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  1. Re:Why do you call this THEFT? on Biggest Identity Thief Ever Gets Put Away · · Score: 1

    A rose by any other name...
    Does it really matter if it's called identity theft, identity piracy, or illegal identity duplication? Would the penalty for such a crime be different?
    The term "identity theft" is used because it is something people can relate to. While not the true definition, theft is associated with taking something that doesn't belong to you (regardless of depriving the original owner). Legally the crime falls under Fraud and related activity in connection with identification documents and information. Which do you think a lay person would understand more?
    Do you go bashing people for referring to their desktop machine as a "computer" and not "personal computer" or "micro-computer"?

  2. Re:American vs British or Corporate vs Individual? on IBM Opens Their Patent Portfolio to Open Source · · Score: 1

    Corporations are non-entities: they do not exist as natural things, but are government licences granted to groups of individuals
    It allows corporations to enter into binding contracts, lets them get sued, and protects stockholders from liability.
    and that without such a construct, capitalism would function much more fairly and efficiently.
    The construct is a direct extension of capitalism. It allowed people to come together for greater risk taking by limiting liability of its members and allowing capital move more freely.
    Without corporations capitalism would actually be more controlled by those with money. If I have a great idea I can raise money to start a company either through debt (meaning the company now has to pay a premium to somebody who is already rich) or work with others and pool our money together.

  3. Re:The gray between art and code on Hackers, Slackers, and Shackles · · Score: 1

    The idea that some artist draws an interface that some programmer implements is so unrealistic, pig farmers could make feather beds from all the stock flying around their barn.
    Yes, no artist without programming experience could ever come up with a concept and then work with engineers to create something popular.
    If you look at many interface concepts, they typically are sketches, simple drawings, and high level summaries of the metaphors and how things relate.
    The interface can be designed without a single line of code written. Artists already get consulted on design of peripherals and consumer electronic interfaces, program interfaces aren't really that different.

  4. Re:Their called assets... on Wish Cancelled · · Score: 1

    It depends, somebody somewhere may have an idea for a game and decide that licensing this engine would be cheaper and easier than starting from scratch. There also have been instances where programmers who worked on a cancelled project leave company and buy the license to finish the game.

  5. Re:The gray between art and code on Hackers, Slackers, and Shackles · · Score: 1

    That is what I am talking about the design aspect is seperate from coding.
    Getting back to the original subject there is no gray area between art and code. Design (artistic) and coding (non-artistic) are often lumped together because historically they were done by the same person. Game designers were often the lead, or even only coder. As technology has improved and programs become more complex coding and design are becoming more seperate. Companies now may hire artists who may not know anything about code to design how the human interacts with the machine.
    It's the same as how buildings are created. The design starts off as sketches and drawings, but once it gets to the actual construction workers, there is no more art involved. Once a program is designed the coders are the construction workers, no art involved.

  6. Re:Their called assets... on Wish Cancelled · · Score: 1

    except if another company wants to buy you out, or bankrupcy it becomes a point of leverage.
    EA wants to buy us out? Well they have to pay for this code too, that'll be an extra million

  7. Re:The gray between art and code on Hackers, Slackers, and Shackles · · Score: 1

    If that were true, all of the interfaces designed for a specific purpose would look pretty much alike.
    No they wouldn't, the design aspect is the artistic part as I said. The interfaces for the same purpose can look and feel differently because people have different ideas as to the look and feel they want. You don't necessarily need to know anything about coding to design a good interface. Deciding what a button does is different from actually coding what a button does.

  8. Re:The gray between art and code on Hackers, Slackers, and Shackles · · Score: 1

    The UI is an example of engineering. Like any other form of engineering the design is the artistic side, the implementation is not.
    Once you have the interface "vision" designed, you break that down into individual goals to accomplish. At that point the artistic portion is pretty much gone, you are coding towards specific goals.

  9. Re:The problem is, most "games" aren't games on Hackers, Slackers, and Shackles · · Score: 1

    "Great graphics make a movie. Great sound makes an album. Great gameplay makes a game."
    As much as I love the Final Fantasy series, for example, I don't consider them "games" in the truest sense. They are wonderfully immersive stories, but that doesn't make them a game.

