Slashback: Bnetd, Salmon, Towers 295
All I'm certain of is my true love's hair. CompaniaHill writes: "As previously reported on /., first they though it was turquoise. Then they found an error in their early calculations, and announced it was really beige. But doubts lingered, and color experts pointed out that an objective color as viewed from the theoretical blackness of space would appear different when viewed on Earth in typical daylight. So adjustments were made, and calculations were revised and rechecked by color scientists Michael Brill of McClendon Automation Inc. and Mark Fairchild of the Munsell Color Science Laboratories. And now, at last, Ivan Baldry and Karl Glazebrook, astronomers at Johns Hopkins University, using spectral data from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, have announced the final result: The universe is decidedly salmon. Really."
The milestones are getting closer together. Dare Obasanjo writes: "Xindice (http://xml.apache.org/xindice), the Apache native XML database has finally reached version 1.0. Xindice used to be called dbXML and was mentioned in my article on XML and databases."
Three From the Courts TheFrood writes: "It looks as though the battle between Blizzard and bnetd (as reported in previous stories here(1), here(2), and here(3))is heating up. Vivendi has sent another letter to the EFF, which has wasted no time responding."
ElitusPrime writes with an update in the strange case of Ken Hamidi, the Intel employee whose mass-mail to Intel employees brought charges of trespassing. Now the California Supreme Court may take another look at the case. Says ElitusPrime: "If this guy is put in jail, I can think of more then a few other spammers that need to go up the creek with him..."
In a very different case, pagan26 writes: "It seem that DMCA will have its day in court. With ElmcoSoft."
Well, at least you can trust their word, right? Masem writes: "According to MSNBC, the developers of the spyware program WinWhatWhere will no longer have their install program trample the bits of anti-spyware programs, after word broke that this behavior was occurring. However, no word has been made by a similar spyware program developed by SpectreSoft that does similar damage."
I will fork out to see this, happily. Pingsmoth writes "It looks like the faithful fans of Peter Jackson and Tolkien will be able to catch a glimpse of The Two Towers this Saturday. Lordoftherings.net is reporting, through a video of Peter Jackson, that a preview (read: not a trailer) of The Two Towers will be shown in theatres this Saturday, presumably attached to The Fellowship of the Ring. Maybe at the end? At any rate, it looks like I'll be seeing the film at least seven times now, and it's a good thing I got a morning shift tomorrow." For a more colorful description of this 4-minute tease, check out Ain't it Cool News' version.
Color of the Universe (Score:2, Funny)
I knew it all along! (Score:4, Funny)
I knew it all along; God is a She!
I Personally Recommend ML [monolinux.com]
Re:I knew it all along! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I knew it all along! (Score:3, Funny)
How about white, off-white, slightly yellowed or even clear.
Re:I knew it all along! (Score:2)
I think it's more likely that God outsourced the universe's design to one of these decorators and overpaid a bit.
Re:I knew it all along! (Score:2)
More often than not, the resulting room is an abomination that only a colorblind wombat would like.
My award for worst that I've seen - cool downstairs den done in natural wood and various "guy" accents converted to lime green, red and black. They pained the dude's coffee table CHECKERBOARD.
I'm surprised this show doesn't result in more fatalities...
GTRacer
- Slipcovers and gaudy colors should be used in moderation
with apologies to Douglas Adams... (Score:5, Funny)
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Re:with apologies to Douglas Adams... (Score:4, Insightful)
Russ %-)
Re:with apologies to Douglas Adams... (Score:2)
The universe isn't beige? (Score:5, Funny)
On the other hand, don't. I'd rather have beige everything than salmon. How did they determine it was salmon, anyway? Are they sure it isn't coral? Or sunset pink? Or...
Someone find a box of crayons for these researchers. In the name of research, of course.
Re:The universe isn't beige? (Score:4, Funny)
until they change the color again ... and then I'll start fretting about Sept. 11th all over again ...
Re:The universe isn't beige? (Score:2)
Re:The universe isn't beige? (Score:2)
If these multicolored pillows don't convince her, may I suggest a trip to this dictionary [m-w.com], which returns the following:
One entry found for organdy.
/'or-g&n-dE/
Main Entry: organdy
Variant(s): also organdie
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -dies
Etymology: French organdi
Date: 1835
: a very fine transparent muslin with a stiff finish
In fact even Emily Dickinson [darsie.net] seems to think it's a type of cloth.
preview vs trailer (Score:4, Interesting)
Trailers used to be shown after a film, thus the name trailers they trail the film. But as you've I'm sure noticed most people leave the theatre well before the credits reach the top of the screen. So theatres started to show "previews" the exact same thing only before the movie. This had the added bonus of keeping people entertained. And in resent years earning ticket sales to movies people wouldn't other wise be cought dead in (wing commander anyone???)
I just had to point this out after the talk of a preview (not a trailer) but it would be after the movie.
Re:preview vs trailer (Score:2, Informative)
Trailers have always been shown before the film: Origins of the word trailer [uselessknowledge.com] says:
"Preview" just refers to the fact that it is a "preview" of a forthcoming movie. Grammatically, this is more correct, or else the "preview of The Two Towers" would actually be the "preview of The F of R, which shows clips from TTT."
