You might want to re-post this under the correct story forum. This one's about Hilary Rosen and how much horse cock she can choke down before we'll let her take away any more of our fair use rights.
I didn't even notice the effects of Code Red other than irc servers being a bit slower to connect. Of course, I have the internal piece of shit Intel DSL router for Qwest, but I also paid attention to the news--I would have had just as few problems with a Cisco (in fact, the first thing I did after setting passwords when I *did* have one was to change the http port and then disable it anyway). Qwest usually sucks, but the DSL service in Denver has been great so far.
If this is the same Excite that runs Inside Excite at excite.com, then good fucking riddance, and I hope the Excite@Home division (I'm assuming that's what it is--the story doesn't say) drags the rest of the cocksuckers down with it.
It's no wonder most spam comes from @home relays. Inside Excite has been spamming me for months and refusing to stop. Here's part of what I sent the California Attorney General's office today:
I have asked Excite (support@excite.com, postmaster@excite.com, and
abuse@excite.com) numerous times to stop sending me unsolicited commercial
email, yet they persist. I never signed up for any of their services,
never used any of their services, and certainly never asked for any ads to
be emailed to me. In their unsolicited commercial email, there is an
option to "unsubscribe" (to a list I never subscribed to) that leads to a
web page that has never worked:
http://excite.upgrade.com/excite/NBServices.asp has returned the message
"Currently we are unable to update your preferences, please try again
later" for at least a year, and no one at Excite has responded to my
complaints.
So now one of Excite's divisons is going under? Big surprise, given their obvious lack of concern for potential customers. Bye, Excite@home. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
As one of the remixers from OCR, I'm probably qualified to correct this a bit...:)
Not only NES-era, but all sorts of game music, from NES (I don't believe there are any Atari 2600 remixes yet, but if there were, they would probably be unlistenable anyway) through PSX2 is represented.
<plug>
If you're (in the plural sense) a musician, why not remix your favorite game tunage and submit it to OCR?
</plug>
You failed to answer any of the questions he asked you. Here they are again:
Would you describe to me how DeCSS can be used for "stealing"?
I've been seeing "DVDrip" copies of movies for download long before DeCSS ever hit the net, and I doubt the pirates even paused in their ripping efforts to read about DeCSS, notwithstanding your falling sky "arguments."
Also:
For that matter, how does DeCSS have anything to do with Napster?
I'd like to know this as well. Perhaps you could make the argument that Napster is used for stealing music, but that hasn't got the slightest bearing on the matter at hand, which is DeCSS. Thanks for playing.
Particularly in the x86 market, there is such an abundance of 3rd party hardware that goes into most systems. This usually means 3rd party drivers. And because these all have to work together, who's to say that it wasn't a bug in Windows that caused that video driver to fail? Or was it a bug in the driver itself? Who is to be held liable here?
I've thought about this. Under linux, I've only very rarely had ANY problems with 3rd-party software taking down the whole system. Both times it happened, it was Netscape. As far as 3rd-part drivers go, not a single one has ever caused a noticable problem when I'm in linux.
Don't get me wrong, I *like* Windows when it works right. But blaming the problem on 3rd-party drivers is just misguided.
I like karma as much as the next whore, but whoever modded me up as "Informative" should read the moderation guidelines again. There was precious little information in my post, just a declarative statement with no backup evidence to support it. If there were a "+1: Snarky" rating, I'd gladly accept it, but until then...that post didn't deserve an "Informative" rating. And this one's offtopic. Shoot away.
A Judge already ruled a couple of years ago that the big 5 were price fixing. The problem is, that's as far as it went. Guess it's about time for another round of bribes.
Lots of people bitching over the list, I notice. Of course it's going to be arbitrary--these games are what the article's authors consider the best games ever (assuming they haven't been swayed by advertising dollars), and that isn't going to match what *you* consider the best games ever. Instead of bitching, post your favorites. Here are mine, in semi-random order:
Secret of Mana (SNES): Probably my favorite RPG of all time.
Legend of the Red Dragon (BBS door): Oh yeah. Addictive as hell.
Torment: Planescape (PC): One of the most immersive and powerful games I've ever played. As soon as I finished (40+ hours of play) I wanted to start over again.
Solstice (NES): Puzzle games never seemed as addictive as this one.
Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES): My favorite SMB game.
Doom II (PC): Most fun I've ever had in network deathmatches.
Unreal (PC): Simply revolutionary.
Drol (Apple ][e): Anyone else remember this one?
Bard's Tale 2 (Apple ][e): Sadly, I never played the first one.
Star Control 2 (3DO): One of my all-time favorites on any platform, though the 3DO version was the best.
