Canada might have a low population density overall, but that's because there are vast vast areas of sparse population. Most of their population is much more concentrated than America. It is significantly harder to provide all the infrastructure necessary for broadband in America than in most other countries.
Not enough people know what latency and QoS are for the telcos to care. It's the same reason Intel did nothing but pump clock speeds for years. People hear "WE HAVE MORE MBS! WE'RE BETTER!" and get suckered in. They don't understand that more bandwidth won't help them as much as they think it will. I'd trade half my bandwidth on my home RoadRunner connection if I could actually get under a 100 ms latency in online games. I'm sure people who use VoIP have similar problems with their latency and QoS. But because the vast majority of people using broadband don't understand or care about anything but their provider screaming "WE HAVE MORE BANDWIDTH!!!" the providers don't give a rat's ass.
Until the organized crime gangs start hiring 14-16 year old kids under the table to front their illegal operations. The kiddies get to have fun and get a small cut of the profits with minimal risk and the gangs get most of the profits but with much fewer risks.
You're arguing a point that I'm not arguing. If you want to argue that invading Iraq did nothing to help prevent things like this fine. I've only been arguing against the claims that this incident happened because we invaded Iraq.
Never said it made terrorism less likely to happen. But the fact is that people wanted to kill us before Iraq and that hasn't changed anything. You can't pin the blame for this attack on the invasion of Iraq. They would have wanted to, and did, kill westerners anyway.
Al Qaida existed before the invasion of Iraq. They exist after the invasion. And they will continue to exist for quite some time. They hated us before we invaded Iraq. Regardless of whether or not we had invaded Iraq they would still want to kill us all. You can claim Bush was wrong for going into Iraq all you want (and I'm not saying I disagree with you), but you cannot blame this specific instance on the fact that the US invaded Iraq.
Err...I think the trashing probably has more to do with the fact that the "article" is just a bunch of pretty pictures without any information whatsoever. There doesn't seem to be any point other than "ooh, lookie the screenshots. Sure, they're screen caps of cutscenes, not actual game play, so they don't mean jack shit. But they're pretty."
Re:Licensing Fee? What's That?
on
DECnet Isn't Dead
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Haven't you been contacted by Nigeria-Soft yet? They kindly sent me an e-mail informing me that I was using TCP/IP unlawfully! I was shocked! Thankfully I was checking my spam folder because this was one message that I definitely didn't to miss because Yahoo was stupid and flagged it as spam. I'm sure you want to avoid using their protocol illegally just as much as I do. You can send your liscencing fee of $1000 to them at 84 Goat Herd Rd, Ngeria. Sure it's a little expensive, but you don't want to be stealing their protocol from them, do you?
I realize that the parent is off-topic, but regardless how can you mod that down? It was a perfect counter-troll. Executed to perfection. If I only had mod points I would correct this injustice!
CyricZ, I salute you. You have earned a +5 Counter-Troll modding IMO.
I don't know if you've played many MMORPGs, but a lot of people measure their penis size based on their success in a game. It doesn't matter how they got to where they are as long as they're better than everyone else. And if they're not better than everyone else they'll pay to be.
I know it sounds silly, but people do take these games way too seriously. You would not believe how many people will feel better in real life after they've had the chance to "own some noobs" in game. I played Shadowbane for a long time. SB features completely open PvP (except for three safehold cities and the noob island) and as such it attracted a ton of people whose sole goal was to grief the hell out of other players. They so thoroughly enjoy the feeling they get from killing other players and so hate the feeling when they lose that they're willing to pay ridiculous amounts of real money in order to have better characters and better gear. All so they can feel better about themselves in real life.
It may not be a "software patent" but it's still a retarded example of how broken the American patent system is. You can now file patents on vague and open ended concepts rather than specific inventions and then sue people because they created a device that does something similar.
Oh, it'll make it past all the fluff stories. Unfortunately it'll be in the form of EU PARLIAMENT VOTE FORCE CORPORATIONS TO TURN TO INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIES FOR PROTECTION or EUROPEAN COMPANIES FREE TO STEAL YOUR IDEAS.
Sounds funny when I say it like that, but sadly I fully expect to hear about how the EU failed to standardize patent law.
Maybe in Europe it's 1-0. Over here in America we're still getting the shit knocked out of us.
Good luck to you guys over there. Maybe efforts in Europe towards eliminating software patents will help lead the flawed American system in the right direction. I can only hope and pray for the day that people can actually make vibrating controllers or pan cameras in 3-D freely.
Ah, but what is "effective consent?" Did you get OSTG's consent to access www.slashdot.com? Did you email them or call them? Send them a letter? No, you didn't. Does this mean that you would be violating Texas law by accessing a computer without consent of the owner? Of course not. Why? Because you took the fact that you could access the website with a standard internet browser to be implied consent. OSTG can't just arbitrarily decide it doesn't want anyone accessing www.slashdot.com and call the police on everyone unlawfully accessing it unless they make a reasonable attempt to prevent unlawful access. In other words, the fact that you can access a web server without passing any layers of security means that the owner of the webserver is effectively consenting to your access.
