"When Westbrook dropped off his personal computer at a Gateway Computer store for servicing, a technician saw private files on the computer that he thought might be illegal. Gateway called the police, who searched through personal files on Westbrook's hard drive looking for more evidence -- before ever getting a warrant."
I see this as two different issues, and conventional laws can apply to them both with little modification.
For the first part that involves the tech finding potentially illegal things on the computer... Inviting a repair person to work on your private computer is like inviting a repair person to come into your private home and work on something. They have a right to work on what you tell them to, but they can't snoop around without your permission. If you invite someone to come and work on your stove when there's a meth lab in the kitchen, they have every right (more like obligation) to report it. However, if the meth lab is in your bedroom, they don't have any business there in the first place. If a repair person was caught snooping through your bedroom, they would get fired and possibly charged with trespassing. The cops may still want to get a warrant and look around, but the situation wouldn't arise very often because of the personal risk to the repair person. The same thing should happen to a computer tech looking through "My Documents" when he's supposed to be installing more memory. If he will get fired for snooping on a person's hard drive, he probably won't do it.
For the next issue with the cops looking through the computer without a warrent after being called...
If someone calls the cops and reports seeing a meth lab in someone's house, they can't just break down the door and look. They will ask the owner of the house if they can look around, and if he refuses, they will get a warrant if they think it's necessary. The same thing should apply to a computer. If the techs find something incriminating on the computer, the police should still should have to get a warrant to search it. This is the part that needs to be clarified in the laws.
I'm sure at one point, they had their accountants determine the pricing scheme that they needed in order to be profitable. The scheme that they are using now is the one that they decided would suit them best.
This is just a guess, but I look at it this way...
The initial investment in this game must have been enormous. Between the servers, the bandwidth, and the programmers, I'm sure they spent a pretty penny. The accountants probably determined that they wouldn't recoup their losses quickly enough by making the client free. That is, they have to have the initial influx of cash to make up the enormous amount that they spent.
Another idea is that, the price of the game pays for the programming, and the monthly fee is only enough to pay for the servers, bandwidth and maintenance (which I'm sure cost quite a bit.)
Another thing to think about is this... On a normal game, the programming ends when the game is released. They only keep a few people on to work on patches. A MMORPG requires a lot more programmers to stay on staff, even after the game's release.
All or none of these could be Blizzard's reason for keeping the game so expensive while still charging the monthly fee. My point in this post is that I'm sure there is a very good reason for the way Blizzard prices WoW.
It's worth the $50 anyway.
I hate all of this stuff. I understand that it costs companies money to buy health insurance and pay for health-related costs, but they have been going too far to cut costs lately. First it was forcing people to quit smoking or forcing them to lose weight. Now it's this crap. I would rather pay a larger percentage of my insurance (company pays most of it now) than have to worry about whether or not the second hand smoke at the bar will show up on my next company-mandated piss test or a medical problem that I have is genetic and, therefore, pre-existing and not covered by insurance at all. If this is allowed to continue, it will effectively become a eugenics program because people who have any "bad genes" will not be able to get insurance and/or good jobs.
I went to a Christian high school, and they did the whole "competing theories" thing. Basically, they spent the first class talking about all the theories of how life got on earth. They talked about creationism and all of the varieties of it, and they talked about evolution and all the different ideas on how the first live organism got its start. The rest of the semester they taught factual science, i.e. referring to geologic age in millions of years, etc using regular science books. My point in mentioning this is, this was a Christian school that was allowed to teach however they wanted, and they only mentioned creationism in one class the whole semester and didn't bring up religion the rest of the time. They didn't even talk about their specific denomination during the discussion. If they do the same thing in all schools, who cares? Kids are smart enough to decide for themselves what makes sense. I'll complain if people start skewing science to match their beliefs, but I don't really care if they mention creationism briefly when discussing the origin of life.
I don't think that you can really group cases like this as right or left. It's more of a libertarian vs authoritarian issue.
That being said, I completely agree that Democrats in general have a recent history of blaming things for the the actions of people, and it annoys the hell out of me.
Pin counts last long enough for me... I have a 939 with a Athlon 64 3000+. Right now, I could get a Athlon 64 X2 4600+ for the same board. Of course, I'll have to wait for the price to go down.
