"The fact that Fox News is so popular is indicative that the mainstream (non-Fox) media is, in fact, not as conservative as the majority of viewers want(ed) it to be." More inclined to view it that Fox is so popular because it is basically the tabloid of the TV news, catering in format/presentation and content to the lowest common denominator.
"So judges in this country can't reason if I don't hire a $200/hr lawyer? What if I've got 5 kids to feed and don't have money for a lawyer? That means everything the other side says is true regardless of whether or not they proved it?"
Congratulations, you have started to figure out what is wrong with modern western legal systems in general and the USA system in particular
"I have to say that this seems normal behavior for any phone company the world over" Over in the UK never had a crippled phone and been on most of the major carriers and on various plans from subcription to pay-as-you-go US is only country i have ever heard of this, just like US is only country i have heard of where incoming calls to mobiles cost (or use up your mins). Rest of the world you only pay for incoming when you are out of the country (aka forwarding on charges) and phone companies are getting forced to reduced those prices all the time
"It's been quite a while since I've read comics, but do comics today even mention Iraq? And what exactly is a "big slam on the government"? A vague commentary on the fact that (gasp!) people sometimes die, and the gov't should do something about it? Or is the death of Captain America a specific critique of Bush's policies in Iraq? Could someone who's followed the storyline enlighten me? Thanks"
Do comic's mention Iraq? yes regularly but always as a side note because if they bring it to much to the fore it would lead to the obvious question of "Why does Massively overpowered superhero X not just go over there and sort it all out?"
And it was not so much the death of CA that was the slam on the government and events over the last few years but rather more the events that led up it
School worth of children die, public outrage, press feeding frenzy, overreaction, hints of government/Big Corp involvement = 9/11
Using the previous event as a springboard, new laws rapidly passed with little thought or review that seriously affect individuals liberties (aka if you have powers you are automatically classified as criminal unless you register with the government all your details) while giving huge powers to the government and riches to those in the shadows behind the government= Whole patriot act
Hulk getting dumped into a rocket and sent on a one way trip to space by "his friends" (which is now going to have serious repercussions with World War: Hulk coming) = CIA "renditions"
People (with powers) getting locked up in a negative zone prison with no access to the legal system or trial = Guantanamo bay
The death of CA is more or less a comment saying with all the above "America, land of the free" has been killed
"Americans take their privacy too seriously to ignore this if this becomes public. " Sorry but WHAT????
Americans probably have the lowest privacy concerns of any modern first world country
You have no real laws that protect your data being sold without your knowledge
No real penalties for mishandling (aka losing) peoples personal data
People buy from their local shops and supermarkets and give hand over details like their tel number/address to the shop assistants without question (and for those who have not been to the US not talking "loyalty cards" here which are bad enough, mean "What's you telephone number Sir?", first time I encountered that I was like "WTF?!?!?" and when I refused they did not know what to do because no one had ever refused before and they did not know how to bypass that point on the till to close the sale)
Hell your data protection laws are so weak they had to change European law to create an exclusion for the transmission of airline passenger info to the FBI because otherwise virtually no personal information about people in the EU is allowed to be transmitted to the US unless already connected with a crime because the rest of the view the US laws as a joke
The average American could not give a toss about their privacy
"Well known in both Ultima Online " Off their own shard ("server" for non UO players) virtually no one has ever heard of them.
Played UO for 9 years and only reason i have even heard of them is because i modded for a while one of larger UO forums there and even then had to think a bit until i remembered them
It's a common thing in UO, guild thinks it is UBER and MASSIVE because on their shard a guild of 20 plus people is large when it is situated in the middle of an active server population that is only measured in the hundreds (as all UO shards are), even more so in a game where there is little need to guild up
As to reading their book, no thank you been in quite a few guilds, even led a few and living the pointless and childish drama was bad enough i definatly don't want to read about someone elses
"From what I understand here the RIAA didnt really want to bankrupt this woman." True, they really did not care if she could pay their initial demands or not and nor should they really. Nor did they really care if she was guilty or not. They just wanted money
"they typically dont want whatever money would be awarded from a trial against some random individual." Also true but only if taken litterly because they don't want a trial they want people to pay up without going to trail because they know that whatever evidence they could present at court would not stand up to scrutiny in court if the defendant had a halfway decent lawyer even if the person was guilty never mind innocent
"The cost of running this whole operation dramatically exceeds whatever they could make in settlements and verdicts." Correct, the RIAA does not want this to go court because it does increase the costs, but same is true for the other party thus why most people settle even when innocent (or guilt un-provable).
