What really annoys me is that you can subscribe to caller ID and some numbers still appear as "withheld". It's no surprise that you can pay more to upgrade your caller ID to see those numbers. In Canada anyway. False advertising much?
BTW there was an issue of 2600 with a great CID\ANI spoofing article. I think it was winter 2004.
Well, there's no legal action as far as I know. It's just a boycott which is the most reasonable way to get a message out there without looking like they're trying to profit.
However, you bring up a good point. Everybody's speaking out against everything these days. What do you propose? Revoking freedom of speech? If you hear complaints every day it means you live in a free country. Be thankful for liberals!
Have you SEEN the game? It's extremely racist against natives. Particularly in the first half of the game. I was offended on behalf of native Americans while playing this game. The designers could have been a lot more tactful without sacrificing the brutality of the game, but they pulled out all the stops and begged for a lawsuit.
"Except you missed my point...when they have it set like this, you don't OWN the game, you're RENTING it."
Well, isn't that true even of games that don't require the internet? That's the beef with copy protection like Safedisc or DRM. Consumers can't win. Either they must be connected to the internet to play or they can't make copies of their storebought media. Ultimately the decider comes down to which is the most likely inconvenience - a scratched\lost CD or shoddy internet. As the internet improves this ratio slides and alternative means of copy protection are favourable.
Plus, I bought my copy of HL2 used. The original owner just deleted all his personal information and gave me his logon and password. There's no trace of his personal or billing info.
"Ok...first off, do you seriously think it was only the hardcore who knew about HL mods? Counterstrike....Day of Defeat....Natural Selection....I would wager that the vast majority of players were well aware of those mods. I don't care what price the mod is, the fact is they took what was formerly done out of love for the game for free, and turned it into something where people do it for the money. They've damaged the exact part of the culture that made it so wonderful."
You're correct that I've underestimated the popularity of CS. It is singlehandedly responsible for "mod culture" and it was obviously accessible enough that a zillion people installed it successfully. In Valve's defense they bundled CS:S for free with HL2.
That being said, not only was CS a trailblazer for free mods, but also for "professional" mods. CS sold copies of HL, plain and simple, and ultimately it was sold standalone on store shelves just as DoD is now. Valve hasn't closed off the free mod community. Look at Garry's Mod or FakeFactory's high res texture mod. Those are hugely popular free mods. Whether Valve does the community a favour by employing the best indie devs and giving them budgets is debateable I guess. And I haven't heard of Valve restricting the use of any CS-related service except for the ad agency that broke the EULA by injecting Subway ads into games.
IANAL either, but I think this issue might be tricky. How does a company prove that its software doesn't break computers?
I think this issue is HUGE for Starforce. As far as I know they are pretty much batting 1.000 in thwarting pirates (who are unwilling to unplug their IDE optical drives). They stand to either win or lose the business of the entire industry based on the outcome of this lawsuit. I think journalists are in the right to report on allegedly defective products, but I don't fault Starforce for suing.
You hit the nail on the head though: innocent until proven guilty.
You're right to criticize the reliability of a service like Steam. Reliability is a 2-way street. My internet connection at home is a little shoddy, and it really sucks when I can't play a SINGLE PLAYER GAME while my internet is down.
I disagree with you that there is no hard copy. True, you don't get nicely pressed discs or manuals (though HL2 only came with a quick reference card) but you don't have to deal with DRM to make as many copies of the game as you wish. If you don't mind connecting to the internet every time you play (though many do mind) then it's actually an improvement.
Finally, I also disargee with you about DoD. Yes it's unfortunate that you must pay for what used to be a free mod. However, Valve was so impressed with this independent team's work that they hired them, and now they sell DoD as a value-priced standalone product. This essentially takes the game out of the hands of the hardcore and into the hands of the public - those who don't own HL2 and\or those who don't know how to install mods. I say good for the DoD team for making a business out of a hobby.
BoingBoing isn't the first site to make serious claims against Starforce, but I don't know whether any of it is factual. The onus is on BoingBoing to find, I presume, just one example where their allegations are true.
I agree with your argument in favour of property in meatspace 100%. However, no one can contest the fact that if it weren't for Blizzard, WoW simply wouldn't exist. WoW is created, owned, and operated by Blizzard and so they should reserve the right to do with it as they please. Of course they've recieved bad press for their decision, but that's their mistake to make.
