Important Warning and Disclaimer
Remote controlling or operating semi/fully autonomous full-size gasoline powered automotive vehicle is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. Such a vehicle should only be operated on a secure test track and never be used to carry passengers.
And yes, it's in bold type and all, but it's not nearly strong enough.
R/C equipment fails. Even in a standard sized R/C car or plane, things can and do go wrong. Planes can fly miles away before they run out of gas, and cars can end up doing doughnuts at full speed until they hit something or flip over.
With a full sized car, the consequences of a failure will be much worse. Imagine losing control of your car and having it go to full speed, straight ahead -- merely being on a test track won't be enough, as the car could easily plow through fences, barriers and even buildings. And you'd have no way to stop it.
I'd strongly suggest that nobody attempt this without extensive experience with both R/C stuff and with modifying full sized cars. And I'd also suggest installing a kill switch of some sort that will immediately kill the engine, and have this switch controlled by a different R/C transmitter on a different channel entirely, with a different battery -- just in case.
Also, the picture shows a Futaba 6X transmitter -- be aware that by default transmitters like this are on the 72 mhz frequency band (in the US), and that the use of the 72 mhz band for controlling ground vehicles is *illegal*. Instead, you're supposed to use the 75 mhz band. Most R/C car transmitters have at most three channels, so people building this sort of thing will be looking at airplane equipment for the extra channels, but you need to be aware that you can't just use any old equipment you find -- you'll need to special order 75 mhz equipment from the manufacturers to be legal (yes, it is available and it doesn't even cost much more. But it is rare, and it's unlikely you'll find it in somebody's attic unless they're into large R/C cars or robots.)
Notice that you say "playing as the bad guy." AFAICT, I think that that's what has observers (justifiably) worried is that the Japanese are depicted as the villains...
Well, weren't they? We're not talking about now -- we're talking about WWII. Japan was allied with Germany, and together they were doing all sorts of bad things to the rest of the world.
They were trying to conquer the world. Isn't that a `bad' goal? Isn't that what villians are always trying to do? Yes, the individual soldiers probably weren't `bad', but were instead just doing their duty for their country, but either way, when somebody attacks you, you fight back.
On the other hand, Britian, France, the USSR, China, France and others were considered `the Good guys'. We were defending ourselves against the aggressors, or so the history books say. I'm sure there was more to it than that, but I do tend to believe that this is generally correct.
Germany was the `really bad guy', but Japan did it's share of bad stuff too. Who knows what would have happened if they hadn't bombed Pearl Harbor and brought the US into the war...
Now, I am fully aware of the saying that `History is written by the victors', and I don't trust our (the US's) current government any further than I can throw it, but I do tend to believe in the general accuracy of the usual good guy/bad guy designations applied to WW2.
Compare this to Vietnam, Afghanastan and Iraq... in these conflicts, it's not so certain that the US is the `good guy'... but certainly, in WW2 we were.
The obvious objection is that the Japanese committed atrocities but the U.S. didn't.
I don't recall anybody making this claim. Is it something in the game? (I have not played it.)
And they're right, it would be completely impossible to sell this sort of war-FPS in America in similar circumstances. Imagine an FPS or thereabouts set in the Second World War, made by Japanese, with, say, the U.S. Marine Corps as the bad guys. The developers would be burned at the stake if loyal red-blooded Republicans had to swim across the Pacific to do it.
I tend to agree with you. But I know of nobody who believes that the US was the villian of WW2... I tend to doubt that even the Japanese of today believe this (but I haven't really asked either -- perhaps I'm totally wrong.)
A better analogy would be a game where you control the forces of Saddam against the vastly superior invading US army -- people would probably buy it, if it was good. (It can be fun to play the underdog.) I can definately see a war game doing reasonably well along those lines. I don't see it becoming a massive hit, but could develop a sizable cult following...
Perhaps you would like Japan to start a war with the US and win so that they can portray Japanese soldiers brutalising American women? Would you like to play a game like this, Doug?
I enjoyed Carmageddon for about 15 minutes. Close enough?
Postal would probably come close as well.
I still stand by my statement --
"If you want games made in the future about your current war to be playable as your side, make sure you win the war!"
I made light of war, talking about a game about war. I'm a bad bad man. Deal with it.
He was just stating the simple truth that it's the winners who write the history books.
Well, yes and no. I'm sure Japan has written it's share of history books. But that's only possible because the US didn't utterly decimate Japan after they surrendered -- the sort of thing that has happened in the past.