They want people to just pay their on their initial demand, their threat is basically pay us $4000 now or we will take you to court where you will risk not only losing and having to pay the $4000 but your lawyer fee's but ours as well, hell even if you win you might still have to pay your lawyers and they will cost a lot more than $4000.
Or more simply pay $4000 or risk having to pay a couple of hundred thousand to a few million, no third option.
If that's not extortion then I don't know what is
"They dont need the publicity of forcing a woman and her kid to be homeless. " Honestly the RIAA or more accurately their agents don't give a damn. They are employed to make money (not defend the RIAA IP rights) any way they can "Despite what groklaw may say they arent going after people that they dont have fairly good cases against. (and you know perfectly well there are tons of people who they can make good cases against)" This is basis of all their cases
We (RIAA & it's agents) say IP address tried to download song X at time Y
The ISP says that IP belonged to Joe Blogs at that time
That person is guilty!!!
Now if it goes to trial they want the Judge/Jury to ignore all the following: That RIAA or it's agents are not independent "witnesses", they do have huge financial stakes (larger than that individual trial) in proving their case thus all evidence they might present (which really only consists of little more than screenshots and logs generated by their software) that cannot be independently verified is suspect. Basically He said/she said
That the ISP might get it wrong (happened more than once)
That it was actually that person using the PC/IP, besides open wireless routers there is the problem if actually identifying who was actually at the PC. To take it from a proper trial, having the murder weapon is fine, having motive is fine but unless you can put the weapon in that persons hand at the time you have no case
"This woman should just leave it alone, she already caught a break with the charges being dropped." Charges were only dropped after the trial was over but before the verdict was in, aka RIAA pursued it to the max, cost this woman a lot of time, money and effort and then as soon as it looked like that the RIAA might lose they dropped the charges just so the judge could not deliver his verdict. Because if it did go against the RIAA it would set case precedent. And with such precedent their whole model of extortion would start be very shaky indeed
"Does the ISP have the right to do that? If not, why not?" Yes as long as they are prepared to get sued in court by the recipient of said "important" email
The sender would have no real case as they have no buisness relationship or contract with the isp but the recipient would have a very strong case if the isp was intensionally ( that bit is important) blocking their clients incoming email
Can see it now, ISP blocks or holds to ransom an email, costs the recipient a multi million deal, gets sued and recipient basiclly ends up owning the ISP
"If it was so 'clearly obvious', why did it take until 1996 before anyone thought of it? Why didn't YOU patent it first, if it was so damn obvious to you?" Because patenting solutions, ideas and software only really kicked off in the 90's when dot com start up's were seeking venture capital.
Because most venture capital companys did not even begin to understand the sector they were investing in the best way to get them to invest was do things they would understand and the two main things they understood from other sectors was first and formost patents and to a much lesser degree trademarks
The main reason for this is most VC's came with previous experience of investing in real tangible "hardware" inventions and in that sector unless you had the patents there was no point in even really bothering because as soon as you started doing well some country like China or Japan would copy you and be able to produce it for half the price.
And yes this idea was not only obvious back then but widely in use, ask any DBA or developer who had to create a query to list all clients in area X
He was in China when he sent the email It was Yahoo China and it's subsidiaries that handed over the information They were legally obliged to hand over the information (moral obligation is of no concern to the courts) according the Chinese law
The only reason they can even try to bring this to trial in the US is because Yahoo China is owned by Yahoo US
These cases are only being brought to give bad publicity to the corps involved and raise awareness of the China situation, I highly doubt they have any realistic expectations of winning
Plus them winning would be very bad for the US because not only would it be saying US > Foreign Law in that foreign country (never a good idea because it rapidly turns into a tip for tat situation) but also it would raise the question of countries or foreign companies in the US sharing information with the US Law enforcement about people, because after all US is now a country where you can be tortured and imprisoned without trial (Guantanamo and CIA prison camps)
There are probably an equal proportion of good and bad games in both "era's" but without doubt for me the higher proportion of the more memorable and imaginative games (gameplay/originality) for me are the older ones. Todays games seem to focus more on gloss like graphics/sound than actual gameplay while older games focused more on gameplay because the graphics/sound options were rather limited.