Re:preview vs trailer (Score:2, Insightful)
first you say Trailers have always been shown before the film
then later you quote
The coming attractions reel would be spliced onto the end of the last reel of the movie, hence trailer. From the perspective of the audience member who arrived on time or a little early, the coming attractions would appear before the feature, even though technically it was at the end.
So basically, trailers used to be at the end(but some people didn't realize it), and now they are at the beginning, which is what they parent post was saying.
Re:preview vs trailer (Score:2)
Since trailers were spliced to the end of the last reel, they spewed by while the current audience left and the next audience walked in. The hope being that the current audience left during credits and the next audience walked in afterwards to be greeted by the trailers.
Re:preview vs trailer (Score:2)
The whole preview vs trailer thing is not about when the footage is being shown, it's about the type of thing being shown. It's about four minutes long and is really just a collection of images from the The Two Towers. It doesn't have the cohesiveness that normal movie trailers have, and it's a fair bit longer. I expect there will be a "real" trailer appear in about 3 months time.
Re:preview vs trailer (Score:2)
Re:preview vs trailer (Score:2)
Re:preview vs trailer (Score:2)
Headers (Score:2)
#include "tt.h"
Ken Hamidi is not an ordinary spammer (Score:4, Insightful)
Commercial speech deservces less protection than non-commercial speech. In addition, complaints about employment practices may come under protection by the ADA, FMLA, Title VII, and the NLRA [nlrb.gov].
But, this intersect with the rights of Intel to have control over their mail servers. Maybe the lawmakers should look at this case when drafting anti-spam statutes.
Re:Ken Hamidi is not an ordinary spammer (Score:3, Interesting)
Are we supposed to just let individuals repeatedly send one sided biased screeds to tens of thousands of employees at their old place of work and keep doing it without the company being able to do anything about it? It is abusing the company's email system in the worst way.
protections (Score:2)
Under Sumner v. US Postal (3rd or 9th circuit) an employee is protected in reasonable protests for their rights. In Payne v. McLemore picketing against racial discrimination was held to be protected. Is sending lots of email more intrusive than picketing?
The Supreme Court in Robison v. Shell Oil considers that protections extend to ex-employees.
My argument (and seems to be the AFL-CIO's) that this is a protected act, and did this cross the line or being overly intrusive.
Though Intel argues that it is tens of thousands of emails, it is not that many per person and only 450 requested removal.
You have a point (Score:2)
but the laws are (or should be) decided upon actual code, rather than vague notions.
Currently, the way Intel decides who they "allow" onto their system is determined by how they configure their mail servers. There are exceptions for cracking and some very weak (civil) penalties for unsolicited commercial email. That's it.
But instead, they sued after the fact for "trespassing" -- when there's no law to suit your case, just make the crime fit the law.
The fact that Intel might be able to get away with this is, in my opinion, more troubling than the actual emails which were sent out. Imagine if a company could sue for trespassing anyone who sent an email through it's servers, that management afterwards decided they didn't like. Can Taco sue the trolls around here, when they play games to bypass the lameness filter? If I get pissed off, and write an email to my working group, can I be sued for trespassing? What if I write an email and ask someone else to forward it -- will that party be trespassing? I think the whole approach is wrong. If Intel uses an intra-net that's firewalled off, and someone hacks into it to send an email -- well, fine that's trespassing. But for an internet and mail server connected to the net, trespassing is just ludicrous. Until some anti-spam laws are actually passed that do not restrict themselves to commercial email, they should have no case. And I hope you see the folly of passing any such law.
teasers, previews, trailers (Score:3, Insightful)
I would think that this is a way to get people to see movies repeatedly in the theater at the inflated price... your average geek can see LOTR on some pirated version by now, so all the replay value has to be added via these teasers n'previews.
You are drooling because of a very short piece of film, and you are allowing yourself to be marketed to. The fansites could be very useful centers of discussion and analysis, if they weren't so breathlessly following announcements of a teaser of a trailer.
Re:teasers, previews, trailers (Score:3, Interesting)
I would think this would be so obvious as to hardly be worth noting. In economic terms, look at it this way: Every time you see LOTR (unless you are an addict), your marginal utility drops. Eventually it falls below the unit price, at which point you are no longer willing to spend the money to see the film. If prices could fluctuate, the ticket price might fall to entice you back in. But movie tickets are essentially fixed. So it seems like they could never make more money off this from you.
But lo! They add some teaser material. Now, assuming you want to see the teaser, they've added marginal utility back to the experience. Your ticket, at say $8, buys more and, if they're right, this raises your satisfaction to the level where you're willing to shell it out.
But that isn't to say that the new material need be worth $8. It might only be worth $0.40 to you. But if you value seeing LOTR again at $7.60 -- if that were the price you'd have been willing to pay to see it -- then, with the additional material, your utility is $8 and you're willing to go back. So that little bit of value, small in itself, might still justify the trip.