But there's not many games out there based on real events (or static books, movies, etc.) that only let you play the losing side. Some will let you play both sides, but even then, if you play the side that `lost' you will be able to win a few battles but obviously you're going to lose the war. Like the `Lord of the Rings' RTS that just came out -- you can play the bad side, but you can't win the war, because that would disagree with the books.
Medal of Honor was created in the US. Japan (or anybody else, I guess) could certainly make a similar game from the Japanese point of view, but if they're going to be at all faithful to history, the game isn't going to let you win the war. And people like to be able to win, so...
And I'm amused that I got modded down as flamebait. That's one way of disagreeing with me...
Over here in the US, we're used to being able to play as the bad guy. Lots of games let us play the bad guy, or let us become bad as we play (in the case of RPGs.)
But on the other hand, I don't recall playing many games where you play the Nazis and you attack the US. We need more games like that!
What can we learn from all this? If you want games made in the future about your current war to be playable as your side, make sure you win the war! There's not too many games out there that only let you play the losing side...
You sure about that? I don't recall SGI ever using the pizza box format. Sun loved it, but the closest I recall seing SGI get to it was the Indy -- and that wasn't really very close.
(1.) U.S. Laws only reach as far as U.S. borders. Where does 95% of spam come from?
95% of my spam does not come from any one country.
However, I'd say that at least 60% comes from within the US (and yes, I'm in the US.)
I don't think legislation is a magic bullet, but it may just help. Certainly, the `do not call' lists have reduced the telemarking phone calls we receive by over 95%.
I guess what they need is a case that looks strong (thousands of files) but eventually turns out to be very weak (like none of these songs are actually violating copyright.)
For example, if some artist made music that had names similar to music out there that the RIAA controlled, and the RIAA assumed that it was their music without actually downloading and listening to it. Then it would go to court, and the independent artist would point out how the RIAA is trying to prevent him from distributing his own music -- that would be a *great* case.
Of course, in that case, the more likely outcome is that the artist would say `I own all these songs and can give them out to anybody I please', and the RIAA would verify this and find it to be true, and probably offer to settle for less, and then would probably drop it entirely when he refused -- it would never go to court at all.
Alas, the RIAA has
gotten burned before by looking only at the names of mp3 files and not actually listening to them, so they're probably not making this mistake any more.
Have they even tried suing anyone with the ability to fight it?
Got me. My guess is that they'd be wise to avoid people who have plenty of money to spend on a defense, but it's just that -- a guess.
Suppose they sued some guy who made a few million dollars in the dot-com craze, and he's still got most of it in the bank. Let's call him Bob.
Yes, Bob could get some excellent lawyers, spending $100,000 (I don't know what the going rate is, so this is just a guess) on a defense that has a very good chance of winning. Or he could settle for $10,000 like the RIAA offered to do.
Now, Bob might hate the RIAA, and want to fight -- after all, he won't miss the $100k in legal fees. But the danger is that if he loses, the judge or jury could rule in favor of the RIAA, to the tune of millions of dollars -- after all, the law does allow up to $150k/song. Now Bob has lost everything... all because he wanted to teach the RIAA a lesson.
If we (as a community) are looking to fight these suits, probably the best plan is to pick somebody with a strong case but very few assets (so they won't lose much if they do lose), and have the EFF (or similar organization) pick up their legal fees. Probably the best way for us to help make things like this happen is to join the EFF. (And yes, I have already done this.)
What's stopping them from asking for $5000, or $10,000, or $50,000?
They want people to settle. If one of these suits actually goes to court, the RIAA is not guaranteed to win, and if they do lose a case, it will undermine their campaign.
By offering to settle for less than it will cost to even defend against such a suit, they've pretty much guaranteed that nobody will actually let it go to court. And the people that actually have enough money to fight this just on the principle of the thing have much more to lose if they lose -- so they're likely to settle as well.
Presumably, their purpose is not to make money, or even to punish those they sue... instead, the idea is to scare the 99.99% of the people out there that they don't sue.
... to port the NetBSD USB stack to osr5!
They sure don't mind stealing open source when it suites them!
To be fair, the BSD license permits this. Is it really stealing if you accept something that somebody else gives you?
(Also, Microsoft has been accused of the same thing -- using *BSD code in their products. And as far as I can tell, this accusation is completely true -- but irrelevant, because it's not illegal or even `wrong'.)
