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Comment: Re:It is a TEA (party) tax (Score 1) 1239

by Dster76 (#37007554) Attached to: United States Loses S&P AAA Credit Rating
That is to say, the Republicans have a majority in the House. So the only way they could have rendered Tea Party congressmen irrelevant was with the cooperation of non-Tea Party Republicans. But any Republicans who defected from Tea Party positions would be "primaried". So none of the non-Tea Party congressmen (House members) were willing to defect. So, why blame Democrats?

Comment: pssst... the drm is easily breakable (Score 1) 161

by Dster76 (#30380198) Attached to: Adobe Takes On Microsoft Role In E-book Market
Folks, the Adobe DRM for eBooks is laughably easy to break. Please, guys, keep all this quiet. Adobe DRMed books can be easily turned into non-DRMed ePubs that are reflowable, portable, and in OPEN STANDARDS format.

Please, don't make too much noise that might change my favorite ebook store's (shortcovers) mind about using a DRM format that's easy to break into something nice.
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."

Comment: Re:It's a secret plot, and they succeeded! (Score 3, Insightful) 202

by Dster76 (#29660141) Attached to: Windows Mobile 6.5 Launched, Panned
Hey, let's play a game.

If you have x third party pieces of software, how many configurations must you test to find 1 piece of software causing crashes?

If you have x third party pieces of software, how many configurations must you test to find 2 pieces of software causing crashes?

Yeah, WinMo 6.1 is it for me. No more.

Let's all be honest: the only reason people have ever used WinMo at all is a lack of choice.

In fact, right now I'm using a WinMo 6.1 gadget, but instead of syncing my desktop Outlook appointments with it using Activesync, I let Google be the middleman.

After how many years, and Activesync is still unstable requiring weekly reinstalls? Changing timezone still turns whole day appointments into monstrosities that are time sensitive and cross multiple days? Duplicates still randomly pop up?

WinMo is over. The end. Goodbye.
Books

Shortcovers service: Kindle killer?

Submitted by Dster76
Dster76 writes "Up in Canada, we can't yet buy the Kindle or use Amazon's service for electronic books. In a couple of days, one of our book chains, Indigo, will launch an electronic book and periodical service that they claim has distinct advantages over the Kindle. From a few of the company's blog posts, it is apparent that the most popular Ebook reader competitor will not be supported. (See comment #4. Apparently, the product manager doesn't do "alot" of reading himself). Is the future of Ebooks on non-E-ink devices? Can a service succeed by expecting you to read full length novels, or even magazines and newspapers on cellphones and laptops? Is there a future for Kindle and Sony's Book Reader?"

Comment: Re:obviously they should sell advertising (Score 1) 317

by Dster76 (#22721770) Attached to: Should Wikipedia Sell Advertising?

Hi, I'm one of the professors who fails* students for using Wikipedia as a cited source.

The reason I do so is in the second paragraph of your own post. It's not a good primary source (i.e. something that can legitimately appear in a bibliography), but a great place to start from to look for primary sources.

In fact, I encourage my students to use wikipedia -- when starting their papers. But I explain to them that they can't finish their research there.

All that said, I'd love to see universities get involved in some sort of distributed funding mechanism for Wikipedia.

*that is, I fail them on the portion of the assignment where they had to do some research. Asterisks seem very popular on slashdot today.

It's funny. Laugh.

The Free Food Definition

Submitted by Dster76
Dster76 writes "A colleague of mine has painstakingly mapped Richard Stallman's definition of free software to a new definition for free food. Here is a taste (ouch!):

In this freedom, it is the diner's purpose that matters, not the cook's purpose; you as a diner are free to make a recipe for your purposes, and if you distribute it to someone else, she is then free to make it for her purposes, but you are not entitled to impose your purposes on her.
Should food be free, not as in beer, but as in free speech?"
It's funny. Laugh.

The Free Food Definition

Submitted by Dster76
Dster76 writes "A colleague of mine has painstakingly mapped Richard Stallman's definition of free software to a new definition for free food. Here is a taste (ouch!):

In this freedom, it is the diner's purpose that matters, not the cook's purpose; you as a diner are free to make a recipe for your purposes, and if you distribute it to someone else, she is then free to make it for her purposes, but you are not entitled to impose your purposes on her.
Should food be free, not as in beer, but as in free speech?"

It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.