Thanks for your input, I am sorry that I have made fun, innovative games in the past that are enjoyable for gamers of all ages. I am also sorry our console has controllers that you don't need hands the size of Shaq's to hold.
Let me assure you that your letter has made me see the light. I am pleased to announce Super Mario Auto 128. In this game, Mario has returned to his roots in the Italian Mafia. Features of this game include committing mindless crimes, having sex with hookers, and then killing them.
I am also proud to announce that I've employed a new character design team to redesign all the female characters in Nintendo games. Let me assure you that they all now have a minimum bra size of 38F, and will soon be starring in Super Smash Sister Extreme Beach Volleyball.
And in coming months we'll be releasing Metroid XXX. Let's just say that Samus has gotten rid of her armor... and a bit more.
I'm sure you that you'll love these changes we're making at Nintendo. Thank you for your input.
My memory isn't what it used to be, but I somehow recall playing FF10 on my Playstation 2.
But I understand what you mean. Miyamoto needs some real innovation. I have a great idea for the next Mario game. Mario should be able to pick up hookers, have sex with them, and then kill them to get his gold coins back. That'd sell a heck of a lot!
The thing about your examples is that they deliver something at a higher quality than the free alternative does.
With cable, people no longer had to fuss with "rabbit ears," and were delivered programming in a superior quality.
Bottled water is typically superior to the tap stuff, especially here in San Diego (I can't stand the tap water here).
For people to pay for web content, it has to somehow be superior to what they get for free. However, unlike the two above examples, to do this you have to make the free things artificially inferior.
Disappearance is result the execs of SCO want. Disappearance to some Carribean island after they bail their money out of SCO stock.
Re:It's a healthy reminder, though...
on
Linking Dangerously
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Another mature thing to do would be to ban knives, utensils, cars, cleaning chemicals, scissors, staplers, power tools, airplanes, etc. to preemptively avoid spreding those kind of things so that they don't fall into the hands of idiots.
Guess what? No matter how much you ban or censor, idiots are still going to find a way to kill themselves or others.
Re:seriously screwed up action
on
Linking Dangerously
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
The federal government no longer believes in the "pesky" first ammendment any more. I'm surprised Ashcroft hasn't called for it to be repealed yet.
If SCO is going so far as to demand money from each and every Linux user, then they should at least be willing to take the steps to prove, in a court of law, that Linux has infringed on their IP.
SCO can't do that, of course. The only reason they've finally put up these lisencing fees is because Red Hat has forced them to do it. Red Hat's move has caused their stock price to take a beating, and they haven't got jack to counter the effect except for this.
I wouldn't be surprised if this action doesn't prompt a suit from every Linux distributor, however.
Didn't SCO's refusal to "put up" force them to simply abandon some of their European markets anyway? They've got jack, and they know it.
I thought about your post for a bit. Perhaps a more radical reform would be to split up the aspects of copyright into "Work as a Whole" and "Framework."
"Work as a Whole" is just what it sounds like, a verbatim copy of the work. "Framework" is certain aspects of that work, such as the setting and characters of a movie or novel.
Now, for the "Work as a Whole," the copyright lasts 14 years. If the author is still alive at the end of that period, they can apply for a single 14 year extension so long as they can prove that they just aren't sitting on the work and doing nothing with it.
After the end of this period, the "Work as a Whole" falls into public domain, allowing verbatim copies and certain types of derivitive works.
However, the author retains copyright on the "Framework" for a longer period. Let's just say life for now. For this time period, the author has sole use to the "Framework" and can use it to create a series based on the original work.
Upon death, the "Framework" also enters the public domain.
This copyright scheme lends itself to novels, theater, and film well. But it is harder to derive a "Framework" out of still art and music, so it is a bit flawed.
Perhaps another solution would be to expand fair rights use after a certain amount of time. The longer the work has existed, the more lenient the law gets with derivitive works, or something like that.
Not really. SCO's claims border on the slanderous. They've pretty much said that Linux is pirated software. If people were to take SCO's claim seriously, it could cause a LOT of harm to Linux vendors. If the claim isn't true, it is pretty much a slanderous statement.
