Dude, the law was on her side. Are you saying that if somebody goes to a lawyer when they've been legally wronged, that makes them an "entitlement whore?" Or do we have a tiny axe to grind here...?
But besides, let's use common sense. Is it really about trademarking every single thing, dotting every i and crossing every t and going deep into legalese, or else you deserve to get screwed? I hate that kind of thinking. In that world, my friend, who was trying to start a (very) small but totally legitimate business for herself with very little funding or experience, has no chance against predatory practices of these shady bastards, while only big companies who can spend millions trademarking their every fart can succeed. That world sucks.
You don't have to trademark every damn thing anyway. Has Steve Jobs trademarked his name? Well, probably, but even before he had, you couldn't go around saying you were him. Same principle. It's in the law, but it's also common sense.
Wow, i certainly got a lot of negative feedback, considering i was one of the few actually answering the O.P.'s plea-- and with a method that i've actually seen succeed. (Yeah I know, this is slashdot.)
But anyway, i'd say that yes, the cybersquatter blinked. And there were some other interesting and shady details. I went back to my original emails and found this, which they'd sent to the friend who lost her domain:
---
If another party
has already registered the domain name you
wanted, you may be interested in using
Afternic.com's Virtual Broker service. This
service allows you to make an unsolicited
offer on a registered or taken domain name.
Afternic.com is a leading domain resale
site and wholly owned subsidiary of
Register.com.
---
I love their ability to solicit an "unsolicited offer";)
Anyway, even without that, the bad faith in the whole thing is obvious. Either they bought it intending to illegally profit off of her established brand and falsely represent themselves as her, or they bought it in bad faith intending to ransom it to her. If it was usedcars.com it might be different but it was a very specific url, which it sounds like the O.P. had as well.
I think you missed the point. They obviously have no use for the domain name www.akikosmithbakery.com (not her real name or business) and so they were clearly squatting on it. There is indeed a law against cybersquatting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting) and while IANAL, in principle this is the kind of thing it should prevent.
Even from a non-legalistic point of view: everybody has occasionally made a mistake and not paid a bill on time. Whether it's due to an emergency situation, carelessness, or whatever doesn't really matter; a small mistake shouldn't invalidate all of the time and effort you put into your site, your brand, etc. These bottom-feeders who want to profit from this mistake are doing nothing of value, just messing up the system. i'm happy to see them lose.
So in this case, justice was done and the dickheads lost.
p.s. look at me me me me first, i'm entitled to everything! oops, did i just say that out loud?
A friend missed renewing her domain and it was snatched up instantly by a farmer who wanted her to make an offer to reclaim it. it was definitely a unique name that would be of no use to anyone who didn't have her (very unusual) name and her line of work.
A lawyer friend sent a letter to the new owner, basically saying the obvious: you have no use for this domain, and you need to give it back or we'll come after you.
The company returned the domain to her instantly, with apologies for their "mistake".
I'm sure the letter arriving on stationary from a huge, powerful international law firm didn't hurt.
Anyway, what they are doing is obviously cybersquatting, which is illegal. And if they're trying to make a quick buck here and there, they certainly can't afford to defend themselves against thousands of lawsuits.
yes, thank you, i was waiting for someone to point that out. it's just a press release, people.
Who knows why Leopard is delayed. But instead of having a press release that says "We're behind schedule" why not have a press release that says "Hey, look at this new shiny thing over here!"
I guess I am reminded just how obscure the Virtual On franchise was outside of Japan when it's not even mentioned in these lists... or anywhere else for that matter.
But it was an amazing and totally unique system. And it featured giant robots. For many years it was one of the most popular franchises in Japanese arcades and on consoles too. There was tons of swag, including toys, models, fan books and magazines, costumes, vending machine prizes, you name it.
The first game was so strange and ambitious, with it's 2nd person 3d gameplay. The strategy could get amazingly complex, as you and your opponent would try to feint the other into committing, then calculate the right angle to avoid their attack and counterattack without getting counter-counter attacked... but all super fast, and going from long-range shooting to close-up swordplay in a flash.
But the high point (to me) was the sequel, Virtual On : Oratorio Tangram (gotta love that name) which was a super-fast version of the original, but with amazing graphics, a dozen variant ways to fire each weapon, improved close-combat and an extreme freedom and fluidity to the control scheme.
And then, they made a wierdly ambitious but kind of lame 4-player sequel (Force) and then an incredibly lame console-only single player game (Marz) and now it's embarassing to even talk of this franchise.