As someone noted in another post with older games you used to play them again and again, even in single player mode (hell most did not have multiplayer) where as todays games single player is, play it though the campaign/storyline once and thats pretty much it, game over because you will never play it again unless you are REALLY bored
If we could have the designers of yesteryear with their attitudes, imagination and ethos intact and give them the tools of today it would be a gamers heaven
"The WTO exists precisely for the purpose of arbitrating disputes of this sort. The US is following protocol for a legitimate concern." Except for the small issue of whenever the WTO rules against the US the US ignore them. So pretty hypocritical of the US trying to use the WTO to force others to do their bidding
An overly broad, alarmist and shrill summary using probably the worst possible example out there
Let's get a few things straight
WoW Glider was specifically designed to break the rules of WOW (rules put in place to make the game fair and thus enjoyable to everybody)
The makers of WoW glider were making money by selling this bot tool, or more accurately they were making money by screwing up wow and other "players" enjoyment, enjoyment they paid blizzard for
Blizzard are trying to use any possible means in the courts to get them to stop as they refused to stop otherwise
There are many arguments/debates against MMO ToC's, the spy tools the makers use to police their games and the rights of the users but to try to start a debate using the WoW glider case as a launch pad for your argument is just pretty much guaranteeing you lose from the get go as wow glider case is pretty much indefensible for any "legal" player of MMO's
Re:Another organization that wants to be above the
on
ICANN Wants Immunity
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· Score: 2, Insightful
[quote]I like where the internet has gotten under US law. Why would a change, as big a this, be necessary ?[/quote] Because the US and it's "laws" has been changing over the last decade.
It used be the "land of the free and money" and this allowed the internet to grow (for good and bad) under it's control, now it's the "land of special interests and the money of the latter group" and this is not only holding the internet back but endangering the whole thing to the point where it might break apart.
The UN would be a far from ideal group to control the internet but these days it would be a 100 times better than the US
"In all honesty though, a bit of editorialising is warranted here. What if Coke sued you because you bought a Pepsi? What if AMD sued you because you bought an Intel chip?" Not exactly accurate because it implies the buyer has complete freedom of choice.
While I don't have a clue about Massachusetts statues it is pretty common for all forms of western government to have statutes that control Government purchases, which can be basically summarized as "best for purpose but also cheapest". This is generally to stop corruption or to stop politicians just going to the popular choice regardless of it being the right/wrong choice
Basically Diebold is accusing the gov. Of Massachusetts of picking the popular choice not the "best for purpose"
They best hope that judge does not look to closely at their machines and their crap track record if they want to stand a chance in hell of winning
I honestly don't know if to take your post seriously or not due to your comments that indicate things like the war on drugs is "successful" (it's not and you are living in la la land if you think it is) but I will give you the benefit of doubt
lets take this point by point
"It was one of those boutique record stores that sell obscure, independent releases that no-one listens to, not even the people that buy them. I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the family market" Leaving the obscure/rare/independent releases might or might not have been the right idea, really depends on location you are. In the long term though these are the kind of music stores that will last the longest, when all the major music stores are long gone (and they will go within the next 15/20 odd years unless something major happens) these "collectors shops" will still be around. Will they ever make the major money, nope but they will outlast the "digital revolution" for the same reason that some LP stores are around
"CD sales have dropped through the floor. People aren't buying half as many CDs as they did just a year ago....... But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame......." Internet piracy has been around for years, it has not had any kind of major boom over the last year or two but remained pretty steady. What has increased dramatically in that period is the take up of MP3 players and legal download sites like itunes. These is the number one reason for your recent falling sales. And got bad news for you, there is nothing you can do about it, it is the way the world is going. LP's got pushed out by tapes, tapes by CD's and now CD's will be replaced by digital downloads
"I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of." While I can admire your principals and that you have tried sticking to them, please don't try to blame the world because you shot yourself in the foot. You decided to limit your market no one else
"A week ago, an unpleasant experience with pirates gave me an idea. In my store, I overheard a teenage patron talking to his friend.
"Dude, I'm going to put this CD on the Internet right away."
"Yeah, dude, that's really lete [sic], you'll get lots of respect."" Sorry but I burst out laughing at this little scenario, not just because I generally find kids who talk like this so stupid thats it funny but because it is supposedly happening in a store that does "not sell sick stuff and that has one of the most extensive Christian rock sections around"
Maybe you should have told told them they would get no "respect" for posting this kind of music?
As to your ideas to deal with the situation, I am sorry but they so are laughable that they lead me to believe that you need psychiatric help
"When my girls ask me questions like that, I feel like my heart is being wrenched out of my chest. But knowing that I'm doing the best I can to save my family and my business is some consolation." You are not doing your best, you picked a dieing market (the writing was on the wall for CD's 12 years ago for those who cared to look), you then decided to limit your customer base even further and now instead of trying to re-expand your customer base,try new ideas and adapt to the market you just want to cry and set up blacklists.