This isn't "We think SCO's product is superior to Red Hat's." This isn't even, "Red Hat is an evil moneygrubbing corporation," which is an opinion. This is, "Linux is software that has been pirated from us!"
I'd argue that shorter copyright laws would likely cause the creation of more crap and not less in that companies would tend to pump out stuff that seems likely to earn a profit right now rather than in a couple years.
Which is different than now in WHAT way? Seems like this is what they do nowadays despite the fact that their copyrights will last for nearly a century!
No, I don't think many people on Slashdot agree that copyrights need to be repealed completely. While no doubt some do, that wouldn't work in today's world.
Copyright needs real reform, however. Film, music, and art has a significant impact on our culture, so much that these things become a PART of our culture in a very short time. This is why I have a problem with insanely long copyright terms.
The original term for copyright was fair. Let a piece of work remain copyrighted for 14 years, and then let it fall into the public domain so that society can utilize what has been added to its culture.
Elvis is dead. He had plenty of time to profit off of his works when he lived. His music has become a part of our culture and should belong to society, not some record company who will continue to take advantage of copyright extensions to charge for Elvis' music until the end of time.
Likewise, Hollywood has made a crapload of money off of its hits. Titanic, Jurassic Park, etc. all have made lots of money for studios. I doubt it would REALLY hurt Hollywood if Jurassic Park were to enter public domain in 2007.
Perhaps if the RIAA and MPAA knew they only had 14 years to make a profit off of a recording or film, these groups would focus on making quality material rather than being uncreative.
Check out the Mutopia Project for scores of classical music that are in the public domain.
I do agree that it is kind of wacky for prints of music to be copyrighted in the same way the music itself is, but it can't be helped with the screwed up system that is copyright unless we let congress know we wish for it to be reformed.
I took a physics course at UCSD in a similar vein. The mean wasn't quite as bad, though as 30-35% was the average on most quizzes. The professor often went out on tangents, etc. and deferred all questions to his T.A., who was just as disinterested in teaching a bunch of Freshmen and Sophomores.
I got a B in the class, something which was difficult to comprehend considering that I never got above a 50% on any of the tests.
Looking back, though, it just depends on the prof. I took other physics classes where the instructers were better, and not surprisingly the class averages were much higher.
I discovered that sometimes taking a class as quickly as I could or at a convenient time was not always the best solution if the professor was not considered to be good. Universities often put out ratings of their faculty and classes, and if you know where to look you can usually discover who is scheduled to teach what during a particular term far before registration time. Using this knowledge to get the profs regarded as being better can be helpful.
This is clearcut case of the boss abusing his position and company policy.
Most of the time prizes and gifts are appropriated by the company in accordance with company policy, but in most cases the prizes are raffled off among employees. This is fair when someone is given a prize that was based off of a group effort. Every employee / team member contributed, so everyone has a fair shot at reaping the prize reward.
When the boss enacts company policy, confiscates a prize, and then reallocates the prize to himself, that is just an example (IMO) of a greedy, bastard of a boss who wishes to only reap the benefits of the labor his employees put in.
Frankly, I'm surprised that this employee works so hard as to win the prize. The prize is supposed to motivate the salespeople, right? After the boss taking my cruise away from me, I'D probably never try quite that hard again, knowing that the shiny new beamer they are offering will just end up being driven by my boss rather than me.
I don't think this should be ENFORCED legally by anyone. That is just silly.
A site that presents visual content (art, comics, or whatever) can not be made "accessible," since the point of the page, looking at the visual content, is lost to those who can't see. Many of these sites could be considered "commercial," depending on where you draw the line. However, the last thing a page that presents visual contet needs is the government forcing them to waste time and money to make their page accessible to the blind.
These standards are good, but they should not be enforced by law.
I'm looking forward to XForms, personally. They will add a whole new level of control for data input over the web. I think XForms have quite a bit of potential, if browsers begin to implement them, that is.
This is a plain and simple reason. Even though you can get better results from some third party thermal solutions, it voids your warranty to implement them so they don't have to replace a processor that ate it if YOU screwed up.
If you follow AMD's recommendations for fans in your box, their included solution is typically sufficient.