I'd say both its success and downfall can be traced to its unique control scheme, which allowed for an unmatched (IMHO) control of movement in a true 3d way, but required twin tank-style joysticks to operate properly. thus all arcade machines were totally custom and an expensive peripheral was required to play at home.
The game also had an extremely steep learning curve.
Which is great, but I suspect that a few years down the line you will a Lancet study on a whole slew of Revolution related injuries - RSI, bruises and fractures etc. - caused by a system that requires someone to wave a controller around, possibly quite forcefully.
The controller will require you to use larger muscles and more muscle groups rather than smaller muscles individually. So in theory it should be much better than current controllers for RSI. There is pretty much nothing that could be worse than what we have now for causing RSI.
I can see one potential problem-- a given game could require lots of isolated wrist rotation. but unlike, say, using a screwdriver, it won't require the application of any force while doing the rotation. and if you're moving your whole arm while rotating, shouldn't be a big deal.
Of course the controller isn't measuring force, so you don't have to do anything forcefully.
And c'mon... if you are already preemptively worrying about it bumping into someone, or flying out of someone's hand and giving somebody else an owie... i'm sure your type can find a million other things to worry about until it's actually released.
Learning the violin is completely different from learning the guitar.
You need a teacher to learn the violin. I know this isn't a direct answer to the question about software, but since nobody else has mentioned it, I hope you know that you need a teacher to learn the violin. before i can talk about software, this must be said.
anyway, i don't know about specific software packages, but i use a midi sequencer to make some things that i practice along with... simple stuff like a 3-octave scale that i play along with in every key, or scales in broken 3rds. i change the tempo depending on what i want to focus on.
haha, you don't sound very convincing when you can't even get the name of the computer right. no, Austin, MiniMe is your other nemesis.
reset memory? what are you talking about? kill hung programs with opt-cmd-esc, not any harder than the Windows ctrl-alt-delete is it? and it shouldn't be needed very often. and when it is needed, it shouldn't affect anything else.
anyway, if you are actually for real and not just trolling, you should have your computer looked at. though first off i'd recommend starting from your install disk and running disk utility. all computers need this kind of thing periodically... not just Macs.
Isn't it more likely that Bill is on the phone to Steve, asking "hey, since your OS runs on Intel and actually works and, you know, actually exists... umm, mind if we put our name on it?"
no seriously (or as seriously as i can take this dumb article): why would Apple dump their great OS for one that may or may not be good... if it ever gets finished?
i don't want to pile on just because of this article, which is kind of sketchy. but the flood of bad news about Vista, combined with all the other already-existing bad stuff about MS, makes me think back on the days when words like "monopoly" and "anti-competitive" were thrown around. it makes me ponder what would be if this were a more normal market, not so distorted by one big company.
what if Microsoft had a dominant but reasonable share of the market, let's say 55% instead of 90%, with the rest being split between two or three viable competitors (i know some would say that the current competitors aren't "viable").
with all the problems and delays they've had, i think they'd be... well, not out of business, but probably reduced to the kind of niche that Apple curently occupies.
i'm not saying that Apple has the perfect solution either, but let's use them as an example: their next-gen OS is actually, literally, *years* ahead of Microsoft's. yes, years, which in software years, is like... umm, years and years! and i know MS has a harder job, in writing an OS that can work across so many platforms... but Apple has, in a much shorter time, written their next-gen OS to work on 3 different processors!
ok, i'm not trying to be an Apple fanboy-- rather i think that what they have done should be the norm, and more companies should and would be out there doing it if this was a more competitive marketplace. it's *software* for god's sake-- isn't this supposed to be the most fast-moving market of all?
i thought the same thing when hearing the crap about the bidding for the Halo movie: wtf? Halo, while fun to play, has a very flimsy story. but even worse for expansion into movie/novel/comic/whatever, is that the main character is one-dimensional... at best. he's got to be the least interesting character ever. basically no back story, no motivation, no personality, no vulnerability. i mean, he doesn't even really have a name! he's just a cyborg warrior who unceasingly is ready to fight and occasionally spits out a painfully dumb platitude. despite his technological advancement, he obviously lacks a cliche detector... his cheezy voice acting seems to be a synthesis of every war b-movie actor ever.
when i first heard that Halo was so amazing, i assumed it would have a deep, interesting story with an actualy human element, like most games do now. Halo is way behind the times in that regard. ever since at least Star Wars, mostt robots have had more personality that the Master Chief does.
the job of translating him into a movie or book or whatever is a writer's worst nightmare.
why do i keep this going? not quite sure but... i feel like i'm trying to be helpful, honestly.
where to start? Travoltus, you sure did indeed say you weren't condoning rape. but the next word was... "but". uh-oh, not a good start. so, earlier you said that women should quit whining about being hit on, and that men would love to be treated that way. implication: women should enjoy it instead of complaining. then something about prostitution, with similar implication. then comes the rape part, which you of course are not condoning, no no no, BUT if the tables were turned... well, all us dudes would sure love it, not like you whiny women... So you tell me, what is the obvious implication?