Guild Wars optionally distributes its client over the web and on BT. When you launch the client you can enter a prepackaged product key or click a button to purchase one in a web browser. This is a great solution for all parties! Players don't have to repurchase the game due to broken media, and Anet prevents abuse since "pirated" copies cannot be played without a purchased serial. It's still recommended, however, to download the client from a trusted source.
These drinks remind me of the good old days in the late 90s rave scene. Parties often employed kiosks selling freshly blended energy drinks of varying capacities. The most popular vendors in Toronto were Liquid Ecstasy and Liquid Adreneline. These vendors, offering drinks ranging from $5 to $25, would blend legal stimulants (red bull, ephedra, caffeine, etc.) with fresh fruit. These smoothies were really delicious and invigorating, and would wake you up with the combination of the stimulants, natural sugar, coldness, and thickness (like a milkshake - they took 30 minutes to drink). It was also a lot easier to dance without all that cash weighing you down!
Boing Boing might in fact have a strong case vs Starforce here. Precedent was set by Kyle Bennett of HardOCP when he successfully defended vs Infinium Labs last year. I think what won him the case was his freedom of press rights. I wonder if Boing Boing could countersue for slander as Starforce contests his journalistic integrity.
I'm unaware of what hypocrisies exist since I don't play the game, but the policy is a fair one if Blizzard really does abide by it. If what you say could be proven by GBLT proponents in court, then Blizzard might be in some real trouble. Otherwise, as long as Blizzard is equally intolerant of all "special interest groups", I fail to see any problem.
Though they are paying customers, WoW players are tenants of the virtual property owned by Blizzard. They have the right to welcome, tolerate, or decry whatever kind of behaviour they wish.
WoW players are not citizens, they are guests who must abide by the law of the land.
I'm all for free speech and the right to congregate, recruit, and broadcast, but I think Blizzard is well within their right to dissolve whatever guilds they want for whatever reason they wish. The situation is akin to putting up political posters in the lobby of a hotel - it's the establishment's right to do it, but it might dissuade people from staying.
I definitely think 6 months is way too long for updates. Why not release new levels monthly? Record voices, write story, and design art well in advance, and create maps every month following the broad strokes of the existing content. I can't see people leaving a game with 4 hours of content installed for 6 months.
This sucks. I read about something like this on/. previously. People fork over their bandwidth, yet they pay fall fare for content. A movie costs the same for a guy with OC12 as it does for a guy on a 9600 baud courier modem. A pricing scheme that rewards fast uploads would be a fantastic way to improve the strength of the internet - everyone would pay more for fast uprate to save money!
Malicious note - here's a chance for movie pirates to use the same guerilla tactics as the industry - poisoning commercial P2P seeds! Inject that 1 frame of shlong and make Tyler Durden proud!
No private information should be made available over RFID. If that information has to be transmitted or broadcasted in any way, it should be from a patchable computer system that can change to reflect up-to-date security fixes. Otherwise, as soon as the encryption scheme is cracked, you could just walk down the halls of an airport for 10 minutes and record thousands of IDs.
Everything gets cracked. In this day and age even "security" is "security through obscurity". RFID is a fantastic technology but it shouldn't be a transmission vector for information of value. That's like visiting a bank in China and yelling your PIN in German, hoping nobody will understand. RFID should only be used for asset tracking, broadcasting otherwise useless data like serial numbers.
Why do we need RFID for passports anyway? Is it so hard to swipe a card? I wager it's just to give citizens the illusion of privacy while they are scanned from afar. I hope the decision to incorporate RFID - for passports, clothing, or anything people carry - will be debated profusely by governments before being adopted. I think many countries' constitutions are in conflict with technologies of such invasive potential.
Isn't it likely then that debris would find a "sweet spot" of velocity and altitude? Perhaps heavier objects take a wider, faster orbit? Purely speculation - I'm no physicist.
Please excuse me for not having proof to back this up, but I heard on TV once that, due to the contesting gravitational pulls of the Earth, the moon, and the sun, that this debris accelerates continuously to tens of thousands of miles per hour. A hunk of shrapnel the size of a penny could tear a hole straight through a sattelite or spacecraft and hardly lose any momentum.
