I used to work as a contractor at a government research facility a couple of years ago and was the main contact point to purchase and/or upgrade hardware. Typically it was as easy as calling a GSA approved vendor and getting their most recent price list. Strangely the purchasing people were often not aware of their options. I was able to point them to many GSA approved vendors who were able to send us current market quotes with current market prices, and deliver them quickly. Dell is probably the best example. You could call and get a current quote and get it shipped to you in a few days. It was all mostly contigent on hassling the people in purchasing to put it through quickly, which could often be done if you filled out the purchasing system completely and walk the quotes from the vendor up to them. Oh yeah, and if you had the funding pre-approved by your department.
Now mind you I know that things have changed a bit since then, but from what I hear they're no longer as bad as you mention. Though I definitely did hear those stories. Then again maybe I just figured out how to finesse the process so that it was speedy, I did get compliments for managing to get hardware to the customer quickly.
Mod parent up... I do remember that... I'm curious what the destructive power of a large nanotube cable would be, especially since the small ones created visible explosions (not large, but visible).
It's almost as much fun to ponder as what would happen if the cable snapped and fell ala Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy.
Has been pretty spotty. Times inside of Worldcom's network have been pretty slick across the country (15ms trip time from Cleveland to most anywhere), however almost anything that goes over to a different provider seems to have some pretty horrific lag times (at least a second or two).
Where can I purchase legitimate DVDs of Anime that have the original Japanese mastering, but with English subtitles? It's the only way that I like to watch them... and if I wait for the US release they have invariably made English the primary track and destroyed the mastering of the Japanese track.
I was amused to read the article only to discover that many of the "healthy" points she was making were similar to those in Atkin's book.
I also find it terribly amusing that all of the nutritionists that criticize the diet appear to have never read the book, or if they have it always appears that they rather specifically ignore parts of it so they can criticize it.
Atkins is not a no carb diet. It is a controlled carb diet.
It also has phases, only the first one is extremely low carb... afterwards you work up to a level where you maintain a steady weight.
I too have lost weight with Atkins. I've lost 25 pounds over a couple months. It has also helped me to have stable energy levels, as opposed to the post lunch blackouts after eating meals with a lot of carbs. I also quit drinking soda, and dropped caffeine altogether. All of these factors are making me healthier then I was before.
All I can say to the skeptics is read the book and read medical studies. Then make your own informed choice.
The last several books that I've read rather specifically wondered at the whys of the decline of pyramid construction and yet to find a causal relationship with anything, even something so simple as a drought. Though they did speculate.
I don't disagree with you about the pyramidiots at all. In fact I'd only ever read Bauval's book, which I was pleased to find disproved by Gantenbrink's site cheops.org. I think the only credible thing that I can give the pyramidiots is that perhaps civilization is significantly older then we think it is. I'm always amused when archaelogists dismiss the fact that civilization may be older, simply because we don't have extant objects from that time. It surprises me mostly because unless they decided to continue writing on stone, preservation of documents is unrealistic over that many years. Though I have noticed since I've started reading on it again in the last year or so that many discoveries appear to be forcing them to open their minds a little. I would be curious where you read about the discovery of the older material has been.
I also suspect I did myself a disservice since the only Pyramidiots that I know of are Bauval, Hancock, and the woman that used kites to fly large blocks of stone in the Nevada desert. I guess I was just turned off by his grandstanding. I had a tendency to hit mute most of the times he started talking.
You're right. My statement was in fact poorly phrased.
I'm curious where you get your information about the pyramids being full of heiroglyphs. In every book that I read about them (pyramidiot, academic, and otherwise), and even specials that I've seen on TV, every mention of the Pyramids of Giza (in particular) have said that nothing was found in them at all. Given that the main pyramid wasn't opened until much later then the others (due to tunneling)... I would be quite intrigued to read that.
I think one of my largest gripes about Egyptology is that most academics get too hyper-focused on a particular theory and often seem to not reference other important details. But this too is a bad generalization.
No I don't think the Apollo missions were faked, nor do I even think there is a face on Mars. I just believe in a healthy dose of skepticism, and it never helps when it takes voluminous reading of obscure books to learn what should be easily available. If many of the facts about the Pyramids were compiled in a better volume, it would make it simpler to actually have an educated conversation. Instead of having to ask obnoxious questions like the pyramidiots do, only to ultimately (typically after you make a fool of yourself) get information that reveals why the current dogma is the way it is.
