True, I wanted to also point out that not only do they have corporate tax deductions but the amount for state taxation is probably buffeted by the incentive programs that many states use to attract large corporations.
Time Warner completed it's "spin-off" of Time Warner Cable in mid March. Couple that with what Time Warner Inc. execs are saying about "TV Everywhere". With that in mind as well as the rise of streaming video services such as Netflix it is hard to not see these ridiculous bandwidth caps as an attempt to hang on to their current Cable TV business model. Especially since they are charging about the same for a full TV, Phone, and Internet package now (almost $140 a month after taxes) as they will charge for an Internet only connection with a 175 Gig cap (100 cap for $75 and $75 more gigs over that...). I live in Austin and honestly I am looking at AT&T (who only offers a 3 Mb downstream in my area) as a viable option. At least they are talking about caps of 150 GB a month... and that speed is only a a third of what I usually get from TWC.
On the up side at least 2 mayoral candidates here have issued statements against the caps. While that is encouraging I am not sure if it will still be an issue after the election but it is nice to live in a city where this issue gets noticed by the politicians.
The thing about this though that really gets to me is that it isn't a consumption model. After all one of the main points is that there will be NO rollover of unused bandwidth. To return to the over used analogy of a restaurant for the consumption model. If I pay you for a plate and don't finish it... give me a doggy bag! I understand if it is a buffet and I don't get one, but to have someone pay for a plate of food and then snatch the plate away after half an hour regardless of whether or not they are finished... that's just cruel! Now, can we all agree to NOT use the restaurant analogy again?
After reading the pdf of the law that Wired links to I found that in Section 3 part B number 5 reads: (5) a description of policies and procedures to ensure thatâ" (A) any individual who is denied access to that website on the basis of information obtained through the system is promptly notified of the basis for the denial and has the ability to challenge the denial of access; and (B) if the social networking website finds that information is inaccurate, incomplete, or cannot be verified, the site immediately notifies the appropriate State registry and the Department of Justice, so that they may delete or correct that information in the respective State and national databases;
however it also includes these gems further on in Section 3:
(4) PAYMENTOFFEE.â"A social networking website approved to use the system shall pay any fee established by the Attorney General for use of the system. (5) LIMITATION ON LIABILITY.â" (A) IN GENERAL.â"A civil claim against a social networking website, including any director, officer, employee, parent, contractor, or agent of that social networking website, arising from the use by such website of the National Sex Offender Registry, may not be brought in any Federal or State court. (B) INTENTIONAL, RECKLESS, OR OTHER MISCONDUCT.â" Subparagraph (A) does not apply to a claim if the social networking website, or a director, officer, employee, parent, contractor, or agent of that social networking websiteâ" (i) engaged in intentional misconduct; or (ii) acted, or failed to actâ" (I) with actual malice; (II) with reckless disregard to a substantial risk of causing injury without legal justification; or (III) for a purpose unrelated to the perform- ance of any responsibility or function described in paragraph (3).
Kinda says "don't worry you won't be prosecuted, unless if we decide to."
They of course have the gumption to stick this in at the end of Section 3:
(6) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.â"Nothing in this section shall be construed to require any Internet website, including a social networking website, to use the system, and no Federal or State liability, or any other actionable adverse consequence, shall be imposed on such website based on its decision not to do so.
Another example of the government saying, "You don't have to sign up... unless if you want to be labeled a bastion for child molesters and be shut down by us."
The most interesting part to me of any law though is what is added that seems irrelevant. For instance Section 4 deals with REMOVING part of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. Specifically it makes it no longer a requirement that the tracking devices for registered offenders contain "cellular technology" nor be in a "single unit". It also does away with the requirement that tracking devices have, "two- and three-way voice communication". I am not sure if this is considered "streamlining" or not. I guess we have to wait and see who gets the grant for the new tracking devices and how much they contribute to McCain's campaign.
Wow, if this puppy is retroactive it will only be a matter of time before dishonest people start running politician's emails through it.I suppose you have enough of them denied a myspace or facebook campaign site because they are on a sex offender list and it eventually will have an appeal process... Hope that trickles down to us little people too.