What is the problem? The average person doesn't need to REMEMBER an IP address. DNS still works over IPv6. People who need to know the addresses themselves can invoke a highly technical practice known as "writing them down."
And BTW, IPv6 still uses numbers. They are just in hexadecimal.
The students probably don't have the money to pay off the RIAA... but the college certainly does. By enacting this policy, the college wants to separate itself from being liable. It wouldn't surprise me if the RIAA tried to find the "network providers" liable as well. In other words, suing the college for allowing P2P apps to be run on their network in the first place.
This kid should be milking this for all its worth, but either way...
Being put into a cameo role in Episode 3 would be the dream of any young Star Wars fan. IMO, this kid is a common portrait of a Star Wars fan, and it would be great to see something like that happen!
It'd also be a great way to "get back" at the guys who tried to make fun of him by putting his tape online.
Ruining his life? Only if he keeps treating this as a huge embarassment. People put far less entertaining things online featuring THEMSELVES regularly. He has the wrong attitude. He should have taken advantage of it.
First of all there was no damage.
I probably wouldn't even recognize the kid if he was walking down the street. I'd reckon that most internet users got their 30 second laugh about it and then forgot about it. Potential long term damage is next to nil.
Second of all, he has more to gain than lose out of it.
1. He got a friggin iPod for his stunts actually showing up online. I'm surprised the other kids at his school didn't start trying to copycat him.
2. He can milk his little appearance for all it is worth. He could train himself to be the next Chris Farley, and who knows? He might show up in Episode 3 (doubtful, but maybe it'll happen).
Problem, however, is that they are suing people for sharing as few as eight MP3s (at least from what I've seen). These people aren't the "pirates" who are really hurting their business.
This seems rather petty of them, don't you think? There are bigger fish to go after.
Why aren't they targeting professional bootlegers? The ones making fake CDs and then SELLING them.
The RIAA is trying to SCARE people out of using alternate distribution mediums. They are trying to scare people into believing that there will be cops at their door if they so much as log into a P2P network (for whatever reason).
Slashdot Mirror
Dear Target Market:
Thanks for your input, I am sorry that I have made fun, innovative games in the past that are enjoyable for gamers of all ages. I am also sorry our console has controllers that you don't need hands the size of Shaq's to hold.
Let me assure you that your letter has made me see the light. I am pleased to announce Super Mario Auto 128. In this game, Mario has returned to his roots in the Italian Mafia. Features of this game include committing mindless crimes, having sex with hookers, and then killing them.
I am also proud to announce that I've employed a new character design team to redesign all the female characters in Nintendo games. Let me assure you that they all now have a minimum bra size of 38F, and will soon be starring in Super Smash Sister Extreme Beach Volleyball.
And in coming months we'll be releasing Metroid XXX. Let's just say that Samus has gotten rid of her armor... and a bit more.
I'm sure you that you'll love these changes we're making at Nintendo. Thank you for your input.
S. Miyamoto
My memory isn't what it used to be, but I somehow recall playing FF10 on my Playstation 2.
But I understand what you mean. Miyamoto needs some real innovation. I have a great idea for the next Mario game. Mario should be able to pick up hookers, have sex with them, and then kill them to get his gold coins back. That'd sell a heck of a lot!
The thing about your examples is that they deliver something at a higher quality than the free alternative does.
With cable, people no longer had to fuss with "rabbit ears," and were delivered programming in a superior quality.
Bottled water is typically superior to the tap stuff, especially here in San Diego (I can't stand the tap water here).
For people to pay for web content, it has to somehow be superior to what they get for free. However, unlike the two above examples, to do this you have to make the free things artificially inferior.
What better way for someone to sell a product than to believe the lies about the product themselves?
Disappearance is result the execs of SCO want. Disappearance to some Carribean island after they bail their money out of SCO stock.
Another mature thing to do would be to ban knives, utensils, cars, cleaning chemicals, scissors, staplers, power tools, airplanes, etc. to preemptively avoid spreding those kind of things so that they don't fall into the hands of idiots.
Guess what? No matter how much you ban or censor, idiots are still going to find a way to kill themselves or others.
The federal government no longer believes in the "pesky" first ammendment any more. I'm surprised Ashcroft hasn't called for it to be repealed yet.