I've always wondered why people who make embedded devices like WAPs and the like chose Linux rather than *BSD -- with BSD they don't have the GPL requirements to open up the source. If you intend to give out the source, fine -- use Linux -- but if you don't, it seems to be that one of the BSDs would be a better choice.
I'm not in a hurry to ditch any of my 32-bit machines, so long as I get them replaced by 2038.
64 bit cpus may indeed handle 64 bit numbers internally rather than 32 bit numbers, but that's hardly a magic bullet for the y2038 issue.
If your filesystem only allocates 4 bytes to a timestamp, it's going to break in 2038, 64 bit cpu or not. Any file formats or structures that only allocate 4 bytes to a time value will have the same problem -- and there is a LOT of them out there. And to make matters worse, if you change the format to allocate 8 bytes to the timestamps, then it's almost certainly not going to be compatible with old software anymore.
Also, porting things to use 64 bit cpus rather than 32 bit cpus isn't particularly easy. Yes, you can run in `32 bit mode' and they'll work fine, but many (mostly C) programs work under the assumption that integers are 4 bytes and so are pointers. In a 64 bit cpu, running in a 64 bit mode, this is not true. This really isn't a big problem, however, as the AMD 64 bit cpus can and do emulate a 32 bit cpu as needed.
And we don't need 64 bit cpus to fix the problem anyways -- we could use 2 32 bit ints to store the time stamp if we wanted to. It's a bit more work, but it could certainly be done, even with 32 bit cpus.
The design allows the chain to run inside of the frame. This removes many fragile components from the bicycle, and allows a more rigid frame structure to be made.
Where was this 25 years ago when I needed it? I was always getting my bell-bottoms caught in the chain of my bicycle!
(in my defense: I was 9 at the time, so I wore what mom bought me, and she was not alone (by any stretch of the imagination) in thinking that bell-bottoms were cool. I didn't really care, but I did hate how they always got caught in my chain, pretty much guaranteeing that all my bell-bottoms had nice greasy chain marks all over the bottom:) )
Do you really need a lawyer for a subpoena? Even if Linus was a US citizen, he's not being investigated or anything. Just answer a few stupid questions from SCO, and you're scot free.
People seem to be modding the parent down as a troll -- which is hardly fair, because it's a reasonable question. It was certainly my first throught when I saw the post where Linus said he'd need to get a lawyer.
(Of course, my second throught was that if I were in his shoes, I'd want to talk to a lawyer about it.)
Not being a lawyer, one question -- is SCO (or the court?) obligated to at least pay for Linus's expenses in answering this subpoena? (Not that it matters, because Linus is popular enough that he won't have to pay a cent, and RMS is probably covered too, but the next guy might not be so lucky.)
I've been getting spam (spim? No thanks. I'll just call it spam.) on AIM for many months now, from random names. Who's messaged me in the last 24 hours?
and that's pretty typical. I've sent lists and detailed logs to AOL (after all, they should be able to find these usernames very quickly, see where they logged in from and stop them at the source, or at least rate limit that ISP much more than they do so now) but so far they've totally ignored all the emails I've sent (or at least they've not told me that they did anything about it.)
It's sad, but I'm finding the need to write filters for my AIM client (gaim.) If a message comes in, they're not in my buddy list, and they have a web site link in the message, and the name `appears' random-ish (that last one might be hard to automate) -- warn and block. Perhaps somebody else has already done this?:)
Batteries may not have kept up with Moore's law (and it's not like we'd expect them to) but they have definately gotten better over the last few decades.
The non-rechargable batteries gotten much better, going from the Zinc cells to the modern alkalines -- the capacity has gone up greatly (a factor of 10 or so?) And then there's the non rechargable lithium cells that can hold MUCH more (and costs more too, of course.)
Also, and perhaps even more importantly, the rechargable cells have gotten much better recently. Maybe fifteen years ago, you'd buy 500 mAh AA NiCd cells... now most people buy 1800 mAh NiMH cells, and for a few dollars more, you can get 2100 mAh AA NiMH cells.
(Quick aside, NiCd vs. NiMH: NiMH have more capacity, but usually cannot deliver as much current in a very short period. NiMH cells do not suffer from voltage depression (often mistakenly called `memory'). NiMH cells are not as environmentally unfreindly as NiCd. NiMH cells usually don't last quite as long as NiCd cells. But for the most part, for most applications, NiMH and NiCd cells can be used interchangably.)
