Here's one place where 'futuristic Sci-Fi' games have often had epic fail for me, in this area of suspension of disbelief: most game designs enforce restrictions on the players and enemies that make no sense. What I mean is that, too often, you get this advanced deep space culture who has certain technological limits which we have, *already*, today, overcome.
Take for example, Mass Effect by Bioware. Fun game, but - why I am always stuck using a slow tank to move around planets? Don't we have helicopter gunships (at least) or other types of small, fast, maneuverable *flying* weapons platforms in the future?
This next one is becoming, somewhat, a thing of the past (for example, Eve Online is a great example of how a way to do this right), but - how about a space game where you are given a complex star chart, and you have to manually figure out all the different 'connections' you need to get from system A to system K (because different star systems are connected together via some sort of vertex-edge graph system where you usually don't have direct paths between here and there)? You mean my ship's computer can't figure out the path for me, in 1/10th of a second?
Granted, if the computer does *too much*, automatically, it can tend to make the game boring, but if it does too little, then I feel like the game technology does not represent the technology level of *today*, let alone the *future*. How many MMOs have you played with craptastic auction house/player economy systems, so that it is artificially hard for buyers and sellers to find each other and have transactions? Or artificially small inventories which make crafting a p.i.t.a. because you need, say, 30 different raw materials, and 10 intermediate components crafted from the raw materials, in order to make a single final product, so your whole inventory is taken up with the stuff to make just one or two items?
So, have you considered doing one copyright registration per year, registering all your images at once as a collection, for $35 per year? Again, I don't know if that's possible, but if so, seems like the solution. I concede that if you have to pay for them individually, it's impossible for most artists to afford that, but surely anyone could afford a once per year $35 (or maybe twice per year for a total of $70)?
It really does provide you a certain wall of protection against. . . claims of the sort discussed in this article, by someone else trying to claim your copyrights.
While you don't have to register copyrights to *have* a copyright, there is a mechanism to register copyrights with the US Copyright Office (well, if you're in another country, this option would probably not be available to you, though I'm not sure). When you register the copyright, you upload a copy of the work that you are registering.
While it is possible for a copyright registration to be overturned by a court, if presented with solid evidence (as in the SCO vs. Novell case where The SCO Group tried to fraudulently register copyrights), my understanding is that the registration puts the proceedings in your favor - if you hold a registration, the court assumes you own it until proven otherwise - you don't have to prove that you own the copyright, the other party has to prove you do NOT own the copyright). The registration also increases the amount of damages you can get in a court action (I think you can get triple damages plus attorney's fees).
It does cost money to register copyrights though - I think it's $35 for online registration, so if an artist has hundreds of small items they wish to copyright, it could get expensive to register them all individually. It might, however, be possible to collectively register them (that is, to have 100 or 200 photos as part of a single copyright registration), but I'm not sure about that.
Outside of copyright registration, I think the way courts decide copyright ownership is based upon someone providing the earliest proof of publication (though I'm not sure - I am not a layer, this isn't legal advice, etc, etc). If you can prove that you had published the image on flickr or some other site at an earlier date than the other party can show proof of their publication, that might do it for you.
I really think, though, that more open source and creative commons software/content producers should register their copyrights. It really does provide you a certain wall of protection against
Other than, I'm not sure what you can do. Registration of your copyrights is probably the best way to give you a strong case though.
First, yes, I know people have posted that ATT has already retracted this particular TOS.
But, I have a more general question. When I sign a contract with any mobile company for service, shouldn't the TOS be fixed at that point? If ATT (or whoever the mobile co is) wants to require me to accept new TOS in the future, does that entitle me to get out of the contract without an early-termination fee?
Seems to me that a contract where one party can change the terms at any time and I must accept those terms without being able to terminate the contract, is a pretty darn aweful contract. So aweful, I would think it would be illegal?
. . . when some entreprenuer starts a mobile TCP/IP *only* mobile communications company. Honestly, the current mobile co.s have the most insane pricing structures based on this incredibly convoluted notion of artificially seperating and billing for different types of digital data. What utter rubbish. Voice, text messages, instant messages, email, pictures, or MP3s - it's all data.
Seems to me that all you need is TCP/IP with QoS/Traffic Shaping to make sure that voice calls get priority on your network. Then, simply sell people Megabytes instead of minutes, texts, and 'data'.