The program really was a travesty. It seemed entirely like a vehicle for Hawass to try and discredit the "Pyramidiots".
As much as some of the pyramidiots are way out there. Many of them seem to raise some very legitimate and troubling questions about Egyptology. They in fact made me just interested enough to start reading academic texts about Egyptology and it does appear that some of the so called discoveries that have been found throughout the exploration of the pyramids have been fake. The "gang" graffiti of heiroglyphics that Hawass showed is in fact the only writing found in the pyramids. And it is possible that it was done by Egyptologist that got to that level to justify the expense of his expedition.
I still find many of the current arguments about the construction of the pyramids to be unconvincing. At a minimum the timing still seems wrong. The other pyramids in the country seem to be proof. They have the step pyramids and then they have the pyramids at Dashour. The strange upsurge of amazingly well architected and built pyramids in the middle of a dynasty only to relapse into horrible pyramid building less then a few centuries later. And most of all without any evidence of civil unrest, war, or other catastrophe to explain the sudden loss of technology.
So as much as the Pyramidiots are out there it would be interesting to see the Egyptologists take them seriously just long enough to convinvingly refute (or attempt to) their claims. It would certainly go a long way to discredit them. Because it seems that the Pyramidiots have managed to make some decent discoveries themselves, or at least ask questions that caused the exploration of the new ideas.
Another problem with the lack of choice is that often the few choices you do have, don't let you do what you want to do with the internet. My local cable company has broadband cable, but their Acceptable use policy reads like a Microsoft EULA. I don't like it and won't use it. It bans servers of any kind, bans P2P sharing, I think it even attempts to tell you that you must support community deceny standards. (I thought that was the whole point of the internet, letting you determine your own deceny standards)
My other problem is that I'm in a DSL dead-zone and the only one even willing to try and offer me service is Ameritech, which has a similar draconian Acceptable Use policy, and they use PPPoE.
My only hope is that I can get a wireless broadband connection with a local ISP (who has a decent Acceptable use policy and allows servers... their only restriction is that you don't use the connection for illegal activity), but currently my house is situated too high to have a good line of sight to their antenna. The only way to get to it is to have a larger antenna then my community allows (I'm petitioning the Building Dept for an exemption). Hopefully they'll agree and the antenna won't make my neighbors nervous about "death rays" as the Building Dept Manager put it.
However consider this. All of the upgrades to the Microsoft products are not upgrades, but rollups of security patches. These patches are necessary to keep our systems from being hacked.
From what I've read on different law sites, it is kind of questionable if any software company is capable of completely disclaiming all liability for their product, but for the most part people aren't willing to risk it and the lawyers fees. Especially against Microsoft, which is funny considering that the functionality, stability and security of the OS is perhaps the one that they are most likely to be able to hold them liable for.
Now back to my point. The Service Packs and Hot Fixes with new EULAs are quite simply unlikely to be legal. As with most EULAs they are simply extorting the customer and making them sign under duress. "Here's this Hot Fix that you absolutlely need to make certain that you don't get hacked, but first you have to agree to this EULA with no chance of negotiating." At some point someone will sue Microsoft over these EULAs and try and hold them liable.
Formerly HP's Openmail is another Exchange replacement, but exactly like Bynari's product it still requires some licensing.
I've been surprised that there hasn't been more effort on the Linux side of things to create a replacement. I would have thought that Redhat would have come up with something. Since as the poster notes, Exchange functionality tends to be a big killer whenever you flirt with replacing in house systems. If you can't provide the integrated and shared calendaring it usually won't fly.
Ah. I think we should the RIAA/MPAA's logic to calculate the loss to the consumer.
The consumer loses privacy when their information is dispered *without* their consent. This means that based on the number of websites visted the amount of monetary damage goes up. Additionally that then opens their information up to being sold again as those companies may choose to sell the list of people that visit their site. This in turn can be sold again. So unless you have submitted to the Do Not call and Do not mail lists at the DMA you have probably just signed up to get a large amount of additional spam, phone calls, and unwanted mail. I think that this all adds up to at least $1 million per consumer, don't you?
If he can get anywhere in 8 hours of nethack I would be shocked or know that he's cheating.