I don't think that "women should quit complaining about rape, and maybe even learn to enjoy it" is exactly what you meant to say. but it is, more or less, what you said.
anyway, you all should read what Anothy wrote if you aren't clear on the difference between actual rape and your fantasies of getting jumped by sex-starved women. what he described, the toilet plunger deal, is a better analogy to actual rape. so does that sound appealing or not?
i do hope you guys will keep up the ongoing discussion about whether or not the sex-starved alley women will be overweight. it's a subject that needs further exploration.
so to paraphrase: "whoa, waitaminnit dude! don't throw away this rapeville idea so fast! yeah, maybe a few would be 300lb heffers, but a couple of them might be HOT, and not even have syphilis or anything!"
so it seems in this thread we've found a group of guys who can't understand why women don't look at rape and think "hey, at least it's free sex!" and a second group who are starting to think seriously that this Rapeville concept, as posited by Travoltus, could be put into motion and might actually be their ticket to getting laid.
so i start wondering where all these people come from... then i think ok: i'm on slashdot... in the Games section... in a thread about D&D... in the depths of a sub-thread of a -1 Troll moderated post...
talk about walking down a dark alley... i'm starting to look over my shoulder...
I guess this is what i deserve... read a thread about D&D, and have to see shit like this... and it's been MODDED UP!
don't even know where to start with this post, except to say that your mythical fantasy Rapeville has creeped me out for the rest of the day. (Rapeville? Rapeopolis? GTA Rape City?)
anyway, your ridiculous arguments prove why "fear of women" is, in fact, an apt title for a movie about geekdom... and why "fear of men" is a sensible policy for everyone, especially women.
Am I the only one that is bugged by "Daylight Saving" on principle? I mean, if you don't like what time you it is when you wake up, you don't change your clock! IT'S A CLOCK for god's sake! it's an instrument of measurement, more or less. You don't adjust it to you, you adjust to it.
Otherwise, why stop at daylight saving? if we want to save even more money, maybe we should implement "sweat saving temperature" time in the summer, where we subtract 5 degrees from the temperature in order to cut our air con bills?
But seriously, why can't people and businesses just be more flexible about work hours? this could solve the same problems plus reduce rush hour congestion, which would save much more energy.
Slashdot Mirror
They're probably using a Dworak keyboard. (forgive any misspelling-- i'm using Qwerty, obviously)
Dude, the law was on her side. Are you saying that if somebody goes to a lawyer when they've been legally wronged, that makes them an "entitlement whore?" Or do we have a tiny axe to grind here...? But besides, let's use common sense. Is it really about trademarking every single thing, dotting every i and crossing every t and going deep into legalese, or else you deserve to get screwed? I hate that kind of thinking. In that world, my friend, who was trying to start a (very) small but totally legitimate business for herself with very little funding or experience, has no chance against predatory practices of these shady bastards, while only big companies who can spend millions trademarking their every fart can succeed. That world sucks. You don't have to trademark every damn thing anyway. Has Steve Jobs trademarked his name? Well, probably, but even before he had, you couldn't go around saying you were him. Same principle. It's in the law, but it's also common sense.
Wow, i certainly got a lot of negative feedback, considering i was one of the few actually answering the O.P.'s plea-- and with a method that i've actually seen succeed. (Yeah I know, this is slashdot.) But anyway, i'd say that yes, the cybersquatter blinked. And there were some other interesting and shady details. I went back to my original emails and found this, which they'd sent to the friend who lost her domain: --- If another party has already registered the domain name you wanted, you may be interested in using Afternic.com's Virtual Broker service. This service allows you to make an unsolicited offer on a registered or taken domain name. Afternic.com is a leading domain resale site and wholly owned subsidiary of Register.com. --- I love their ability to solicit an "unsolicited offer" ;)
Anyway, even without that, the bad faith in the whole thing is obvious. Either they bought it intending to illegally profit off of her established brand and falsely represent themselves as her, or they bought it in bad faith intending to ransom it to her. If it was usedcars.com it might be different but it was a very specific url, which it sounds like the O.P. had as well.