I for one would be happy to have an all tcp/ip cell phone using something like SIP for the voice portion of communications, and pay, I dunno, maybe something like $20/mo for 500MB, $30/mo for 1GB, $40/mo for 2GB, etc. (I'm not saying that would have to be the exact pricing structure - just giving an idea of what I might find reasonable, as a consumer).
Nice and simple, no need to complicate matters with all this artificial segregation of traffic.
I would imagine the police officers/agents would be immune, personally, but what about the police agency/city/county, or the FBI/US Government?
I mean, if it can be shown that they seized servers that were in no way related to the alleged crime (which is almost certain in this case), it seems to me that they have violated the 4th Ammendment with regards to the other companies computers (remember, if I colocate my computer at a data center, the computer and the data on it are still my property (except, well, to the extent that software/data is other people's property that I've licensed).
Seems to me like even if they have evidence of crime being conducted on specific servers at the Colo facility, that doesn't give them any constitutional right to grab all the servers.
I mean, imagine if you rented a storage unit at one of these large storage rental places with acres of units. So, someone is storing guns and drugs in one of the storage units - that doesn't give the ATF, DEA, or FBI the right to open and sieze the property in every single storage locker.
Put a small FAT partition on the device, put Windows driver installer on that partition, and setup an autoplay file, so that when a user sticks the device into the drive, it checks to see if the drivers are installed, and if not, displays a message to the user explaining that the device needs to install a driver to fully function. Would you like to install this driver now? [YES] [NO]
I don't see why that's such a problem? Ok, on 'locked down' systems, users won't be able to use the devices, unless the admin has already installed the driver, so it's not perfect. I suppose there is also a risk that in the future, Microsoft would add a driver as a Windows Update, or as part of a new version of Windows, which could result in a situation where a compatible driver is already installed, but because it's not the driver which the installer on the FAT partition is checking for, you end up installing two conflicting drivers for the filesystem.
But, it still seems like a way to help ease the transition.
One thought did occur to me, after my previous post - I have a hard time with the concept of charging them for posting their *own* pic. If they post a pic of any other kid, though, I suppose some sort of charges would be appropriate, and I can't think of what it would be other than child porn.
I tend to agree with you, but I think there is one flaw in your understanding. . . "If the file contains both the original uncompressed signal and the compressed signal, wouldn't it be larger than the original uncompressed signal by itself?"
The file does NOT contain the original uncompressed signal. The *lossless* version of the file is still compressed. Lossless compression is still compression - it is just compression which allows you to re-create the full original uncompressed PCM data when you uncompress it. Think, for example, of a zip file. A zip file is a form of lossless compression - when you uncompress a zip file, you get back the full original file contents, but when it is zipped, it does take up less space.
Still, I have to concur with the overall sentiment - why would I want to copy into my MP3 player any data which it can't play? (Maybe so I can copy it out to another computer to play the lossless version, maybe). I'd rather have two seperate files - one on my computer with the losslessly compressed version (e.g. Flac), and then the higher-compressed lossy format on my portable player, *without* the overhead of also storing the lossless version on the mp3 player.
I would like to see a smaller 'aerial/space fighter' type ship which can be launched from the main ship, a la the Mako, and some missions/maps which bring an element of an old school 'shoot-em-up' to the game. The mako missions, to some extent, did that a little bit, but I have an immersion problem with a deep future, high-tech game where any time you are on a planet, you are moving in a slow tank - that makes no sense most of the time; I can see that certain missions could require a tank (like a mission where you have to go into some sort of cave/tunnel system, or there are too many SAM turrets guarding an area so it would be suicide to fly through) - but the simple truth is that almost all of the maps in the original Mass Effect would have made sense to use a small fighter craft to fly to one of the bases, shoot the small number of rocket launchers with your air craft, then land (I'm assuming VTOL capabilities here - not unreasonable since we already have VTOL in real life) and enter the building.
But, as with you, I would also like to see your main ship actually become part of the gameplay as well. I was rather disappointed it never was. Would even be cool if the Mako, Fighter, and Main Ship were upgradeable over the course of the game (for example - the Mako had some vertical thrusters, but there were many times I wish it had some horizontal thrusters which would give you a small 'forward' boost (where 'forward' is the direction along the axis from the rear of the mako to the nose of the mako, so for example, if you are climbing a steep hill and the mako 'stalls' it's upward/forward motion, you could get a little boost to help you finish climbing; the downward boosters were almost useless most of the time because they would just launch you off of the mountain and you'd proceed to fall all the way down to the bottom).
