Two hours? It's just a CD isn't it? That takes 18 minutes on my slow connection here. Tops.

I was thinking DVD, and was being generous. 2 hours is still an order of magnitude less that 2-4 weeks.

No, this country was born hating taxes without any rights or say as to how those taxes are being used. Being a US citizen doesn't automatically imply a hatred of tax, and shouldn't.

|| There's a reason we organize into political structures, the common good is one of the key ones. When the individual becomes MORE important than the collective you're standing on the precipice of a slippery slope. ||

Actually, the slippery slope is the other way around. Individual liberty, protection of, is of utmost importance, as it contributes to the good of the *cough* collective *cough*.

Holding the collective to be more important than the individual is the road to tyranny.

how so?

the one is clearly a construction that we can fully comprehend because we generated it.

the other has yet to be shown to be merely a construction (whether or not it can ever be shown as such).

maybe to make it more clearly, robots do not survive on the basis of said "food" so it's not the same as our "food" even if both deserve the quotes.

the further difficulty with your claim is that you state "Only in the same sense that you are a figment of your own imagination". But then it seems that we need to endow the robot with imagination before it can really have the same sense.

> You obviously have an ax to grind with MS, and that's fine, but digging up this kind of garbage is
> ridiculous. The same statements that you have made about MS can probably be made about 95% of the
> Fortune 500.

I don't see how that makes it any better. The "Fortune 500" are a very small percentage of businesses out there. However, they all have the distinction of being large enough to play these sorts of games.

What is wrong with questioning the ethics of claiming your doing business in one area for the purpose of using its legal system, but not paying taxes into that same system, by claiming your profits are elsewhere?

It does seem like they are trying to game the system to get advantage. I think its entirely appropriate that we question whether such games are appropriate, or should be stopped. Regardless of who is doing them.

I am all for saying "who cares" about such a percieved violation if the amount in question is so small as to not be worth finding a solution for....however, if this one company can rack up so much of a difference just by playing this game, they it looks like the amounts are worth discussing.

-Steve

I'm annoyed. Geocities was a convenient place for me to dump files I needed to access from home or work. It was also more customizable than Livejournal or Facebook.

I'm not going to show you my site but I used to greet my visitors with this audio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5p15NoBKmo "Another visitor. Stay awhile. Staaaaay forever!"

What's the problem with paying for online capability? Are they giving out free internet to PCs where you live?

What it really comes down to is an awareness that these games are all about playing with other people. Human interaction is rich and nuanced; yes, there must be a minimum level of game mechanics to play effectively. However, there have been numerous times when I, as a lower character level/skill level player, will go out and beat higher level players in resource collection/pvp/what have you, simply because I try to figure out how they will approach this challenge, and act accordingly. To make a WoW analogy, just like the game of WoW really begins at max level, a player's skill in a multiplayer game merely starts with an understanding of game mechanics.

As such, future mmo's looking at skill or level based character development should really look at the context in which this system operates. What system will be more fun for the player?

While publishing it, and making it prior art would be nice, the only way for you to totally place it into the public domain would be for you to patent it yourself.

Sure, in a technical sense making it prior art would bar others from patenting it, effectively placing it into the public domain. However, in reality, people could still apply to patent the invention, and the burden would be on them to notify the patent examiner about your prior art.

Guess how much that will happen.

So, assuming they don't talk about your publication, and the examiner doesn't know, they get a patent. Once that happens, then it's up to an enterprising soul to file an appeal with the patent board... and sure, the patent would probably be revoked, but it would take time and money. During this time, people would be afraid to use the patent, etc etc.

Since a patent is a right to exclude others from using your invention, the easiest way would be to talk to your local law school, see if there's any sort of IP clinic, and ask them to help you file the patent. They will probably have someone student that has passed the patent bar early, and can help you file as a patent agent. Then you would just pay the fee, get the patent filed for you, and some law student would get some nice experience. After you get the patent, simply let people use it for free.

But that's exactly why Nintendo fascinates me. They manage to utilize all the protections and attacks the law provides for and still thrive; most companies can't, because you just drain goodwill too fast to do business. Nintendo, beyond anything else, does absurdly good PR.

Which, when you think about it, makes them the revived Apple before Apple.

"I'm told researchers like to come and dig through my files, to see if anything interesting turns up," Mr. Cheney said. "I want to wish them luck, but the files are pretty thin. I learned early on that if you don't want your memos to get you in trouble some day, just don't write any."

This really says it all, doesn't it? I mean, wasn't this essentially Nixon's view on things? That if the president (or his puppet master, vice-president Cheney) deems it not for the public's purview, it's none of your damn business? I mean, what part of PUBLIC office does this numbskull not understand? (Excuse me, the mastermind understands, just doesn't care.)

Sickening. What's even worse is that no one's gonna make this administration accountable for anything they've done. In fact, I'm sure no one's gonna really take a hard look at what exactly this administration has done until a looong time later; everyone's too preoccupied with moving on.