The Wing Commander series (PC): Simplistic gameplay, but incredibly addictive anyway.
Super Metroid (SNES): One of the five or so SNES games I still play regularly.
Crystal Castles (Arcade): That bear rocked.
It Came from the Desert (Amiga): Atmospheric, spooky and awesome.
Star Wars (Arcade): You sit down in the cabinet and fly an X-Wing. What more could you want? Speaking of which...
X-Wing Vs. Tie Fighter (PC): Sucked up all my time.
The Bomberman series (lots of platforms): Consistently fun on every platform.
Ecco the Dolphin (Genesis): Revolutionary for its time.
Combat (Atari 2600): Fun and addictive, blocky graphics notwithstanding.
Samurai Shodown (Neo Geo): The best of the crop of sword fighting games at the time.
Tekken 2 (PSX): Still loads of fun to this day--something I can't say for Mortal Kombat 2.
Lemmings (many platforms): They're all good.
Silent Hill (PSX): This game had me *afraid* to play in the dark, at age 29. And I don't spook easily. That's the game's saving grace, as it's far too short--I hope SH2 will be much longer and more involved.
Alone in the Dark (PC): This was another revolutionary, spooky game.
I've doubtless forgotten a great many games here. If you don't agree with me, don't sweat it--they're only opinions.
uh... don't other modern OS's have firewalls? Don't other modern OS's offer music playing software, and mailing software.
Other modern OS's don't prevent their users from running software like XP is doing to zonealarm and BlackIce (people still use BI? It's fucking useless, don't bother). Thanks for playing.
Now when XP becomes standard with their draconian registering procedure and computer tracking code. People will pay even more, because there won't be the casual pirating of windows that occurs now.
Windows XP betas have been available as cracked warez for months now. Office XP, too. MS's vaunted "copy protection" lasted all of about 2 hours.
KaZaA has an opt-out dialog for TopText when it is installed, but Benny Evangelista, who wrote the Chronicle story, says that neither he nor other people he spoke to who had downloaded KaZaA spotted it until they knew it was there and went looking for it.
I noticed it, and politely declined. As a matter of fact, if I recall correctly there was another bundled program with Kazaa as well, which I also unchecked. This isn't a matter of scrutinizing a legalese-crammed EULA, it's a matter of paying attention when the install program stops and asks you a question. If you're the kind of person who keeps clicking "continue" without reading the text, you deserve whatever you agreed to.
Not the entire internet. Only 25% of the web uses IIS servers. The rest is mostly Apache.
<sarcasm>
Yeah, and CERT obviously forgot that the Code Red worm only sends its bandwidth-sucking attacks to the white house over IIS servers. Damn, they're clueless.
</sarcasm>
Not in civil court, which is where I assume the BSA will drag you if they claim you're pirating (have they EVER done this or do they just rely on scare tactics and strongarming?). In civil court, "preponderance of evidence" is the key phrase.
Standard disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer--but I play one on/.
Slashdot Mirror
-Legion
-Legion
It's no wonder most spam comes from @home relays. Inside Excite has been spamming me for months and refusing to stop. Here's part of what I sent the California Attorney General's office today:
I have asked Excite (support@excite.com, postmaster@excite.com, and
abuse@excite.com) numerous times to stop sending me unsolicited commercial
email, yet they persist. I never signed up for any of their services,
never used any of their services, and certainly never asked for any ads to
be emailed to me. In their unsolicited commercial email, there is an
option to "unsubscribe" (to a list I never subscribed to) that leads to a
web page that has never worked:
http://excite.upgrade.com/excite/NBServices.asp has returned the message
"Currently we are unable to update your preferences, please try again
later" for at least a year, and no one at Excite has responded to my
complaints.
So now one of Excite's divisons is going under? Big surprise, given their obvious lack of concern for potential customers. Bye, Excite@home. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
-Legion
(VOICE STYLE="klingon")
"Today is a good day to buy!"
(/VOICE)
*Mental image of a hard sell Klingon car salesman in a cheap suit*
"You will look nice in this car." (screaming, fingering dagger): "YOU WILL!"
-Legion
Is it just me, or does West look like Bruce McCollough (sp?) in that photo?
-Legion
-Legion
Not only NES-era, but all sorts of game music, from NES (I don't believe there are any Atari 2600 remixes yet, but if there were, they would probably be unlistenable anyway) through PSX2 is represented.
<plug>
If you're (in the plural sense) a musician, why not remix your favorite game tunage and submit it to OCR?
</plug>
-Legion
"You've got HOT WET TEENS ACHING TO PLEASE YOUR EVERY ORIFICE! YOU! WILL! CUM!"
