I wasn't singling Bush out for being a republican, actually. He's just the man in the White House right now. I agree completely with you on what you said.
Bush would boldly ask for these powers, and claim that they are needed to fight terrorists.
A Democrat president would probably find a way to weasle these same powers in or ask for them with a different excuse. The end result is no different. I'm well aware that a lot of the stuff we're dealing with now was passed in Clinton's era.
Clinton just didn't have as convenient of an excuse as Bush (and probably future presidents). Unfortunately, The president can now ask for just about anything like this and say they need it to fight terrorists.
So I'm just stating that Bush will probably ask for similar powers sooner or later. It has nothing to do with his party.
But Poindexter, national security adviser in the Reagan administration, has said the government needs broad new powers to process, store and mine billions of electronic details of life in the United States.
I have no doubt that Bush will persuade congress to give federal departments these powers.
The right to free speech means that everyone has that right, no matter how outrageous what they say is. If you outlaw speech that most people don't agree with, there is a chance that your speech will be outlawed when most people don't agree with you.
If you give the government the ability to remove what they claim to be "hate speech" from the web, you will give the government a powerful tool that they can abuse.
For example, there are a lot of people who don't believe their countries should support Israel for a variety of reasons. Some of these groups might put up web pages that present evidence that Israel has been the perpetrator of war crimes. These web sites could be blocked. The government will say these web sites are anti-semetic, however the real reason it is blocked is because the government doesn't want the evidence to be seen.
Of course I know SOME Japanese. I usually am able to pick up quite a bit and can often tell when people are saying something quite different than what the subtitles say.
The reason I still use subtitles is that I don't know everything, and I especially have problems understanding dialects other than the "standard" language (such as the Kansai dialect).
The last time I talked with someone from ADV was in IRC. I asked him why ADV chose to do the overlays with Nadesico. Many people in the channel agreed that they damaged the visual appearance of the show. The ADV employee did not answer the question but rather decided to continue talking with the "fanboys" in the channel who kept saying, "It must be so cool to work for ADV!!!"
From that experience I gather that ADV doesn't care jack about supporting the more "hardcore" fans. They seem to only care care about prolonging the anime fad in the USA.
When this "anime fad" dies, the "hardcore" fan is all that ADV will have left.
In the old days of fansubbing (when people were still trading tapes), the fansubs often WERE better because they didn't go for high localization. High localization will tend to mangle a script. They also took their time with a series. It seems that timing and editing were both superior back then.
Nowadays the digisubbers seem to try to rush so they can get it out before the show is lisenced.
An example of localization messing up the script is as follows: In the first episode of Fruits Basket, Yuki tells Tohru (regarding the inclusion of the "cat" in the Chinese Zodiac legend) something along the lines of "there is no such thing as the juusanshi."
Funimation did not really translate this part very well in their DVD subtitles, because to do so they would have to explain that the Japanese call the Chinese Zodiac "juunishi" (12 Signs). If the cat were included it would become "juusanshi" (13 Signs) instead. But this explanation would be tough to localize. The best they could really do is have Yuki say, "There are only 12 signs in the Chinese Zodiac, not 13."
But they didn't even do that. They just have him say something along the lines of "There is no place for the cat in the Chinese Zodiac."
While what Yuki is trying to convey to Tohru is the same. However, this is a totally different way of saying it.
I believe the fansub I first saw had him say, "There is no such thing as the juuSANshi."
Of course, at the beginning there were cultural notes that explained all this.
Truthfully, nowadays there are tons of fansub groups doing digi-subs online. There are usually many groups doing the same series at once. Many of these groups are fairly crappy. But there are some good ones out there that I feel produce better subtitles than many commercial releases have.
The real message is not sent by voting "democrat" instead of "republican." Either of those votes is one that does not send a message.
Bush is getting away with whatever he wants. He was doing so before the election. He would have done so no matter how the election would have turned out.
The only reason the democrats showed an inkling of fighting Bush on Iraq is because they were trying to go for a power grab before the election, hoping that there would be enough people unsure about going to war with Iraq to swing votes their way. Of course, it seemed to have backfired on them.