An article over on bit-tech.net talks about how Warren Spector has no ties to this one. So I wouldn't really expect a return to the exceptionally immersive world of the first Deus Ex. I hope they do take into consideration how badly the second one was rated and sold compared to the first one. However I don't have very high hopes for it.
bit-tech.net story:
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/07/24/warren_spector_not_bothered_about_deus_ex_3/1/
From the article: For several weeks starting in early August,... The ads used Macromedia Flash files to exploit a hole in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser that was patched in February.
So once again we see an alarm that could have been avoided if people patched their system... I love stories like this, they remind me WHY I moved on from being a tech to being a programmer.
"One of the eventual reactions was the common carrier rule," Professor Wu said, which required telegraph and then phone companies to accept communications from all speakers on all topics.
Some scholars said such a rule was not needed for text messages because market competition was sufficient to ensure robust political debate.
However whereas there is market competition for text messaging there are also binding contracts with prohibitive penalties for pulling out early!
OK, so the big studios are constantly pressuring Google to reign in their step-child video service.. When will YouTube/Google turn around and say, "Ok, when will the news (for lack of a better term) companies you own start paying us for broadcasting the clips they swipe from our site?".
I can't count the number of times I have seen something on CNN, Fox, The Daily Show, or another reliable news source use a YouTube clip to spark up a story. Are they paying residuals to YouTube?
The thing about this that worries me most is how long will it take a virus writer to learn how to mimic the invalid reply. I know Vista is supposed to be Virii proof due to how it will ask the user about any changes. However it seems that these types of strict DRM measures could be a hole in their anti-virii armor...
... That he couldn't take a few minutes to put some comments into his code!
=)
As for those who feel it is a dark day for encryption please elaborate a bit more. Is it bad because someone cracked it or is it bad because it was crackable without resorting to using a cluster of supercomputers in parallel? Are there other reasons I'm missing? Thanks!
I am a bit behind on the RFID debate. As I understand it it broadcasts a specific frequency, and data along with it. What is the chance that the data can be re-encoded?
So, Let's say that this is happening on on-line games. Suddenly several suspiciously silent characters start flocking to certain areas for 15 seconds at a time... Kind of brings farming in MMORPGs to a new level! If these are accepted as the new adds it won't be long before it is used as a way to hype a summer blockbuster.
"The most highly anticipated movie of the summer!"*
Through this whole thing the only thing I can think of is that somewhere during the development of GTA:SA this conversation took place between two programers:
Prog1: "Hey.. Check out the modification of the minigames I did.. you get to 'do it' with Denise!!!"
Prog2: "Cool Dude!!!"
Fast Forward 6 - 12 months:
Prog2: "Say man you did erase that ahem, minigame, with Denise from the source-code, right?"
Prog1: "Cr@p! I/*-ed the routines that would let you get to it... I mean, it's totally unaccessable, completely so on the consoles!!!"
I admit, I have actually watched the hot coffee video. It REALLY looks bad, badly animated, badly texture, brillo pads for under-arm hair, really bad stuff. In fact it looks like a very badly put together in-house modification of the bench-press workout routine where, instead of pushing two buttons at the correct times you tap left and right at the correct times. However, instead of the polished look that the rest of the game has this looks much more like something a wise-ass programmer slapped together over an uneventful lunch hour. Something a supervisor would roll their eyes over and proclaim loudly, "Get back to work!". The fact that it was programatically locked away means that it was most likely forgotten about during beta-testing and the sleep-depriving production rush. This should be a lesson to lazy programmers, not a Congressional taxpayer funded investigation!
Maybe I'm mistaken; I have gotten older since this system started with the Congressional worry over Mortal Kombat's finishing moves. But wasn't the rating system devised to just ADVISE parents of the content and not,as is now common practice, actually restrict access to the game itself? Sigh, once again... It was rated M for Mature... Is putting an 18+ sticker on the box going to suddenly make a parent become a "concerned" parent?!?!?
These non-compete clauses always make me think of one of the main types of missions from the Shadowrun Pen and Paper games.
The idea being a mega-corp wants to get a certain researcher away from another mega-corp. Unfortunately due to the make-up of the zaibatsu and it's enclosed living area/work area the only way to do this is hire some thugs (for plausible deniability) to go in guns blazing, grab the guy and split... I can't wait to see if this makes it into the 360 Shadowrun game which M$ is doing!!!