The final few couple of things I would have liked to have changed in the game are, 1) inventory management: it would be nice if I could quickly find and turn all the true low-value junk into gel quickly; 2) Sell off all the medium-value stuff quickly without much hassle, and spend my inventory management time considering which higher-value stuff I want to keep, and which stuff I want to sell. Inventory management is the one thing that just *killed* my enjoyment of that game. I had fun, until I had to stop playing for 1/2 an hour at a time to deal with inventory.
The thing about software is, it's easier to replace than stories. I mean, Star Trek is Star Trek. You can certainly write other stories which *are not Star Trek*, but which are similar (space adventures). But then it's not Star Trek, and people will know it's not Star Trek.
On the other hand, you can often rip out code, completely replace it with something which is functionally equivalent (perhaps even improved) and completely compatible, without end users even even knowing it has happened.
I mean, look at GNU/Linux - it's *not* Unix, but for most purposes, it is functionally equivalent (and in many places improved), without violating the copyrights of the original Unix codebase.
I think this, to some degree, puts software developers in a less powerful position than other types of authors, because if Microsoft (or any other company) has sufficient incentive, they can simply replace your software with software that someone else ((probably them) owns the copyright to.
Given that, I don't know that software developers could ever get *quite* as powerful as other types of Authors' Guilds.
Ok, so what about people who really need to find those public buildings? Maybe I'm going to a friend's or relative's wedding in a town I'm not familiar with. . .
"Honey, let's see, it looks like from Google maps, we can get there by taking I-193 to the Goshen Ave exit. Go East about a mile, turn left at Washington Blvd, follow that North for 1/2 mile until you come to Elm St. Stay on Washington, but look for the third blur on the left after Elm."
I like it when companies pursuing litigation of this sort try to attack the largest companies first. Know why? Small companies will often have to settle because they can't afford to fight the suit. Once you sue the two largest vendors, suddenly there is a whole lot of money behind the defense. With Blizzard now part of the lawsuit, I suspect Worlds.com is gonna get beat down in the court room. Even if they are not, it won't be just because the defendents didn't have enough money to mount a defense. If they win, it is more likely that there was some kind of legal merit to their suit (not necessarily guaranteed, mind you, but at least the case should be rigorously challenged by decent defense lawyers).
Quite tellingly, do american scientists have a good knowledge of science as a whole, or do they limit themselves to trying to be leaders in
their own domain?
Please define what you mean by "good knowledge of science as a whole"? If you mean a pretty deep knowledge of every field of scientific inquiry, I think you might have an unreasonable expectation of the capacity of most human brains (I'm not saying there aren't some individuals that can manage it, but I'd think they'd be the exception, more than the rule). If on the other hand, you just mean knowing the very basics (the type of stuff you're expected to learn in science courses students would take in high school, or freshmen year at University - Biology, Geology, Chemistry, Physics, and a little bit of Astronomy), then I think I could agree with you. But should every scientist be expected to be pretty familiar with psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology, archeology, etc - which are also sciences?
There's only so much people can retain (particularly if they aren't working in a given discipline - it's one thing to learn something and pass an exam in an educational course - it's another thing to remember it 5 or 10 years later when you don't work in that field, and never have occasion to think about or use those things you learned in that course, ever again).
You might say this is an attack on one small company, not on Linux. Here's the thing. Microsoft doesn't have to go after every user of Linux. All they have to do is set a precendent that any embedded device manufacturer could be selectively sued by Microsoft at any time if they base their device on Linux, and Linux will immediately be under an embargo for use in embedded devices (at least, devices for sale in jurisdictions that recognize the validity of the patents which the lawsuit is based on). At that point, those companies will likely stop making or selling any more devices based on Linux, and begin using Windows CE, WindRiver, Symbian, Palm, etc.
Now, I want to add here that, just because some journalist says the alleged patent infringment is because of the use of Linux, doesn't necessarily mean that is the case, but if it is the case, and if those patents are held to be valid, then that single lawsuit against TomTom could destroy the Linux device marketplace.
"Would it fall through to glibc's malloc, which is known to be suboptimal. .."
Is anyone working on optimizing the glibc malloc()? I'm actually a little bit surprised - malloc has been in glibc, I would assume, since the very first versions of glibc, which would have been what, like 15 or 20 years ago?. I would have thought it would have been optimized a very long time ago, and continually improved over time. . .