The only real way to send a REAL message is to start seeing a third party, ANY third party, get 30+% of the votes in some major elections. The real message will be to voters that a 3rd. party candidate actually has a chance, and that you don't have to pick one of the two "republicrat" candidates.
Yay. Again, I don't want to sound like an elitist, but is ADV really who fans want doing this?
First of all, I can't even stand ADV's SUBTITLED anime. They managed to destroy Nadesico with their SUBTITLED version. Not an easy feat, but they managed to do it! I'd rather watch the show "raw" than watch their subtitled version, even though my Japanese skills aren't all that impressive compared to some of the other fans I watch with.
Naturally I have some questions about this network that ADV is putting together.
#1) Are they going to be showing ANY subtitled animation? The likely answer is "no," but there is a chance that they'll put some subtitled shows in the lineup at really late hours. Honestly, I will not watch this network AT ALL if there is no subtitled anime.
#2) Are other distributors going to be jumping on board? I sincerely hope so, because ADV is probably my LEAST favorite distributor out there. If Pioneer, Funimation, Viz, Anime Works, etc. got on board as well there would be more variety. ADV has the lisence to a lot of series, but I don't know if they can carry a whole network with what they have.
#3) Are they going to put NEW stuff on the air, or are they just going air to put shows that they've had available on video for years? Why would anyone tune in to anime they've already seen on video for years?
#4) Are they going to throw lame marathons of series at us? People have told me that Cartoon Network likes to do DBZ marathons or some such nonsense. That is a pretty sorry excuse for programming, IMO.
The solution to asteroid collisions was presented several years ago by Pinky and the Brain.
We just build another Earth out of paper mache and move to it before the asteroid hits.
Re:Something for you all.
on
Halloween VII
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· Score: 2
Well, it seems to make sense. I don't find this policy very surprising.
Obviously Microsoft doesn't want to:
(A) Get caught with existing GPL code in their products. This would be like them admitting GPL software is superior to what they can produce and would also get them in possible trouble for violating the GPL.
(B) Accidentally have any piece of their software fall under the GPL. Imagine something accidentally falling under the GPL that helps Linux developers more easily integrate features that MS wants to be "Windows only" into Linux apps (such as the ability to play Microsoft DRM enabled media files, for example).
(C) Have their employees contribute to open source projects on the side. If an employee puts one of their ideas into an OSS project, it will become hard for MS to later monopolize on that idea.
Let's see... lots of people have been laid off. Those who have found new jobs probably took substantial cuts in pay in the process. Some of these people still have not found new jobs.
Many of those who did not loose their jobs are saving money in case they DO lose their jobs.
Do people buy food and pay the rent or blow my cash on CDs? Hmnnn......
If you don't want to endure this in a few years in Europe, get on your politicians' cases now about how you don't want to see these BS laws make their way over to your part of the world. And be watchful of the proposed laws you see coming your way.
The DMCA was passed fairly silently here. Even most people who hate the thing now didn't know what it was until after it was too late.
I agree that fear is an important factor because too many people are terrified to click on some button on a computer because it might mess up or they don't really know what it will do.
That's true. Many people fear their computers. I get calls from my parents all the time. They often call me when they see common Windows error messages.
I think the irony of this is that there is really not very much to be scared of when it comes to a Macintosh. I'd wager that there is less to be "scared of" when using a Mac rather than a Windows based PC.
Of course, this sort of file copying utility might help a bit, but I don't think we need to see one for Linux. Linux is not the choice OS for people who are afraid of their machines.
What a surprise!! Microsoft gets a slap on the wrist, if THAT. This is the most pathetic excuse of a ruling I've seen. There are almost no harsh restrictions, and the agreement is designed to allow MS to worm their way to even following those.
I am referring the following text:
J. No provision of this Final Judgment shall: 1. Require Microsoft to document, disclose or license to third parties: (a) portions of APIs or Documentation or portions or layers of Communications Protocols the disclosure of which would compromise the security of a particular installation or group of installations of anti-piracy, anti-virus, software licensing, digital rights management, encryption or authentication systems, including without limitation, keys, authorization tokens or enforcement criteria; or (b) any API, interface or other information related to any Microsoft product if lawfully directed not to do so by a governmental agency of competent jurisdiction.
