If it's Massachusetts, tell them you don't have one, and demand the discount anyway. It's illegal for them to deny you the discount just because you don't have their silly card- they'll usually immediately run a "courtesy card" that they claim is for when people forget them, but it's really because the MA laws make them give you the discount.
75k, if I made it right this second, would finally allow me to have a disposable income of _any_ level.
I don't know about you, but I owe craptons of money for school, and loan payments are insane. I need 65k at least to _meet bills_.
So no. It does not offer disposible income.
The quality seems to be stellar- It is indistinguishable from my MP3's, even with slashdot pounding it. And I listen to heavilly complicated music (Melodic Metal)
Absolutely amazing little tool, especially since it uses standard browser plug-ins, and doesn't even require a download. Plus they actually indexed lots of obscure bands!
IP Law is such a quagmire. My company even has lectures on it now and then just to ensure employees have a clue on just how messy it really is, and how important it is to the company.
This isn't the point though, the point is the the annoyance of it. It's nice to see something on Fair Use's side, but the question is should the DMCA simply be repealed, or should laws on Fair Use's side be put in place, or should the courts just erode it piece by piece?
I dunno. I'll go with "undecided" for now, though I'm leaning toward just supporting it. It's highly unlikely that the DMCA will be appealed, so at least its a step somewhat in the right direction. Albeit diagonally.
Interesting. Snort looks like a pretty cool tool. Anyone know more about it? How does it hold up against other intrusion detection packages?
And, any info on check point? I've heard of them, but haven't really seen much about their products.. then again, I code mainly, don't see much of the network admin side of IT. I try to keep up though.
Oh.. and since Snort.org looks like its flying toward slashdotted.. it barely loaded. Here's the letter.
------ October 6, 2005
To the Snort community:
I am very excited to announce that Check Point has signed an agreement to acquire Sourcefire, the company that develops the Snort® project and maintains the snort.org domain. I know that many of you are probably going to ask "what does this mean for Snort?", so I'd like to take a few minutes to talk about that.
I'll start by stating again what I've stated in the past, Snort is now and will continue to be free to end-users. We will continue to develop and distribute the Snort engine under the GPL, improve and document the program to stay on the cutting edge and expand the snort.org web site. The community continues, as always, to be important to us as a group of people who use the code pervasively throughout the entire Internet, report on problems and make suggestions and contributions to the project. Check Point is very excited about continuing Sourcefire's involvement with the open source community!
I'd also like to take a moment to extend a personal "thank you" to the Snort community for your contribution to Sourcefire's success. Little did I know when I first decided to GPL and release Snort in 1998 that it would become the foundation of this worldwide community of hundreds of thousands of users and the core technology of Sourcefire at its founding, and now the launching point for an acquisition by one of the largest and most respected security companies in the world. All of us at Sourcefire look forward to taking our vision and technology to the next level as a vital part of a true industry leader and continuing to build the best open source intrusion detection and prevention technology in the world.
The acquisition is subject to regulatory conditions and approvals and is expected to close by Q106. You can review the press release and FAQ documents at http://www.checkpoint.com/sourcefire.
"What's with all this "we" business? Unless the poster actually had a founding hand in setting up what became the Internet, then how do they have any more right to it than anyone else? Because they happen to have been born in the same country as people who did? Accident of birth is no ethical basis for distributing non-local resources."
Because birth in the US rarely was an "accidental" choice of location. The vast majority of american citizens were born here because their parents -chose- to be here. Beyond that, we're still here. We could move- at the very least, I'm very sure migrating to Canada would be remarkably simple.
"Do the US posters here really feel they have more in common with all other americans than they do with counterpart techies in Europe or Asia or Africa? Which community are you going to give precedence to? The US government that is comprised of tech-ignorant people with vested corporate interests (RIAA / MPAA, Pentagon, et al) and little adventurous spirit, or the IT literate and neophile tech community?"