First, I want to start by stating that I agree with the basic premise of the original Op-Ed piece that these comments are attached to - namely that there is no good reason why police/prosecutors shouldn't get a warrant or subpoena for this information - users should have a reasonable expectation of privacy when using the Internet.
That said, with regards to your questions about an IP address not proving that any particular person is responsible for traffic, while you are correct, it is still necessary for the police to be able to associate an IP address with a name and address, for investigation purposes - it's all about following the clues backwards to the source. Every IP address (well, most, if not all) is associated with some person or organization/company. By getting that information, it allows the police to keep tracking backwards, possibly getting closer to the source.
So, for example, if you are the account holder, and the police have evidence of some online crime which points to your IP address, while they cannot prove that you did the crime, it is reasonable for the police to get a warrant so that they can locate and question you (so, for example, they might be able to find out from you who else you have let use your computer or network, whether you have a wireless or wired network, if it is wireless - whether or not your network is protected with an encryption/authentication scheme), and so that they can do a forensic analysis of your computer equipment. Let's go with your idea that the Russian Mafia made your computer part of a botnet - in that case, the police analysts might be able to detect the presence of the botnet software on your computer, and verify that this is the case. Having made that analysis, perhaps the police work with you and your ISP to trace the control traffic for the botnet back further along the chain away from your computer. Or, maybe it is someone on your network - like say for example you are the Network Admin for a company, and one of the computers at your company is being used to distribute kiddie porn - the police can then try to investigate to find out whether the files were placed on the server by one of your employees, or if instead the computer was compromised by an external hacker or botnet.
My point is, that while the IP address alone isn't really proof of guilt that any particular person committed a crime, it *is* a very important clue, and from that, it is both reasonable and important for the police to be able to obtain, *with a warrant*, name, address, and telephone number for the person who is responsible for that account. Without that information, they would be virtually unable to investigate crimes back to the source (it is, of course, very difficult even with that info, but that info does give them a lead to follow).
Now, yes, some police investigators, and prosecutors, will probably try to incorrectly establish a prosecution based upon the idea that the crime evidence points to this IP address, so the account holder must be responsible. In those cases, the defense attorney should point out to the jury and/or judges the flaw in their reasoning, and get the case dismissed or a not guilty verdict. But, just because this could be mis-used, doesn't mean that police should not have access in the first place to this important evidence.
It's like fingerprints or DNA evidence - alone, they often don't prove guilt. For example, if someone steals your gun, knife, or whatever, and commits a crime with it, your fingerprints or DNA might be on the weapon, but that doesn't prove your are guilty. A good investigator/prosecutor will take that into account, and a good defense attorney will point that out in court, if necessary, but that doesn't mean that fingerprint and DNA evidence aren't useful, and aren't legitimate for the police to use. In this example, once the police have identified you as the weapon owner, they can contact you, and find out that the weapon was stolen, approximately when it was stolen, any information you might have about who stole the weapon, etc.
I think that a good argument might be able to be put forward by Amazon that the text-to-speech is an accessibility feature, and protected by the American's With Disabilities act. Not sure though - I'm definitely not a lawyer.
Other than that, maybe there is a fair use argument? I mean, if this legal theory stands, what is to prevent the Author's Guild from suing parents, school teachers or librarians who read a book, or an excerpt from a book, aloud to the kids? Presumably, most authors and publishers wouldn't do that, just to avoid negative publicity (because that would be very negative publicity), but it seems like the law would protect that sort of use explicitly?
Well, I realized a problem with my example shortly after posting it - I think birth certificates are not generally a matter of public record (at least in the US), so it would be hard for anyone other than the person themselves to verify their name by their birth certificate, but the basic principle still applies - there should be some sort of official public document which can be used as a 'primary source' by which someone's name can be verified.
It seems like, if you are going to do an encyclopedia article, the source for someone's full name would not be a news article (which is a 'secondary' source - that is, the journalist had to get that info from somewhere else), but you should instead source facts from 'primary' sources - like a birth certificate (or other similar 'official' document - I'm not sure if Germany has the concept of a birth certificate like we do in the USA). True, there could still be an error in the official document, but at least the official document gets you much 'closer' to proof. I mean, technically, even if there is an error in the birth certificate, until the error is corrected, that *is* the 'correct' legal name for the person.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's one place where 'futuristic Sci-Fi' games have often had epic fail for me, in this area of suspension of disbelief: most game designs enforce restrictions on the players and enemies that make no sense. What I mean is that, too often, you get this advanced deep space culture who has certain technological limits which we have, *already*, today, overcome.