And more recently, Li-Ion and Li-Poly cells have really come of age. These cells often have energy densities and power densities several times greater than what NiCd and NiMH cells have. Li-Ion cells were extremely fragile and could not handle abuse at all, but the new Li-Poly cells are overcoming many of these shortcomings.
Ten years, electric R/C planes were very rare. Now, thanks mostly due to the improvements in batteries, they're found all over the place, and they can perform just as well as the glow and gas powered planes in many cases. All three types of batteries (NiCd, NiMH and Li-Ion/Li-Poly) have improved greatly recently, and all three are quite popular with pilots today.
(Li-Poly especially looks incredibly promising for the future -- today, some planes with motors powered by them can often fly a full hour on a single charge, and things are getting better all the time.)
In short, I don't agree with Michael Rogers at all -- there's all kind of developments being made in batteries. It's just that they're not happening fast enough for him:)
(Semi-relevant aside: I have a TRS-80 Model 100 laptop computer. It's powered by 4 AA batteries, and it lasts a very long time. Perhaps the problem isn't the batteries -- maybe it's the laptop makers who use CPUs that use so much power!)
The advancement featured a little cut scene were someone (presumably Palpatine) shot your arm with Force-lighting
I thought about that, but you're not using the force... it's being used on you. And since it's an expansion, it's not really part of the original game anyways.
And, arguably, the only pilots to survive THAT many runs in a shieldless snubfighter MUST be force-sensitive.
I guess in the Star Wars Universe, things like `luck' and `Reload last saved game/restart level' are always based on the force, right?:)
And actually, you didn't have to fly that many missions before you got upgraded to a better ship. Once you played all of the expansions, most of your missions were in the Tie Advanced, Tie Defender, Assault Gunboat and Missile Boat -- all of which had shields. The Tie Fighter, Tie Bomber and Tie Interceptor were used a lot less overall.
How about X-Wing? I don't remember any force usage there... even when you attack the Death Star, you had the attack computer, but no `use the force!' button...
And you totally ignored the original Dark Forces. THAT is the game where you really should have had some force powers (but of course they saved that for the sequel, where you got them all. I guess if you include the sequel, then yes, Dark Forces let you use the force. But that's a bit weak...)
It seems to me that Star Wars games where you get to `use the Force' in some tangible way are pretty rare... but all the recent ones do (assuming you count SW: Galaxies, where only a tiny % of the users can `use the force') so the odds are getting better.
Maybe I'm all alone, but IMO, the appeal of the Star Wars Universe is the Jedi mythos. This is why every other Star Wars licensed game to date has allowed you to "Use the Force" in some way shape or form
Is that true? I don't think the original Dark Forces did, and certainly games like Tie Fighter didn't...
GC/GBA: The entire original Prince of Persia, unlockable via the GBA or GameCube. Connectivity between the two will also allow for automatic health regeneration on the GameCube game.
Translation: Go buy an GBA, a copy of PoP for it, and the cable to go between the two, and we'll make the game easier for you!
I certainly don't know. But if Fedora gives an updates directory like the current Redhat does,
this script that I wrote will download and apply (if told to) patches located there. It sort of does the same thing as up2date, but isn't quite as smart -- but also doesn't require that you register or anything like that.
It's certainly not perfect -- there's still room for improvement -- but I'm pretty happy with it, and maybe some other people will find it useful.
but it doesn't sound like you youngsters know that there was TV before the cable.
And I wonder if you youngsters even know that before there was voice, there was just simple beeping (.--.... . . ). And before that, there were moving pictures again, but they took the form of smoke signals...
Seriously though, my daughter (2.5 years old) thinks that TV is `on demand'. She comes into a room, sees a TV and starts screaming for Dora! (the Explorer.) And since DirectTV lets you have Tivos on every TV very cheaply, we do. So she gets Dora on demand.
She has no concept of the idea of having to actually wait for a specific show on TV...
A better idea might be to get together a petition, sending it to SCO telling them to stop this.
All a petition does is show that lots of people care about something -- either they want something, don't want something else, etc.
They're effective against people seeking re-election, or companies who actually sell a product (to the masses.) SCO knows that what they're doing is very unpopular, and so telling them that what they're doing is unpopular isn't going to have any effect on them.
Are they even obligated to legally respond to any C&D letters?