No wonder you support the RIAA, you have the same short-sighted and blinkered mentality as them
"This led to an odd exchange with Representative Mary Bono who compared Berner-Lee's suggestion to 'having a speed limit but not enforcing the speed limit.'" That is an accurate description of Berner-Lee's suggestion, he is saying it should be still illegal but that pretty much nothing should be done if people break the law nor should anything be done to prevent them breaking the law
DRM is not the solution but neither is Berner-Lee's sugestion
Music industry want DRM, they just want DRM that is 100% under their control and ONLY benefits them
They demanded Apple put DRM in iTunes music, Apple said fine and put it in but refuses to sell that DRM to anyone else thus creating a "lock in" to Apple products
Job's recently realised that iTunes is so big and dominant now that they (Apple) don't really need DRM anymore while iPod is slowly losing market share as other MP3 player manufacturers catch up finally,as Apple DRM currently only works with iPods, best way forward for Apple is to get all those non iPod users onto ITunes thus expanding the ITunes market, so he says get rid of DRM totally (Better PR and less complicated to say get rid of it totally instead of opening up Apple DRM)
Music industry says, let others use your DRM, thus getting rid of the ITunes/iPod "lock in" but leave everything else as is so consumers still get screwed
Basically Music industry still wants to eat their cake while tossing Apples in the garbage
"What, exactly, has changed since then, and who was responsible?" What has changed? that is pretty simple, before 95 most software changes were either very revolutionary or sorely needed
These days most new releases one or more of the following
a) Minor evolutions, aka a few nice to have, but not NECESSARY features b) Just a way for the publishers to rake in more money. aka change the color scheme, up the version number and reword the marketing blurb
And without fail nearly all make the end developers lives either complicated or force them to have to reinvent the wheel all over again with not much benefit for the hassle
"I am saying, that with a child like that, the things this woman describes (trying to fix him) is exactly what would drive him farther and farther over the edge of wrecklessness in a desire to say, "I do what I want."" Very true, it would drive him further into that mentality,kinda went that way with my parents when growing up, but luckyly i "grew out of it" before anything really bad happened
BUT what alternative for the parents is there that would work? Answer is simple, none.
Let him do what he wants? Easyley end up with same result, hell it does many times, aka those cases where the parents are fully to blame
Put him into care? Known quite a few kids who have gone though care systems in different countries and can tell you kids like this NEVER come of of the system well
Beat the shit out him till he stopped? That generally just turns screwed up kids into very screwed up adults
By the sounds of things parents did their very best, really what more could be asked of them?
Decent parenting, home life, counseling can all be pointless at times because sometimes no matter what a parents does the kid can and will turn out "bad"
"Men in RIAA jackets helped cart away 'evidence'." So since when do the RIAA have to legal power to seize "evidence"? Because if they don't SWAT can be charged with aiding in a felony (theft) and the RIAA people involved can be charged with theft
And even if they do have the power (which i seriously doubt) any lawyer could easyly get the DJ's off because if highly doubt the RIAA follow any standard procedures with "chain of evidence"
"The results of this deal are extremely lucrative for both sides. Google brought some $600 million in investment and as many as 200 jobs to the state, and legislation enacted with Google's help is projected to save the company some $89 million in taxes over 30 years." Lets see, NC gets $600 Million investment that could have gone elsewhere, 200 odd new jobs (and tax revenue from employee's) that also could have gone elsewhere and it just cost them $89 million tax revenue over 30 years, tax revenue that they would probably not have got if they had not done the deal.
Sounds like NC got the better end of the deal by a long margin
The secrecy and nondisclosure agreements are pretty standard, for reasons that are obvious if you give it two minutes worth of consideration
If he had signed no type of contract that forced him to give a certain amount of notice or controlled who he went to work for he has nothing to fear (and potencially something to gain in a counter suit)
Hell in this day and age even if he had signed something, if he got a good enough lawyer he could probably get out of it. Majority of contracts, especially standard "template contracts" which most employment contracts are, are not worth the paper they printed on
"While I don't agree with "offering cash for dissenting papers" I do think that the scientists with opposing viewpoints AND the evidence to support these viewpoints do need to get more coverage." Were you saying the same thing for the last 20 years when the "no global warming" crowd were receiveing all the coverage, money and gov grants while those who went against the "corporate party line" basiclly talked themselves out of a job? Doubt it
If they want to deal with all the facts, fine give them a podium. But they want cherry pick from these facts to promote their funders desired conclusions then strip them of their doctorates, tar them and point and laugh, because all the facts taken as a whole are more than clear even to a layman: Mankind is having a negative effect on the world climate. The only real debate that remains is "by what degree"
"This is a change from previous versions of Windows, which only required a valid license key." Wrong. Been like that before with preious upgrade versions, win 95 was last time i encountered this (never had an upgrade version of XP so no idea if was same there)
Slashdot Mirror
"The fact that Fox News is so popular is indicative that the mainstream (non-Fox) media is, in fact, not as conservative as the majority of viewers want(ed) it to be."