To be blunt: Yes. I do think I have more in common with other american techies than with Asian techies. I speak english. Americans speak english. Americans are bombarded with the same images, sounds, and lifestyle as me. American culture and thought is drastically different from that of Asia, which is well-known. I have Asian friends that simply don't understand my thought processess because my whole life and culture has been about thinking individually, with the knowledge that it should increase the well-being of everyone eventually if its done right.
"There is no reason why DNS could not be a distributed community effort. We've reached the level where such a thing could be implemented reliably. Hand it over to the techies. No-one will be happy with the means of modern information exchange under the control of one governmental organization no matter how much they tell us that "it's okay - we're the good guys.""
You're posting on slashdot. You know as well as I do that the UN could have just freaking set up a root server or two, and boom, the internet isn't reliant on the US anymore. Instead, they declared "Hey, we're going to just -take it.-" It would have been much easier to just freaking set up a server or eight. All it has to do is mirror DNS entries and propagate them. (Yes, I'm oversimplifying, I know) Here's a hint about american culture. Threats tend to cause us to just push back. Its ingrained into our reactive measures. So while the fallout from just setting up a server probably would have been minimal, albeit there would have been some, now the UN made a direct threat- which means that the instant reaction is to push back. The lack of understanding of this by many of those outside of the US seems to illustrate the cultural differences more.
"People here spouting Fuck Em comments about the UN should ask themselves why they identify so much with their government. Why this sudden rush of Us and Them? Allowing a government to assign your loyalties to you by accident of birth seems a little old fashioned. Most posters at/. have a great deal more in common with each other than we do with our elected politicians and their corporate backers. If we're talking aobut wresting control of the Internet away from ICANN (which despite the name, certainly BUSH considers to be under the control of the US government), then we should be talking about wresting control of it for ourselves. Nation states are obsolete where the Internet is concerned, so please lets drop the sudden surge in Nationalism."
I identify with the constitution. I identify with my friends in the military. I identify with my country. I don't like the current government, but they're temporary. I can ride out the last few years. In the mean time... They got one thing straight. "Fuck 'em" if they want to threaten us.
"The Internet is for all of us."
Oh.. and remember. The Internet actually never was intended to be for all of us, it just happens to be used by all of us. It was intended for US national security.
My dad owns one of those nail guns. He's a contractor. He has two of them.
One of them is his private one for at home. He took the safety off. He can fire it off whenever he damn well likes, at anything he likes. And no one can sue him for modifying the hardware.
The other one, he uses at work. It has the safety because of mandatory safety regulations- it has to be there, or his license gets revoked. But he doesn't need the damned safety on it at home.
The point is, DRM is illegal to modify. You can't "remove" the hindering part if it annoys you- be it for safety or otherwise. The sad part is, its generally trivial to actually remove the DRM- it's just illegal. You can be sued for just removing the DRM and doing exactly what you would be doing with the content anyway, minus the annoyance.
Plus, whoever drew the software analogy... I've never seen a licence for software that said it was illegal for me to use an add-on that augmented/altered it in some way. Otherwise, those damned spyware bars would be more illegal than they already are- as would be half the mods for games (I'm aware some game licences encourage modding). Hmm, I suppose I should be more specific. I've seen licences that make it "illegal" but never seen a lawsuit about it stand up in court- if it has happened, I'd be highly interested in seeing it, if someone has a link. I'm not talking about reverse engineering (though in some cases that might be neccessary, and borderline illegal/illegal depending on when/how/what color the sky is that day) but things like hacking your private copy of say, Windows, to replace the Boot Screen (which I know practically everyone has done). Modifying my software may remove any legal responsibilities from the publisher to aide me in tech support, patching, etc, but doesn't usually amount to getting sued.
Eh, who said he had a new hard drive? I still use a 40 gig from 1998.
Haven't had a reason to throw it out. It's much simpler to simply be careful, and be aware of what could happen, as there's no way to simply "know" that the hard drive can prevent it.
