Runescape does, and I believe EVE technically does also.
Actually, EVE goes for a sort of hybrid approach. Your character is completely unconstrained by class considerations, and is only limited by the (real, not game) time investment you put into the game. Basically, as long as you keep your skill queue filled, your character is always improving, in whatever direction you want.
What does limit your character's performance at any given point in time, however, is the ship you're piloting. The attributes each ship has (size, slot distribution, bonuses) pretty much sets its playstyle and role, and you're unlikely to be successful as an Electronic Warfare in a ship that's designed as a missile barge. and a battleship has nowhere near the cargo space required for a trading or mining operation. In my stint in EVE, I eventually set myself up in a star system and piloted two ships. One was a Drake, which is a missile-based battlecruiser, as my combat ship, and I also had a Cormorant destroyer, which was a much lighter, faster ship that I fitted with loads of salvaging lasers and tractor beams, and modified for a larger cargo hold, and which was completely useless for anything except its designated role: scouring the wrecks for salvage after a long combat mission. For that task, however, it was superb.
So according to this "logic", Microsoft assumes that its users are wiser than the general run of users too?
While I don't know whether Microsoft actually designed their operating systems with that rationale in mind, C is a clear case of it: most bugs in C programs come from the language being designed expecting people to really know what they're doing. and therefore allowing all sorts of strange stuff.
This 'Basic Human Nature' you speak of, is there evidence of that or is that an article of faith?
Logically, "Basic Human Nature" has to exist, and is defined as "the baseline behaviour pattern you expect from a typical human". What I implicitly asserted is that some modicum of empathy is part of that baseline. That assertion is supported by the formal definition of psychopathy specifically alluding to its absence. You can also back the assertion up, more cynically, by simple statistics. It's easy enough to get someone killed that the rate of murder we observe cannot be attributed simply to effective enforcement.
I'll just say this: there is essentially no difference between believing you're free and actually being free. Your behavior doesn't change if you go from merely believing you're free to actually being free
Not quite. There are several ways how that could fail to be true. The easiest is simply that I can convince you that "free" means something more restrictive than the rest of the world considers "free" to be. Just because you (rightly) believe that you're free in that restricted meaning doesn't imply that you'd act the same if you were actually free in the wider meaning.
There's another, more insidious, possibility. Consider this: If someone greatly inconveniences you, you could get them killed. Yet, even if you believed you could get away with it, and that murder would actually be the most efficient way of dealing with the matter, basic human nature would prevent you from actually doing it. You might believe yourself to be free to kill the person "if you really wanted to", but fact of the matter is that you're not, because you'll never "really want to". In comparison, a psychopath is truly free to murder just because it's the easiest way out. So, the question is: what things do people believe they can do, but actively refrain from? Can you manipulate people into creating those limitations on themselves?
This is an ironic point, and I'm Openoffice these days, and I know about the hundreds of special features that require code to preserve the document perfectly... but given OOXML, couldn't you still get the content out of most documents but just lose some of the more arcane formatting?
I picked OOXML only because it's an XML format known to not play nicely (and because a playful jab at MS never hurts;). However, the deeper point is that XML isn't some magically interoperable format. Though it might be possible with OOXML, it's not necessarily true that you can recover all "data" minus formatting with any given XML format. Namely, SVG comes to mind. The truth of the matter is that the only innately easy thing about XML is turning it into a decorated tree data structure. Actually figuring out what each individual node and decorator means is something else entirely.
Neglecting to mention that you altered the contract would not be. If I agree to rent a place for X with a deposit of Y, and they hand me a lease that says I'm renting it for X with a deposit of Z, then it is up to ME to notice the change, and agree/disagree to it.
Actually, that would probably fall under bad faith.
is Indian subcontracting work of lower quality than American subcontracting work (or equivalent)?
No, not necessarily. But why would you outsource to India if you could find an equivalent in the US? Outside of specifically hunting down experts (which may crop up just about anywhere), you outsource to India because of the cost advantage, which pretty much implies you're sacrificing quality.