According to their own criteria, the game should have been AO from the beginning.
http://www.esrb.org/esrbratings_guide.asp"Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity."
The whole game is a scene of intense violence.
As far as I'm concerned, this is like changing the rating of The Sims because of the nude (no blur) hack. And for the people that way, "Well, Rockstar put the sex scene in..." I say, "Maxis put boobies in." Same thing.
Another way I look at it is this... So what if Rockstar put the sex scene in? They designed the game so that no one would ever see it. The only reason that we have seen it is that someone wrote a hack that exposed it to us. Blaming Rockstar for this is like blaming a woman for exposing herself if a pervert runs by and lifts up her shirt.
The only way that I can see blaming this on Rockstar is if we find out that they put the code there for the explicit purpose of being exploited and/or if they leaked the hack themselves.
If they find out that Rockstar put the sex scene in the game with the intention of leaking the hot coffee hack later, there is a problem.
However, assuming that it is what I think it is, a deleted scene, people just need to get over it. This is like attacking the Maxis because of the nude patch in the Sims. Sure, sims have boobs, but Maxis never meant for you to see them.
Even if the screen shot is real, thanks to soulbinding only a few people will benefit from this. Plus, it shouldn't be hard for blizzard to find a guy who has 20 identical epic weapons on his account.
In this day and age, is it really all that crazy to believe a, perhaps, misguided site that is trying to inform you as opposed to doctors and drug companies who are mostly interested in making money off you? Not that you shouldn't trust your doctor, but...
Slashdot Mirror
Could animals survive our climate? Most of the places in the US that would have room for herds of large animals also have nasty winters.
"When Westbrook dropped off his personal computer at a Gateway Computer store for servicing, a technician saw private files on the computer that he thought might be illegal. Gateway called the police, who searched through personal files on Westbrook's hard drive looking for more evidence -- before ever getting a warrant."
I see this as two different issues, and conventional laws can apply to them both with little modification.
For the first part that involves the tech finding potentially illegal things on the computer... Inviting a repair person to work on your private computer is like inviting a repair person to come into your private home and work on something. They have a right to work on what you tell them to, but they can't snoop around without your permission. If you invite someone to come and work on your stove when there's a meth lab in the kitchen, they have every right (more like obligation) to report it. However, if the meth lab is in your bedroom, they don't have any business there in the first place. If a repair person was caught snooping through your bedroom, they would get fired and possibly charged with trespassing. The cops may still want to get a warrant and look around, but the situation wouldn't arise very often because of the personal risk to the repair person. The same thing should happen to a computer tech looking through "My Documents" when he's supposed to be installing more memory. If he will get fired for snooping on a person's hard drive, he probably won't do it.
For the next issue with the cops looking through the computer without a warrent after being called... If someone calls the cops and reports seeing a meth lab in someone's house, they can't just break down the door and look. They will ask the owner of the house if they can look around, and if he refuses, they will get a warrant if they think it's necessary. The same thing should apply to a computer. If the techs find something incriminating on the computer, the police should still should have to get a warrant to search it. This is the part that needs to be clarified in the laws.
I'm sure at one point, they had their accountants determine the pricing scheme that they needed in order to be profitable. The scheme that they are using now is the one that they decided would suit them best. This is just a guess, but I look at it this way... The initial investment in this game must have been enormous. Between the servers, the bandwidth, and the programmers, I'm sure they spent a pretty penny. The accountants probably determined that they wouldn't recoup their losses quickly enough by making the client free. That is, they have to have the initial influx of cash to make up the enormous amount that they spent. Another idea is that, the price of the game pays for the programming, and the monthly fee is only enough to pay for the servers, bandwidth and maintenance (which I'm sure cost quite a bit.) Another thing to think about is this... On a normal game, the programming ends when the game is released. They only keep a few people on to work on patches. A MMORPG requires a lot more programmers to stay on staff, even after the game's release. All or none of these could be Blizzard's reason for keeping the game so expensive while still charging the monthly fee. My point in this post is that I'm sure there is a very good reason for the way Blizzard prices WoW. It's worth the $50 anyway.