Besides, that particular technology wasn't in every drive (and still may not be). It was only included massively in laptop drives for many years, as they deal with the issue of power loss much more often. It is highly possible it is included in all drives now, but I'd be very surprised if it was in "all" hard drives in the last 5 years. I could believe the last 3. Anything that equals more manufacture costs rarely is made unless specifically needed for some reason- like a high-end drive, or a laptop in this case.
...that's mean to the hard drive. That can cause serious damage- and not because data hasn't been written yet...
When you cut the power to a HD, the head stops wherever it is- sometimes even settling on the drive itself. This causes severe wear and tear, and sometimes damage. It's one of the many reasons why people are told always leaving your computer on is less damaging than turning it off.
The difference between cutting power and a proper shut down, is that during a proper shut down, the OS ensures A) everything is written (which you may not care about) and B) that the drive heads are in a locked, safe(ish) position.
You may not care about A, but you really should care about B.
You haven't used a fresh install of XP lately, have you? It doesn't particularly matter, as Windows bashing wasn't exactly my point. There's plenty of ways to bash windows, if I actually had that as a goal. I tend to take a more "middle of the road" view- Microsoft just needs some competition. Whether I use them or their competition will depend on quality.
My point was that most users don't really control their boxes already- which is very true as you generally need knowledge to take control of just about anything. Most users don't have much knowledge about the operating system- so the default settings, regardless of OS, determine behavior and data control.
Yea, damn that Google. Damn it to hell. It wants to control its own servers. They must be evil.
In all seriousness, most users don't actually control their own boxes as is- Microsoft's default settings, including auto-patching and a firewall that they don't understand exists, and the 430000 viruses they have going, controls their boxes.
To say Google doesn't allow any data control is a lie- especially as Gmail is POP3 accessable, complete with the "remove mail from server after download" option being plausible and usable. Oh noes, they have my email on their server for awhile!
You write a distributed system that back-propogates data through a network that can instantly purge all copies even if 400 out of 60000 servers is down, and I'll give you a cookie. Until then... Lord, give the twisted logic a rest.
This shouldn't hurt small game makers. It only really hurts large game makers.
This sounds silly, but large game makers get hurt because they make madden 99, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, and 05. So then their "fanbase" buys 05. And sells 04. So someone who's a year behind and doesn't actually care, buys 04, and skips 05, because they can save 10-20 bucks. Beyond that, the margins are different. EA sells say, an 8 billion dollar profit game that cost them oh, 500 mil to make.. Little company #4 sells a 2 million dollar profit game, that cost them, say, half a mil. Let's say, just for example's sake, that 30% is lost to used games. The profit loss on the larger company is much, much larger- besides the fact that since there are more copies, it is much more likely that the people that buy used games will actually find a copy of the damnable things.
Under fair use, yes. you have the right to the data. In any format you want. Copied in any way you want. Ect.
However, you may not have the right to attain newer, updated versions. This can include the improved quality found in CD.
Further, I'm pretty sure something in the DMCA, somewhere, disallows you to get the data you legally own a copy of again. So although its allowed under Fair Use, it may have been shattered by the DMCA.
IANAL, but I've had to study IP law a bit. Take it with a grain of salt.
I agree. I trust the US Gov about as far as I can throw it at times, too. But fortunately, due to a few constitutional amendments, the leadership has to change every so often (8 years, at minumum). So meh. I'll ride it out.
There's just too much at stake- Freedom, Commerce, hell, the ability to have this discussion to turn over the internet.
Re:how many people actually _like_ windows?
on
Pepping Up Windows
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I like that windows runs games.
I like that Windows has MS Dev Studio.
Do I like Windows itself? Eh.. I wouldn't call it like. It exists. It provides a basis for my tools and fun stuff to run on. I don't actually care about the OS much. If it runs reasonably efficently, I'm happy.