Because of the scale of the internet your sharing could approach $625,000 of lost revenue.
Bullshit. Let's assume the average CD costs 20 dollars. That'd mean you caused the loss of 31,250 CDs' worth of revenue. At an estimated 50 megs per CD, that'd amount to 1.5 TB of data. At 5 megabits per second upstream, you'd have to share non-stop for a full month to accrue that much data. Now, I overestimated both the price of a single CD, and the typical upstream bandwidth available for a domestic user, and underestimated the size of a CD in MP3 format. Assuming a more typical 1 mbit upstream, we're up to 5 months. On top of that make it 15 dollars per CD (which is still high), over six and a half months. If a CD takes up 75 megs (my own personal collection averages at 73.3 megs per album), the grand total is that you'd have to share non-stop, at full speed, for 10 whole months.
Now, if you want to argue that the 625,000 can and should include punitive damages, I personally disagree (outside of commercial piracy), but it's an opinion I'm willing to accept. But lost revenue is a battle you simply can't win.
I think they're reading "stupid user" from the "They were confused about how to get at the content" part. Because intelligent people never get confused by convoluted systems, of course.
The installer needs administrative privileges; otherwise, it can't even write to Program Files. It's like on Linux: ordinary users can't write to/usr/bin, but root can (and thus so can anyone who can sudo). Where should a user without administrative privileges install the game?
And also, much like Linux, after root installed the application and set permissions to 755, everybody can run it, which is what the OP was talking about. Except, of course, many games do stupid shit like having their config files in their installation directory rather than in the user's home (which means it needs admin rights to write configurations), and many more games use really low-level stuff to make their DRM work, which, once again, requires admin rights.
Yeah, well. That's what I don't get. I don't actually see how the grass is getting hurt here. Quoting the summary itself:
As we head towards a world where some devices may be free or really cheap, consumers should prepare to be bombarded by ads or pay a premium to escape them
So I have the option of getting a product on the cheap (but I'll get bombarded with ads), or I can get the same product still on the cheap, and pay a surplus to get rid of the ads? As long as that surplus doesn't move the price above today's, the consumer isn't getting shafted. It's getting one more option.
Were they in the UK, Verizon might actually be in trouble.
Actually, from what I know, they wouldn't. They'd be in trouble if the supposed libellous statements were not in the public interest (you'd have to be very creative to come up with a way to make that one stick), or if, even though the statement is true, Verizon didn't actually know that at the time (which they did if they based their ads on AT&T's own information). And at least the latter only applies as a clause of electoral law.
Maybe someone could make a web-based service called myalibi.com or something, that would continuously ask the user to answer captchas and submit biometric data to prove that they are there.
Be useful for people afraid of being falsely accused of a crime.
They ship you an appliance, such as a mouse with a fingerprint reader. While you are using the computer they are generating a continuous stream of data that proves your location.
Problem is their only market would those sufficiently paranoid to think "at any moment I could be accused of a crime I didn't commit", and those people would be way too paranoid to trust a device like that in the first place.
Apple created Psystar so they could sue themselves and once and for all crush any thoughts companies might have of trying to produce generic Apple-compatible platforms for OSX.
Slashdot Mirror
Runescape does, and I believe EVE technically does also.
Actually, EVE goes for a sort of hybrid approach. Your character is completely unconstrained by class considerations, and is only limited by the (real, not game) time investment you put into the game. Basically, as long as you keep your skill queue filled, your character is always improving, in whatever direction you want.
What does limit your character's performance at any given point in time, however, is the ship you're piloting. The attributes each ship has (size, slot distribution, bonuses) pretty much sets its playstyle and role, and you're unlikely to be successful as an Electronic Warfare in a ship that's designed as a missile barge. and a battleship has nowhere near the cargo space required for a trading or mining operation. In my stint in EVE, I eventually set myself up in a star system and piloted two ships. One was a Drake, which is a missile-based battlecruiser, as my combat ship, and I also had a Cormorant destroyer, which was a much lighter, faster ship that I fitted with loads of salvaging lasers and tractor beams, and modified for a larger cargo hold, and which was completely useless for anything except its designated role: scouring the wrecks for salvage after a long combat mission. For that task, however, it was superb.