More inclined to view it that Fox is so popular because it is basically the tabloid of the TV news, catering in format/presentation and content to the lowest common denominator.
Basically entertainment masquerading as News
"So judges in this country can't reason if I don't hire a $200/hr lawyer? What if I've got 5 kids to feed and don't have money for a lawyer? That means everything the other side says is true regardless of whether or not they proved it?"
Congratulations, you have started to figure out what is wrong with modern western legal systems in general and the USA system in particular
"I have to say that this seems normal behavior for any phone company the world over"
Over in the UK never had a crippled phone and been on most of the major carriers and on various plans from subcription to pay-as-you-go
US is only country i have ever heard of this, just like US is only country i have heard of where incoming calls to mobiles cost (or use up your mins). Rest of the world you only pay for incoming when you are out of the country (aka forwarding on charges) and phone companies are getting forced to reduced those prices all the time
"It's been quite a while since I've read comics, but do comics today even mention Iraq? And what exactly is a "big slam on the government"? A vague commentary on the fact that (gasp!) people sometimes die, and the gov't should do something about it? Or is the death of Captain America a specific critique of Bush's policies in Iraq? Could someone who's followed the storyline enlighten me? Thanks"
Do comic's mention Iraq? yes regularly but always as a side note because if they bring it to much to the fore it would lead to the obvious question of "Why does Massively overpowered superhero X not just go over there and sort it all out?"
And it was not so much the death of CA that was the slam on the government and events over the last few years but rather more the events that led up it
School worth of children die, public outrage, press feeding frenzy, overreaction, hints of government/Big Corp involvement = 9/11
Using the previous event as a springboard, new laws rapidly passed with little thought or review that seriously affect individuals liberties (aka if you have powers you are automatically classified as criminal unless you register with the government all your details) while giving huge powers to the government and riches to those in the shadows behind the government= Whole patriot act
Hulk getting dumped into a rocket and sent on a one way trip to space by "his friends" (which is now going to have serious repercussions with World War: Hulk coming) = CIA "renditions"
People (with powers) getting locked up in a negative zone prison with no access to the legal system or trial = Guantanamo bay
The death of CA is more or less a comment saying with all the above "America, land of the free" has been killed
"Americans take their privacy too seriously to ignore this if this becomes public. "
Sorry but WHAT????
Americans probably have the lowest privacy concerns of any modern first world country
You have no real laws that protect your data being sold without your knowledge
No real penalties for mishandling (aka losing) peoples personal data
People buy from their local shops and supermarkets and give hand over details like their tel number/address to the shop assistants without question (and for those who have not been to the US not talking "loyalty cards" here which are bad enough, mean "What's you telephone number Sir?", first time I encountered that I was like "WTF?!?!?" and when I refused they did not know what to do because no one had ever refused before and they did not know how to bypass that point on the till to close the sale)
Hell your data protection laws are so weak they had to change European law to create an exclusion for the transmission of airline passenger info to the FBI because otherwise virtually no personal information about people in the EU is allowed to be transmitted to the US unless already connected with a crime because the rest of the view the US laws as a joke
The average American could not give a toss about their privacy
"Well known in both Ultima Online "
Off their own shard ("server" for non UO players) virtually no one has ever heard of them.
Played UO for 9 years and only reason i have even heard of them is because i modded for a while one of larger UO forums there and even then had to think a bit until i remembered them
It's a common thing in UO, guild thinks it is UBER and MASSIVE because on their shard a guild of 20 plus people is large when it is situated in the middle of an active server population that is only measured in the hundreds (as all UO shards are), even more so in a game where there is little need to guild up
As to reading their book, no thank you been in quite a few guilds, even led a few and living the pointless and childish drama was bad enough i definatly don't want to read about someone elses
"From what I understand here the RIAA didnt really want to bankrupt this woman."
True, they really did not care if she could pay their initial demands or not and nor should they really. Nor did they really care if she was guilty or not. They just wanted money
"they typically dont want whatever money would be awarded from a trial against some random individual."
Also true but only if taken litterly because they don't want a trial they want people to pay up without going to trail because they know that whatever evidence they could present at court would not stand up to scrutiny in court if the defendant had a halfway decent lawyer even if the person was guilty never mind innocent
"The cost of running this whole operation dramatically exceeds whatever they could make in settlements and verdicts."
Correct, the RIAA does not want this to go court because it does increase the costs, but same is true for the other party thus why most people settle even when innocent (or guilt un-provable).