With Palladium being the next big thing from Microsoft, Bill and co. are going to be able to avoid the terms of the settlement for a great deal of key things that SHOULD follow under the settlement. MS can just say, "This stuff doesn't fall under the settlement because if it did it would compromise the "security" of Palladium."
I believe that the current Justice Department, under the leadership of Heir Ashcroft, put this part of the agreement in KNOWING that Microsoft would abuse it. The current administration obviously (for whatever reason) does not WANT Microsoft to be punished. They probably want MS to deploy Palladium without a hitch.
There is more than likely a behind the scenes deal going on between Ashcroft and Microsoft. In exchange for this settlement, MS will probably allow the government access to the data/control of Palladium so that they can "protect us from Terrorists" (read: control our PCs) and "investigate potential terrorists" (read: spy on everyday citizens, and people outside the US).
Just the thing to expect from Fuhrer Bush's administration, after all.
The only real punishment for Microsoft would have been a massive breakup (the breakup Judge Jackson proposed wouldn't have done the trick). OS goes to one company. Productivity software goes to one company. Internet software goes to one company. Games (including DirectX APIs) go to one company. The X-Box and other "home entertainment hardware" goes to an entirely different company. Other hardware (mice, keyboards) goes to another. And so forth. There would be tons of restrictions on each of these companies, and there would have been lots of government oversight related to interaction between these companies.
Of course, that's not what happened. Instead we have Microsoft as it always was, except now Palladium pretty much has the backing of the government. Nice.
Agreed. I love the GameBoy Advance because it has some sweet 2D games that are very similar to those of the Super NES. It is a shame that Nintendo did not add any sort of lighting to the thing. Oh well, I still love it.
Metroid Prime looks awesome, but a part of me would rather see something more along the lines of Super Metroid.
If you look at Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Capcom vs. SNK 2, you can see that Capcom did a great job of making 2D games that take advantage of 3D effects. The sprites were all 2D, but the backgrounds and special move effects were 3D.
Even Symphony of the Night (which was great because it was a Castlevania game that had lots of the elements that made Super Metroid great as well) used some 3D effects to complement the mostly 2D graphics.
Nintendo could make a totally awesome Metroid game using 2D Samus and enemy sprites. They could use 3D effects for the backgrounds and weapon effects.
Not to mention teachers who flat out suck and should be fired for that.
I had a Spanish teacher in High School who didn't teach jack. He would spend most of the class period asking the students "trivia" questions for extra points. Maybe once or twice a week we would crack open the Spanish book and attempt to learn something. There were hardly any homework assignments or tests at all in the class.
Yet, very few students complained because he gave almost everyone in the class a free grade of "A." The only students who complained were the one or two people who actually wanted to learn something.
When I privately asked an administrator if they knew what was happening in the class, they said they did. When I asked why they didn't fire the bum for not teaching what he was being paid to teach (or at least get on his case), they replied they couldn't because of some nonsense with the teacher's union and "tenure."
Seriously, it seems like something really warped is going on in schools, and I wouldn't put it past all the teacher's union "contributions" that are often made against the will of many teachers themselves to state and federal legislatures.
I should probably clarify this. I know many people with cell phones who have gotten complaints when they can't be reached from their employers. Even though these were not company cell phones for the most part, nor are the people being paid to be "on call" 24/7.
What is more, many people get complaints from their friends as well when they are not reachable. I've even gotten this from people in the past.
The fact is that it seems that many people falsely ASSUME that if you have a cellphone, it means that you're 100% willing to be contacted at any time, no matter where you are.
And then the boss complains that your cellphone is off when he tries to reach you on the weekends / your vacation / etc. I know plenty of people who have gotten yelled at for turning their cellphones off (no matter when they were turned off).
Here we have a potentially life-saving process. This is a process that could potentially save thousands of lives over the next few years. Unfortunately, this process is not accessible because some idiots in Utah claim they own the genes that need to be tested!
