the short story: an engineer named Jennings is leaving the Rethrick Construction Company, which he has been a contractor for for two years. Two interesting parts of the contract: he has to have his memory erased before he leaves so he cannot tell anyone what he did; and instead of the $50 000 payment for work, he can opt to be paid in an alternative fashion. Jennings, fresh from the memory wipe, is surprised to find that he took an alternative payment of meaningless junk (a cloth sack that contains a code key, a ticket stub, a parcel receipt, a length of fine wire, half a poker chip, a piece of green cloth and a bus token) instead of the cash. Jennings is soon on the run from the government that is very eager to learn what goes on inside Rethrick. Jennings must use the items he gave himself to elude capture and piece together the puzzle of what he did at Rethrick and why the government is after him.
It is a very good story, as is most of the literature in the Reader and I would highly recommend the book to anyone.
Now, ultimately, the science behind the human species mutating such that super-powered, stable, "mutants" a la the X-men is pretty far-fetched.
However, let's say that there is a finite, non-zero, but incredibly small chance that it *could* happen.
If so, would this ruling have any precedent if such a case, in the future, where human mutants actually exist and try to claim equal rights as human beings?
I wholeheartedly agree with Onan. Dozois collects some of the best SF short-stories and novellas in his anthology. Dozois is a very keen judge of good SF and, like Onan, Dozois has turned me on to several new authors like the aforementioned Resnick and le Guin.
As well, I would recommend reading Terry Pratchett. A lot of people compare Pratchett to Douglas Adams - I would rather compare Adams to Pratchett. I would recommend reading Small Gods and/or Pyramids to get a good feel for how Pratchett writes.
Another modern Sci-fi author I like is Allen Steele, especially Chronospace and Orbital Decay.
I disagree. In an open source model, *changing* the source code is easy. However, compiling and installing the modified source code becomes the issue. You need compilers for the processor(s) - that is, after you identify the processor(s) - and you need to figure out the interface(s) (hardware) and the protocol(s) (software) necessary to enable the download. From what I see, that is not easy.
However, we still have access to the code, the ability to peruse the code and identify some of the bugs. Given the obstacles in custom compiling and installing the code, we have benefits of open source (peer code-review) with a very slim risk of people installing customized code.
Auto manufacturers are legally bound to provide parts and service support for 10 years after each car is first sold. As GM CTO Tony Scott asked last year of attendees at Internet World in New York, "Is anyone here still running software from 10 years ago and could they find support for it?"
Boy, if that isn't a case for Open Source, I really do not know what it.
Love the sig!
I have to type more because I have waste 20 seconds if I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really want to post.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh, that is exactly the reason why I created this account :D
I remember, back in the good ol' days, before user IDs...
I consider buying used to be the equivalent of just downloading something. Either way, you're denying the original creators fair compensation.
:D
Ha! And buying from the RIAA is not denying the original creators fair compensation?
How is this - I mail one check to Band A for $20-$30. In return, I get to download all their music for free for the rest of my life. I get music, they get better compsensation then they would have if I just bought their CDs.
Some armchair moralist you are!
Well, duh, win a Nobel prize or knock off a 7-11! That will impress her!
I play SW:G, played it for a week, and so far, I really like the game. I play a rifleman armourcrafter, and am part of a 20 person or so guild, so I get a good feel for a lot of the different aspects of the game.
I started on Naboo, on the Chilestra (sp?) server. Hunting with a rifle on Naboo to me feels like African safari hunting in the Star Wars galaxy. With a crew of people, the blaster fire, and the animals - the animals! - it is just incredible. Seeing some massive creature stand from laying down and running at you is just incredible. The blaster fire sounds just so bloody cool - *exactly* the way it sounds in the movies. I like the lair aspect of hunting; animals spawn from a lair, if you shoot the lair, they rush you, if you kill the lair, they don't spawn. That makes sense.
I like the crafting aspect, as well - it is more interactive than the crafting of DAoC and people actually use your items! This was a huge problem with DAoC before spellcrafting came out - loot was better than crafts. Mind you, this is one of the problems with SW:G - no loot. People *have* to use your equipment, because if they don't, they hunt in their clothes. Luckily, SW:G has a workable in-game free market that seems to be good enough for buyers and sellers to meet. And, I get usage experience if people actually use my armour!
Mind you, I am slanted toward crafting, so I like the system that makes my skills in demand. But, for people that like loot, this game will hurt them. I would consider loot important - to me, the loot lottery known as Diablo 2 is still being played mainly because of this reason.