Yes, I know, Windows doesn't run efficently. But I grew up on Win95. Am I trying to migrate to Linux? Yep. Know what's slowing me? My existing games won't run out of the box. I don't even care about new games- my existing games won't run, so I won't switch. I can do pretty much all my normal stuff in linux. I just can't play a game at will. I have to bloody reboot back into Windows- and that stops me. Yea, I know about Cedega. Yea, I know about Wine. Yea, I know about virtual machines. Am I willing to go through the immense amount of work to be able to just play my game? Not really. I have limited free time. And I don't have a spare computer to keep running in case my attempts are less-than-perfect. Eventually, I will actually switch. It'll just take 10 years at this rate.
Or maybe someone will release a distro that comes with a year's licence of seamless Cedega integration, with support. And a sealed MSI-style install. And simple shortcut formation on the desktop. That'd be sweet. But unlikely for quote awhile.
Your current leadership has shown utter disregard for the international community.
Right out of my mouth. The US leadership has. Except US leadership has a legal, maximum shelf life of 8 years, at which point new leaders legally have to be chosen. This would be the maximum length of a presidential office. So, come the next election, the majority of the highest level gets changed over. If you remember, the previous president got along pretty well with the international community.
US isn't perfect. But we get another shot every 8 years, at worst.
Hmm, this actually is a good point- as it was undetermined last I heard whether MS-office 12- which is supposedly running.Net, will be supported on Mac. To do that, MS would have to release a framework for Mac, something they're loathe to do, for a variety of reasons.
Lose MS-Office lock-in and market share on macs, or risk opening the entire world of software to Mac. Tough decision.
Either way though, we win. Because either all.net apps will run on Mac, or they lose market share. Go MS.
Yea, because Microsoft is so scared of the Internet becoming "the new platform" they're going to break up!
Give me a break. They're trying to tighten their stranglehold, not loosen it. I'd love to see them break up, but it just won't happen.
It'd kind of hinder their fight with Google if they split up. At least, the "MS OS" side. It'd certainly give another branch a better shot, to be honest. But hey. MS isn't that good at making business decisions.
I wonder if it'll kill off all the spyware that comes with various P2P services as well?
If so, I wonder if I could load it as a quiet service on my parent's computer, to keep my little brother from @#%$#@'ng hosing it again with god knows what off P2P...
It is, however, a silly concept to think it'll actually affect piracy.
Well, sadly, this is why Microsoft continues to be in power of the desktop.
People (in general) seem to have no flaming clue what in the name of they are running. Or how to run it.
Or even what to call it.
There's plenty of people in my office that walk in, and after 2 minutes glaze over. Even if I'm just talking about Word. They just don't know the lingo.
It's kind of odd... Someone who does things that I couldn't dream of doing on Excel (because I simply never had a need to do them, and therefore never learned) doesn't know what a Macro is. And gets confused when I start talking about formatting tables.
It's just.. baffling, I suppose.
Then again, I write helpfiles for software that'll be used by 60-year-old people. Oh-so-much fun, when you can't assume they know what "keyboard" and "mouse" means (yes, I was told I can't assume they even know those terms, or the word Monitor).
Just goes to show... the only way to combat it is to compare it to what you'd say/do if you hired a contractor. Do YOU know what a 2x4 is? Can YOU read a blueprint? Do YOU know the exact term for where two supporting beams come together to form a load-bearing doorway? Do YOU even know that doorways are load-bearing? I suppose it's the same principle. I have no interest in carpentry, yet I have to interact with carpentry-type things daily. Same concept.
However unthinkable it is to Code Monkeys (tm), they don't even want to know.
Slashdot Mirror
If it's Massachusetts, tell them you don't have one, and demand the discount anyway. It's illegal for them to deny you the discount just because you don't have their silly card- they'll usually immediately run a "courtesy card" that they claim is for when people forget them, but it's really because the MA laws make them give you the discount.
What if they're a software engineer running a 10-hour script to test before running it at a client's? And therefore, obviously not present.