Kindly reply if you can provide clarification on this or if you can debunk it.
Make a web page. State your areas of specialty. Give a mission statement and post samples of your work. Explain how technical writers equal cost savings and work safety. Explain how hiring a professional technical writer can save money in client tech support by ensuring quality and palatability of the prose and layout. Give examples of places you've worked and how you improved their workflow. Ask former clients kindly for testimonials. Associate yourself with a guild like the STC or a local faction since this is often the first place prospective employers will look (or at least troll their job listings). It's a fact of life, however, that the people who need tech writers the most don't know that they need them. It sucks, but nothing beats cold calling business that reflect your specific areas of expertise. Throwing a few bucks to Google AdWords couldn't hurt either.
I understand that MS has recently decided to extend the deadline to abandon official support of Windows XP Home to 2008. While many applaud this 1-year extension, others feel this deadline is insufficient. Considering this is the most popular operating system in the history of personal computing, will MS take responsibility for any damages caused by this deadline? (e.g., unpatched vulnerabilities resulting in spam and DDoS zombies, virus proliferation, identity theft, etc.) Is MS willing to reconsider this deadline?
Vince Desi is absolutely correct. What made Postal 2 great was the simple fact that you were presented with everyday activities (get the mail, buy groceries, vote in an election) and could handle those activities in whatever way you chose. It wasn't easy to complete those objectives without resorting to violence, but it was absolutely possible. Postal 2 is a ridiculous caricature of a town where everyone has a chip on their shoulder. It's no exaggeration when Desi says this is the most politically correct game ever made - considering the disposition of rest of the population it's not hard to play as the biggest pacifist in town!
Why does Thompson decry simulated murder but not actual murder? It's like suing the creator of Monopoly for being responsible for Walmart. I can't wait until someone sues this ambulance chaser for belittling the death of a loved one by equating it with a game.
Slashdot Mirror
What really annoys me is that you can subscribe to caller ID and some numbers still appear as "withheld". It's no surprise that you can pay more to upgrade your caller ID to see those numbers. In Canada anyway. False advertising much?
BTW there was an issue of 2600 with a great CID\ANI spoofing article. I think it was winter 2004.
Whoever marked your post as troll is dumb in the head. You said precisely what I was going to.
Well, there's no legal action as far as I know. It's just a boycott which is the most reasonable way to get a message out there without looking like they're trying to profit.
However, you bring up a good point. Everybody's speaking out against everything these days. What do you propose? Revoking freedom of speech? If you hear complaints every day it means you live in a free country. Be thankful for liberals!
"But what exactly did they do to deserve a lawsuit? talked ill of some group of people"
When that group of people is a culture or religion it's called racism.
Have you SEEN the game? It's extremely racist against natives. Particularly in the first half of the game. I was offended on behalf of native Americans while playing this game. The designers could have been a lot more tactful without sacrificing the brutality of the game, but they pulled out all the stops and begged for a lawsuit.
"Except you missed my point...when they have it set like this, you don't OWN the game, you're RENTING it."
Well, isn't that true even of games that don't require the internet? That's the beef with copy protection like Safedisc or DRM. Consumers can't win. Either they must be connected to the internet to play or they can't make copies of their storebought media. Ultimately the decider comes down to which is the most likely inconvenience - a scratched\lost CD or shoddy internet. As the internet improves this ratio slides and alternative means of copy protection are favourable.
Plus, I bought my copy of HL2 used. The original owner just deleted all his personal information and gave me his logon and password. There's no trace of his personal or billing info.
"Ok...first off, do you seriously think it was only the hardcore who knew about HL mods? Counterstrike....Day of Defeat....Natural Selection....I would wager that the vast majority of players were well aware of those mods. I don't care what price the mod is, the fact is they took what was formerly done out of love for the game for free, and turned it into something where people do it for the money. They've damaged the exact part of the culture that made it so wonderful."
You're correct that I've underestimated the popularity of CS. It is singlehandedly responsible for "mod culture" and it was obviously accessible enough that a zillion people installed it successfully. In Valve's defense they bundled CS:S for free with HL2.