Another example of a US company forcing its bogus concepts of IP on people even though it does more harm than good, in another country, even.
Even though I'm not typically for more laws, in the US we really need some sort of law in place that states quite simply that: (1) Genes can not be patented. Put all genes in the public domain. (2) Companies that own the patents of processes that could potentially save lives in this manner should make them available at reasonable cost to people who need them rather than gouging the heck out of people.
Why is it likely we won't see this sort of law? Probably because congress is getting lined pockets from people who want to patent stuff that has been around since the dawn of humanity.
As for people outside of the United States, I urge you to voice to your governments that US patents like this should be ignored.
No need to get rid of it.
on
See Ya .su
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· Score: 2
Just stop registering new domains and let the old ones stay.
It is probably a lot less work for everyone involved, and will keep people with.su domains happy and online.
Another example of crappy talk-show sensationalism. Talk shows like Oprah tell the audience what they _want_ to hear.
A guy from MIT (I think it was MIT) who went on the new Donahue show to deliver his findings that violent games had little/no effect on most children was ridiculed on air by the audience. People in the audience yelled at him saying stuff like, "YOU try to raise kids then!" They said this crap not knowing that the guy from MIT DOES have kids.
Since they don't even know much about the sniper, on what basis was this "expert" making this claim? There is none. He is just telling the audience what they want to hear. The audience wants a simple solution why the sniper is doing what he's doing, how he learned to evade police, and they also want a scapegoat.
The expert says, "It was because of CounterStrike." Completely baseless, completely stupid, but it provides the audience with what they want.
In the audience's eyes:
CounterStrike makes the guy want to kill people.
CounterStrike provided the training necessary to handle a real-life sniper rifle properly, and also gave him the tactical ability to evade police.
CounterStrike and other violent video games are to blame entirely for these murders.
In reality:
The sniper is probably killing for an extremely complex reason, and probably justifies what he does in his own mind as being right through some warped logic. He probably has some severe mental problems, no matter the reason.
The sniper could have gotten gun training and so forth from a multitude of places. He might have trained in a militia. He might be an ex-member of the military. He might have trained with a terrorist group. He might just have a natural talent.
There is nobody to blame for this but the sniper himself. CounterStrike didn't "make him do it."
This is exactly the reason DVDs are going to kill Hollywood and destroy our economy!
You Linux hackers have long been known to be the allies of Russians who hack US computers (like that criminal Dmitri), and are already trying to help Osama Bin Laden cricumvent Palladium!
Now you post instructions on how to download criminal software and circumvent the FBI warnings and the ads that our economy depends on for revenue. Not only that, but you disable Macrovision so that you can flood the market with bootlegs!
I've long suspected you Linux people were communists, but you're also terrorists out to destroy our economy! Why would any American Citizen oppose region encoding unless they wanted to disable them to watch DVD-recorded instructions from Saddam Houssein himself!
You're probably also Nazis considering all that RTFM gibberish you spout out!
In the past I've had hard drives last 4+ years without any problem whatsoever. However, I've had TWO hard drive failures (on drives from two different manufacturers) this year, both on drives under 3 years old. When I bought these drives, I did not try to go for the "cheapest" by any means.
It is quite obvious that these drives are being manufactured cheaper than ever, and are more prone to failure than ever. Why else would this warranty be reduced. If you ask me, consumer grade drives are likely being manufactured to fail earlier so that people go out and buy new drives with more space on them than they need.
This is even better for the companies like Dell, Gateway, Compaq, etc. who many customers who will just buy whole new computers.
As many others have said, I'd rather see the manufacturers focus on consumer grade drives that are of higher quality rather than trying to push the size envelope. I certainly don't need a 120 GB hard drive. I had a hard time figuring out how I would fill my 60 GB drive. I usually burn large files that I don't need to CD-R after a while.
Joe User, who doesn't use his drive for anything other than storing word documents, certainly doesn't need larger drives. He also doesn't need to have his drive fail on him every 2 years.
Slashdot Mirror
I try every election, but the republicrats still seem to stay in power.