No, nobody is. But cease and desist letters are usually sent with an understanding (at least they attempt to foster the understanding) that if they are ignored, further legal action will be taken, such as a suit. Sending a C&D letter is cheap, but if all you want to do is scare somebody into stopping, they're often effective.
They don't do much to SCO, however. Somebody will have to actually sue.
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R/C equipment fails. Even in a standard sized R/C car or plane, things can and do go wrong. Planes can fly miles away before they run out of gas, and cars can end up doing doughnuts at full speed until they hit something or flip over.
With a full sized car, the consequences of a failure will be much worse. Imagine losing control of your car and having it go to full speed, straight ahead -- merely being on a test track won't be enough, as the car could easily plow through fences, barriers and even buildings. And you'd have no way to stop it.
I'd strongly suggest that nobody attempt this without extensive experience with both R/C stuff and with modifying full sized cars. And I'd also suggest installing a kill switch of some sort that will immediately kill the engine, and have this switch controlled by a different R/C transmitter on a different channel entirely, with a different battery -- just in case.
Also, the picture shows a Futaba 6X transmitter -- be aware that by default transmitters like this are on the 72 mhz frequency band (in the US), and that the use of the 72 mhz band for controlling ground vehicles is *illegal*. Instead, you're supposed to use the 75 mhz band. Most R/C car transmitters have at most three channels, so people building this sort of thing will be looking at airplane equipment for the extra channels, but you need to be aware that you can't just use any old equipment you find -- you'll need to special order 75 mhz equipment from the manufacturers to be legal (yes, it is available and it doesn't even cost much more. But it is rare, and it's unlikely you'll find it in somebody's attic unless they're into large R/C cars or robots.)
They were trying to conquer the world. Isn't that a `bad' goal? Isn't that what villians are always trying to do? Yes, the individual soldiers probably weren't `bad', but were instead just doing their duty for their country, but either way, when somebody attacks you, you fight back.
On the other hand, Britian, France, the USSR, China, France and others were considered `the Good guys'. We were defending ourselves against the aggressors, or so the history books say. I'm sure there was more to it than that, but I do tend to believe that this is generally correct.
Germany was the `really bad guy', but Japan did it's share of bad stuff too. Who knows what would have happened if they hadn't bombed Pearl Harbor and brought the US into the war ...
Now, I am fully aware of the saying that `History is written by the victors', and I don't trust our (the US's) current government any further than I can throw it, but I do tend to believe in the general accuracy of the usual good guy/bad guy designations applied to WW2.
Compare this to Vietnam, Afghanastan and Iraq ... in these conflicts, it's not so certain that the US is the `good guy' ... but certainly, in WW2 we were.
I don't recall anybody making this claim. Is it something in the game? (I have not played it.) I tend to agree with you. But I know of nobody who believes that the US was the villian of WW2A better analogy would be a game where you control the forces of Saddam against the vastly superior invading US army -- people would probably buy it, if it was good. (It can be fun to play the underdog.) I can definately see a war game doing reasonably well along those lines. I don't see it becoming a massive hit, but could develop a sizable cult following ...
Postal would probably come close as well.
I still stand by my statement --
I made light of war, talking about a game about war. I'm a bad bad man. Deal with it.But there's not many games out there based on real events (or static books, movies, etc.) that only let you play the losing side. Some will let you play both sides, but even then, if you play the side that `lost' you will be able to win a few battles but obviously you're going to lose the war. Like the `Lord of the Rings' RTS that just came out -- you can play the bad side, but you can't win the war, because that would disagree with the books.
Medal of Honor was created in the US. Japan (or anybody else, I guess) could certainly make a similar game from the Japanese point of view, but if they're going to be at all faithful to history, the game isn't going to let you win the war. And people like to be able to win, so ...
And I'm amused that I got modded down as flamebait. That's one way of disagreeing with me ...
But on the other hand, I don't recall playing many games where you play the Nazis and you attack the US. We need more games like that!
What can we learn from all this? If you want games made in the future about your current war to be playable as your side, make sure you win the war! There's not too many games out there that only let you play the losing side ...
Certainly, not as close as the Sun SS1 or SS2 ...
However, I'd say that at least 60% comes from within the US (and yes, I'm in the US.)
I don't think legislation is a magic bullet, but it may just help. Certainly, the `do not call' lists have reduced the telemarking phone calls we receive by over 95%.
I guess what they need is a case that looks strong (thousands of files) but eventually turns out to be very weak (like none of these songs are actually violating copyright.)