I've been playing one game off and on for the past six months and still haven't won yet, but I'm also playing it safe because I want to actually win this time, instead of dying before I get past level 30 like always happened in the past.
Actually it's not all that irrelevant. It applies in a different way. I was thinking about the current Universal Commerical Code, which minus the UCITA push is actually a good thing. It requires companies that make products to warrant their fitness.
Thus a toaster must function as a toaster with no problems. If it doesn't you can get a replacement if it is in the warranty period. It's the whole "it's an appliance" concept.
There is no fundamental reason for software to be different. Software is part of an appliance and *can* be coded to not break. Hell all the articles on the DOD and ADA makes me wonder what Windows would be like if it was done in ADA.
The copying aspect definitely needs different attention. However copying the software is copyright infringement and should be prosecuted as such.
There are three different issues. Softwares functionality and use as an appliance on a computer. Another is penalties for illegaly copying and distributing the software. The third is liability protection for software makers, but that ties into whether or not software should be treated as an appliance or if it deserves a separate and liability free area of the law, which I don't think it deserves.
Think toaster, think refrigerator. These items do not need a license. Software should be exactly like that. No click through license is necessary.
There should be no click-through licenses, even if only to protest their validity. A contract that you have no chance to negotiate about *should not* be valid.
The software industry needs to get over the fact that it is not going to be able to avoid being liable for it's products, especially when they're making billions of dollars of *profit*.
The whole concept of licensing the software is also pretty foreign, not only for me but also to the common public. I bought the software I should be able to use it any way I want. The whole shenanigans with OEM licensing, corporate licensing, etc is just ridiculous. I'm surprised (a little) that someone hasn't taken it to court yet. Especially for corporations, where they can show that they order 12000 machines with Windows 2000, but for their purposes they need to roll out with a corporate key to meet their standards. This should not require them to purchase another 12,000 licenses... but that is the situation today.
I'm betting that it won't take long till a cease and desist arrives at the door.
All of this is especially funny because Wizards (whom I hate because of all of the collectible card games) is in fact the best RPG company I've dealt with. They produce the best qualtiy (and proof-read) books that I've bought in forever. Anyways. Wizards has made a good effort at making all of the old D&D materials available at their site either for free or for a nominal fee and you can download them all as PDFs.
See Wizards page for Classic downloads
So ultimately you don't have to go to a pirate site to download someone else's copyrighted materials, but can in fact "do the right thing" and download it for free from wizards or pay for it...
Fundamentally there is nothing wrong with this. They bought the company and are now asserting their IP. Mind you they're working hard on commiting public suicide with the relations fiasco this is likely to be.
What I suspect will happen will be the same thing as Rambus. They will ultimately be forced to stand by the prior companies commitment to free licensing terms. Which is a good thing.
If it was the same company and not simply someone that bought them this would scream bait and switch and other sleazy things. Essentially now that JPG proliferation is the defacto standard they're now attempting to collect royalties.
All of this simply solifies my belief that the underlying fundamental OS should be open source as should the standards that allow computers to communicate. However proprietary software for programs and games is fine, within reason.
Standard formats for everything that people will use for business, documents, spreadsheets, XML perhaps...
Well okay I can. But fortunately my representative Dennis Kucinich was one of three that voted against it. What can I say. I suppose I have to write him now to thank him for voting well.
That's pretty much what I get, though I will at least give some of my representatives the credit they deserve. The phrase they typically use is "Copyright protects valuable interests." Some even go as far as saying that they're interested in protecting fair use rights, but not most.
About the only other thing I can suggest is to call and talk to the staffer that handles copyright issues. And/or go talk to them at your local office. They might be more impressed if they see you and you have a chance to talk with them about it.
Of course it's best to avoid the but I'm 1337 and need to w4r3z everything POV. Somehow I don't think they're sympathetic to that...
Why is it that commericial interests are so desperate to stop us from time-shifting and space shifting products that we have bought? (I know, because they want more of our money, but still...) There are so many good products or even niche audiences that never get served by corporate interests because they don't represent a sizeable enough population to warrant a mass release of a tv show.