I wasn't singling Bush out for being a republican, actually. He's just the man in the White House right now. I agree completely with you on what you said.
Bush would boldly ask for these powers, and claim that they are needed to fight terrorists.
A Democrat president would probably find a way to weasle these same powers in or ask for them with a different excuse. The end result is no different.
I'm well aware that a lot of the stuff we're dealing with now was passed in Clinton's era.
Clinton just didn't have as convenient of an excuse as Bush (and probably future presidents). Unfortunately, The president can now ask for just about anything like this and say they need it to fight terrorists.
So I'm just stating that Bush will probably ask for similar powers sooner or later. It has nothing to do with his party.
But Poindexter, national security adviser in the Reagan administration, has said the government needs broad new powers to process, store and mine billions of electronic details of life in the United States.
I have no doubt that Bush will persuade congress to give federal departments these powers.
The right to free speech means that everyone has that right, no matter how outrageous what they say is. If you outlaw speech that most people don't agree with, there is a chance that your speech will be outlawed when most people don't agree with you.
If you give the government the ability to remove what they claim to be "hate speech" from the web, you will give the government a powerful tool that they can abuse.
For example, there are a lot of people who don't believe their countries should support Israel for a variety of reasons. Some of these groups might put up web pages that present evidence that Israel has been the perpetrator of war crimes. These web sites could be blocked. The government will say these web sites are anti-semetic, however the real reason it is blocked is because the government doesn't want the evidence to be seen.
Of course I know SOME Japanese. I usually am able to pick up quite a bit and can often tell when people are saying something quite different than what the subtitles say.
The reason I still use subtitles is that I don't know everything, and I especially have problems understanding dialects other than the "standard" language (such as the Kansai dialect).
The last time I talked with someone from ADV was in IRC. I asked him why ADV chose to do the overlays with Nadesico. Many people in the channel agreed that they damaged the visual appearance of the show. The ADV employee did not answer the question but rather decided to continue talking with the "fanboys" in the channel who kept saying, "It must be so cool to work for ADV!!!"
From that experience I gather that ADV doesn't care jack about supporting the more "hardcore" fans. They seem to only care care about prolonging the anime fad in the USA.
When this "anime fad" dies, the "hardcore" fan is all that ADV will have left.
In the old days of fansubbing (when people were still trading tapes), the fansubs often WERE better because they didn't go for high localization. High localization will tend to mangle a script. They also took their time with a series. It seems that timing and editing were both superior back then.
Nowadays the digisubbers seem to try to rush so they can get it out before the show is lisenced.
An example of localization messing up the script is as follows: In the first episode of Fruits Basket, Yuki tells Tohru (regarding the inclusion of the "cat" in the Chinese Zodiac legend) something along the lines of "there is no such thing as the juusanshi."
Funimation did not really translate this part very well in their DVD subtitles, because to do so they would have to explain that the Japanese call the Chinese Zodiac "juunishi" (12 Signs). If the cat were included it would become "juusanshi" (13 Signs) instead. But this explanation would be tough to localize. The best they could really do is have Yuki say, "There are only 12 signs in the Chinese Zodiac, not 13."
But they didn't even do that. They just have him say something along the lines of "There is no place for the cat in the Chinese Zodiac."
While what Yuki is trying to convey to Tohru is the same. However, this is a totally different way of saying it.
I believe the fansub I first saw had him say, "There is no such thing as the juuSANshi."
Of course, at the beginning there were cultural notes that explained all this.
Truthfully, nowadays there are tons of fansub groups doing digi-subs online. There are usually many groups doing the same series at once. Many of these groups are fairly crappy. But there are some good ones out there that I feel produce better subtitles than many commercial releases have.
The real message is not sent by voting "democrat" instead of "republican." Either of those votes is one that does not send a message.
Bush is getting away with whatever he wants. He was doing so before the election. He would have done so no matter how the election would have turned out.
The only reason the democrats showed an inkling of fighting Bush on Iraq is because they were trying to go for a power grab before the election, hoping that there would be enough people unsure about going to war with Iraq to swing votes their way. Of course, it seemed to have backfired on them.