Now how does that work for a WAP? There are many perfectly valid situations in which access to an open WAP is permitted. Many cities have open WAPs sitting around for public use in parks or business districts. Do you need to find the location of each of these WAPs and ask for explicit permission before connectiong? Of course not. The only reasonable standard then in this situation is the same principle as websites. If you can access it with standard equipment without passing any layer of security then you can assume you have consent to connect to the WAP. The intent behind the law clearly is not active consent. It is implied or "effective" consent.
Now, in this particular case, the fact that he was sitting in a parked SUV and closed the laptop whenever someone approached is pretty shady. But unless the WAP owner told him to leave or the man bypassed some layer of security in order to access the WAP under no conditions should he be prosecuted for accessing a computer network without authorization. To do so would create a ridiculous precedent.
That's bullshit! Gendolen's Guide to Farsical Fairyland and Forest Fauna is SO much better than The Eberron Campaign Setting And Cardboard Heroes Castles taking home Best Game Accessory? Who paid off these judges!
. . . .
On an unrelated note (and combining two obligs in one)...
slowest. first post. ever.
The only problem with making overtures to the libertarians is that it will alienate the poor base of the Democrats who would be deeply afraid of someone taking their welfare, medicaid, and other social programs. Democrats would have to abandon such ideals as a national health care system. With the Republicans going to more of a "let the government take care of you" standpoint I would expect a massive abandoment of the Democratic party if that were to happen.
The Republican party, on the other hand, I see has having a lot of potential to move more libertarian. The people being alienated would not possibly turn to the Democratic party as they'd be even more evil than the damn libertarians. As a result the Republicans would lose less of their support base than the Democrats would. But the only way this is going to happen is if current Republicans or independants who vote Republican start supporting libertarian (note, not necessarily Libertarian) candidates and making sure that their votes are heard and felt.
Slashdot Mirror
The majority of the Canadian population, about 60% is concentrated within a thin belt of land representing 2.2% of the land between Windsor, Ontario and Quebec City.
Canada might have a low population density overall, but that's because there are vast vast areas of sparse population. Most of their population is much more concentrated than America. It is significantly harder to provide all the infrastructure necessary for broadband in America than in most other countries.
Not enough people know what latency and QoS are for the telcos to care. It's the same reason Intel did nothing but pump clock speeds for years. People hear "WE HAVE MORE MBS! WE'RE BETTER!" and get suckered in. They don't understand that more bandwidth won't help them as much as they think it will. I'd trade half my bandwidth on my home RoadRunner connection if I could actually get under a 100 ms latency in online games. I'm sure people who use VoIP have similar problems with their latency and QoS. But because the vast majority of people using broadband don't understand or care about anything but their provider screaming "WE HAVE MORE BANDWIDTH!!!" the providers don't give a rat's ass.
Until the organized crime gangs start hiring 14-16 year old kids under the table to front their illegal operations. The kiddies get to have fun and get a small cut of the profits with minimal risk and the gangs get most of the profits but with much fewer risks.
You're arguing a point that I'm not arguing. If you want to argue that invading Iraq did nothing to help prevent things like this fine. I've only been arguing against the claims that this incident happened because we invaded Iraq.
Never said it made terrorism less likely to happen. But the fact is that people wanted to kill us before Iraq and that hasn't changed anything. You can't pin the blame for this attack on the invasion of Iraq. They would have wanted to, and did, kill westerners anyway.
Thats right, cause if the US hadn't invaded Iraq Al Qaida would be all puppies and rainbows.
Gimme a break...
Al Qaida existed before the invasion of Iraq. They exist after the invasion. And they will continue to exist for quite some time. They hated us before we invaded Iraq. Regardless of whether or not we had invaded Iraq they would still want to kill us all. You can claim Bush was wrong for going into Iraq all you want (and I'm not saying I disagree with you), but you cannot blame this specific instance on the fact that the US invaded Iraq.
Err...I think the trashing probably has more to do with the fact that the "article" is just a bunch of pretty pictures without any information whatsoever. There doesn't seem to be any point other than "ooh, lookie the screenshots. Sure, they're screen caps of cutscenes, not actual game play, so they don't mean jack shit. But they're pretty."
Haven't you been contacted by Nigeria-Soft yet? They kindly sent me an e-mail informing me that I was using TCP/IP unlawfully! I was shocked! Thankfully I was checking my spam folder because this was one message that I definitely didn't to miss because Yahoo was stupid and flagged it as spam. I'm sure you want to avoid using their protocol illegally just as much as I do. You can send your liscencing fee of $1000 to them at 84 Goat Herd Rd, Ngeria. Sure it's a little expensive, but you don't want to be stealing their protocol from them, do you?
I realize that the parent is off-topic, but regardless how can you mod that down? It was a perfect counter-troll. Executed to perfection. If I only had mod points I would correct this injustice!