The experience system is new to me, and I really like it. I use rifle, and get rifle experience for using it. When I get enough rifle experience, I can train my rifle to the next level. That makes sense. I like how you can train people, and have other people train you - it beats paying for training, and the experience you get from training you need.
My biggest complaints currently are the number of bugs in the game, especially with the chat and trading. Chat is so buggy that when people join the guild channel, the greeting is "test?". Some things I could perceive as problems are the rarity of money and the lack of dungeons.
About the rarity of money - I never see any. I either find or am given the materials to craft. I never pay for training - except for purchasing the base level skill so I can start a profession - because for the most skills I need, someone will train me for free. I rarely use money for upkeep for buildings (miners) because our guild architect needs the building experience for building new miners. Our guild makes everything we need for the most part - I haven't bought a single item since I started playing. The only service I have purchased is tipping dancers in cantinas.
So far, it is a new game, and due to that, it is all bright and shiny. But, I really like the game, and hope to play it for some time.
Because "stealing" is taking something from a rightful that denies the rightful owner the ability to use said item. For example, if I take your keys out of your pocket, but left them on your table, I haven't stolen from you, because I have not denied you the ability to use said keys. At this point, it is mischief.
Take it one step further, if I take your keys, and made a copy of them without your permission, and then returned the keys to you by putting them on your table, I haven't stolen from you. I have made a copy of your keys without your express permission - but it isn't theft. The theft part happens when I take the copy of your keys and clean your house out. Now, I'll admit that making a copy of your keys without your permission is probably not a good thing - it probably is a very bad thing. But it isn't theft.
Now, "taking" a song is not taking something tangible. I've made a copy. That isn't theft, as the rightful owners still have not lost the ability to use the item. However, it is copyright violation. Now, whether copyright violation is morally equivalent to theft is something each person has to decide for themselves. I do not think it is equivalent.
Uh...MS Office isn't installed by default on a Windows box. Therefore, had this been a vanilla installation of Windows, he would have had to install Office for his Mother anyways. Ergo, while you may be correct in saying that the test failed because he had to manually install Open Office prior to Mom, Windows would have failed the exact same way.
dougmc, that was pure comedy genius!
Er, only if they re-incarnate, I guess.
Oh, that's just nice - the rat bastards have turned Kazaa into a repository of Weapons of Mass Destruciton.
Would this effectively restrict the sale of any "Gulf War" games, as well?
Another major problem is that for intra-urban commuting, this may be okay, but what about inter-city communiting? There are some places where cars are the right tool for the job - such as driving from the city to visit family and friends in rural areas. We would need to keep the original infrastructure for automobiles, as well as building an additional infrastructure for the "car-free" mass-transit system.
He has an error in his calculations. Try the following program:
a verage = average / (float)(ii-1);
g >
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
int money = 0;
int ii = 0;
int coins = 0;
float average = 0.0;
for( ii = 1; ii < 100; ii++)
{
coins = 0;
money = ii;
while ( money >= 25 )
{money-=25;coins++;}
while ( money >= 10 )
{money-=10;coins++;}
while ( money >= 5 )
{money-=5;coins++;}
while ( money >= 1 )
{money--;coins++;}
printf("%i change is %i coins.\n",ii,coins);
average+=(float)coins;
}
printf("Average coins per transaction is %f.\n",average);
return (0);}
This gives 4.75 coins per transaction. He must have a fencepost error, because 4.70 coins per transaction is true if you determine that there are 100 transactions, rather than 99 transactions. In my code, that is dividing average by ii-1 (giving 99) rather than ii.
Please excuse the shitty format of the code. Slashdot has a lameness filter. Everything below this post is unnecessary to read, feel free to ignore it.
lalala, typing a bunch of garbage because posting code makes this stupid slashcode shit itself. Oh, no! [b]Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted.[/b] Whatever shall I do? Post some more biting social commentary like I am now? The hideousness! The humanity! Won't someone please think of the children?
Yes, this is totally useless, so I have to post more. And more. And on the seventh day, Taco said, "Let there be lameness filters". And so it was, and much ass was sucked. Ass suckage like was foretold in the holy books.
Should we try it now? Will my completely relevant post that I had to butcher and rape because of this useless filter finally be allowed to post? Stay tuned, same bat channel, same bat time!