For example, if some artist made music that had names similar to music out there that the RIAA controlled, and the RIAA assumed that it was their music without actually downloading and listening to it. Then it would go to court, and the independent artist would point out how the RIAA is trying to prevent him from distributing his own music -- that would be a *great* case.
Of course, in that case, the more likely outcome is that the artist would say `I own all these songs and can give them out to anybody I please', and the RIAA would verify this and find it to be true, and probably offer to settle for less, and then would probably drop it entirely when he refused -- it would never go to court at all.
Alas, the RIAA has gotten burned before by looking only at the names of mp3 files and not actually listening to them, so they're probably not making this mistake any more.
Suppose they sued some guy who made a few million dollars in the dot-com craze, and he's still got most of it in the bank. Let's call him Bob.
Yes, Bob could get some excellent lawyers, spending $100,000 (I don't know what the going rate is, so this is just a guess) on a defense that has a very good chance of winning. Or he could settle for $10,000 like the RIAA offered to do.
Now, Bob might hate the RIAA, and want to fight -- after all, he won't miss the $100k in legal fees. But the danger is that if he loses, the judge or jury could rule in favor of the RIAA, to the tune of millions of dollars -- after all, the law does allow up to $150k/song. Now Bob has lost everything ... all because he wanted to teach the RIAA a lesson.
If we (as a community) are looking to fight these suits, probably the best plan is to pick somebody with a strong case but very few assets (so they won't lose much if they do lose), and have the EFF (or similar organization) pick up their legal fees. Probably the best way for us to help make things like this happen is to join the EFF. (And yes, I have already done this.)
By offering to settle for less than it will cost to even defend against such a suit, they've pretty much guaranteed that nobody will actually let it go to court. And the people that actually have enough money to fight this just on the principle of the thing have much more to lose if they lose -- so they're likely to settle as well.
Presumably, their purpose is not to make money, or even to punish those they sue ... instead, the idea is to scare the 99.99% of the people out there that they don't sue.
(Also, Microsoft has been accused of the same thing -- using *BSD code in their products. And as far as I can tell, this accusation is completely true -- but irrelevant, because it's not illegal or even `wrong'.)
I've always wondered why people who make embedded devices like WAPs and the like chose Linux rather than *BSD -- with BSD they don't have the GPL requirements to open up the source. If you intend to give out the source, fine -- use Linux -- but if you don't, it seems to be that one of the BSDs would be a better choice.
If your filesystem only allocates 4 bytes to a timestamp, it's going to break in 2038, 64 bit cpu or not. Any file formats or structures that only allocate 4 bytes to a time value will have the same problem -- and there is a LOT of them out there. And to make matters worse, if you change the format to allocate 8 bytes to the timestamps, then it's almost certainly not going to be compatible with old software anymore.
Also, porting things to use 64 bit cpus rather than 32 bit cpus isn't particularly easy. Yes, you can run in `32 bit mode' and they'll work fine, but many (mostly C) programs work under the assumption that integers are 4 bytes and so are pointers. In a 64 bit cpu, running in a 64 bit mode, this is not true. This really isn't a big problem, however, as the AMD 64 bit cpus can and do emulate a 32 bit cpu as needed.
And we don't need 64 bit cpus to fix the problem anyways -- we could use 2 32 bit ints to store the time stamp if we wanted to. It's a bit more work, but it could certainly be done, even with 32 bit cpus.
(in my defense: I was 9 at the time, so I wore what mom bought me, and she was not alone (by any stretch of the imagination) in thinking that bell-bottoms were cool. I didn't really care, but I did hate how they always got caught in my chain, pretty much guaranteeing that all my bell-bottoms had nice greasy chain marks all over the bottom :) )
What do you think 802.11(whatever) and WiFi is? :)
(Of course, my second throught was that if I were in his shoes, I'd want to talk to a lawyer about it.)
Not being a lawyer, one question -- is SCO (or the court?) obligated to at least pay for Linus's expenses in answering this subpoena? (Not that it matters, because Linus is popular enough that he won't have to pay a cent, and RMS is probably covered too, but the next guy might not be so lucky.)
I've been getting spam (spim? No thanks. I'll just call it spam.) on AIM for many months now, from random names. Who's messaged me in the last 24 hours?
and that's pretty typical. I've sent lists and detailed logs to AOL (after all, they should be able to find these usernames very quickly, see where they logged in from and stop them at the source, or at least rate limit that ISP much more than they do so now) but so far they've totally ignored all the emails I've sent (or at least they've not told me that they did anything about it.)