CyricZ, I salute you. You have earned a +5 Counter-Troll modding IMO.
I don't know if you've played many MMORPGs, but a lot of people measure their penis size based on their success in a game. It doesn't matter how they got to where they are as long as they're better than everyone else. And if they're not better than everyone else they'll pay to be.
I know it sounds silly, but people do take these games way too seriously. You would not believe how many people will feel better in real life after they've had the chance to "own some noobs" in game. I played Shadowbane for a long time. SB features completely open PvP (except for three safehold cities and the noob island) and as such it attracted a ton of people whose sole goal was to grief the hell out of other players. They so thoroughly enjoy the feeling they get from killing other players and so hate the feeling when they lose that they're willing to pay ridiculous amounts of real money in order to have better characters and better gear. All so they can feel better about themselves in real life.
It may not be a "software patent" but it's still a retarded example of how broken the American patent system is. You can now file patents on vague and open ended concepts rather than specific inventions and then sue people because they created a device that does something similar.
Bah, I'm more interested in Hayden Christansen. I need a new statue for the hallway anyway, so I figure who else could do a better job?
Oh, it'll make it past all the fluff stories. Unfortunately it'll be in the form of EU PARLIAMENT VOTE FORCE CORPORATIONS TO TURN TO INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIES FOR PROTECTION or EUROPEAN COMPANIES FREE TO STEAL YOUR IDEAS.
Sounds funny when I say it like that, but sadly I fully expect to hear about how the EU failed to standardize patent law.
Maybe in Europe it's 1-0. Over here in America we're still getting the shit knocked out of us.
Good luck to you guys over there. Maybe efforts in Europe towards eliminating software patents will help lead the flawed American system in the right direction. I can only hope and pray for the day that people can actually make vibrating controllers or pan cameras in 3-D freely.
Ah, but what is "effective consent?" Did you get OSTG's consent to access www.slashdot.com? Did you email them or call them? Send them a letter? No, you didn't. Does this mean that you would be violating Texas law by accessing a computer without consent of the owner? Of course not. Why? Because you took the fact that you could access the website with a standard internet browser to be implied consent. OSTG can't just arbitrarily decide it doesn't want anyone accessing www.slashdot.com and call the police on everyone unlawfully accessing it unless they make a reasonable attempt to prevent unlawful access. In other words, the fact that you can access a web server without passing any layers of security means that the owner of the webserver is effectively consenting to your access.
Now how does that work for a WAP? There are many perfectly valid situations in which access to an open WAP is permitted. Many cities have open WAPs sitting around for public use in parks or business districts. Do you need to find the location of each of these WAPs and ask for explicit permission before connectiong? Of course not. The only reasonable standard then in this situation is the same principle as websites. If you can access it with standard equipment without passing any layer of security then you can assume you have consent to connect to the WAP. The intent behind the law clearly is not active consent. It is implied or "effective" consent.
Now, in this particular case, the fact that he was sitting in a parked SUV and closed the laptop whenever someone approached is pretty shady. But unless the WAP owner told him to leave or the man bypassed some layer of security in order to access the WAP under no conditions should he be prosecuted for accessing a computer network without authorization. To do so would create a ridiculous precedent.
I'm in America, where we don't have to deal with our government trying to implement software patents... er..wait a minute... damnit.
i don't have hard drives. i just keep 30 chinese teenagers in my basement and force them to memorize numbers
Only when it keeps the editors from having to spell or pronounce things like Abingdon and Oxfordshire.
Zone Alarm has a free version.
Haha, and of course being the slowass I am I'm not even the first post by the time I hit 'Submit'
Go me!
That's bullshit! Gendolen's Guide to Farsical Fairyland and Forest Fauna is SO much better than The Eberron Campaign Setting And Cardboard Heroes Castles taking home Best Game Accessory? Who paid off these judges!
.
.
.
.
On an unrelated note (and combining two obligs in one)... slowest. first post. ever.
The only problem with making overtures to the libertarians is that it will alienate the poor base of the Democrats who would be deeply afraid of someone taking their welfare, medicaid, and other social programs. Democrats would have to abandon such ideals as a national health care system. With the Republicans going to more of a "let the government take care of you" standpoint I would expect a massive abandoment of the Democratic party if that were to happen. The Republican party, on the other hand, I see has having a lot of potential to move more libertarian. The people being alienated would not possibly turn to the Democratic party as they'd be even more evil than the damn libertarians. As a result the Republicans would lose less of their support base than the Democrats would. But the only way this is going to happen is if current Republicans or independants who vote Republican start supporting libertarian (note, not necessarily Libertarian) candidates and making sure that their votes are heard and felt.
Ah yes, true, but in a cruel cruel twist of fate, we might instead end up with more of this crap.
Wwweeeell uuuunnnfffooorrrtuuunnaaatteeelllyy IIIII'''mmm nnnoooottt aaaaaassss lllluuuccckkkkkyyyy.....