75k, if I made it right this second, would finally allow me to have a disposable income of _any_ level. I don't know about you, but I owe craptons of money for school, and loan payments are insane. I need 65k at least to _meet bills_. So no. It does not offer disposible income.
I'm not sure I agree with the grandparent but I can assure you that if rich people lived in cities the schools would be fantastic. fixed that for you.
Full-service gas stations usually add 5-10 cents a gallon. For reference.
As far as I am aware, all current-gen consoles support this, with some flaws.
The quality seems to be stellar- It is indistinguishable from my MP3's, even with slashdot pounding it. And I listen to heavilly complicated music (Melodic Metal)
Absolutely amazing little tool, especially since it uses standard browser plug-ins, and doesn't even require a download. Plus they actually indexed lots of obscure bands!
I think I'm in love.
IP Law is such a quagmire. My company even has lectures on it now and then just to ensure employees have a clue on just how messy it really is, and how important it is to the company.
This isn't the point though, the point is the the annoyance of it. It's nice to see something on Fair Use's side, but the question is should the DMCA simply be repealed, or should laws on Fair Use's side be put in place, or should the courts just erode it piece by piece?
Personally... I opt for whatever reduces court use for stupid things. Repealing the DMCA seems like it would simplify things most. Ah well. Here's some useful links with more information on the matter. More information from the public knowledge website and A direct link to the bill (PDF format).
Hmm, also, seems that the Consumer's Union is backing it...
I dunno. I'll go with "undecided" for now, though I'm leaning toward just supporting it. It's highly unlikely that the DMCA will be appealed, so at least its a step somewhat in the right direction. Albeit diagonally.
heh, yea, I know, I know.
Oh well. I know about it now.
Interesting. Snort looks like a pretty cool tool. Anyone know more about it? How does it hold up against other intrusion detection packages?
And, any info on check point? I've heard of them, but haven't really seen much about their products.. then again, I code mainly, don't see much of the network admin side of IT. I try to keep up though.
Oh.. and since Snort.org looks like its flying toward slashdotted.. it barely loaded. Here's the letter.
------
October 6, 2005
To the Snort community:
I am very excited to announce that Check Point has signed an agreement to acquire Sourcefire, the company that develops the Snort® project and maintains the snort.org domain. I know that many of you are probably going to ask "what does this mean for Snort?", so I'd like to take a few minutes to talk about that.
I'll start by stating again what I've stated in the past, Snort is now and will continue to be free to end-users. We will continue to develop and distribute the Snort engine under the GPL, improve and document the program to stay on the cutting edge and expand the snort.org web site. The community continues, as always, to be important to us as a group of people who use the code pervasively throughout the entire Internet, report on problems and make suggestions and contributions to the project. Check Point is very excited about continuing Sourcefire's involvement with the open source community!
I'd also like to take a moment to extend a personal "thank you" to the Snort community for your contribution to Sourcefire's success. Little did I know when I first decided to GPL and release Snort in 1998 that it would become the foundation of this worldwide community of hundreds of thousands of users and the core technology of Sourcefire at its founding, and now the launching point for an acquisition by one of the largest and most respected security companies in the world. All of us at Sourcefire look forward to taking our vision and technology to the next level as a vital part of a true industry leader and continuing to build the best open source intrusion detection and prevention technology in the world.
The acquisition is subject to regulatory conditions and approvals and is expected to close by Q106. You can review the press release and FAQ documents at http://www.checkpoint.com/sourcefire.
Sincerely,
Martin Roesch
Founder and CTO
Sourcefire, Inc.
-----
"What's with all this "we" business? Unless the poster actually had a founding hand in setting up what became the Internet, then how do they have any more right to it than anyone else? Because they happen to have been born in the same country as people who did? Accident of birth is no ethical basis for distributing non-local resources."
/. have a great deal more in common with each other than we do with our elected politicians and their corporate backers. If we're talking aobut wresting control of the Internet away from ICANN (which despite the name, certainly BUSH considers to be under the control of the US government), then we should be talking about wresting control of it for ourselves. Nation states are obsolete where the Internet is concerned, so please lets drop the sudden surge in Nationalism."