The only real way to send a REAL message is to start seeing a third party, ANY third party, get 30+% of the votes in some major elections. The real message will be to voters that a 3rd. party candidate actually has a chance, and that you don't have to pick one of the two "republicrat" candidates.
Yay. Again, I don't want to sound like an elitist, but is ADV really who fans want doing this?
First of all, I can't even stand ADV's SUBTITLED anime. They managed to destroy Nadesico with their SUBTITLED version. Not an easy feat, but they managed to do it! I'd rather watch the show
"raw" than watch their subtitled version, even
though my Japanese skills aren't all that impressive compared to some of the other fans I watch with.
Naturally I have some questions about this network that ADV is putting together.
#1) Are they going to be showing ANY subtitled animation? The likely answer is "no," but there is a chance that they'll put some subtitled shows in the lineup at really late hours. Honestly, I will not watch this network AT ALL if there is no subtitled anime.
#2) Are other distributors going to be jumping on board? I sincerely hope so, because ADV is probably my LEAST favorite distributor out there.
If Pioneer, Funimation, Viz, Anime Works, etc. got on board as well there would be more variety.
ADV has the lisence to a lot of series, but I don't know if they can carry a whole network with what they have.
#3) Are they going to put NEW stuff on the air, or are they just going air to put shows that they've had available on video for years? Why would anyone tune in to anime they've already seen on video for years?
#4) Are they going to throw lame marathons of series at us? People have told me that Cartoon Network likes to do DBZ marathons or some such nonsense. That is a pretty sorry excuse for programming, IMO.
The solution to asteroid collisions was presented several years ago by Pinky and the Brain.
We just build another Earth out of paper mache and move to it before the asteroid hits.
Well, it seems to make sense. I don't find this policy very surprising.
:
Obviously Microsoft doesn't want to
(A) Get caught with existing GPL code in their products. This would be like them admitting GPL software is superior to what they can produce and would also get them in possible trouble for violating the GPL.
(B) Accidentally have any piece of their software fall under the GPL. Imagine something accidentally falling under the GPL that helps Linux developers more easily integrate features that MS wants to be "Windows only" into Linux apps (such as the ability to play Microsoft DRM enabled media files, for example).
(C) Have their employees contribute to open source projects on the side. If an employee puts one of their ideas into an OSS project, it will become hard for MS to later monopolize on that idea.
Let's see... lots of people have been laid off. Those who have found new jobs probably took substantial cuts in pay in the process. Some of these people still have not found new jobs.
Many of those who did not loose their jobs are saving money in case they DO lose their jobs.
Do people buy food and pay the rent or blow my cash on CDs? Hmnnn......
If you don't want to endure this in a few years in Europe, get on your politicians' cases now about how you don't want to see these BS laws make their way over to your part of the world. And be watchful of the proposed laws you see coming your way.
The DMCA was passed fairly silently here. Even most people who hate the thing now didn't know what it was until after it was too late.
I agree that fear is an important factor because too many people are terrified to click on some button on a computer because it might mess up or they don't really know what it will do.
That's true. Many people fear their computers.
I get calls from my parents all the time. They often call me when they see common Windows error messages.
I think the irony of this is that there is really not very much to be scared of when it comes to a Macintosh. I'd wager that there is less to be "scared of" when using a Mac rather than a Windows based PC.
Of course, this sort of file copying utility might help a bit, but I don't think we need to see one for Linux. Linux is not the choice OS for people who are afraid of their machines.
Yes, this is the real deal. He's been posting on Slashdot for quite a while.
What a surprise!! Microsoft gets a slap on the wrist, if THAT. This is the most pathetic
excuse of a ruling I've seen. There are almost
no harsh restrictions, and the agreement is
designed to allow MS to worm their way to even
following those.
I am referring the following text:
J. No provision of this Final Judgment shall:
1. Require Microsoft to document, disclose or license to third parties:
(a) portions of APIs or Documentation or portions or layers of Communications Protocols the disclosure of which would compromise the security of a particular installation or group of installations of anti-piracy, anti-virus, software licensing, digital rights management, encryption or authentication systems, including without limitation, keys, authorization tokens or enforcement criteria; or
(b) any API, interface or other information related to any Microsoft product if lawfully directed not to do so by a governmental agency of competent jurisdiction.