Slashdot Mirror
True, I wanted to also point out that not only do they have corporate tax deductions but the amount for state taxation is probably buffeted by the incentive programs that many states use to attract large corporations.
Time Warner completed it's "spin-off" of Time Warner Cable in mid March. Couple that with what Time Warner Inc. execs are saying about "TV Everywhere". With that in mind as well as the rise of streaming video services such as Netflix it is hard to not see these ridiculous bandwidth caps as an attempt to hang on to their current Cable TV business model. Especially since they are charging about the same for a full TV, Phone, and Internet package now (almost $140 a month after taxes) as they will charge for an Internet only connection with a 175 Gig cap (100 cap for $75 and $75 more gigs over that...). I live in Austin and honestly I am looking at AT&T (who only offers a 3 Mb downstream in my area) as a viable option. At least they are talking about caps of 150 GB a month... and that speed is only a a third of what I usually get from TWC. On the up side at least 2 mayoral candidates here have issued statements against the caps. While that is encouraging I am not sure if it will still be an issue after the election but it is nice to live in a city where this issue gets noticed by the politicians. The thing about this though that really gets to me is that it isn't a consumption model. After all one of the main points is that there will be NO rollover of unused bandwidth. To return to the over used analogy of a restaurant for the consumption model. If I pay you for a plate and don't finish it... give me a doggy bag! I understand if it is a buffet and I don't get one, but to have someone pay for a plate of food and then snatch the plate away after half an hour regardless of whether or not they are finished... that's just cruel! Now, can we all agree to NOT use the restaurant analogy again?
After reading the pdf of the law that Wired links to I found that in Section 3 part B number 5 reads:
(5) a description of policies and procedures to ensure thatâ"
(A) any individual who is denied access to that website on the basis of information obtained through the system is promptly notified of the basis for the denial and has the ability to challenge the denial of access; and
(B) if the social networking website finds that information is inaccurate, incomplete, or cannot be verified, the site immediately notifies the appropriate State registry and the Department of Justice, so that they may delete or correct that information in the respective State and national databases;
however it also includes these gems further on in Section 3:
(4) PAYMENTOFFEE.â"A social networking website
approved to use the system shall pay any fee established by
the Attorney General for use of the system.
(5) LIMITATION ON LIABILITY.â"
(A) IN GENERAL.â"A civil claim against a social networking website, including any director, officer, employee, parent, contractor, or agent of that social networking website, arising from the use by such website of the National Sex Offender Registry, may not be brought in any Federal or State court.
(B) INTENTIONAL, RECKLESS, OR OTHER MISCONDUCT.â"
Subparagraph (A) does not apply to a claim if the social networking website, or a director, officer, employee, parent, contractor, or agent of that social networking websiteâ"
(i) engaged in intentional misconduct; or
(ii) acted, or failed to actâ"
(I) with actual malice;
(II) with reckless disregard to a substantial
risk of causing injury without legal justification;
or
(III) for a purpose unrelated to the perform-
ance of any responsibility or function described
in paragraph (3).
Kinda says "don't worry you won't be prosecuted, unless if we decide to."
They of course have the gumption to stick this in at the end of Section 3:
(6) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION .â"Nothing in this section shall be construed to require any Internet website, including a social networking website, to use the system, and no Federal or State liability, or any other actionable adverse consequence, shall be imposed on such website based on its decision not
to do so.
Another example of the government saying, "You don't have to sign up... unless if you want to be labeled a bastion for child molesters and be shut down by us."
The most interesting part to me of any law though is what is added that seems irrelevant. For instance Section 4 deals with REMOVING part of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. Specifically it makes it no longer a requirement that the tracking devices for registered offenders contain "cellular technology" nor be in a "single unit". It also does away with the requirement that tracking devices have, "two- and three-way voice communication". I am not sure if this is considered "streamlining" or not. I guess we have to wait and see who gets the grant for the new tracking devices and how much they contribute to McCain's campaign.