How about "I'd like some evidence you're going to do something useful with the data before I bother preparing it for you"?
So according to this "logic", Microsoft assumes that its users are wiser than the general run of users too?
While I don't know whether Microsoft actually designed their operating systems with that rationale in mind, C is a clear case of it: most bugs in C programs come from the language being designed expecting people to really know what they're doing. and therefore allowing all sorts of strange stuff.
Would it be possible to design a bomb that goes off when shot?
Sure. Just carry a jar of nitroglycerine. The trick with that one is, rather, not to have it go off because you looked at it wrong.
This 'Basic Human Nature' you speak of, is there evidence of that or is that an article of faith?
Logically, "Basic Human Nature" has to exist, and is defined as "the baseline behaviour pattern you expect from a typical human". What I implicitly asserted is that some modicum of empathy is part of that baseline. That assertion is supported by the formal definition of psychopathy specifically alluding to its absence. You can also back the assertion up, more cynically, by simple statistics. It's easy enough to get someone killed that the rate of murder we observe cannot be attributed simply to effective enforcement.
I'll just say this: there is essentially no difference between believing you're free and actually being free. Your behavior doesn't change if you go from merely believing you're free to actually being free
Not quite. There are several ways how that could fail to be true. The easiest is simply that I can convince you that "free" means something more restrictive than the rest of the world considers "free" to be. Just because you (rightly) believe that you're free in that restricted meaning doesn't imply that you'd act the same if you were actually free in the wider meaning.
There's another, more insidious, possibility. Consider this: If someone greatly inconveniences you, you could get them killed. Yet, even if you believed you could get away with it, and that murder would actually be the most efficient way of dealing with the matter, basic human nature would prevent you from actually doing it. You might believe yourself to be free to kill the person "if you really wanted to", but fact of the matter is that you're not, because you'll never "really want to". In comparison, a psychopath is truly free to murder just because it's the easiest way out. So, the question is: what things do people believe they can do, but actively refrain from? Can you manipulate people into creating those limitations on themselves?
This is an ironic point, and I'm Openoffice these days, and I know about the hundreds of special features that require code to preserve the document perfectly... but given OOXML, couldn't you still get the content out of most documents but just lose some of the more arcane formatting?
I picked OOXML only because it's an XML format known to not play nicely (and because a playful jab at MS never hurts ;). However, the deeper point is that XML isn't some magically interoperable format. Though it might be possible with OOXML, it's not necessarily true that you can recover all "data" minus formatting with any given XML format. Namely, SVG comes to mind. The truth of the matter is that the only innately easy thing about XML is turning it into a decorated tree data structure. Actually figuring out what each individual node and decorator means is something else entirely.
all XML formats
Cool. I'll send it in OOXML then.
Neglecting to mention that you altered the contract would not be. If I agree to rent a place for X with a deposit of Y, and they hand me a lease that says I'm renting it for X with a deposit of Z, then it is up to ME to notice the change, and agree/disagree to it.
Actually, that would probably fall under bad faith.
is Indian subcontracting work of lower quality than American subcontracting work (or equivalent)?
No, not necessarily. But why would you outsource to India if you could find an equivalent in the US? Outside of specifically hunting down experts (which may crop up just about anywhere), you outsource to India because of the cost advantage, which pretty much implies you're sacrificing quality.
Yes, but you'd be canceling it now, after the data was exposed to begin with.
Because of the scale of the internet your sharing could approach $625,000 of lost revenue.