Take for example, Mass Effect by Bioware. Fun game, but - why I am always stuck using a slow tank to move around planets? Don't we have helicopter gunships (at least) or other types of small, fast, maneuverable *flying* weapons platforms in the future?
This next one is becoming, somewhat, a thing of the past (for example, Eve Online is a great example of how a way to do this right), but - how about a space game where you are given a complex star chart, and you have to manually figure out all the different 'connections' you need to get from system A to system K (because different star systems are connected together via some sort of vertex-edge graph system where you usually don't have direct paths between here and there)? You mean my ship's computer can't figure out the path for me, in 1/10th of a second?
Granted, if the computer does *too much*, automatically, it can tend to make the game boring, but if it does too little, then I feel like the game technology does not represent the technology level of *today*, let alone the *future*. How many MMOs have you played with craptastic auction house/player economy systems, so that it is artificially hard for buyers and sellers to find each other and have transactions? Or artificially small inventories which make crafting a p.i.t.a. because you need, say, 30 different raw materials, and 10 intermediate components crafted from the raw materials, in order to make a single final product, so your whole inventory is taken up with the stuff to make just one or two items?
So, have you considered doing one copyright registration per year, registering all your images at once as a collection, for $35 per year? Again, I don't know if that's possible, but if so, seems like the solution. I concede that if you have to pay for them individually, it's impossible for most artists to afford that, but surely anyone could afford a once per year $35 (or maybe twice per year for a total of $70)?
It really does provide you a certain wall of protection against. . . claims of the sort discussed in this article, by someone else trying to claim your copyrights.
While you don't have to register copyrights to *have* a copyright, there is a mechanism to register copyrights with the US Copyright Office (well, if you're in another country, this option would probably not be available to you, though I'm not sure). When you register the copyright, you upload a copy of the work that you are registering.
While it is possible for a copyright registration to be overturned by a court, if presented with solid evidence (as in the SCO vs. Novell case where The SCO Group tried to fraudulently register copyrights), my understanding is that the registration puts the proceedings in your favor - if you hold a registration, the court assumes you own it until proven otherwise - you don't have to prove that you own the copyright, the other party has to prove you do NOT own the copyright). The registration also increases the amount of damages you can get in a court action (I think you can get triple damages plus attorney's fees).
It does cost money to register copyrights though - I think it's $35 for online registration, so if an artist has hundreds of small items they wish to copyright, it could get expensive to register them all individually. It might, however, be possible to collectively register them (that is, to have 100 or 200 photos as part of a single copyright registration), but I'm not sure about that.
Outside of copyright registration, I think the way courts decide copyright ownership is based upon someone providing the earliest proof of publication (though I'm not sure - I am not a layer, this isn't legal advice, etc, etc). If you can prove that you had published the image on flickr or some other site at an earlier date than the other party can show proof of their publication, that might do it for you.
I really think, though, that more open source and creative commons software/content producers should register their copyrights. It really does provide you a certain wall of protection against
Other than, I'm not sure what you can do. Registration of your copyrights is probably the best way to give you a strong case though.
First, yes, I know people have posted that ATT has already retracted this particular TOS.
But, I have a more general question. When I sign a contract with any mobile company for service, shouldn't the TOS be fixed at that point? If ATT (or whoever the mobile co is) wants to require me to accept new TOS in the future, does that entitle me to get out of the contract without an early-termination fee?
Seems to me that a contract where one party can change the terms at any time and I must accept those terms without being able to terminate the contract, is a pretty darn aweful contract. So aweful, I would think it would be illegal?
. . . when some entreprenuer starts a mobile TCP/IP *only* mobile communications company. Honestly, the current mobile co.s have the most insane pricing structures based on this incredibly convoluted notion of artificially seperating and billing for different types of digital data. What utter rubbish. Voice, text messages, instant messages, email, pictures, or MP3s - it's all data.
Seems to me that all you need is TCP/IP with QoS/Traffic Shaping to make sure that voice calls get priority on your network. Then, simply sell people Megabytes instead of minutes, texts, and 'data'.
I for one would be happy to have an all tcp/ip cell phone using something like SIP for the voice portion of communications, and pay, I dunno, maybe something like $20/mo for 500MB, $30/mo for 1GB, $40/mo for 2GB, etc. (I'm not saying that would have to be the exact pricing structure - just giving an idea of what I might find reasonable, as a consumer).