They want people to just pay their on their initial demand, their threat is basically pay us $4000 now or we will take you to court where you will risk not only losing and having to pay the $4000 but your lawyer fee's but ours as well, hell even if you win you might still have to pay your lawyers and they will cost a lot more than $4000.
Or more simply pay $4000 or risk having to pay a couple of hundred thousand to a few million, no third option.
If that's not extortion then I don't know what is
"They dont need the publicity of forcing a woman and her kid to be homeless. "
Honestly the RIAA or more accurately their agents don't give a damn. They are employed to make money (not defend the RIAA IP rights) any way they can
"Despite what groklaw may say they arent going after people that they dont have fairly good cases against. (and you know perfectly well there are tons of people who they can make good cases against)"
This is basis of all their cases
We (RIAA & it's agents) say IP address tried to download song X at time Y
The ISP says that IP belonged to Joe Blogs at that time
That person is guilty!!!
Now if it goes to trial they want the Judge/Jury to ignore all the following:
That RIAA or it's agents are not independent "witnesses", they do have huge financial stakes (larger than that individual trial) in proving their case thus all evidence they might present (which really only consists of little more than screenshots and logs generated by their software) that cannot be independently verified is suspect. Basically He said/she said
That the ISP might get it wrong (happened more than once)
That it was actually that person using the PC/IP, besides open wireless routers there is the problem if actually identifying who was actually at the PC. To take it from a proper trial, having the murder weapon is fine, having motive is fine but unless you can put the weapon in that persons hand at the time you have no case
"This woman should just leave it alone, she already caught a break with the charges being dropped."
Charges were only dropped after the trial was over but before the verdict was in, aka RIAA pursued it to the max, cost this woman a lot of time, money and effort and then as soon as it looked like that the RIAA might lose they dropped the charges just so the judge could not deliver his verdict. Because if it did go against the RIAA it would set case precedent. And with such precedent their whole model of extortion would start be very shaky indeed
"Does the ISP have the right to do that? If not, why not?"
Yes as long as they are prepared to get sued in court by the recipient of said "important" email
The sender would have no real case as they have no buisness relationship or contract with the isp but the recipient would have a very strong case if the isp was intensionally ( that bit is important) blocking their clients incoming email
Can see it now, ISP blocks or holds to ransom an email, costs the recipient a multi million deal, gets sued and recipient basiclly ends up owning the ISP
"If it was so 'clearly obvious', why did it take until 1996 before anyone thought of it? Why didn't YOU patent it first, if it was so damn obvious to you?"
Because patenting solutions, ideas and software only really kicked off in the 90's when dot com start up's were seeking venture capital.
Because most venture capital companys did not even begin to understand the sector they were investing in the best way to get them to invest was do things they would understand and the two main things they understood from other sectors was first and formost patents and to a much lesser degree trademarks
The main reason for this is most VC's came with previous experience of investing in real tangible "hardware" inventions and in that sector unless you had the patents there was no point in even really bothering because as soon as you started doing well some country like China or Japan would copy you and be able to produce it for half the price.
And yes this idea was not only obvious back then but widely in use, ask any DBA or developer who had to create a query to list all clients in area X
No real case here that I can see.
He was in China when he sent the email
It was Yahoo China and it's subsidiaries that handed over the information
They were legally obliged to hand over the information (moral obligation is of no concern to the courts) according the Chinese law
The only reason they can even try to bring this to trial in the US is because Yahoo China is owned by Yahoo US
These cases are only being brought to give bad publicity to the corps involved and raise awareness of the China situation, I highly doubt they have any realistic expectations of winning
Plus them winning would be very bad for the US because not only would it be saying US > Foreign Law in that foreign country (never a good idea because it rapidly turns into a tip for tat situation) but also it would raise the question of countries or foreign companies in the US sharing information with the US Law enforcement about people, because after all US is now a country where you can be tortured and imprisoned without trial (Guantanamo and CIA prison camps)
There are probably an equal proportion of good and bad games in both "era's" but without doubt for me the higher proportion of the more memorable and imaginative games (gameplay/originality) for me are the older ones. Todays games seem to focus more on gloss like graphics/sound than actual gameplay while older games focused more on gameplay because the graphics/sound options were rather limited.
As someone noted in another post with older games you used to play them again and again, even in single player mode (hell most did not have multiplayer) where as todays games single player is, play it though the campaign/storyline once and thats pretty much it, game over because you will never play it again unless you are REALLY bored
If we could have the designers of yesteryear with their attitudes, imagination and ethos intact and give them the tools of today it would be a gamers heaven
"The WTO exists precisely for the purpose of arbitrating disputes of this sort. The US is following protocol for a legitimate concern."