That being said, not only was CS a trailblazer for free mods, but also for "professional" mods. CS sold copies of HL, plain and simple, and ultimately it was sold standalone on store shelves just as DoD is now. Valve hasn't closed off the free mod community. Look at Garry's Mod or FakeFactory's high res texture mod. Those are hugely popular free mods. Whether Valve does the community a favour by employing the best indie devs and giving them budgets is debateable I guess. And I haven't heard of Valve restricting the use of any CS-related service except for the ad agency that broke the EULA by injecting Subway ads into games.
IANAL either, but I think this issue might be tricky. How does a company prove that its software doesn't break computers?
I think this issue is HUGE for Starforce. As far as I know they are pretty much batting 1.000 in thwarting pirates (who are unwilling to unplug their IDE optical drives). They stand to either win or lose the business of the entire industry based on the outcome of this lawsuit. I think journalists are in the right to report on allegedly defective products, but I don't fault Starforce for suing.
You hit the nail on the head though: innocent until proven guilty.
You're right to criticize the reliability of a service like Steam. Reliability is a 2-way street. My internet connection at home is a little shoddy, and it really sucks when I can't play a SINGLE PLAYER GAME while my internet is down.
I disagree with you that there is no hard copy. True, you don't get nicely pressed discs or manuals (though HL2 only came with a quick reference card) but you don't have to deal with DRM to make as many copies of the game as you wish. If you don't mind connecting to the internet every time you play (though many do mind) then it's actually an improvement.
Finally, I also disargee with you about DoD. Yes it's unfortunate that you must pay for what used to be a free mod. However, Valve was so impressed with this independent team's work that they hired them, and now they sell DoD as a value-priced standalone product. This essentially takes the game out of the hands of the hardcore and into the hands of the public - those who don't own HL2 and\or those who don't know how to install mods. I say good for the DoD team for making a business out of a hobby.
BoingBoing isn't the first site to make serious claims against Starforce, but I don't know whether any of it is factual. The onus is on BoingBoing to find, I presume, just one example where their allegations are true.
I agree with your argument in favour of property in meatspace 100%. However, no one can contest the fact that if it weren't for Blizzard, WoW simply wouldn't exist. WoW is created, owned, and operated by Blizzard and so they should reserve the right to do with it as they please. Of course they've recieved bad press for their decision, but that's their mistake to make.
Guild Wars optionally distributes its client over the web and on BT. When you launch the client you can enter a prepackaged product key or click a button to purchase one in a web browser. This is a great solution for all parties! Players don't have to repurchase the game due to broken media, and Anet prevents abuse since "pirated" copies cannot be played without a purchased serial. It's still recommended, however, to download the client from a trusted source.
These drinks remind me of the good old days in the late 90s rave scene. Parties often employed kiosks selling freshly blended energy drinks of varying capacities. The most popular vendors in Toronto were Liquid Ecstasy and Liquid Adreneline. These vendors, offering drinks ranging from $5 to $25, would blend legal stimulants (red bull, ephedra, caffeine, etc.) with fresh fruit. These smoothies were really delicious and invigorating, and would wake you up with the combination of the stimulants, natural sugar, coldness, and thickness (like a milkshake - they took 30 minutes to drink). It was also a lot easier to dance without all that cash weighing you down!
Boing Boing might in fact have a strong case vs Starforce here. Precedent was set by Kyle Bennett of HardOCP when he successfully defended vs Infinium Labs last year. I think what won him the case was his freedom of press rights. I wonder if Boing Boing could countersue for slander as Starforce contests his journalistic integrity.
I'm unaware of what hypocrisies exist since I don't play the game, but the policy is a fair one if Blizzard really does abide by it. If what you say could be proven by GBLT proponents in court, then Blizzard might be in some real trouble. Otherwise, as long as Blizzard is equally intolerant of all "special interest groups", I fail to see any problem.
Though they are paying customers, WoW players are tenants of the virtual property owned by Blizzard. They have the right to welcome, tolerate, or decry whatever kind of behaviour they wish.
WoW players are not citizens, they are guests who must abide by the law of the land.
I'm all for free speech and the right to congregate, recruit, and broadcast, but I think Blizzard is well within their right to dissolve whatever guilds they want for whatever reason they wish. The situation is akin to putting up political posters in the lobby of a hotel - it's the establishment's right to do it, but it might dissuade people from staying.