OK, maybe not...
-Legion
Oh, fantastic. I can imagine it now:
"You've got spam!" [Score: -50, Redundant. -ed.]
"You've got an attachment virus! Executing now..."
"You've got a BSOD!"
"You've got a monopoly!"
-Legion
-Legion
Would you describe to me how DeCSS can be used for "stealing"?
I've been seeing "DVDrip" copies of movies for download long before DeCSS ever hit the net, and I doubt the pirates even paused in their ripping efforts to read about DeCSS, notwithstanding your falling sky "arguments."
Also:
For that matter, how does DeCSS have anything to do with Napster?
I'd like to know this as well. Perhaps you could make the argument that Napster is used for stealing music, but that hasn't got the slightest bearing on the matter at hand, which is DeCSS. Thanks for playing.
-Legion
I've thought about this. Under linux, I've only very rarely had ANY problems with 3rd-party software taking down the whole system. Both times it happened, it was Netscape. As far as 3rd-part drivers go, not a single one has ever caused a noticable problem when I'm in linux.
Don't get me wrong, I *like* Windows when it works right. But blaming the problem on 3rd-party drivers is just misguided.
-Legion
-Legion
<Please send $2.95 for the next section>
-Legion
-Legion
-Legion
-Legion
Secret of Mana (SNES): Probably my favorite RPG of all time.
Legend of the Red Dragon (BBS door): Oh yeah. Addictive as hell.
Torment: Planescape (PC): One of the most immersive and powerful games I've ever played. As soon as I finished (40+ hours of play) I wanted to start over again.
Solstice (NES): Puzzle games never seemed as addictive as this one.
Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES): My favorite SMB game.
Doom II (PC): Most fun I've ever had in network deathmatches.
Unreal (PC): Simply revolutionary.
Drol (Apple ][e): Anyone else remember this one?
Bard's Tale 2 (Apple ][e): Sadly, I never played the first one.
Star Control 2 (3DO): One of my all-time favorites on any platform, though the 3DO version was the best.
The Wing Commander series (PC): Simplistic gameplay, but incredibly addictive anyway.
Super Metroid (SNES): One of the five or so SNES games I still play regularly.
Crystal Castles (Arcade): That bear rocked.
It Came from the Desert (Amiga): Atmospheric, spooky and awesome.
Star Wars (Arcade): You sit down in the cabinet and fly an X-Wing. What more could you want? Speaking of which...
X-Wing Vs. Tie Fighter (PC): Sucked up all my time.
The Bomberman series (lots of platforms): Consistently fun on every platform.
Ecco the Dolphin (Genesis): Revolutionary for its time.
Combat (Atari 2600): Fun and addictive, blocky graphics notwithstanding.
Samurai Shodown (Neo Geo): The best of the crop of sword fighting games at the time.
Tekken 2 (PSX): Still loads of fun to this day--something I can't say for Mortal Kombat 2.
Lemmings (many platforms): They're all good.
Silent Hill (PSX): This game had me *afraid* to play in the dark, at age 29. And I don't spook easily. That's the game's saving grace, as it's far too short--I hope SH2 will be much longer and more involved.
Alone in the Dark (PC): This was another revolutionary, spooky game.
I've doubtless forgotten a great many games here. If you don't agree with me, don't sweat it--they're only opinions.
-Legion
Other modern OS's don't prevent their users from running software like XP is doing to zonealarm and BlackIce (people still use BI? It's fucking useless, don't bother). Thanks for playing.
-Legion
Because Microsoft said so.
Similarly, I'm going to enjoy the cool, filtered taste of a Marlboro Red, due to findings by Philip Morris, Inc. that smoking isn't harmful.
-Legion
Windows XP betas have been available as cracked warez for months now. Office XP, too. MS's vaunted "copy protection" lasted all of about 2 hours.
-Legion
I noticed it, and politely declined. As a matter of fact, if I recall correctly there was another bundled program with Kazaa as well, which I also unchecked. This isn't a matter of scrutinizing a legalese-crammed EULA, it's a matter of paying attention when the install program stops and asks you a question. If you're the kind of person who keeps clicking "continue" without reading the text, you deserve whatever you agreed to.
-Legion
<sarcasm>
Yeah, and CERT obviously forgot that the Code Red worm only sends its bandwidth-sucking attacks to the white house over IIS servers. Damn, they're clueless.
</sarcasm>
-Legion
Standard disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer--but I play one on /.
-Legion
Wait for MS Passport XP--it will be able to directly garnish your wages without the need for time-consuming bank protocols.
-Legion