Except for the small issue of whenever the WTO rules against the US the US ignore them. So pretty hypocritical of the US trying to use the WTO to force others to do their bidding
An overly broad, alarmist and shrill summary using probably the worst possible example out there
Let's get a few things straight
WoW Glider was specifically designed to break the rules of WOW (rules put in place to make the game fair and thus enjoyable to everybody)
The makers of WoW glider were making money by selling this bot tool, or more accurately they were making money by screwing up wow and other "players" enjoyment, enjoyment they paid blizzard for
Blizzard are trying to use any possible means in the courts to get them to stop as they refused to stop otherwise
There are many arguments/debates against MMO ToC's, the spy tools the makers use to police their games and the rights of the users but to try to start a debate using the WoW glider case as a launch pad for your argument is just pretty much guaranteeing you lose from the get go as wow glider case is pretty much indefensible for any "legal" player of MMO's
[quote]I like where the internet has gotten under US law. Why would a change, as big a this, be necessary ?[/quote]
Because the US and it's "laws" has been changing over the last decade.
It used be the "land of the free and money" and this allowed the internet to grow (for good and bad) under it's control, now it's the "land of special interests and the money of the latter group" and this is not only holding the internet back but endangering the whole thing to the point where it might break apart.
The UN would be a far from ideal group to control the internet but these days it would be a 100 times better than the US
"In all honesty though, a bit of editorialising is warranted here. What if Coke sued you because you bought a Pepsi? What if AMD sued you because you bought an Intel chip?"
Not exactly accurate because it implies the buyer has complete freedom of choice.
While I don't have a clue about Massachusetts statues it is pretty common for all forms of western government to have statutes that control Government purchases, which can be basically summarized as "best for purpose but also cheapest". This is generally to stop corruption or to stop politicians just going to the popular choice regardless of it being the right/wrong choice
Basically Diebold is accusing the gov. Of Massachusetts of picking the popular choice not the "best for purpose"
They best hope that judge does not look to closely at their machines and their crap track record if they want to stand a chance in hell of winning
I honestly don't know if to take your post seriously or not due to your comments that indicate things like the war on drugs is "successful" (it's not and you are living in la la land if you think it is) but I will give you the benefit of doubt
lets take this point by point
"It was one of those boutique record stores that sell obscure, independent releases that no-one listens to, not even the people that buy them. I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the family market"
Leaving the obscure/rare/independent releases might or might not have been the right idea, really depends on location you are. In the long term though these are the kind of music stores that will last the longest, when all the major music stores are long gone (and they will go within the next 15/20 odd years unless something major happens) these "collectors shops" will still be around. Will they ever make the major money, nope but they will outlast the "digital revolution" for the same reason that some LP stores are around
"CD sales have dropped through the floor. People aren't buying half as many CDs as they did just a year ago....... But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame......."
Internet piracy has been around for years, it has not had any kind of major boom over the last year or two but remained pretty steady. What has increased dramatically in that period is the take up of MP3 players and legal download sites like itunes. These is the number one reason for your recent falling sales. And got bad news for you, there is nothing you can do about it, it is the way the world is going. LP's got pushed out by tapes, tapes by CD's and now CD's will be replaced by digital downloads
"I don't sell sick stuff like Marilyn Manson or cop-killer rap, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of."
While I can admire your principals and that you have tried sticking to them, please don't try to blame the world because you shot yourself in the foot. You decided to limit your market no one else
"A week ago, an unpleasant experience with pirates gave me an idea. In my store, I overheard a teenage patron talking to his friend.
"Dude, I'm going to put this CD on the Internet right away."
"Yeah, dude, that's really lete [sic], you'll get lots of respect.""
Sorry but I burst out laughing at this little scenario, not just because I generally find kids who talk like this so stupid thats it funny but because it is supposedly happening in a store that does "not sell sick stuff and that has one of the most extensive Christian rock sections around"
Maybe you should have told told them they would get no "respect" for posting this kind of music?
As to your ideas to deal with the situation, I am sorry but they so are laughable that they lead me to believe that you need psychiatric help
"When my girls ask me questions like that, I feel like my heart is being wrenched out of my chest. But knowing that I'm doing the best I can to save my family and my business is some consolation."
You are not doing your best, you picked a dieing market (the writing was on the wall for CD's 12 years ago for those who cared to look), you then decided to limit your customer base even further and now instead of trying to re-expand your customer base,try new ideas and adapt to the market you just want to cry and set up blacklists.
No wonder you support the RIAA, you have the same short-sighted and blinkered mentality as them
"This led to an odd exchange with Representative Mary Bono who compared Berner-Lee's suggestion to 'having a speed limit but not enforcing the speed limit.'"