Nice and simple, no need to complicate matters with all this artificial segregation of traffic.
I would imagine the police officers/agents would be immune, personally, but what about the police agency/city/county, or the FBI/US Government?
I mean, if it can be shown that they seized servers that were in no way related to the alleged crime (which is almost certain in this case), it seems to me that they have violated the 4th Ammendment with regards to the other companies computers (remember, if I colocate my computer at a data center, the computer and the data on it are still my property (except, well, to the extent that software/data is other people's property that I've licensed).
Seems to me like even if they have evidence of crime being conducted on specific servers at the Colo facility, that doesn't give them any constitutional right to grab all the servers.
I mean, imagine if you rented a storage unit at one of these large storage rental places with acres of units. So, someone is storing guns and drugs in one of the storage units - that doesn't give the ATF, DEA, or FBI the right to open and sieze the property in every single storage locker.
This is totally bizarre.
We're talking about storage devices, right?
Put a small FAT partition on the device, put Windows driver installer on that partition, and setup an autoplay file, so that when a user sticks the device into the drive, it checks to see if the drivers are installed, and if not, displays a message to the user explaining that the device needs to install a driver to fully function. Would you like to install this driver now? [YES] [NO]
I don't see why that's such a problem? Ok, on 'locked down' systems, users won't be able to use the devices, unless the admin has already installed the driver, so it's not perfect. I suppose there is also a risk that in the future, Microsoft would add a driver as a Windows Update, or as part of a new version of Windows, which could result in a situation where a compatible driver is already installed, but because it's not the driver which the installer on the FAT partition is checking for, you end up installing two conflicting drivers for the filesystem.
But, it still seems like a way to help ease the transition.
One thought did occur to me, after my previous post - I have a hard time with the concept of charging them for posting their *own* pic. If they post a pic of any other kid, though, I suppose some sort of charges would be appropriate, and I can't think of what it would be other than child porn.
Charging teenagers who have sex with statutory rape, corruption of a minor, and other pedophile laws?
[there, fixed it for you]
I tend to agree with you, but I think there is one flaw in your understanding. . .
"If the file contains both the original uncompressed signal and the compressed signal, wouldn't it be larger than the original uncompressed signal by itself?"
The file does NOT contain the original uncompressed signal. The *lossless* version of the file is still compressed. Lossless compression is still compression - it is just compression which allows you to re-create the full original uncompressed PCM data when you uncompress it. Think, for example, of a zip file. A zip file is a form of lossless compression - when you uncompress a zip file, you get back the full original file contents, but when it is zipped, it does take up less space.
Still, I have to concur with the overall sentiment - why would I want to copy into my MP3 player any data which it can't play? (Maybe so I can copy it out to another computer to play the lossless version, maybe). I'd rather have two seperate files - one on my computer with the losslessly compressed version (e.g. Flac), and then the higher-compressed lossy format on my portable player, *without* the overhead of also storing the lossless version on the mp3 player.
I would like to see a smaller 'aerial/space fighter' type ship which can be launched from the main ship, a la the Mako, and some missions/maps which bring an element of an old school 'shoot-em-up' to the game. The mako missions, to some extent, did that a little bit, but I have an immersion problem with a deep future, high-tech game where any time you are on a planet, you are moving in a slow tank - that makes no sense most of the time; I can see that certain missions could require a tank (like a mission where you have to go into some sort of cave/tunnel system, or there are too many SAM turrets guarding an area so it would be suicide to fly through) - but the simple truth is that almost all of the maps in the original Mass Effect would have made sense to use a small fighter craft to fly to one of the bases, shoot the small number of rocket launchers with your air craft, then land (I'm assuming VTOL capabilities here - not unreasonable since we already have VTOL in real life) and enter the building.
But, as with you, I would also like to see your main ship actually become part of the gameplay as well. I was rather disappointed it never was. Would even be cool if the Mako, Fighter, and Main Ship were upgradeable over the course of the game (for example - the Mako had some vertical thrusters, but there were many times I wish it had some horizontal thrusters which would give you a small 'forward' boost (where 'forward' is the direction along the axis from the rear of the mako to the nose of the mako, so for example, if you are climbing a steep hill and the mako 'stalls' it's upward/forward motion, you could get a little boost to help you finish climbing; the downward boosters were almost useless most of the time because they would just launch you off of the mountain and you'd proceed to fall all the way down to the bottom).