Bullshit. Let's assume the average CD costs 20 dollars. That'd mean you caused the loss of 31,250 CDs' worth of revenue. At an estimated 50 megs per CD, that'd amount to 1.5 TB of data. At 5 megabits per second upstream, you'd have to share non-stop for a full month to accrue that much data. Now, I overestimated both the price of a single CD, and the typical upstream bandwidth available for a domestic user, and underestimated the size of a CD in MP3 format. Assuming a more typical 1 mbit upstream, we're up to 5 months. On top of that make it 15 dollars per CD (which is still high), over six and a half months. If a CD takes up 75 megs (my own personal collection averages at 73.3 megs per album), the grand total is that you'd have to share non-stop, at full speed, for 10 whole months.
Now, if you want to argue that the 625,000 can and should include punitive damages, I personally disagree (outside of commercial piracy), but it's an opinion I'm willing to accept. But lost revenue is a battle you simply can't win.
"Does jaywalking justify the death penalty?" "Does walking 10 extra metres make you life so unbearable that you can't continue?"
I think they're reading "stupid user" from the "They were confused about how to get at the content" part. Because intelligent people never get confused by convoluted systems, of course.
The installer needs administrative privileges; otherwise, it can't even write to Program Files. It's like on Linux: ordinary users can't write to /usr/bin, but root can (and thus so can anyone who can sudo). Where should a user without administrative privileges install the game?
And also, much like Linux, after root installed the application and set permissions to 755, everybody can run it, which is what the OP was talking about. Except, of course, many games do stupid shit like having their config files in their installation directory rather than in the user's home (which means it needs admin rights to write configurations), and many more games use really low-level stuff to make their DRM work, which, once again, requires admin rights.
Then the investigation follows the trail from there. Sheesh, it's not as though following a new lead when an old one runs dry is a novel concept!
Yeah, well. That's what I don't get. I don't actually see how the grass is getting hurt here. Quoting the summary itself:
As we head towards a world where some devices may be free or really cheap, consumers should prepare to be bombarded by ads or pay a premium to escape them
So I have the option of getting a product on the cheap (but I'll get bombarded with ads), or I can get the same product still on the cheap, and pay a surplus to get rid of the ads? As long as that surplus doesn't move the price above today's, the consumer isn't getting shafted. It's getting one more option.
It's not like they need to put a back door on it.
Of course not. Who needs a backdoor when you have windows? *rimshot*
Were they in the UK, Verizon might actually be in trouble.
Actually, from what I know, they wouldn't. They'd be in trouble if the supposed libellous statements were not in the public interest (you'd have to be very creative to come up with a way to make that one stick), or if, even though the statement is true, Verizon didn't actually know that at the time (which they did if they based their ads on AT&T's own information). And at least the latter only applies as a clause of electoral law.
The real question is quite the opposite: How can mathematics exist as an area of study before people have a maths problem they want to solve?
How does Acid2 fail? I just tested it on Safari 4.0.3 on OSX 10.5.8, and I'm pretty sure it passed (renders right, nose lights up on mouse over)
Maybe someone could make a web-based service called myalibi.com or something, that would continuously ask the user to answer captchas and submit biometric data to prove that they are there. Be useful for people afraid of being falsely accused of a crime. They ship you an appliance, such as a mouse with a fingerprint reader. While you are using the computer they are generating a continuous stream of data that proves your location.
Problem is their only market would those sufficiently paranoid to think "at any moment I could be accused of a crime I didn't commit", and those people would be way too paranoid to trust a device like that in the first place.
Apple created Psystar so they could sue themselves and once and for all crush any thoughts companies might have of trying to produce generic Apple-compatible platforms for OSX.
I see you just read 1984.
So I take it you think 3-4 stories on the subject, with half the posts in each of them ranting about how this sucks isn't enough excoriation?
So how is it any different if I give an envelope to a USPS employee? It's no longer under my control, but I expect it to be private.
Or, to keep it even closer to the original comparison with bank reports, what should my expectation of privacy be for bank safe deposit boxes?