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Comment Re:life-long updates (Score 1) 687

by Maximalist (#43235653) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Is a Reasonable Way To Deter Piracy?

Sounds like somebody stole your debit card that pulls from your bank account. That is different and more of a pain than a credit card. IF you were missing payments on your house and utilities and such like, the money was gone... not a disputed charge against your account, but actually gone. That sucks. But is not relevant to credit cards as such, which won't take your money away if you dispute the charges.

Comment Re:H1-B has nothing to do with your jobs (Score 2) 795

by Maximalist (#41785137) Attached to: Cringley: H-1B Visa Abuse Limits Wages and Steals US Jobs

That's a nice idea for you. But it seems to be one way only. As an American whose ancestors came here 200+ years ago, there are huge hurdles to me deciding I want to go to any other country to learn to do anything they do well. If Grandad had come from Ireland or Germany, sure I'd be a repatriating expat... but I'm sorta stuck. If I wanted to go to Germany and work for an old-world distiller or brewer, things I'm not bad at here, I'm SOL. You want open borders, open them both ways. Maybe I'd happily let you take my seat at the American table, if somewhere else would let me go there without buying my way in to the tune of $.5M or so.

Comment Re:Auto Stereoscopy... (Score 1) 419

by Maximalist (#30700510) Attached to: Hot Or Not — 3D TV

Even so... who is going to go to the expense to produce 3DTV programs? Selling a few early adopters 3D TV sets, regardless of their usability, isn't going to sell 3D cameras and post-production tech to all the TV studios. This "feature" has years to mature or wither on the vine... because there's not going to be content that uses it for a long time to come.
Games

Whatever Happened To Second Life? 209

Posted by Soulskill from the i-blame-ralph dept.
Barence writes "It's desolate, dirty, and sex is outcast to a separate island. In this article, PC Pro's Barry Collins returns to Second Life to find out what went wrong, and why it's raking in more cash than ever before. It's a follow-up to a feature written three years ago, in which Collins spent a week living inside Second Life to see what the huge fuss at the time was all about. The difference three years can make is eye-opening."
Games

Copyright and the Games Industry 94

Posted by Soulskill from the your-super-mario-toilet-paper-is-probably-illegal dept.
A recent post at the Press Start To Drink blog examined the relationship the games industry has with copyright laws. More so than in some other creative industries, the reactions of game companies to derivative works are widely varied and often unpredictable, ranging anywhere from active support to situations like the Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes debacle. Quoting: "... even within the gaming industry, there is a tension between IP holders and fan producers/poachers. Some companies, such as Epic and Square Enix, remain incredibly protective of their Intellectual Property, threatening those that use their creations, even for non-profit, cultural reasons, with legal suits. Other companies, like Valve, seem to, if not embrace, at least tolerate, and perhaps even tacitly encourage this kind of fan engagement with their work. Lessig suggests, 'The opportunity to create and transform becomes weakened in a world in which creation requires permission and creativity must check with a lawyer.' Indeed, the more developers and publishers that take up Valve's position, the more creativity and innovation will emerge out of video game fan communities, already known for their intense fandom and desire to add to, alter, and re-imagine their favorite gaming universes."
Science

Programmable Quantum Computer Created 132

Posted by Soulskill from the four-out-of-five-ain't-bad dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A team at NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology) used berylium ions, lasers and electrodes to develop a quantum system that performed 160 randomly chosen routines. Other quantum systems to date have only been able to perform single, prescribed tasks. Other researchers say the system could be scaled up. 'The researchers ran each program 900 times. On average, the quantum computer operated accurately 79 percent of the time, the team reported in their paper.'"

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