The final few couple of things I would have liked to have changed in the game are, 1) inventory management: it would be nice if I could quickly find and turn all the true low-value junk into gel quickly; 2) Sell off all the medium-value stuff quickly without much hassle, and spend my inventory management time considering which higher-value stuff I want to keep, and which stuff I want to sell. Inventory management is the one thing that just *killed* my enjoyment of that game. I had fun, until I had to stop playing for 1/2 an hour at a time to deal with inventory.
The thing about software is, it's easier to replace than stories. I mean, Star Trek is Star Trek. You can certainly write other stories which *are not Star Trek*, but which are similar (space adventures). But then it's not Star Trek, and people will know it's not Star Trek.
On the other hand, you can often rip out code, completely replace it with something which is functionally equivalent (perhaps even improved) and completely compatible, without end users even even knowing it has happened.
I mean, look at GNU/Linux - it's *not* Unix, but for most purposes, it is functionally equivalent (and in many places improved), without violating the copyrights of the original Unix codebase.
I think this, to some degree, puts software developers in a less powerful position than other types of authors, because if Microsoft (or any other company) has sufficient incentive, they can simply replace your software with software that someone else ((probably them) owns the copyright to.
Given that, I don't know that software developers could ever get *quite* as powerful as other types of Authors' Guilds.
Ok, so what about people who really need to find those public buildings? Maybe I'm going to a friend's or relative's wedding in a town I'm not familiar with. . .
"Honey, let's see, it looks like from Google maps, we can get there by taking I-193 to the Goshen Ave exit. Go East about a mile, turn left at Washington Blvd, follow that North for 1/2 mile until you come to Elm St. Stay on Washington, but look for the third blur on the left after Elm."
I like it when companies pursuing litigation of this sort try to attack the largest companies first. Know why? Small companies will often have to settle because they can't afford to fight the suit. Once you sue the two largest vendors, suddenly there is a whole lot of money behind the defense. With Blizzard now part of the lawsuit, I suspect Worlds.com is gonna get beat down in the court room. Even if they are not, it won't be just because the defendents didn't have enough money to mount a defense. If they win, it is more likely that there was some kind of legal merit to their suit (not necessarily guaranteed, mind you, but at least the case should be rigorously challenged by decent defense lawyers).
Please define what you mean by "good knowledge of science as a whole"? If you mean a pretty deep knowledge of every field of scientific inquiry, I think you might have an unreasonable expectation of the capacity of most human brains (I'm not saying there aren't some individuals that can manage it, but I'd think they'd be the exception, more than the rule). If on the other hand, you just mean knowing the very basics (the type of stuff you're expected to learn in science courses students would take in high school, or freshmen year at University - Biology, Geology, Chemistry, Physics, and a little bit of Astronomy), then I think I could agree with you. But should every scientist be expected to be pretty familiar with psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology, archeology, etc - which are also sciences?
There's only so much people can retain (particularly if they aren't working in a given discipline - it's one thing to learn something and pass an exam in an educational course - it's another thing to remember it 5 or 10 years later when you don't work in that field, and never have occasion to think about or use those things you learned in that course, ever again).
"What's next? Somebody is going to patent wearing pants on your legs?"
Close. . . "Computer system with an open platform architecture designed for use while wearing pants on your legs". There, fixed it for you.
You might say this is an attack on one small company, not on Linux. Here's the thing. Microsoft doesn't have to go after every user of Linux. All they have to do is set a precendent that any embedded device manufacturer could be selectively sued by Microsoft at any time if they base their device on Linux, and Linux will immediately be under an embargo for use in embedded devices (at least, devices for sale in jurisdictions that recognize the validity of the patents which the lawsuit is based on). At that point, those companies will likely stop making or selling any more devices based on Linux, and begin using Windows CE, WindRiver, Symbian, Palm, etc.
Now, I want to add here that, just because some journalist says the alleged patent infringment is because of the use of Linux, doesn't necessarily mean that is the case, but if it is the case, and if those patents are held to be valid, then that single lawsuit against TomTom could destroy the Linux device marketplace.
. . . Or in some formulations, a spherical limitless energy source under our feet.
"Would it fall through to glibc's malloc, which is known to be suboptimal. . ."
Is anyone working on optimizing the glibc malloc()? I'm actually a little bit surprised - malloc has been in glibc, I would assume, since the very first versions of glibc, which would have been what, like 15 or 20 years ago?. I would have thought it would have been optimized a very long time ago, and continually improved over time. . .