    I have to disagree with you. Saying Final Fantasy isn't a "game" would be like saying a documentary isn't a movie because it lacks great graphics (special effects/footage/camera angles etc). Just like movies or music, different game genres have different presentations.
    Final Fantasy may be more like an interactive story (like many other RPGs), but most games are reliant on gameplay mechanics and complex rule sets.
    What we are seeing in general is a layer of presentation being placed over the gameplay. Now it's no longer enough just to have good racecar physics or strong enemy AI; you also need to have beautiful artistic presentation to enhance the user experience. In fact, some genre's like FPS require excellent artistic level design to enhance gameplay.

  10. Re:Not the same faults on Hackers, Slackers, and Shackles · · Score: 1

    Especially when you read about the working conditions at EA.
    Free software can easily have similar working conditions, if the developer has a true feeling of passion. The people subjecting themselves to torturous hours at EA are probably not doing it just for the money. Those people are willing to deal with the pain because they want to make games. The drive and passion to work insane hours at the expense of your family and well being, is the same that drives somebody creating free software. It might not be "the man" telling them what to do, but the little voice inside them saying "just one more line of code" will drive them.

  11. Re:hypocritical of stallman? on Hackers, Slackers, and Shackles · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth. -- Picasso
    That art is merely a distraction from reality.
    You can produce, enlightenment, understanding, emotions, inspiration, ideas and more art, with art.
    ANYTHING can produce those things. The clouds in the sky, taking a deep breath, dropping a book on your foot, can produce the same inspiration, emotions, and enlightenment as an orange dot on a white canvas.

  12. Re:How can they sleep at night...? on FBI Warns: Many Tsunami Relief Pleas Are Fake · · Score: 4, Funny

    *GASP* You want God to have a cheap bronze alters? He did create everything in existance, don't you think he deserves a little better. You shall be burned for heresy, using only the best and most expensive oak and cherry wood, for God's vengence knows no price.

  13. Etch-a-sketch Fix on The Tin-Whisker Menace · · Score: 1

    Instructions: Before and after each use shake your computer vigorously for 45 seconds.

  14. Re:I wonder... on The Tin-Whisker Menace · · Score: 1

    Whiskers are a problem with really tiny chips. If you get enough free board space you can make the pins relatively big and far apart.
    It's not the pins that are the problem for high denisity interconnect components, the silicon chip gets attached to a ceramic/plastic substrate using solder. There are hundreds to thousands of solder connections only a couple hundred microns apart.
    Other package types such as TSOP and surface mount capacitors have connections on the order of 1mm or less, so they can be shorted by whiskers. These components typically take up most of the real estate on the motherboard. Shrinking these onto silicon becomes prohibitively expensive. Replacing a couple dozen resitors and capacitors costing 0.1cents each with a piece of silicon just wouldn't be cost effective.

  15. Re:Talk about... on Countries Plan Land Rush in Warming Arctic · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one that mourns for all the lost (and soon to be lost) species?
    That's "half-empty" type thinking, I prefer to celebrate all the new species that will arise to take advantage of the new habitats.

  16. Re:How date you?! on DRM Tinkering with Intel's PXA270? · · Score: 1

    Being a capitalist isn't a licence to do anything you want.
    In this case it is. People then vote with their money, I prefer this capitalistic method over goverment mandating DRM hardware (which they have talked about). If the product fails or succeeds its ultimately up to the consumer. In an embedded single use environment DRM is okay, Xbox has DRM features built in. Once you get into the PC environment I don't think it is workable, too many people do too many unique things. Many large companies customize software to better fit their needs.
    You will probably see the rise of the consumer electronics PC which will make use of DRM, but there will always be a market on both the business and hobbyist side for a non-DRM machine.

  17. Re:Inundated on US CD Sales Increase in 2004 · · Score: 1

    I guess you beat people over the head with the same 50 artists, you can eventually convice them to like it.
    Unless somebody hits the button for the wrong song during the "live" performance, or worse you let them actually "sing" live in front of 70,000 people; then people won't like it. The Orange Bowl halfime show trainwreck even overshadowed the game.

  18. Re:Sesame Street on Learning a Foreign Language with The Sims · · Score: 1

    Hey the RPS (Rock-Paper-Scissors) championships were on Fox Sports(AZ) on New Years. The Ocho can't just rest on its dodgeball laurels, because there is competition in town for obscure sports.