Consider the simple provision of no longer allowing people to tape a show and lend it to a friend. Unbelieveable! I can think of many times that I've simply forgotten to record a show, and really want to see it, but it would be illegal for me to request it from a friend as that would now be copyright infringement. I suppose I could wait for the five or more years to see it in syndication (if it gets syndicated) or buy the DVD or VHS tape (if they bother to release it.)
I think a fair amount of the problem is simply access to the content. Companies are stricting controlling access to all of their "content", even if it is pure drivel that only rapid fanatics would be interested in. It strikes me that any provision to disallow the simple sharing of tapes should also be accompanied by some kind of compulsory license on the content. If they want to be able to restrict it's dissemenation then they also need to make it available at a reasonable price. For example consider all of the "crap" DVDs that get sold at Walmart. Wouldn't a couple of episodes of Red Dwarf or MST3K be worth approximately the same as say the $10 copy of Excalibur?
People want content, companies want money. People don't want to be forced into a limited pay-per use society, despite the fact that companies desperately want that, because it allows them to help crippled business models limp along for another few years. I'm glad to see that Universal is potentially getting it right, finally.
Fair use seems to be such a straight-forward thing. I have written my representatives several times about this. I can only hope that they will support Boucher in his attempts to straighten things out fairly. Though even he does occassionally stray from being our consumer protectionist champion.
I am curious of your books what are your personal favorites and why? (Xanth, Incarnations, Bio of Space Tyrant, Modes, Adept series... hey wait! you should know your own works better then I do...)
Dear god... it sounds like they're simply describing Evercrack except with realistic graphics and a good speech synthesizer.
It's the people acting out part and taking quests that could be entertaining, if viewed from afar. Also since the world is so big you could have an interactive component for the "viewer" to play god and jump about watching what everbody is doing....
Actual contest is...
on
Draw!
·
· Score: 3, Informative
4 seperate rounds of roughly 55 games day. We've caught it at the beginning of the second day. AMD lost the first day by a couple points 20 wins, 29 ties, and 22 losses. AMD is currently winning the second round as of 8:28PM EST 12-7-9. Everyday they reset the computers (since the programs learn over the course of the day), and switch the programs. Obviously they're going to attempt to fill the product matrix and see which processor performs better with the different programs.
I'm curious to see how the different platforms perform...
Slashdot Mirror
I used to work as a contractor at a government research facility a couple of years ago and was the main contact point to purchase and/or upgrade hardware. Typically it was as easy as calling a GSA approved vendor and getting their most recent price list. Strangely the purchasing people were often not aware of their options. I was able to point them to many GSA approved vendors who were able to send us current market quotes with current market prices, and deliver them quickly. Dell is probably the best example. You could call and get a current quote and get it shipped to you in a few days. It was all mostly contigent on hassling the people in purchasing to put it through quickly, which could often be done if you filled out the purchasing system completely and walk the quotes from the vendor up to them. Oh yeah, and if you had the funding pre-approved by your department.
Now mind you I know that things have changed a bit since then, but from what I hear they're no longer as bad as you mention. Though I definitely did hear those stories. Then again maybe I just figured out how to finesse the process so that it was speedy, I did get compliments for managing to get hardware to the customer quickly.
Mod parent up... I do remember that... I'm curious what the destructive power of a large nanotube cable would be, especially since the small ones created visible explosions (not large, but visible).
It's almost as much fun to ponder as what would happen if the cable snapped and fell ala Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy.
Has been pretty spotty. Times inside of Worldcom's network have been pretty slick across the country (15ms trip time from Cleveland to most anywhere), however almost anything that goes over to a different provider seems to have some pretty horrific lag times (at least a second or two).
Well I have to ask...
Where can I purchase legitimate DVDs of Anime that have the original Japanese mastering, but with English subtitles? It's the only way that I like to watch them... and if I wait for the US release they have invariably made English the primary track and destroyed the mastering of the Japanese track.
Suggestions?
I was amused to read the article only to discover that many of the "healthy" points she was making were similar to those in Atkin's book.
I also find it terribly amusing that all of the nutritionists that criticize the diet appear to have never read the book, or if they have it always appears that they rather specifically ignore parts of it so they can criticize it.
Atkins is not a no carb diet. It is a controlled carb diet.
It also has phases, only the first one is extremely low carb... afterwards you work up to a level where you maintain a steady weight.