It's sad, but I'm finding the need to write filters for my AIM client (gaim.) If a message comes in, they're not in my buddy list, and they have a web site link in the message, and the name `appears' random-ish (that last one might be hard to automate) -- warn and block. Perhaps somebody else has already done this? :)
The non-rechargable batteries gotten much better, going from the Zinc cells to the modern alkalines -- the capacity has gone up greatly (a factor of 10 or so?) And then there's the non rechargable lithium cells that can hold MUCH more (and costs more too, of course.)
Also, and perhaps even more importantly, the rechargable cells have gotten much better recently. Maybe fifteen years ago, you'd buy 500 mAh AA NiCd cells ... now most people buy 1800 mAh NiMH cells, and for a few dollars more, you can get 2100 mAh AA NiMH cells.
(Quick aside, NiCd vs. NiMH: NiMH have more capacity, but usually cannot deliver as much current in a very short period. NiMH cells do not suffer from voltage depression (often mistakenly called `memory'). NiMH cells are not as environmentally unfreindly as NiCd. NiMH cells usually don't last quite as long as NiCd cells. But for the most part, for most applications, NiMH and NiCd cells can be used interchangably.)
And more recently, Li-Ion and Li-Poly cells have really come of age. These cells often have energy densities and power densities several times greater than what NiCd and NiMH cells have. Li-Ion cells were extremely fragile and could not handle abuse at all, but the new Li-Poly cells are overcoming many of these shortcomings.
Ten years, electric R/C planes were very rare. Now, thanks mostly due to the improvements in batteries, they're found all over the place, and they can perform just as well as the glow and gas powered planes in many cases. All three types of batteries (NiCd, NiMH and Li-Ion/Li-Poly) have improved greatly recently, and all three are quite popular with pilots today.
(Li-Poly especially looks incredibly promising for the future -- today, some planes with motors powered by them can often fly a full hour on a single charge, and things are getting better all the time.)
In short, I don't agree with Michael Rogers at all -- there's all kind of developments being made in batteries. It's just that they're not happening fast enough for him :)
(Semi-relevant aside: I have a TRS-80 Model 100 laptop computer. It's powered by 4 AA batteries, and it lasts a very long time. Perhaps the problem isn't the batteries -- maybe it's the laptop makers who use CPUs that use so much power!)
And actually, you didn't have to fly that many missions before you got upgraded to a better ship. Once you played all of the expansions, most of your missions were in the Tie Advanced, Tie Defender, Assault Gunboat and Missile Boat -- all of which had shields. The Tie Fighter, Tie Bomber and Tie Interceptor were used a lot less overall.
How about X-Wing? I don't remember any force usage there ... even when you attack the Death Star, you had the attack computer, but no `use the force!' button ...
And you totally ignored the original Dark Forces. THAT is the game where you really should have had some force powers (but of course they saved that for the sequel, where you got them all. I guess if you include the sequel, then yes, Dark Forces let you use the force. But that's a bit weak ...)
It seems to me that Star Wars games where you get to `use the Force' in some tangible way are pretty rare ... but all the recent ones do (assuming you count SW: Galaxies, where only a tiny % of the users can `use the force') so the odds are getting better.
Gotta buy 'em all!
I guess the animation style was very similar or something ...
I kept expecting to hear `Snoochie Boochies' or something similar ...
It's certainly not perfect -- there's still room for improvement -- but I'm pretty happy with it, and maybe some other people will find it useful.
And I wonder if you youngsters even know that before there was voice, there was just simple beeping ( .-- .... . . ). And before that, there were moving pictures again, but they took the form of smoke signals ...
Seriously though, my daughter (2.5 years old) thinks that TV is `on demand'. She comes into a room, sees a TV and starts screaming for Dora! (the Explorer.) And since DirectTV lets you have Tivos on every TV very cheaply, we do. So she gets Dora on demand.
She has no concept of the idea of having to actually wait for a specific show on TV ...
They're effective against people seeking re-election, or companies who actually sell a product (to the masses.) SCO knows that what they're doing is very unpopular, and so telling them that what they're doing is unpopular isn't going to have any effect on them.
They don't do much to SCO, however. Somebody will have to actually sue.
As always, I am not a lawyer.