Wow, if this puppy is retroactive it will only be a matter of time before dishonest people start running politician's emails through it.I suppose you have enough of them denied a myspace or facebook campaign site because they are on a sex offender list and it eventually will have an appeal process... Hope that trickles down to us little people too.
An article over on bit-tech.net talks about how Warren Spector has no ties to this one. So I wouldn't really expect a return to the exceptionally immersive world of the first Deus Ex. I hope they do take into consideration how badly the second one was rated and sold compared to the first one. However I don't have very high hopes for it. bit-tech.net story: http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/07/24/warren_spector_not_bothered_about_deus_ex_3/1/
From the article:
For several weeks starting in early August,...
The ads used Macromedia Flash files to exploit a hole in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser that was patched in February.
So once again we see an alarm that could have been avoided if people patched their system...
I love stories like this, they remind me WHY I moved on from being a tech to being a programmer.
"One of the eventual reactions was the common carrier rule," Professor Wu said, which required telegraph and then phone companies to accept communications from all speakers on all topics.
Some scholars said such a rule was not needed for text messages because market competition was sufficient to ensure robust political debate.
However whereas there is market competition for text messaging there are also binding contracts with prohibitive penalties for pulling out early!
OK, so the big studios are constantly pressuring Google to reign in their step-child video service.. When will YouTube/Google turn around and say, "Ok, when will the news (for lack of a better term) companies you own start paying us for broadcasting the clips they swipe from our site?". I can't count the number of times I have seen something on CNN, Fox, The Daily Show, or another reliable news source use a YouTube clip to spark up a story. Are they paying residuals to YouTube?
The thing about this that worries me most is how long will it take a virus writer to learn how to mimic the invalid reply. I know Vista is supposed to be Virii proof due to how it will ask the user about any changes. However it seems that these types of strict DRM measures could be a hole in their anti-virii armor...
... That he couldn't take a few minutes to put some comments into his code! =)
As for those who feel it is a dark day for encryption please elaborate a bit more. Is it bad because someone cracked it or is it bad because it was crackable without resorting to using a cluster of supercomputers in parallel? Are there other reasons I'm missing? Thanks!
I am a bit behind on the RFID debate. As I understand it it broadcasts a specific frequency, and data along with it. What is the chance that the data can be re-encoded?
"The most highly anticipated movie of the summer!"*
*According to Massive ads Inc.
Prog1: "Hey.. Check out the modification of the minigames I did.. you get to 'do it' with Denise!!!"
Prog2: "Cool Dude!!!"
Fast Forward 6 - 12 months:
Prog2: "Say man you did erase that ahem, minigame, with Denise from the source-code, right?"
Prog1: "Cr@p! I /*-ed the routines that would let you get to it... I mean, it's totally unaccessable, completely so on the consoles!!!"
I admit, I have actually watched the hot coffee video. It REALLY looks bad, badly animated, badly texture, brillo pads for under-arm hair, really bad stuff. In fact it looks like a very badly put together in-house modification of the bench-press workout routine where, instead of pushing two buttons at the correct times you tap left and right at the correct times. However, instead of the polished look that the rest of the game has this looks much more like something a wise-ass programmer slapped together over an uneventful lunch hour. Something a supervisor would roll their eyes over and proclaim loudly, "Get back to work!". The fact that it was programatically locked away means that it was most likely forgotten about during beta-testing and the sleep-depriving production rush. This should be a lesson to lazy programmers, not a Congressional taxpayer funded investigation!
Maybe I'm mistaken; I have gotten older since this system started with the Congressional worry over Mortal Kombat's finishing moves. But wasn't the rating system devised to just ADVISE parents of the content and not ,as is now common practice, actually restrict access to the game itself? Sigh, once again... It was rated M for Mature... Is putting an 18+ sticker on the box going to suddenly make a parent become a "concerned" parent?!?!?
These non-compete clauses always make me think of one of the main types of missions from the Shadowrun Pen and Paper games. The idea being a mega-corp wants to get a certain researcher away from another mega-corp. Unfortunately due to the make-up of the zaibatsu and it's enclosed living area/work area the only way to do this is hire some thugs (for plausible deniability) to go in guns blazing, grab the guy and split... I can't wait to see if this makes it into the 360 Shadowrun game which M$ is doing!!!