  19. Re:So let me get this straight on Revolution In The Valley · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Guy invents digital optical media and gets nothing because his company did nothing with it - Sony & Phillips are bad for commercializing the technology and not giving credit
    Xerox invents GUI and does nothing with it - Apple is good for commercializing the technology and not giving credit

  20. Re:Quantum what? on Subatomic Darwinism · · Score: 1

    A scientist definately does have a confident belief. Anytime they use their theory to predict, that demonstrates confidence in the theory. Scientists proposing limits to green house gases to limit global warming demonstrate they are more confident in their explanation than alternative theories such as cyclical warming. They essentially are willing to "bet" billions of dollars that their model of global warming patterns is "correct" or at least more "correct" than the alternative.
    The ultimate demonstration of confidence, is how a scientist reacts to an unexpected data point in an experiment - they double check their experiment.
    Rather than immediately create a new theory, they ensure no issues with the instrumentation or experimental design. They demonstrate that they are initially more confident in the theory than in how the experiment was conducted.
    Of course, it's not blind faith, if they feel everything in the experiment is working correctly only then do they reformulate their theory.
    This is one of the reasons when you publish, you describe your hypothesis, method, results, and conclusions. So that peers can review and detect possible flaws in not just your theory or conclusions, but also critically review the data set and how it was acquired.

  21. Re:Is AMD really that much better for games? on More Analysis Of Pentium M Desktops · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    The /. mod bot results of your post:
    I'm not trolling.: +1 Insightful
    Stop modding me down: +1 Interesting
    Jesus: -1 troll
    can't you have an opinion on Slashdot anymore?: +1 Insightful, -2 flamebait
    Modding is so formulaic now: +1 interesting
    a robot could do it.: +1 funny
    SCO/Microsoft/RIAA Modifier: 0
    Total score: +2

  22. Re:Quantum what? on Subatomic Darwinism · · Score: 1

    However, the data set certain general constraints upon viable mathematical models. For example, all interpretations involve superpositions of states at the quantum level, as well as instantaneous correlations over distance.
    Though the introduction of a new data point has the possibility of rendering all current theories incorrect, and through the reevaluation entirely new theories can be derived that explain both the old and the new data. General constraints based on a data set are by their nature incomplete because they are based on limited data. There is no "very little choice" but rather "nobody has thought of something else."
    Faith is belief without, or in the face of, evidence. A physicist may favor one theory or interpretation over another, but it tends to be a matter of esthetics rather than faith.
    faith: 1.Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
    Even this would not have yielded the accelerating expansion that "dark energy" is being proposed to explain.
    Though there are values of the constant that lead to an accelerting universe, which is why the theory is being revisited.

  23. Just bad business decision on Inventor of Optical Storage Gets Little Reward · · Score: 1

    This guy had a dream job where they pay you a salary, and give you access to resources and all they ask is for you to "just be inventive." Just throw this on the same pile as all the things that came out of Xerox PARC that didn't generate millions for the original inventor.

  24. Re:Downhill After Sierra's Classics on Whippersnappers Bad-Mouth Old Games · · Score: 2, Funny

    These days, it's all about point and click and there is no more typing "look east", "east", "throw midget east".
    Bah you don't even have to point and click anymore, its all automated now

  25. Re:Quantum what? on Subatomic Darwinism · · Score: 1

    Rather, it is all based upon experimental results that leave very little choice.
    I wouldn't say results leave us very little choice. Imagination plays a huge role in science; physics is just mathematical models to explain what we observe. People can imagine different models based on the same data. Dark energy is one model for a set of observations, but there are alternative models such as F !=ma for small values of a, or modified gravitational theory, that can also explain the same phenomenon.
    Schrodinger's cat also has many theoretical explainations (ie "many worlds"), and to some degree it comes down to faith, in which theory you "believe" at any point in time (though not blind faith as religion dictates).
    In fact, getting back to dark energy, Einstein discarded the theory because it didn't fit what he "believed" the universe was like. There is some degree of faith in science, the important part is that by it's nature science continually tests to strengthen the belief in a theory or forces us to reform our ideas and opinions.