I think you missed the point. They obviously have no use for the domain name www.akikosmithbakery.com (not her real name or business) and so they were clearly squatting on it. There is indeed a law against cybersquatting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting) and while IANAL, in principle this is the kind of thing it should prevent. Even from a non-legalistic point of view: everybody has occasionally made a mistake and not paid a bill on time. Whether it's due to an emergency situation, carelessness, or whatever doesn't really matter; a small mistake shouldn't invalidate all of the time and effort you put into your site, your brand, etc. These bottom-feeders who want to profit from this mistake are doing nothing of value, just messing up the system. i'm happy to see them lose. So in this case, justice was done and the dickheads lost. p.s. look at me me me me first, i'm entitled to everything! oops, did i just say that out loud?
A friend missed renewing her domain and it was snatched up instantly by a farmer who wanted her to make an offer to reclaim it. it was definitely a unique name that would be of no use to anyone who didn't have her (very unusual) name and her line of work.
A lawyer friend sent a letter to the new owner, basically saying the obvious: you have no use for this domain, and you need to give it back or we'll come after you.
The company returned the domain to her instantly, with apologies for their "mistake".
I'm sure the letter arriving on stationary from a huge, powerful international law firm didn't hurt.
Anyway, what they are doing is obviously cybersquatting, which is illegal. And if they're trying to make a quick buck here and there, they certainly can't afford to defend themselves against thousands of lawsuits.
yes, thank you, i was waiting for someone to point that out. it's just a press release, people.
Who knows why Leopard is delayed. But instead of having a press release that says "We're behind schedule" why not have a press release that says "Hey, look at this new shiny thing over here!"
But it was an amazing and totally unique system. And it featured giant robots. For many years it was one of the most popular franchises in Japanese arcades and on consoles too. There was tons of swag, including toys, models, fan books and magazines, costumes, vending machine prizes, you name it.
The first game was so strange and ambitious, with it's 2nd person 3d gameplay. The strategy could get amazingly complex, as you and your opponent would try to feint the other into committing, then calculate the right angle to avoid their attack and counterattack without getting counter-counter attacked... but all super fast, and going from long-range shooting to close-up swordplay in a flash.
But the high point (to me) was the sequel, Virtual On : Oratorio Tangram (gotta love that name) which was a super-fast version of the original, but with amazing graphics, a dozen variant ways to fire each weapon, improved close-combat and an extreme freedom and fluidity to the control scheme.
And then, they made a wierdly ambitious but kind of lame 4-player sequel (Force) and then an incredibly lame console-only single player game (Marz) and now it's embarassing to even talk of this franchise.
I'd say both its success and downfall can be traced to its unique control scheme, which allowed for an unmatched (IMHO) control of movement in a true 3d way, but required twin tank-style joysticks to operate properly. thus all arcade machines were totally custom and an expensive peripheral was required to play at home.
The game also had an extremely steep learning curve.
The controller will require you to use larger muscles and more muscle groups rather than smaller muscles individually. So in theory it should be much better than current controllers for RSI. There is pretty much nothing that could be worse than what we have now for causing RSI.
I can see one potential problem-- a given game could require lots of isolated wrist rotation. but unlike, say, using a screwdriver, it won't require the application of any force while doing the rotation. and if you're moving your whole arm while rotating, shouldn't be a big deal.
Of course the controller isn't measuring force, so you don't have to do anything forcefully.
And c'mon... if you are already preemptively worrying about it bumping into someone, or flying out of someone's hand and giving somebody else an owie... i'm sure your type can find a million other things to worry about until it's actually released.
You need a teacher to learn the violin. I know this isn't a direct answer to the question about software, but since nobody else has mentioned it, I hope you know that you need a teacher to learn the violin. before i can talk about software, this must be said.
anyway, i don't know about specific software packages, but i use a midi sequencer to make some things that i practice along with... simple stuff like a 3-octave scale that i play along with in every key, or scales in broken 3rds. i change the tempo depending on what i want to focus on.
haha, you don't sound very convincing when you can't even get the name of the computer right. no, Austin, MiniMe is your other nemesis.
reset memory? what are you talking about? kill hung programs with opt-cmd-esc, not any harder than the Windows ctrl-alt-delete is it? and it shouldn't be needed very often. and when it is needed, it shouldn't affect anything else.
anyway, if you are actually for real and not just trolling, you should have your computer looked at. though first off i'd recommend starting from your install disk and running disk utility. all computers need this kind of thing periodically... not just Macs.