With Palladium being the next big thing from Microsoft, Bill and co. are going to be able to avoid the terms of the settlement for a great deal of key things that SHOULD follow under the settlement. MS can just say, "This stuff doesn't fall under the settlement because if it did it
would compromise the "security" of Palladium."
I believe that the current Justice Department, under the leadership of Heir Ashcroft, put this part of the agreement in KNOWING that Microsoft would abuse it. The current administration
obviously (for whatever reason) does not WANT
Microsoft to be punished. They probably want MS to deploy Palladium without a hitch.
There is more than likely a behind the scenes deal going on between Ashcroft and Microsoft. In
exchange for this settlement, MS will probably
allow the government access to the data/control
of Palladium so that they can "protect us from
Terrorists" (read: control our PCs) and
"investigate potential terrorists" (read: spy on everyday citizens, and people outside the US).
Just the thing to expect from Fuhrer Bush's administration, after all.
The only real punishment for Microsoft would have been a massive breakup (the breakup Judge Jackson proposed wouldn't have done the trick). OS goes to one company. Productivity software goes to one company. Internet software goes to one company. Games (including DirectX APIs) go to one company.
The X-Box and other "home entertainment hardware" goes to an entirely different company. Other hardware (mice, keyboards) goes to another.
And so forth. There would be tons of restrictions on each of these companies, and there would have been lots of government oversight related to interaction between these companies.
Of course, that's not what happened. Instead we have Microsoft as it always was, except now Palladium pretty much has the backing of the government. Nice.
Agreed. I love the GameBoy Advance because it has some sweet 2D games that are very similar to those of the Super NES. It is a shame that Nintendo did not add any sort of lighting to the thing. Oh well, I still love it.
Metroid Prime looks awesome, but a part of me would rather see something more along the lines of Super Metroid.
If you look at Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Capcom vs. SNK 2, you can see that Capcom did a great job of making 2D games that take advantage of 3D effects. The sprites were all 2D, but the backgrounds and special move effects were 3D.
Even Symphony of the Night (which was great because it was a Castlevania game that had lots
of the elements that made Super Metroid great as well) used some 3D effects to complement the mostly 2D graphics.
Nintendo could make a totally awesome Metroid game using 2D Samus and enemy sprites. They could use 3D effects for the backgrounds and weapon effects.
Not to mention teachers who flat out suck and should be fired for that.
I had a Spanish teacher in High School who didn't teach jack. He would spend most of the class period asking the students "trivia" questions for extra points. Maybe once or twice a week we would crack open the Spanish book and attempt to learn something. There were hardly any homework assignments or tests at all in the class.
Yet, very few students complained because he gave almost everyone in the class a free grade of "A." The only students who complained were the one or two people who actually wanted to learn something.
When I privately asked an administrator if they knew what was happening in the class, they said they did. When I asked why they didn't fire the bum for not teaching what he was being paid to teach (or at least get on his case), they replied they couldn't because of some nonsense with the teacher's union and "tenure."
Seriously, it seems like something really warped is going on in schools, and I wouldn't put it past all the teacher's union "contributions" that are often made against the will of many teachers themselves to state and federal legislatures.
I should probably clarify this. I know many people with cell phones who have gotten complaints when they can't be reached from their employers. Even though these were not company cell phones for the most part, nor are the people being paid to be "on call" 24/7.
What is more, many people get complaints from their friends as well when they are not reachable.
I've even gotten this from people in the past.
The fact is that it seems that many people falsely ASSUME that if you have a cellphone, it means that you're 100% willing to be contacted at any time, no matter where you are.
Yeah, they do.
And then the boss complains that your cellphone is off when he tries to reach you on the weekends / your vacation / etc. I know plenty of people who have gotten yelled at for turning their cellphones off (no matter when they were turned off).
Here we have a potentially life-saving process. This is a process that could potentially save thousands of lives over the next few years. Unfortunately, this process is not accessible because some idiots in Utah claim they own the genes that need to be tested!