Strike 2! What a fucking joke. This bites ass. I just want to post some completely relevant code! That's it! But, no, I can't. I have to keep typing and typing useless shit. Why? We have a lameness filter. Which is working just fine, because I have to add a shitload of lameness just to satisfy it. La la la. This sucks ass. Grrr. I know, let's post a block of useless text from somewhere else! TORONTO - Another round of weak economic news from the United States helped send the Canadian dollar on an upward charge on Friday as it breached 73 cents US.<http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/photos/dollar_030516.jp
The dollar finished Friday at 73.28 cents US, up 0.95 of a cent from Thursday's close. One U.S. dollar was worth $1.3647 Canadian. The loonie's last flight above 73 cents US was on July 14, 1997, when it closed at 73.03 cents US. Friday's close was the dollar's highest since March 12, 1997, when it was worth 73.37 cents US. The Canadian dollar took off after the U.S. Labor Department reported that consumer prices south of the border fell by 0.3 per cent in April. That touched off more speculation the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates in June to spur the American economy.* FROM May 16, 2003: U.S. consumer prices dropped in April The poor economic data coming from the U.S. has sent the greenback plunging this year against many major currencies. The widening gap between U.S. and Canadian interest rates has helped lure investors to buy the loonie. The Bank of Canada has raised rates twice this year to keep control of inflation, while the Fed has left rates at lows not seen in more than 40 years.
Marking thread for future reference
MAD magazine once had an humourous article about using paperback porn to teach high-school subjects to semi-literate teens. Now *that* was educating.
Noting thread for future reference.
The short story is indeed called "Paycheck". A copy of the story is in a Dick anthogoly called The Phillip K. Dick Reader (ISBN 0-8065-1856-1). The anthogoly contains other short stories such as "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (the basis for Total Recall), "Second Variety" (basis for that piece of drek Screamers), and "The Minority Report", which the recent movie is based on.
Here is a brief summary of the short story: an engineer named Jennings is leaving the Rethrick Construction Company, which he has been a contractor for for two years. Two interesting parts of the contract: he has to have his memory erased before he leaves so he cannot tell anyone what he did; and instead of the $50 000 payment for work, he can opt to be paid in an alternative fashion. Jennings, fresh from the memory wipe, is surprised to find that he took an alternative payment of meaningless junk (a cloth sack that contains a code key, a ticket stub, a parcel receipt, a length of fine wire, half a poker chip, a piece of green cloth and a bus token) instead of the cash. Jennings is soon on the run from the government that is very eager to learn what goes on inside Rethrick. Jennings must use the items he gave himself to elude capture and piece together the puzzle of what he did at Rethrick and why the government is after him.
It is a very good story, as is most of the literature in the Reader and I would highly recommend the book to anyone.
Try doing that quiz without answering any of the questions. :)
Just a thought:
Now, ultimately, the science behind the human species mutating such that super-powered, stable, "mutants" a la the X-men is pretty far-fetched.
However, let's say that there is a finite, non-zero, but incredibly small chance that it *could* happen.
If so, would this ruling have any precedent if such a case, in the future, where human mutants actually exist and try to claim equal rights as human beings?
I wholeheartedly agree with Onan. Dozois collects some of the best SF short-stories and novellas in his anthology. Dozois is a very keen judge of good SF and, like Onan, Dozois has turned me on to several new authors like the aforementioned Resnick and le Guin.
As well, I would recommend reading Terry Pratchett. A lot of people compare Pratchett to Douglas Adams - I would rather compare Adams to Pratchett. I would recommend reading Small Gods and/or Pyramids to get a good feel for how Pratchett writes.
Another modern Sci-fi author I like is Allen Steele, especially Chronospace and Orbital Decay.
I disagree. In an open source model, *changing* the source code is easy. However, compiling and installing the modified source code becomes the issue. You need compilers for the processor(s) - that is, after you identify the processor(s) - and you need to figure out the interface(s) (hardware) and the protocol(s) (software) necessary to enable the download. From what I see, that is not easy.
However, we still have access to the code, the ability to peruse the code and identify some of the bugs. Given the obstacles in custom compiling and installing the code, we have benefits of open source (peer code-review) with a very slim risk of people installing customized code.
Boy, if that isn't a case for Open Source, I really do not know what it.
Love the sig! I have to type more because I have waste 20 seconds if I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really want to post.
for next year's Ignobel awards.
Brilliant! You just needed to say that the other server, running CGI, thinking, "oh no, not again".
Nod, I know Motorola does this with donated old cell phones.