I hate all of this stuff. I understand that it costs companies money to buy health insurance and pay for health-related costs, but they have been going too far to cut costs lately. First it was forcing people to quit smoking or forcing them to lose weight. Now it's this crap. I would rather pay a larger percentage of my insurance (company pays most of it now) than have to worry about whether or not the second hand smoke at the bar will show up on my next company-mandated piss test or a medical problem that I have is genetic and, therefore, pre-existing and not covered by insurance at all. If this is allowed to continue, it will effectively become a eugenics program because people who have any "bad genes" will not be able to get insurance and/or good jobs.
I was trying to figure out what a laptop had to do with Radiohead.
World of Warcraft is my killer app. //Read into that whatever you want.
I went to a Christian high school, and they did the whole "competing theories" thing. Basically, they spent the first class talking about all the theories of how life got on earth. They talked about creationism and all of the varieties of it, and they talked about evolution and all the different ideas on how the first live organism got its start. The rest of the semester they taught factual science, i.e. referring to geologic age in millions of years, etc using regular science books. My point in mentioning this is, this was a Christian school that was allowed to teach however they wanted, and they only mentioned creationism in one class the whole semester and didn't bring up religion the rest of the time. They didn't even talk about their specific denomination during the discussion. If they do the same thing in all schools, who cares? Kids are smart enough to decide for themselves what makes sense. I'll complain if people start skewing science to match their beliefs, but I don't really care if they mention creationism briefly when discussing the origin of life.
It sounds like UK technology workers have a lot in common with US teenagers.
This is just another way for them to make money.
I don't think that you can really group cases like this as right or left. It's more of a libertarian vs authoritarian issue. That being said, I completely agree that Democrats in general have a recent history of blaming things for the the actions of people, and it annoys the hell out of me.
Satellite mapping in cool, but I haven't used it for anything other than a cure for boredom. I'm more than happy with Mapquest for my mapping needs.
I know which drive I'll be putting my swap file on now.
I'm going to take a stab in the dark here and say that Lt. Bob Lozito was talking out his ass as opposed to citing an actual law.
Pin counts last long enough for me... I have a 939 with a Athlon 64 3000+. Right now, I could get a Athlon 64 X2 4600+ for the same board. Of course, I'll have to wait for the price to go down.
According to their own criteria, the game should have been AO from the beginning. http://www.esrb.org/esrbratings_guide.asp "Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity." The whole game is a scene of intense violence.
If we weren't surfing the web, we would be wasting time doing something else.
I have no problem with the raygun being used as a replacement for rubber bullets. As long as they don't abuse it, I don't see what the problem is.
If they want to set DST for 9 months out of the year, why don't they just set DST for 12 months and eliminate the need to change the clocks at all?
Plus, the game should have been AO anyway.
As far as I'm concerned, this is like changing the rating of The Sims because of the nude (no blur) hack. And for the people that way, "Well, Rockstar put the sex scene in..." I say, "Maxis put boobies in." Same thing. Another way I look at it is this... So what if Rockstar put the sex scene in? They designed the game so that no one would ever see it. The only reason that we have seen it is that someone wrote a hack that exposed it to us. Blaming Rockstar for this is like blaming a woman for exposing herself if a pervert runs by and lifts up her shirt. The only way that I can see blaming this on Rockstar is if we find out that they put the code there for the explicit purpose of being exploited and/or if they leaked the hack themselves.
He quoted it... That's no more plagerism than it would be to rewrite it in his own words.
If they find out that Rockstar put the sex scene in the game with the intention of leaking the hot coffee hack later, there is a problem. However, assuming that it is what I think it is, a deleted scene, people just need to get over it. This is like attacking the Maxis because of the nude patch in the Sims. Sure, sims have boobs, but Maxis never meant for you to see them.
Even if the screen shot is real, thanks to soulbinding only a few people will benefit from this. Plus, it shouldn't be hard for blizzard to find a guy who has 20 identical epic weapons on his account.
In this day and age, is it really all that crazy to believe a, perhaps, misguided site that is trying to inform you as opposed to doctors and drug companies who are mostly interested in making money off you? Not that you shouldn't trust your doctor, but...
Speaking of which... we need more hedonism these days.