I too have lost weight with Atkins. I've lost 25 pounds over a couple months. It has also helped me to have stable energy levels, as opposed to the post lunch blackouts after eating meals with a lot of carbs. I also quit drinking soda, and dropped caffeine altogether. All of these factors are making me healthier then I was before.
All I can say to the skeptics is read the book and read medical studies. Then make your own informed choice.
Obviously much of my reading is out of date.
The last several books that I've read rather specifically wondered at the whys of the decline of pyramid construction and yet to find a causal relationship with anything, even something so simple as a drought. Though they did speculate.
I don't disagree with you about the pyramidiots at all. In fact I'd only ever read Bauval's book, which I was pleased to find disproved by Gantenbrink's site cheops.org. I think the only credible thing that I can give the pyramidiots is that perhaps civilization is significantly older then we think it is. I'm always amused when archaelogists dismiss the fact that civilization may be older, simply because we don't have extant objects from that time. It surprises me mostly because unless they decided to continue writing on stone, preservation of documents is unrealistic over that many years. Though I have noticed since I've started reading on it again in the last year or so that many discoveries appear to be forcing them to open their minds a little. I would be curious where you read about the discovery of the older material has been.
I also suspect I did myself a disservice since the only Pyramidiots that I know of are Bauval, Hancock, and the woman that used kites to fly large blocks of stone in the Nevada desert. I guess I was just turned off by his grandstanding. I had a tendency to hit mute most of the times he started talking.
You're right. My statement was in fact poorly phrased.
I'm curious where you get your information about the pyramids being full of heiroglyphs. In every book that I read about them (pyramidiot, academic, and otherwise), and even specials that I've seen on TV, every mention of the Pyramids of Giza (in particular) have said that nothing was found in them at all. Given that the main pyramid wasn't opened until much later then the others (due to tunneling)... I would be quite intrigued to read that.
I think one of my largest gripes about Egyptology is that most academics get too hyper-focused on a particular theory and often seem to not reference other important details. But this too is a bad generalization.
No I don't think the Apollo missions were faked, nor do I even think there is a face on Mars. I just believe in a healthy dose of skepticism, and it never helps when it takes voluminous reading of obscure books to learn what should be easily available. If many of the facts about the Pyramids were compiled in a better volume, it would make it simpler to actually have an educated conversation. Instead of having to ask obnoxious questions like the pyramidiots do, only to ultimately (typically after you make a fool of yourself) get information that reveals why the current dogma is the way it is.
The program really was a travesty. It seemed entirely like a vehicle for Hawass to try and discredit the "Pyramidiots".
As much as some of the pyramidiots are way out there. Many of them seem to raise some very legitimate and troubling questions about Egyptology. They in fact made me just interested enough to start reading academic texts about Egyptology and it does appear that some of the so called discoveries that have been found throughout the exploration of the pyramids have been fake. The "gang" graffiti of heiroglyphics that Hawass showed is in fact the only writing found in the pyramids. And it is possible that it was done by Egyptologist that got to that level to justify the expense of his expedition.
I still find many of the current arguments about the construction of the pyramids to be unconvincing. At a minimum the timing still seems wrong. The other pyramids in the country seem to be proof. They have the step pyramids and then they have the pyramids at Dashour. The strange upsurge of amazingly well architected and built pyramids in the middle of a dynasty only to relapse into horrible pyramid building less then a few centuries later. And most of all without any evidence of civil unrest, war, or other catastrophe to explain the sudden loss of technology.
So as much as the Pyramidiots are out there it would be interesting to see the Egyptologists take them seriously just long enough to convinvingly refute (or attempt to) their claims. It would certainly go a long way to discredit them. Because it seems that the Pyramidiots have managed to make some decent discoveries themselves, or at least ask questions that caused the exploration of the new ideas.
Another problem with the lack of choice is that often the few choices you do have, don't let you do what you want to do with the internet. My local cable company has broadband cable, but their Acceptable use policy reads like a Microsoft EULA. I don't like it and won't use it. It bans servers of any kind, bans P2P sharing, I think it even attempts to tell you that you must support community deceny standards. (I thought that was the whole point of the internet, letting you determine your own deceny standards)
My other problem is that I'm in a DSL dead-zone and the only one even willing to try and offer me service is Ameritech, which has a similar draconian Acceptable Use policy, and they use PPPoE.