Because birth in the US rarely was an "accidental" choice of location. The vast majority of american citizens were born here because their parents -chose- to be here. Beyond that, we're still here. We could move- at the very least, I'm very sure migrating to Canada would be remarkably simple.
"Do the US posters here really feel they have more in common with all other americans than they do with counterpart techies in Europe or Asia or Africa? Which community are you going to give precedence to? The US government that is comprised of tech-ignorant people with vested corporate interests (RIAA / MPAA, Pentagon, et al) and little adventurous spirit, or the IT literate and neophile tech community?"
To be blunt: Yes. I do think I have more in common with other american techies than with Asian techies. I speak english. Americans speak english. Americans are bombarded with the same images, sounds, and lifestyle as me. American culture and thought is drastically different from that of Asia, which is well-known. I have Asian friends that simply don't understand my thought processess because my whole life and culture has been about thinking individually, with the knowledge that it should increase the well-being of everyone eventually if its done right.
"There is no reason why DNS could not be a distributed community effort. We've reached the level where such a thing could be implemented reliably. Hand it over to the techies. No-one will be happy with the means of modern information exchange under the control of one governmental organization no matter how much they tell us that "it's okay - we're the good guys.""
You're posting on slashdot. You know as well as I do that the UN could have just freaking set up a root server or two, and boom, the internet isn't reliant on the US anymore. Instead, they declared "Hey, we're going to just -take it.-" It would have been much easier to just freaking set up a server or eight. All it has to do is mirror DNS entries and propagate them. (Yes, I'm oversimplifying, I know) Here's a hint about american culture. Threats tend to cause us to just push back. Its ingrained into our reactive measures. So while the fallout from just setting up a server probably would have been minimal, albeit there would have been some, now the UN made a direct threat- which means that the instant reaction is to push back. The lack of understanding of this by many of those outside of the US seems to illustrate the cultural differences more.
"People here spouting Fuck Em comments about the UN should ask themselves why they identify so much with their government. Why this sudden rush of Us and Them? Allowing a government to assign your loyalties to you by accident of birth seems a little old fashioned. Most posters at
I identify with the constitution. I identify with my friends in the military. I identify with my country. I don't like the current government, but they're temporary. I can ride out the last few years. In the mean time... They got one thing straight. "Fuck 'em" if they want to threaten us.
"The Internet is for all of us."
Oh.. and remember. The Internet actually never was intended to be for all of us, it just happens to be used by all of us. It was intended for US national security.
My dad owns one of those nail guns. He's a contractor. He has two of them.
One of them is his private one for at home. He took the safety off. He can fire it off whenever he damn well likes, at anything he likes. And no one can sue him for modifying the hardware.
The other one, he uses at work. It has the safety because of mandatory safety regulations- it has to be there, or his license gets revoked. But he doesn't need the damned safety on it at home.
The point is, DRM is illegal to modify. You can't "remove" the hindering part if it annoys you- be it for safety or otherwise. The sad part is, its generally trivial to actually remove the DRM- it's just illegal. You can be sued for just removing the DRM and doing exactly what you would be doing with the content anyway, minus the annoyance.
Plus, whoever drew the software analogy... I've never seen a licence for software that said it was illegal for me to use an add-on that augmented/altered it in some way. Otherwise, those damned spyware bars would be more illegal than they already are- as would be half the mods for games (I'm aware some game licences encourage modding). Hmm, I suppose I should be more specific. I've seen licences that make it "illegal" but never seen a lawsuit about it stand up in court- if it has happened, I'd be highly interested in seeing it, if someone has a link. I'm not talking about reverse engineering (though in some cases that might be neccessary, and borderline illegal/illegal depending on when/how/what color the sky is that day) but things like hacking your private copy of say, Windows, to replace the Boot Screen (which I know practically everyone has done). Modifying my software may remove any legal responsibilities from the publisher to aide me in tech support, patching, etc, but doesn't usually amount to getting sued.