If SCO is going so far as to demand money from each and every Linux user, then they should at least be willing to take the steps to prove, in a court of law, that Linux has infringed on their IP.
SCO can't do that, of course. The only reason they've finally put up these lisencing fees is because Red Hat has forced them to do it. Red Hat's move has caused their stock price to take a beating, and they haven't got jack to counter the effect except for this.
I wouldn't be surprised if this action doesn't prompt a suit from every Linux distributor, however.
Didn't SCO's refusal to "put up" force them to simply abandon some of their European markets anyway? They've got jack, and they know it.
I thought about your post for a bit. Perhaps a more radical reform would be to split up the aspects of copyright into "Work as a Whole" and "Framework."
"Work as a Whole" is just what it sounds like, a verbatim copy of the work. "Framework" is certain aspects of that work, such as the setting and characters of a movie or novel.
Now, for the "Work as a Whole," the copyright lasts 14 years. If the author is still alive at the end of that period, they can apply for a single 14 year extension so long as they can prove that they just aren't sitting on the work and doing nothing with it.
After the end of this period, the "Work as a Whole" falls into public domain, allowing verbatim copies and certain types of derivitive works.
However, the author retains copyright on the "Framework" for a longer period. Let's just say life for now. For this time period, the author has sole use to the "Framework" and can use it to create a series based on the original work.
Upon death, the "Framework" also enters the public domain.
This copyright scheme lends itself to novels, theater, and film well. But it is harder to derive a "Framework" out of still art and music, so it is a bit flawed.
Perhaps another solution would be to expand fair rights use after a certain amount of time. The longer the work has existed, the more lenient the law gets with derivitive works, or something like that.
Not really. SCO's claims border on the slanderous. They've pretty much said that Linux is pirated software. If people were to take SCO's claim seriously, it could cause a LOT of harm to Linux vendors. If the claim isn't true, it is pretty much a slanderous statement.
This isn't "We think SCO's product is superior to Red Hat's." This isn't even, "Red Hat is an evil moneygrubbing corporation," which is an opinion. This is, "Linux is software that has been pirated from us!"
I'd argue that shorter copyright laws would likely cause the creation of more crap and not less in that companies would tend to pump out stuff that seems likely to earn a profit right now rather than in a couple years.
Which is different than now in WHAT way? Seems like this is what they do nowadays despite the fact that their copyrights will last for nearly a century!
No, I don't think many people on Slashdot agree that copyrights need to be repealed completely. While no doubt some do, that wouldn't work in today's world.
Copyright needs real reform, however. Film, music, and art has a significant impact on our culture, so much that these things become a PART of our culture in a very short time. This is why I have a problem with insanely long copyright terms.
The original term for copyright was fair. Let a piece of work remain copyrighted for 14 years, and then let it fall into the public domain so that society can utilize what has been added to its culture.
Elvis is dead. He had plenty of time to profit off of his works when he lived. His music has become a part of our culture and should belong to society, not some record company who will continue to take advantage of copyright extensions to charge for Elvis' music until the end of time.
Likewise, Hollywood has made a crapload of money off of its hits. Titanic, Jurassic Park, etc. all have made lots of money for studios. I doubt it would REALLY hurt Hollywood if Jurassic Park were to enter public domain in 2007.
Perhaps if the RIAA and MPAA knew they only had 14 years to make a profit off of a recording or film, these groups would focus on making quality material rather than being uncreative.
Check out the Mutopia Project for scores of classical music that are in the public domain.
I do agree that it is kind of wacky for prints of music to be copyrighted in the same way the music itself is, but it can't be helped with the screwed up system that is copyright unless we let congress know we wish for it to be reformed.
I took a physics course at UCSD in a similar vein. The mean wasn't quite as bad, though as 30-35% was the average on most quizzes. The professor often went out on tangents, etc. and deferred all questions to his T.A., who was just as disinterested in teaching a bunch of Freshmen and Sophomores.
I got a B in the class, something which was difficult to comprehend considering that I never got above a 50% on any of the tests.
Looking back, though, it just depends on the prof. I took other physics classes where the instructers were better, and not surprisingly the class averages were much higher.