I definitely think 6 months is way too long for updates. Why not release new levels monthly? Record voices, write story, and design art well in advance, and create maps every month following the broad strokes of the existing content. I can't see people leaving a game with 4 hours of content installed for 6 months.
Sounds like your solution will actually work! Either that, or fill your pocket with water.
h p
http://www.rpi-polymath.com/ducttape/RFIDWallet.p
This sucks. I read about something like this on /. previously. People fork over their bandwidth, yet they pay fall fare for content. A movie costs the same for a guy with OC12 as it does for a guy on a 9600 baud courier modem. A pricing scheme that rewards fast uploads would be a fantastic way to improve the strength of the internet - everyone would pay more for fast uprate to save money!
Malicious note - here's a chance for movie pirates to use the same guerilla tactics as the industry - poisoning commercial P2P seeds! Inject that 1 frame of shlong and make Tyler Durden proud!
No private information should be made available over RFID. If that information has to be transmitted or broadcasted in any way, it should be from a patchable computer system that can change to reflect up-to-date security fixes. Otherwise, as soon as the encryption scheme is cracked, you could just walk down the halls of an airport for 10 minutes and record thousands of IDs.
Everything gets cracked. In this day and age even "security" is "security through obscurity". RFID is a fantastic technology but it shouldn't be a transmission vector for information of value. That's like visiting a bank in China and yelling your PIN in German, hoping nobody will understand. RFID should only be used for asset tracking, broadcasting otherwise useless data like serial numbers.
Why do we need RFID for passports anyway? Is it so hard to swipe a card? I wager it's just to give citizens the illusion of privacy while they are scanned from afar. I hope the decision to incorporate RFID - for passports, clothing, or anything people carry - will be debated profusely by governments before being adopted. I think many countries' constitutions are in conflict with technologies of such invasive potential.
"You're covered in precious ambergris!"
"Precious hamburgers?"
Isn't it likely then that debris would find a "sweet spot" of velocity and altitude? Perhaps heavier objects take a wider, faster orbit? Purely speculation - I'm no physicist.
Please excuse me for not having proof to back this up, but I heard on TV once that, due to the contesting gravitational pulls of the Earth, the moon, and the sun, that this debris accelerates continuously to tens of thousands of miles per hour. A hunk of shrapnel the size of a penny could tear a hole straight through a sattelite or spacecraft and hardly lose any momentum.
Kindly reply if you can provide clarification on this or if you can debunk it.
Make a web page. State your areas of specialty. Give a mission statement and post samples of your work. Explain how technical writers equal cost savings and work safety. Explain how hiring a professional technical writer can save money in client tech support by ensuring quality and palatability of the prose and layout. Give examples of places you've worked and how you improved their workflow. Ask former clients kindly for testimonials. Associate yourself with a guild like the STC or a local faction since this is often the first place prospective employers will look (or at least troll their job listings). It's a fact of life, however, that the people who need tech writers the most don't know that they need them. It sucks, but nothing beats cold calling business that reflect your specific areas of expertise. Throwing a few bucks to Google AdWords couldn't hurt either.
Check out Managing Your Documentation Projects by Joanne Hackos (or just read the first few pages) for some great selling points to quote to potential clients.
Mr. Nash,
I understand that MS has recently decided to extend the deadline to abandon official support of Windows XP Home to 2008. While many applaud this 1-year extension, others feel this deadline is insufficient. Considering this is the most popular operating system in the history of personal computing, will MS take responsibility for any damages caused by this deadline? (e.g., unpatched vulnerabilities resulting in spam and DDoS zombies, virus proliferation, identity theft, etc.) Is MS willing to reconsider this deadline?
Vince Desi is absolutely correct. What made Postal 2 great was the simple fact that you were presented with everyday activities (get the mail, buy groceries, vote in an election) and could handle those activities in whatever way you chose. It wasn't easy to complete those objectives without resorting to violence, but it was absolutely possible. Postal 2 is a ridiculous caricature of a town where everyone has a chip on their shoulder. It's no exaggeration when Desi says this is the most politically correct game ever made - considering the disposition of rest of the population it's not hard to play as the biggest pacifist in town!
Why does Thompson decry simulated murder but not actual murder? It's like suing the creator of Monopoly for being responsible for Walmart. I can't wait until someone sues this ambulance chaser for belittling the death of a loved one by equating it with a game.