First, I want to start by stating that I agree with the basic premise of the original Op-Ed piece that these comments are attached to - namely that there is no good reason why police/prosecutors shouldn't get a warrant or subpoena for this information - users should have a reasonable expectation of privacy when using the Internet.
That said, with regards to your questions about an IP address not proving that any particular person is responsible for traffic, while you are correct, it is still necessary for the police to be able to associate an IP address with a name and address, for investigation purposes - it's all about following the clues backwards to the source. Every IP address (well, most, if not all) is associated with some person or organization/company. By getting that information, it allows the police to keep tracking backwards, possibly getting closer to the source.
So, for example, if you are the account holder, and the police have evidence of some online crime which points to your IP address, while they cannot prove that you did the crime, it is reasonable for the police to get a warrant so that they can locate and question you (so, for example, they might be able to find out from you who else you have let use your computer or network, whether you have a wireless or wired network, if it is wireless - whether or not your network is protected with an encryption/authentication scheme), and so that they can do a forensic analysis of your computer equipment. Let's go with your idea that the Russian Mafia made your computer part of a botnet - in that case, the police analysts might be able to detect the presence of the botnet software on your computer, and verify that this is the case. Having made that analysis, perhaps the police work with you and your ISP to trace the control traffic for the botnet back further along the chain away from your computer. Or, maybe it is someone on your network - like say for example you are the Network Admin for a company, and one of the computers at your company is being used to distribute kiddie porn - the police can then try to investigate to find out whether the files were placed on the server by one of your employees, or if instead the computer was compromised by an external hacker or botnet.
My point is, that while the IP address alone isn't really proof of guilt that any particular person committed a crime, it *is* a very important clue, and from that, it is both reasonable and important for the police to be able to obtain, *with a warrant*, name, address, and telephone number for the person who is responsible for that account. Without that information, they would be virtually unable to investigate crimes back to the source (it is, of course, very difficult even with that info, but that info does give them a lead to follow).
Now, yes, some police investigators, and prosecutors, will probably try to incorrectly establish a prosecution based upon the idea that the crime evidence points to this IP address, so the account holder must be responsible. In those cases, the defense attorney should point out to the jury and/or judges the flaw in their reasoning, and get the case dismissed or a not guilty verdict. But, just because this could be mis-used, doesn't mean that police should not have access in the first place to this important evidence.
It's like fingerprints or DNA evidence - alone, they often don't prove guilt. For example, if someone steals your gun, knife, or whatever, and commits a crime with it, your fingerprints or DNA might be on the weapon, but that doesn't prove your are guilty. A good investigator/prosecutor will take that into account, and a good defense attorney will point that out in court, if necessary, but that doesn't mean that fingerprint and DNA evidence aren't useful, and aren't legitimate for the police to use. In this example, once the police have identified you as the weapon owner, they can contact you, and find out that the weapon was stolen, approximately when it was stolen, any information you might have about who stole the weapon, etc.
I think that a good argument might be able to be put forward by Amazon that the text-to-speech is an accessibility feature, and protected by the American's With Disabilities act. Not sure though - I'm definitely not a lawyer.
Other than that, maybe there is a fair use argument? I mean, if this legal theory stands, what is to prevent the Author's Guild from suing parents, school teachers or librarians who read a book, or an excerpt from a book, aloud to the kids? Presumably, most authors and publishers wouldn't do that, just to avoid negative publicity (because that would be very negative publicity), but it seems like the law would protect that sort of use explicitly?
Well, I realized a problem with my example shortly after posting it - I think birth certificates are not generally a matter of public record (at least in the US), so it would be hard for anyone other than the person themselves to verify their name by their birth certificate, but the basic principle still applies - there should be some sort of official public document which can be used as a 'primary source' by which someone's name can be verified.
It seems like, if you are going to do an encyclopedia article, the source for someone's full name would not be a news article (which is a 'secondary' source - that is, the journalist had to get that info from somewhere else), but you should instead source facts from 'primary' sources - like a birth certificate (or other similar 'official' document - I'm not sure if Germany has the concept of a birth certificate like we do in the USA). True, there could still be an error in the official document, but at least the official document gets you much 'closer' to proof. I mean, technically, even if there is an error in the birth certificate, until the error is corrected, that *is* the 'correct' legal name for the person.