That is an accurate description of Berner-Lee's suggestion, he is saying it should be still illegal but that pretty much nothing should be done if people break the law nor should anything be done to prevent them breaking the law
DRM is not the solution but neither is Berner-Lee's sugestion
Music industry want DRM, they just want DRM that is 100% under their control and ONLY benefits them
,as Apple DRM currently only works with iPods, best way forward for Apple is to get all those non iPod users onto ITunes thus expanding the ITunes market, so he says get rid of DRM totally (Better PR and less complicated to say get rid of it totally instead of opening up Apple DRM)
They demanded Apple put DRM in iTunes music, Apple said fine and put it in but refuses to sell that DRM to anyone else thus creating a "lock in" to Apple products
Job's recently realised that iTunes is so big and dominant now that they (Apple) don't really need DRM anymore while iPod is slowly losing market share as other MP3 player manufacturers catch up finally
Music industry says, let others use your DRM, thus getting rid of the ITunes/iPod "lock in" but leave everything else as is so consumers still get screwed
Basically Music industry still wants to eat their cake while tossing Apples in the garbage
"What, exactly, has changed since then, and who was responsible?"
What has changed? that is pretty simple, before 95 most software changes were either very revolutionary or sorely needed
These days most new releases one or more of the following
a) Minor evolutions, aka a few nice to have, but not NECESSARY features
b) Just a way for the publishers to rake in more money. aka change the color scheme, up the version number and reword the marketing blurb
And without fail nearly all make the end developers lives either complicated or force them to have to reinvent the wheel all over again with not much benefit for the hassle
As to who is respoonsible? Pretty much everybody
"I am saying, that with a child like that, the things this woman describes (trying to fix him) is exactly what would drive him farther and farther over the edge of wrecklessness in a desire to say, "I do what I want.""
Very true, it would drive him further into that mentality,kinda went that way with my parents when growing up, but luckyly i "grew out of it" before anything really bad happened
BUT what alternative for the parents is there that would work? Answer is simple, none.
Let him do what he wants? Easyley end up with same result, hell it does many times, aka those cases where the parents are fully to blame
Put him into care? Known quite a few kids who have gone though care systems in different countries and can tell you kids like this NEVER come of of the system well
Beat the shit out him till he stopped? That generally just turns screwed up kids into very screwed up adults
By the sounds of things parents did their very best, really what more could be asked of them?
Decent parenting, home life, counseling can all be pointless at times because sometimes no matter what a parents does the kid can and will turn out "bad"
"Men in RIAA jackets helped cart away 'evidence'."
So since when do the RIAA have to legal power to seize "evidence"? Because if they don't SWAT can be charged with aiding in a felony (theft) and the RIAA people involved can be charged with theft
And even if they do have the power (which i seriously doubt) any lawyer could easyly get the DJ's off because if highly doubt the RIAA follow any standard procedures with "chain of evidence"
"The results of this deal are extremely lucrative for both sides. Google brought some $600 million in investment and as many as 200 jobs to the state, and legislation enacted with Google's help is projected to save the company some $89 million in taxes over 30 years."
Lets see, NC gets $600 Million investment that could have gone elsewhere, 200 odd new jobs (and tax revenue from employee's) that also could have gone elsewhere and it just cost them $89 million tax revenue over 30 years, tax revenue that they would probably not have got if they had not done the deal.
Sounds like NC got the better end of the deal by a long margin
The secrecy and nondisclosure agreements are pretty standard, for reasons that are obvious if you give it two minutes worth of consideration
If he had signed no type of contract that forced him to give a certain amount of notice or controlled who he went to work for he has nothing to fear (and potencially something to gain in a counter suit)
Hell in this day and age even if he had signed something, if he got a good enough lawyer he could probably get out of it. Majority of contracts, especially standard "template contracts" which most employment contracts are, are not worth the paper they printed on
"While I don't agree with "offering cash for dissenting papers" I do think that the scientists with opposing viewpoints AND the evidence to support these viewpoints do need to get more coverage."
Were you saying the same thing for the last 20 years when the "no global warming" crowd were receiveing all the coverage, money and gov grants while those who went against the "corporate party line" basiclly talked themselves out of a job? Doubt it
If they want to deal with all the facts, fine give them a podium. But they want cherry pick from these facts to promote their funders desired conclusions then strip them of their doctorates, tar them and point and laugh, because all the facts taken as a whole are more than clear even to a layman:
Mankind is having a negative effect on the world climate.
The only real debate that remains is "by what degree"
"This is a change from previous versions of Windows, which only required a valid license key."
Wrong. Been like that before with preious upgrade versions, win 95 was last time i encountered this (never had an upgrade version of XP so no idea if was same there)