Eh, who said he had a new hard drive? I still use a 40 gig from 1998.
Haven't had a reason to throw it out. It's much simpler to simply be careful, and be aware of what could happen, as there's no way to simply "know" that the hard drive can prevent it.
Besides, that particular technology wasn't in every drive (and still may not be). It was only included massively in laptop drives for many years, as they deal with the issue of power loss much more often. It is highly possible it is included in all drives now, but I'd be very surprised if it was in "all" hard drives in the last 5 years. I could believe the last 3. Anything that equals more manufacture costs rarely is made unless specifically needed for some reason- like a high-end drive, or a laptop in this case.
...that's mean to the hard drive. That can cause serious damage- and not because data hasn't been written yet...
When you cut the power to a HD, the head stops wherever it is- sometimes even settling on the drive itself. This causes severe wear and tear, and sometimes damage. It's one of the many reasons why people are told always leaving your computer on is less damaging than turning it off.
The difference between cutting power and a proper shut down, is that during a proper shut down, the OS ensures A) everything is written (which you may not care about) and B) that the drive heads are in a locked, safe(ish) position.
You may not care about A, but you really should care about B.
You haven't used a fresh install of XP lately, have you? It doesn't particularly matter, as Windows bashing wasn't exactly my point. There's plenty of ways to bash windows, if I actually had that as a goal. I tend to take a more "middle of the road" view- Microsoft just needs some competition. Whether I use them or their competition will depend on quality.
My point was that most users don't really control their boxes already- which is very true as you generally need knowledge to take control of just about anything. Most users don't have much knowledge about the operating system- so the default settings, regardless of OS, determine behavior and data control.
Yea, damn that Google. Damn it to hell. It wants to control its own servers. They must be evil.
In all seriousness, most users don't actually control their own boxes as is- Microsoft's default settings, including auto-patching and a firewall that they don't understand exists, and the 430000 viruses they have going, controls their boxes.
To say Google doesn't allow any data control is a lie- especially as Gmail is POP3 accessable, complete with the "remove mail from server after download" option being plausible and usable. Oh noes, they have my email on their server for awhile!
You write a distributed system that back-propogates data through a network that can instantly purge all copies even if 400 out of 60000 servers is down, and I'll give you a cookie. Until then... Lord, give the twisted logic a rest.
This shouldn't hurt small game makers. It only really hurts large game makers.
This sounds silly, but large game makers get hurt because they make madden 99, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, and 05. So then their "fanbase" buys 05. And sells 04. So someone who's a year behind and doesn't actually care, buys 04, and skips 05, because they can save 10-20 bucks. Beyond that, the margins are different. EA sells say, an 8 billion dollar profit game that cost them oh, 500 mil to make.. Little company #4 sells a 2 million dollar profit game, that cost them, say, half a mil. Let's say, just for example's sake, that 30% is lost to used games. The profit loss on the larger company is much, much larger- besides the fact that since there are more copies, it is much more likely that the people that buy used games will actually find a copy of the damnable things.
Just some thoughts. Give or take them.
Here's the clinch.
Under fair use, yes. you have the right to the data. In any format you want. Copied in any way you want. Ect.
However, you may not have the right to attain newer, updated versions. This can include the improved quality found in CD. Further, I'm pretty sure something in the DMCA, somewhere, disallows you to get the data you legally own a copy of again. So although its allowed under Fair Use, it may have been shattered by the DMCA.
IANAL, but I've had to study IP law a bit. Take it with a grain of salt.
I agree. I trust the US Gov about as far as I can throw it at times, too. But fortunately, due to a few constitutional amendments, the leadership has to change every so often (8 years, at minumum). So meh. I'll ride it out.
There's just too much at stake- Freedom, Commerce, hell, the ability to have this discussion to turn over the internet.