My only hope is that I can get a wireless broadband connection with a local ISP (who has a decent Acceptable use policy and allows servers... their only restriction is that you don't use the connection for illegal activity), but currently my house is situated too high to have a good line of sight to their antenna. The only way to get to it is to have a larger antenna then my community allows (I'm petitioning the Building Dept for an exemption). Hopefully they'll agree and the antenna won't make my neighbors nervous about "death rays" as the Building Dept Manager put it.
IANAL.
However consider this. All of the upgrades to the Microsoft products are not upgrades, but rollups of security patches. These patches are necessary to keep our systems from being hacked.
From what I've read on different law sites, it is kind of questionable if any software company is capable of completely disclaiming all liability for their product, but for the most part people aren't willing to risk it and the lawyers fees. Especially against Microsoft, which is funny considering that the functionality, stability and security of the OS is perhaps the one that they are most likely to be able to hold them liable for.
Now back to my point. The Service Packs and Hot Fixes with new EULAs are quite simply unlikely to be legal. As with most EULAs they are simply extorting the customer and making them sign under duress. "Here's this Hot Fix that you absolutlely need to make certain that you don't get hacked, but first you have to agree to this EULA with no chance of negotiating." At some point someone will sue Microsoft over these EULAs and try and hold them liable.
At least I can hope.
Formerly HP's Openmail is another Exchange replacement, but exactly like Bynari's product it still requires some licensing.
I've been surprised that there hasn't been more effort on the Linux side of things to create a replacement. I would have thought that Redhat would have come up with something. Since as the poster notes, Exchange functionality tends to be a big killer whenever you flirt with replacing in house systems. If you can't provide the integrated and shared calendaring it usually won't fly.
The consumer loses privacy when their information is dispered *without* their consent. This means that based on the number of websites visted the amount of monetary damage goes up. Additionally that then opens their information up to being sold again as those companies may choose to sell the list of people that visit their site. This in turn can be sold again. So unless you have submitted to the Do Not call and Do not mail lists at the DMA you have probably just signed up to get a large amount of additional spam, phone calls, and unwanted mail. I think that this all adds up to at least $1 million per consumer, don't you?
Exactly what I was going to say.
If he can get anywhere in 8 hours of nethack I would be shocked or know that he's cheating.
I've been playing one game off and on for the past six months and still haven't won yet, but I'm also playing it safe because I want to actually win this time, instead of dying before I get past level 30 like always happened in the past.
Actually it's not all that irrelevant. It applies in a different way. I was thinking about the current Universal Commerical Code, which minus the UCITA push is actually a good thing. It requires companies that make products to warrant their fitness.
Thus a toaster must function as a toaster with no problems. If it doesn't you can get a replacement if it is in the warranty period. It's the whole "it's an appliance" concept.
There is no fundamental reason for software to be different. Software is part of an appliance and *can* be coded to not break. Hell all the articles on the DOD and ADA makes me wonder what Windows would be like if it was done in ADA.
The copying aspect definitely needs different attention. However copying the software is copyright infringement and should be prosecuted as such.
There are three different issues. Softwares functionality and use as an appliance on a computer. Another is penalties for illegaly copying and distributing the software. The third is liability protection for software makers, but that ties into whether or not software should be treated as an appliance or if it deserves a separate and liability free area of the law, which I don't think it deserves.
Think toaster, think refrigerator. These items do not need a license. Software should be exactly like that. No click through license is necessary.
There should be no click-through licenses, even if only to protest their validity. A contract that you have no chance to negotiate about *should not* be valid.
The software industry needs to get over the fact that it is not going to be able to avoid being liable for it's products, especially when they're making billions of dollars of *profit*.
The whole concept of licensing the software is also pretty foreign, not only for me but also to the common public. I bought the software I should be able to use it any way I want. The whole shenanigans with OEM licensing, corporate licensing, etc is just ridiculous. I'm surprised (a little) that someone hasn't taken it to court yet. Especially for corporations, where they can show that they order 12000 machines with Windows 2000, but for their purposes they need to roll out with a corporate key to meet their standards. This should not require them to purchase another 12,000 licenses... but that is the situation today.
Wizards is committed to making all of the old books available for those of you that "must have them all". It's also probably cheaper then scrounging in old bookstores to get beat up copies of all of the books. Though Ebay might make it easier these days.