Another example of a US company forcing its bogus concepts of IP on people even though it does more harm than good, in another country, even.
Even though I'm not typically for more laws, in the US we really need some sort of law in place that states quite simply that: (1) Genes can not be patented. Put all genes in the public domain. (2) Companies that own the patents of processes that could potentially save lives in this manner should make them available at reasonable cost to people who need them rather than gouging the heck out of people.
Why is it likely we won't see this sort of law? Probably because congress is getting lined pockets from people who want to patent stuff that has been around since the dawn of humanity.
As for people outside of the United States, I urge you to voice to your governments that US patents like this should be ignored.
Just stop registering new domains and let the old ones stay.
.su domains happy and online.
It is probably a lot less work for everyone involved, and will keep people with
Buy some of those CDs of signed (RIAA Controlled) musicians. Most of them suck.
Another example of crappy talk-show sensationalism.
Talk shows like Oprah tell the audience what they _want_ to hear.
A guy from MIT (I think it was MIT) who went on the new Donahue show to deliver his findings that violent games had little/no effect on most children was ridiculed on air by the audience. People in the audience yelled at him saying stuff like, "YOU try to raise kids then!" They said this crap not knowing that the guy from MIT DOES have kids.
Since they don't even know much about the sniper, on what basis was this "expert" making this claim?
There is none. He is just telling the audience what they want to hear. The audience wants a simple solution why the sniper is doing what he's doing, how he learned to evade police, and they also want a scapegoat.
The expert says, "It was because of CounterStrike."
Completely baseless, completely stupid, but it provides the audience with what they want.
In the audience's eyes:
CounterStrike makes the guy want to kill people.
CounterStrike provided the training necessary to handle a real-life sniper rifle properly, and also
gave him the tactical ability to evade police.
CounterStrike and other violent video games are
to blame entirely for these murders.
In reality:
The sniper is probably killing for an extremely complex reason, and probably justifies what he does in his own mind as being right through some warped logic. He probably has some severe mental problems, no matter the reason.
The sniper could have gotten gun training and so
forth from a multitude of places. He might have trained in a militia. He might be an ex-member of
the military. He might have trained with a terrorist group. He might just have a natural talent.
There is nobody to blame for this but the sniper himself. CounterStrike didn't "make him do it."
Note: This is a joke.
This is exactly the reason DVDs are going to kill Hollywood and destroy our economy!
You Linux hackers have long been known to be the allies of Russians who hack US computers (like that criminal Dmitri), and are already trying to help Osama Bin Laden cricumvent Palladium!
Now you post instructions on how to download criminal software and circumvent the FBI warnings and the ads that our economy depends on for revenue. Not only that, but you disable Macrovision so that you can flood the market with bootlegs!
I've long suspected you Linux people were communists, but you're also terrorists out to destroy our economy! Why would any American Citizen oppose region encoding unless they wanted to disable them to watch DVD-recorded instructions from Saddam Houssein himself!
You're probably also Nazis considering all that RTFM gibberish you spout out!
Note: This has been a joke.
In the past I've had hard drives last 4+ years without any problem whatsoever. However, I've had TWO hard drive failures (on drives from two different manufacturers) this year, both on drives under 3 years old. When I bought these drives, I did not try to go for the "cheapest" by any means.
It is quite obvious that these drives are being manufactured cheaper than ever, and are more prone to failure than ever. Why else would this warranty be reduced. If you ask me, consumer grade drives are likely being manufactured to fail earlier so that people go out and buy new drives with more space on them than they need.
This is even better for the companies like Dell, Gateway, Compaq, etc. who many customers who will just buy whole new computers.
As many others have said, I'd rather see the manufacturers focus on consumer grade drives that are of higher quality rather than trying to push the size envelope. I certainly don't need a 120 GB hard drive. I had a hard time figuring out how I would fill my 60 GB drive. I usually burn large files that I don't need to CD-R after a while.
Joe User, who doesn't use his drive for anything other than storing word documents, certainly doesn't need larger drives. He also doesn't need to have his drive fail on him every 2 years.