"Ironically, the sentencing came on the same day as a survey revealing many music industry professionals are active music pirates and believe current copyright laws are unfair and should be changed.
Of 200 artists, managers and record company staff who anonymously responded to an Australian survey, over three-quarters owned CD burners and almost half used them to illegally burn copies of CDs they had purchased. Of the 45 per cent who download music, 50 per cent never pay for it."
ust in case, prepare a plan for migrating to another platform within two years.
Why wait? Migrate now to something less controversial. Really though, this is a well done paper and really explains it well. Gartner goes into the real dollar concerns of this litigation.
Migrate to what? Unix and BSD are both "controversial", and SCO products are out on the risk of SCO going out of business. Microsoft products are "ok", but I've never seen anyone recommend them for "big iron" machines. I suppose VMS is a possibility, but does anyone still use it?
That'll just screw over the existing players. The GCX won't care -- they're not the ones buying and selling currencies, they're just providing brokerage and escrow services. All they'll need to do is multiply the size of their basic currency block by a million, and they're back in business.
The only way to turn your in-game currency into money is for someone else to buy it -- either another player, or an interested third party (speculator). This company isn't buying and selling currencies themselves, they're just providing brokerage and escrow services. If a game company were to pump out trillions in in-game currency, all they'd succeed in doing is triggering in-game hyperinflation, driving away players whose life savings can't buy anything anymore, and driving down the value of the currency on the open market.
The necessary amount to make a noticeable difference in the motions of the Earth and Moon amounts to around a million tons of iron for each person on Earth.
He won't get even one penny. His claims have no basis in either fact or law.
Current law is that no-one can own a celestial body. I expect this will get overturned in a hurry if there's serious commercial reason to claim things, but as it stands, he is not allowed to claim them.
Current fact is that he has no way to get to any of the objects he claims. Possession is 9/10ths of the law, and he doesn't have possession. NASA has a better claim to 433 Eros than he does (they've got a facility on the asteroid, he has nothing).
Once you get off the Earth, space travel is much cheaper than flying. Getting off the Earth takes high-power, politically-correct, inefficient engines firing over short periods of time. Shipping a million tons of iron from an asteroid to the Moon or to Earth orbit can use a slow, energy-efficient engine such as a solar sail, ion drive, or VASIMR engine. Moving personnel from place to place can be done using a politically-inexpedient, high-power method such as a nuclear-thermal engine -- since it's "not in my backyard", there'll be far fewer people blindly reacting to the word "nuclear".
Maybe you should look at the Planeshift MMORPG (www.planeshift.it). The game code is opensource (GPL, IIRC), but the art and maps are a simple copyright. This lets anyone make their own MMORPG, but prevents people from putting up their own Planeshift servers.
Of course, the problem with Planeshift is the slow development speed. I've been watching the project since 2001, and I don't expect a more-or-less final version of the engine until late 2004 or early 2005, with the maps taking even longer.
Isn't that redundantly redundant?:rolleyes::monkey::D
Not really. Velocity is a vector -- it has both a magnitude and a direction. Speed is a scalar -- an amount, but not a direction. The article gave the speed, but not the velocity, of the unladen swallow.
Now you know one reason identity theft is so easy, store clerks are letting people try PIN numbers willy-nilly until they get the right one. There should be a 'five times' law, after which they cut your card up
My bank will suspend my ATM card after three failed attempts in a row -- after that, it'll say "incorrect PIN" no matter what you enter.
Translation of technical subjects is a great deal harder than general translation -- to do a good job, you need to know the technical jargon of both languages, and that usually means you need to have education in the field you're translating, as well as fluency in both languages.
(remembering a translated manual referring to "water-sheep")
Not quite true. An ISO-9660 CD-ROM works everywhere, and doesn't support much of anything. Add the Joilet extensions, and you've got a CD-ROM that supports the Microsoft metadata and long filenames, works everywhere, and looks funny on non-Joilet systems. Add the RockRidge extensions, and it'll support UNIX metadata and long filenames, work everywhere, and look funny on non-RockRidge systems. Make it an ISO/HFS hybrid, and it'll support Macintosh metadata and long filenames, and it won't even look particularly funny elsewhere. I don't know if it's possible to make a RockRidge/Joilet/HFS/ISO disc, but if it is, you'd have a CD-ROM that works everywhere, and will look funny everywhere.
The LG drives in question were not 100% compliant with the ATAPI specification. The drive firmware re-mapped the optional, rarely-used "clear cache" command to "upload firmware". As a result, when the Mandrake drivers issued the "clear cache" command as part of the initialization routine, the drive firmware was erased.
Destroying the firmware wasn't a bug in Mandrake, it was a bug in the CD-ROM firmware -- the company decided not to implement the ATAPI "clear cache" command, as very few CD-ROM drivers use it. Instead, they decided to re-use that command for uploading firmware -- not a good idea.
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Dudes how can a comment be overrated if it was never rated?
Um, because the poster rated the comment important enough to post?
I use MyRealBox for mail lists I'm subscribed to. Down time and the occasional missed message usually don't matter then.
I like this bit from one of the piracy articles:
"Ironically, the sentencing came on the same day as a survey revealing many music industry professionals are active music pirates and believe current copyright laws are unfair and should be changed.
Of 200 artists, managers and record company staff who anonymously responded to an Australian survey, over three-quarters owned CD burners and almost half used them to illegally burn copies of CDs they had purchased. Of the 45 per cent who download music, 50 per cent never pay for it."
ust in case, prepare a plan for migrating to another platform within two years.