Isn't it more likely that Bill is on the phone to Steve, asking "hey, since your OS runs on Intel and actually works and, you know, actually exists... umm, mind if we put our name on it?" no seriously (or as seriously as i can take this dumb article): why would Apple dump their great OS for one that may or may not be good... if it ever gets finished?
what if Microsoft had a dominant but reasonable share of the market, let's say 55% instead of 90%, with the rest being split between two or three viable competitors (i know some would say that the current competitors aren't "viable").
with all the problems and delays they've had, i think they'd be... well, not out of business, but probably reduced to the kind of niche that Apple curently occupies.
i'm not saying that Apple has the perfect solution either, but let's use them as an example: their next-gen OS is actually, literally, *years* ahead of Microsoft's. yes, years, which in software years, is like... umm, years and years! and i know MS has a harder job, in writing an OS that can work across so many platforms... but Apple has, in a much shorter time, written their next-gen OS to work on 3 different processors!
ok, i'm not trying to be an Apple fanboy-- rather i think that what they have done should be the norm, and more companies should and would be out there doing it if this was a more competitive marketplace. it's *software* for god's sake-- isn't this supposed to be the most fast-moving market of all?
... my pornbot knows it when it sees it. (apologies to Potter Stewart)
i thought the same thing when hearing the crap about the bidding for the Halo movie: wtf? Halo, while fun to play, has a very flimsy story. but even worse for expansion into movie/novel/comic/whatever, is that the main character is one-dimensional... at best. he's got to be the least interesting character ever. basically no back story, no motivation, no personality, no vulnerability. i mean, he doesn't even really have a name! he's just a cyborg warrior who unceasingly is ready to fight and occasionally spits out a painfully dumb platitude. despite his technological advancement, he obviously lacks a cliche detector... his cheezy voice acting seems to be a synthesis of every war b-movie actor ever.
when i first heard that Halo was so amazing, i assumed it would have a deep, interesting story with an actualy human element, like most games do now. Halo is way behind the times in that regard. ever since at least Star Wars, mostt robots have had more personality that the Master Chief does.
the job of translating him into a movie or book or whatever is a writer's worst nightmare.
where to start? Travoltus, you sure did indeed say you weren't condoning rape. but the next word was... "but". uh-oh, not a good start. so, earlier you said that women should quit whining about being hit on, and that men would love to be treated that way. implication: women should enjoy it instead of complaining. then something about prostitution, with similar implication. then comes the rape part, which you of course are not condoning, no no no, BUT if the tables were turned... well, all us dudes would sure love it, not like you whiny women... So you tell me, what is the obvious implication?
I don't think that "women should quit complaining about rape, and maybe even learn to enjoy it" is exactly what you meant to say. but it is, more or less, what you said.
anyway, you all should read what Anothy wrote if you aren't clear on the difference between actual rape and your fantasies of getting jumped by sex-starved women. what he described, the toilet plunger deal, is a better analogy to actual rape. so does that sound appealing or not?
i do hope you guys will keep up the ongoing discussion about whether or not the sex-starved alley women will be overweight. it's a subject that needs further exploration.
so to paraphrase: "whoa, waitaminnit dude! don't throw away this rapeville idea so fast! yeah, maybe a few would be 300lb heffers, but a couple of them might be HOT, and not even have syphilis or anything!" so it seems in this thread we've found a group of guys who can't understand why women don't look at rape and think "hey, at least it's free sex!" and a second group who are starting to think seriously that this Rapeville concept, as posited by Travoltus, could be put into motion and might actually be their ticket to getting laid. so i start wondering where all these people come from... then i think ok: i'm on slashdot... in the Games section... in a thread about D&D... in the depths of a sub-thread of a -1 Troll moderated post... talk about walking down a dark alley... i'm starting to look over my shoulder...
I guess this is what i deserve... read a thread about D&D, and have to see shit like this... and it's been MODDED UP! don't even know where to start with this post, except to say that your mythical fantasy Rapeville has creeped me out for the rest of the day. (Rapeville? Rapeopolis? GTA Rape City?) anyway, your ridiculous arguments prove why "fear of women" is, in fact, an apt title for a movie about geekdom... and why "fear of men" is a sensible policy for everyone, especially women.
Am I the only one that is bugged by "Daylight Saving" on principle? I mean, if you don't like what time you it is when you wake up, you don't change your clock! IT'S A CLOCK for god's sake! it's an instrument of measurement, more or less. You don't adjust it to you, you adjust to it. Otherwise, why stop at daylight saving? if we want to save even more money, maybe we should implement "sweat saving temperature" time in the summer, where we subtract 5 degrees from the temperature in order to cut our air con bills? But seriously, why can't people and businesses just be more flexible about work hours? this could solve the same problems plus reduce rush hour congestion, which would save much more energy.