All of this is especially funny because Wizards (whom I hate because of all of the collectible card games) is in fact the best RPG company I've dealt with. They produce the best qualtiy (and proof-read) books that I've bought in forever. Anyways. Wizards has made a good effort at making all of the old D&D materials available at their site either for free or for a nominal fee and you can download them all as PDFs.
See Wizards page for Classic downloads So ultimately you don't have to go to a pirate site to download someone else's copyrighted materials, but can in fact "do the right thing" and download it for free from wizards or pay for it...
Fundamentally there is nothing wrong with this. They bought the company and are now asserting their IP. Mind you they're working hard on commiting public suicide with the relations fiasco this is likely to be.
What I suspect will happen will be the same thing as Rambus. They will ultimately be forced to stand by the prior companies commitment to free licensing terms. Which is a good thing.
If it was the same company and not simply someone that bought them this would scream bait and switch and other sleazy things. Essentially now that JPG proliferation is the defacto standard they're now attempting to collect royalties.
All of this simply solifies my belief that the underlying fundamental OS should be open source as should the standards that allow computers to communicate. However proprietary software for programs and games is fine, within reason.
Standard formats for everything that people will use for business, documents, spreadsheets, XML perhaps...
Well okay I can. But fortunately my representative Dennis Kucinich was one of three that voted against it. What can I say. I suppose I have to write him now to thank him for voting well.
That's pretty much what I get, though I will at least give some of my representatives the credit they deserve. The phrase they typically use is "Copyright protects valuable interests." Some even go as far as saying that they're interested in protecting fair use rights, but not most.
About the only other thing I can suggest is to call and talk to the staffer that handles copyright issues. And/or go talk to them at your local office. They might be more impressed if they see you and you have a chance to talk with them about it.
Of course it's best to avoid the but I'm 1337 and need to w4r3z everything POV. Somehow I don't think they're sympathetic to that...
Consider the simple provision of no longer allowing people to tape a show and lend it to a friend. Unbelieveable! I can think of many times that I've simply forgotten to record a show, and really want to see it, but it would be illegal for me to request it from a friend as that would now be copyright infringement. I suppose I could wait for the five or more years to see it in syndication (if it gets syndicated) or buy the DVD or VHS tape (if they bother to release it.)
I think a fair amount of the problem is simply access to the content. Companies are stricting controlling access to all of their "content", even if it is pure drivel that only rapid fanatics would be interested in. It strikes me that any provision to disallow the simple sharing of tapes should also be accompanied by some kind of compulsory license on the content. If they want to be able to restrict it's dissemenation then they also need to make it available at a reasonable price. For example consider all of the "crap" DVDs that get sold at Walmart. Wouldn't a couple of episodes of Red Dwarf or MST3K be worth approximately the same as say the $10 copy of Excalibur?
People want content, companies want money. People don't want to be forced into a limited pay-per use society, despite the fact that companies desperately want that, because it allows them to help crippled business models limp along for another few years. I'm glad to see that Universal is potentially getting it right, finally.
Fair use seems to be such a straight-forward thing. I have written my representatives several times about this. I can only hope that they will support Boucher in his attempts to straighten things out fairly. Though even he does occassionally stray from being our consumer protectionist champion.
In the same vein this article http://www.gigaweb.com/mktg/man_sec_mon/cpane2.asp compares various managed security services, which also offer and utilize some of the various IDS systems you've mentioned.
I am curious of your books what are your personal favorites and why? (Xanth, Incarnations, Bio of Space Tyrant, Modes, Adept series... hey wait! you should know your own works better then I do...)
Dear god... it sounds like they're simply describing Evercrack except with realistic graphics and a good speech synthesizer.
It's the people acting out part and taking quests that could be entertaining, if viewed from afar. Also since the world is so big you could have an interactive component for the "viewer" to play god and jump about watching what everbody is doing....
4 seperate rounds of roughly 55 games day. We've caught it at the beginning of the second day. AMD lost the first day by a couple points 20 wins, 29 ties, and 22 losses. AMD is currently winning the second round as of 8:28PM EST 12-7-9. Everyday they reset the computers (since the programs learn over the course of the day), and switch the programs. Obviously they're going to attempt to fill the product matrix and see which processor performs better with the different programs.
I'm curious to see how the different platforms perform...