Why wait? Migrate now to something less controversial. Really though, this is a well done paper and really explains it well. Gartner goes into the real dollar concerns of this litigation.
Migrate to what? Unix and BSD are both "controversial", and SCO products are out on the risk of SCO going out of business. Microsoft products are "ok", but I've never seen anyone recommend them for "big iron" machines. I suppose VMS is a possibility, but does anyone still use it?
I find it interesting that they're using a black hat.
That'll just screw over the existing players. The GCX won't care -- they're not the ones buying and selling currencies, they're just providing brokerage and escrow services. All they'll need to do is multiply the size of their basic currency block by a million, and they're back in business.
The only way to turn your in-game currency into money is for someone else to buy it -- either another player, or an interested third party (speculator). This company isn't buying and selling currencies themselves, they're just providing brokerage and escrow services. If a game company were to pump out trillions in in-game currency, all they'd succeed in doing is triggering in-game hyperinflation, driving away players whose life savings can't buy anything anymore, and driving down the value of the currency on the open market.
The necessary amount to make a noticeable difference in the motions of the Earth and Moon amounts to around a million tons of iron for each person on Earth.
What do you plan to do with your million tons?
Why bring fissionables up from Earth? The first serious space-mining proposal was in the 1950s, for mining the Moon for uranium.
He won't get even one penny. His claims have no basis in either fact or law.
Current law is that no-one can own a celestial body. I expect this will get overturned in a hurry if there's serious commercial reason to claim things, but as it stands, he is not allowed to claim them.
Current fact is that he has no way to get to any of the objects he claims. Possession is 9/10ths of the law, and he doesn't have possession. NASA has a better claim to 433 Eros than he does (they've got a facility on the asteroid, he has nothing).
Once you get off the Earth, space travel is much cheaper than flying. Getting off the Earth takes high-power, politically-correct, inefficient engines firing over short periods of time. Shipping a million tons of iron from an asteroid to the Moon or to Earth orbit can use a slow, energy-efficient engine such as a solar sail, ion drive, or VASIMR engine. Moving personnel from place to place can be done using a politically-inexpedient, high-power method such as a nuclear-thermal engine -- since it's "not in my backyard", there'll be far fewer people blindly reacting to the word "nuclear".
NASA was useful back in the days of the Apollo program. It's gone downhill ever since.
Maybe you should look at the Planeshift MMORPG (www.planeshift.it). The game code is opensource (GPL, IIRC), but the art and maps are a simple copyright. This lets anyone make their own MMORPG, but prevents people from putting up their own Planeshift servers.
Of course, the problem with Planeshift is the slow development speed. I've been watching the project since 2001, and I don't expect a more-or-less final version of the engine until late 2004 or early 2005, with the maps taking even longer.
Darl's only a monocle and kitty cat away from true super villainy. Wonder where he's hiding the huge frickin laser? (hmmmmm)
Anyone want to help rectify this situation? If someone would provide the monocle and cat, I'll pay the shipping.
I wish it was possible to mod someone +1 Troll.
"Airspeed velocity"? :confused:
:rolleyes: :monkey: :D
Isn't that redundantly redundant?
Not really. Velocity is a vector -- it has both a magnitude and a direction. Speed is a scalar -- an amount, but not a direction. The article gave the speed, but not the velocity, of the unladen swallow.
Do you now, or have you ever been a contributer to online music sharing? We'll let you go if you simply provide us with a list of music sharers."
Variations on that line are the standard procedure when conducting a witch hunt (communist hunt, unionist hunt, etc).
Now you know one reason identity theft is so easy, store clerks are letting people try PIN numbers willy-nilly until they get the right one. There should be a 'five times' law, after which they cut your card up
My bank will suspend my ATM card after three failed attempts in a row -- after that, it'll say "incorrect PIN" no matter what you enter.
It won't -- it'll be a "circumvention device" restricted under the DCMA.
Translation of technical subjects is a great deal harder than general translation -- to do a good job, you need to know the technical jargon of both languages, and that usually means you need to have education in the field you're translating, as well as fluency in both languages.
(remembering a translated manual referring to "water-sheep")
Not quite true. An ISO-9660 CD-ROM works everywhere, and doesn't support much of anything. Add the Joilet extensions, and you've got a CD-ROM that supports the Microsoft metadata and long filenames, works everywhere, and looks funny on non-Joilet systems. Add the RockRidge extensions, and it'll support UNIX metadata and long filenames, work everywhere, and look funny on non-RockRidge systems. Make it an ISO/HFS hybrid, and it'll support Macintosh metadata and long filenames, and it won't even look particularly funny elsewhere. I don't know if it's possible to make a RockRidge/Joilet/HFS/ISO disc, but if it is, you'd have a CD-ROM that works everywhere, and will look funny everywhere.
A great many MMOGs have a clause in their license that states that your character and all possessions belong to the company running the game.
The LG drives in question were not 100% compliant with the ATAPI specification. The drive firmware re-mapped the optional, rarely-used "clear cache" command to "upload firmware". As a result, when the Mandrake drivers issued the "clear cache" command as part of the initialization routine, the drive firmware was erased.
Destroying the firmware wasn't a bug in Mandrake, it was a bug in the CD-ROM firmware -- the company decided not to implement the ATAPI "clear cache" command, as very few CD-ROM drivers use it. Instead, they decided to re-use that command for uploading firmware -- not a good idea.
Yes. In order to be 100% OSS, every piece of software in the distro needs to be open source.