I like that windows runs games.
I like that Windows has MS Dev Studio.
Do I like Windows itself? Eh.. I wouldn't call it like. It exists. It provides a basis for my tools and fun stuff to run on. I don't actually care about the OS much. If it runs reasonably efficently, I'm happy.
Yes, I know, Windows doesn't run efficently. But I grew up on Win95. Am I trying to migrate to Linux? Yep. Know what's slowing me? My existing games won't run out of the box. I don't even care about new games- my existing games won't run, so I won't switch. I can do pretty much all my normal stuff in linux. I just can't play a game at will. I have to bloody reboot back into Windows- and that stops me. Yea, I know about Cedega. Yea, I know about Wine. Yea, I know about virtual machines. Am I willing to go through the immense amount of work to be able to just play my game? Not really. I have limited free time. And I don't have a spare computer to keep running in case my attempts are less-than-perfect. Eventually, I will actually switch. It'll just take 10 years at this rate.
Or maybe someone will release a distro that comes with a year's licence of seamless Cedega integration, with support. And a sealed MSI-style install. And simple shortcut formation on the desktop. That'd be sweet. But unlikely for quote awhile.
Your current leadership has shown utter disregard for the international community.
Right out of my mouth. The US leadership has. Except US leadership has a legal, maximum shelf life of 8 years, at which point new leaders legally have to be chosen. This would be the maximum length of a presidential office. So, come the next election, the majority of the highest level gets changed over. If you remember, the previous president got along pretty well with the international community.
US isn't perfect. But we get another shot every 8 years, at worst.
Hmm, this actually is a good point- as it was undetermined last I heard whether MS-office 12- which is supposedly running .Net, will be supported on Mac. To do that, MS would have to release a framework for Mac, something they're loathe to do, for a variety of reasons.
.net apps will run on Mac, or they lose market share. Go MS.
Lose MS-Office lock-in and market share on macs, or risk opening the entire world of software to Mac. Tough decision.
Either way though, we win. Because either all
Yea, because Microsoft is so scared of the Internet becoming "the new platform" they're going to break up!
Give me a break. They're trying to tighten their stranglehold, not loosen it. I'd love to see them break up, but it just won't happen.
It'd kind of hinder their fight with Google if they split up. At least, the "MS OS" side. It'd certainly give another branch a better shot, to be honest. But hey. MS isn't that good at making business decisions.
Various issues asside..
I wonder if it'll kill off all the spyware that comes with various P2P services as well?
If so, I wonder if I could load it as a quiet service on my parent's computer, to keep my little brother from @#%$#@'ng hosing it again with god knows what off P2P...
It is, however, a silly concept to think it'll actually affect piracy.
Well, sadly, this is why Microsoft continues to be in power of the desktop.
People (in general) seem to have no flaming clue what in the name of they are running. Or how to run it.
Or even what to call it. There's plenty of people in my office that walk in, and after 2 minutes glaze over. Even if I'm just talking about Word. They just don't know the lingo. It's kind of odd... Someone who does things that I couldn't dream of doing on Excel (because I simply never had a need to do them, and therefore never learned) doesn't know what a Macro is. And gets confused when I start talking about formatting tables.
It's just.. baffling, I suppose.
Then again, I write helpfiles for software that'll be used by 60-year-old people. Oh-so-much fun, when you can't assume they know what "keyboard" and "mouse" means (yes, I was told I can't assume they even know those terms, or the word Monitor).
Just goes to show... the only way to combat it is to compare it to what you'd say/do if you hired a contractor. Do YOU know what a 2x4 is? Can YOU read a blueprint? Do YOU know the exact term for where two supporting beams come together to form a load-bearing doorway? Do YOU even know that doorways are load-bearing? I suppose it's the same principle. I have no interest in carpentry, yet I have to interact with carpentry-type things daily. Same concept.
However unthinkable it is to Code Monkeys (tm), they don't even want to know.