I discovered that sometimes taking a class as quickly as I could or at a convenient time was not always the best solution if the professor was not considered to be good. Universities often put out ratings of their faculty and classes, and if you know where to look you can usually discover who is scheduled to teach what during a particular term far before registration time. Using this knowledge to get the profs regarded as being better can be helpful.
This is clearcut case of the boss abusing his position and company policy.
Most of the time prizes and gifts are appropriated by the company in accordance with company policy, but in most cases the prizes are raffled off among employees. This is fair when someone is given a prize that was based off of a group effort. Every employee / team member contributed, so everyone has a fair shot at reaping the prize reward.
When the boss enacts company policy, confiscates a prize, and then reallocates the prize to himself, that is just an example (IMO) of a greedy, bastard of a boss who wishes to only reap the benefits of the labor his employees put in.
Frankly, I'm surprised that this employee works so hard as to win the prize. The prize is supposed to motivate the salespeople, right? After the boss taking my cruise away from me, I'D probably never try quite that hard again, knowing that the shiny new beamer they are offering will just end up being driven by my boss rather than me.
I don't think this should be ENFORCED legally by anyone. That is just silly.
A site that presents visual content (art, comics, or whatever) can not be made "accessible," since the point of the page, looking at the visual content, is lost to those who can't see. Many of these sites could be considered "commercial," depending on where you draw the line. However, the last thing a page that presents visual contet needs is the government forcing them to waste time and money to make their page accessible to the blind.
These standards are good, but they should not be enforced by law.
I'm looking forward to XForms, personally. They will add a whole new level of control for data input over the web. I think XForms have quite a bit of potential, if browsers begin to implement them, that is.
This is a plain and simple reason. Even though you can get better results from some third party thermal solutions, it voids your warranty to implement them so they don't have to replace a processor that ate it if YOU screwed up.
If you follow AMD's recommendations for fans in your box, their included solution is typically sufficient.
What is the problem? The average person doesn't need to REMEMBER an IP address. DNS still works over IPv6. People who need to know the addresses themselves can invoke a highly technical practice known as "writing them down."
And BTW, IPv6 still uses numbers. They are just in hexadecimal.
The students probably don't have the money to pay off the RIAA... but the college certainly does. By enacting this policy, the college wants to separate itself from being liable. It wouldn't surprise me if the RIAA tried to find the "network providers" liable as well. In other words, suing the college for allowing P2P apps to be run on their network in the first place.
It isn't theft, it is copyright infringement. You are liable in a civil court. Until they turn it into a felony.
This kid should be milking this for all its worth, but either way...
Being put into a cameo role in Episode 3 would be the dream of any young Star Wars fan. IMO, this kid is a common portrait of a Star Wars fan, and it would be great to see something like that happen!
It'd also be a great way to "get back" at the guys who tried to make fun of him by putting his tape online.
SW Kid Rocks!
Ruining his life? Only if he keeps treating this as a huge embarassment. People put far less entertaining things online featuring THEMSELVES regularly. He has the wrong attitude. He should have taken advantage of it.
First of all there was no damage.
I probably wouldn't even recognize the kid if he was walking down the street. I'd reckon that most internet users got their 30 second laugh about it and then forgot about it. Potential long term damage is next to nil.
Second of all, he has more to gain than lose out of it.
1. He got a friggin iPod for his stunts actually showing up online. I'm surprised the other kids at his school didn't start trying to copycat him.
2. He can milk his little appearance for all it is worth. He could train himself to be the next Chris Farley, and who knows? He might show up in Episode 3 (doubtful, but maybe it'll happen).
Problem, however, is that they are suing people for sharing as few as eight MP3s (at least from what I've seen). These people aren't the "pirates" who are really hurting their business.
This seems rather petty of them, don't you think? There are bigger fish to go after.
Why aren't they targeting professional bootlegers? The ones making fake CDs and then SELLING them.
The RIAA is trying to SCARE people out of using alternate distribution mediums. They are trying to scare people into believing that there will be cops at their door if they so much as log into a P2P network (for whatever reason).
Even if there is no "conspiracy," I'm sure Billy and Co. are very happy to see such an assessment.