laetus - Slashdot User

DOJ Opposes Extending DOJ Copyright Authority 141

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday September 25, 2008 @07:57AM from the not-our-problem dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The White House has opposed the bipartisan bill that would create copyright cops on the grounds that it would cause the Department of Justice to end up 'serving as pro bono lawyers for private copyright holders.' And while they do occasionally prosecute criminal copyright infringement, they have no intention of dabbling with civil cases because, 'taxpayer-supported department lawyers would pursue lawsuits for copyright holders, with monetary recovery going to industry.' At this rate, the discovery of winged suiformes would appear to be imminent."

Comment Re:What For? (Score 1) 744

by laetus on Saturday February 03, 2007 @04:12PM (#17875686) Attached to: What was your first programming language?

WATFIV - Check!
Punchcards - Check!

I was there too, in 1981!

Submission + - The distributed search for Jim Grey

Submitted by on Saturday February 03, 2007 @01:42PM

An anonymous reader writes: The search continues for Jim Grey, with a collaboration between Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and NASA. A combination of sattelite, radar, and aerial footage has been collected over the past several days, and volunteers have been asked to sift through this data SETI@Home style using first Google Earth, then Amazon's Mechanical Turk — looking for anything that looks like Grey's boat. It pays to have good connections, but more importantly I believe this could lay the groundwork for making such innovative search efforts generally available. This is an application of distributed computing/thinking that could really save some lives.

Submission + - New FPS Allows Players To Kill for Real Money

Submitted by

Caydel

on Saturday February 03, 2007 @11:35AM

Caydel writes: "Blood Toll is the first First Person Shooter game allowing players to earn money with every kill. The concept is simple: for every match, there is a price set on each player's head. For every kill, you collect money. For every death, you lose money. Matches can range from $0.01 per life to $500 per life.

Currently, the game is in its first beta phase. All matches are currently played with 'play money', although real money arenas will be opening soon. Until the 28th of Februrary, there is a contest running: whoever can earn the most play money will win a Playstation PSP.

There are three game modes currently offered in both 'Real Money' and 'Play Money' variants: 'Normal', 'Sniper' and 'Efficiency'. Normal is your stereotypical deathmatch, similar in feel to any of the Quake or Unreal variants. In Sniper mode, you start with a rifle and 1 health; every hit is a kill shot. In efficiency mode, you start with all the pickups, but only a limited amount of ammunition, with no pickups on the ground. Once you are out of ammo, you are merely a moving target.

So far, the game seems to be quite stable. While the current version is running on a highly modified version of the older GPL'ed 'Cube' game engine, the devs report that they will be moving to a newer engine yet prior to the full release of the game.

This sounds like an interesting concept, and is likely to draw a number of the more hard-core gamers out there. Unfortunately, this means that the competition will be very stiff in the real money arenas. For those elite gamers out there, this could pay more than a day job; for those not so skilled, this could cost more than a drug habit.

More beta testers are highly encouraged to join in the game."

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