Gotta love Econ 101.
Great Band Name! (Score:3, Funny)
Decidedly Salmon is a great band name.
example of more DMCA uselessness (Score:5, Informative)
The man in question, pleading guilty under both Copyright law and the DMCA for illegally copying video tapes, faces the following sentances:
What was so lacking in the punishment for violating the copyright laws that the DMCA was needed?
This and the Blizzard BNETD case show, IMHO, that the DMCA is nothing more than a legal weapon paid for the entertainment industry to chill any speech or action that they feel cuts into their profits. It does not impact the 'for-profit' pirates that actually cost the industry revenue, it tramples on the average consumer.
Copying copyrighted video tapes was illegal before the DMCA. There is no need for an additional law like the DMCA to put "fear" into the pirates like this guy. They face stricter punishments for violating copyright laws than they do the DMCA. The DMCA just broadens the scope to include that so-called gray area that is the average consumer wanting to time-shift/space-shift their belongings, which happens to cut into the entertainment industries profits.
Fuck the DMCA and Jack Valenti and Hillary Rosen.
Email trespassing url (Score:2, Informative)
The correct url is here [usatoday.com].
salmon... (Score:2, Funny)
LOTR (Score:2)
After all, it's not only 8 bucks that is at stake, but 3+ hours of movie time (I'm not saying that the movie doesn't worth the time spent, but it's hard to justify it to the wife
LOTR (Score:4, Interesting)
With that in mind, I can't understand why people loved Peter Jackson's film so much. I tried to remain open minded, but I found it incredibly hard not to just walk out in anger.
He completely ruined the spirit of the tale, and quite unecessarily at that. Most of his changes were totally not needed. Once he decided to remove Tom Bombadil/The Barrow Downs he easily had enough time to remain true to the story, and so many of his alterations took longer to correct later on in the story than he would have ever have saved if he'd just left it be.
That is one of the main problems with making alterations to a story as deep as The Lord of the Rings, if you remove one thing, all the other parts of the story connected to it have to be altered, which cause more alterations later on.
Plus since when has 4 Oscars been a "snub"?
Re:LOTR (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus, it's a good movie in its own right; millions who have never read the books saw it and enjoyed it as a movie. Obviously Peter Jackson is doing something right.
Complaining about what was left out - especially Tom Bombadil or the Barrow Downs - is just plain silly. There is no way Jackson - or anyone - could have included that material without totally bogging the storyline down and ruining the movie. It had to go.
Similarly, the other changes were necessary to make the story flow as a movie script. There is no way of avoiding these necessary changes.
I suggest you do what I did: see the movie again. I enjoyed it the first time, but spent too much time obsessing over every little thing that was changed. By the second and third viewing I was simply enjoying the movie, and not worrying about the changes.
Re:LOTR (Score:2)
I agree with you - it's a good adaptation, but then again, I also like the Bakshi version, and in some ways find it more "faithful", and find that PJ did some direct lifting from that movie in his.
Either way, I reread the books rather often as well, so I have become used to and tuned into deviations - which can be annoying, but oh well.
As long as Moria is done well, I don't care who does it
Re:LOTR (Score:2, Insightful)
anyways...
He hardly has time to remain 100% true to the story. Which is basically an unachievable goal. I can't think of any case where that has happened. It might be close but there are ALWAYS differences. That is notwithstanding poor casting, which IMO, did not happen in FOTR.
Lord of the Rings is about half a million words. There is no conceivable way that even with selective edits and ellipsis that that big of a work can be compressed accurately into 9-10 hours of screenplay (for all three parts of the story). The BBC's radio version was very near 13 hours.
Again other mitigating circumstances appear. While yourself, most of the people here, and I can vividly recall almost every scene and the order that each character is introduced the vast majority of the public cannot. In fact, this might be their introduction to it. Thus the story had to have more edits (other than those due to time constraints).
With the fact that it could not replicate every detail or even attempt to... It was still superb. It was epic; it was fun; it was well acted... It did indeed capture the essence of the original work.
If you looked closely you could see several details of exactly how well crafted it was. The broaches given to the company appeared after visiting Galadriel -- time constraints didn't allow that story to be told. But the items themselves WERE there. There are several similar circumstances were time would not allow everything to be told, but they still happened.
Take it as it was offered - A standalone work that did well to represent the original and brought more people into the realm of Middle-Earth
Re:LOTR (Score:2)
Everything that was shown was accurate (in the details) - even down to the oars they used were right. The big stuff got moved around, but that was to cover the stuff cut. Even my second biggest complaint, the long battle scenes, were probably necessary. In the book, some of the scenes were 500 words - but you can quickly *say* "the battle raged on around them for hours", but to *show* that it was a long, tough battle takes time.
(Incidently, I liked how they showed the wizards power were not on the "toss lightning" modern style, but more "control the weather and talk to animals"... which was horribly negated by the really dumb looking wizard battle. That would be my biggest complaint about the movie. Although I'd love to see a half hour, stand alone version of Tom Bombadil, complete with songs, included in the boxed set).
--
Evan
Re:LOTR (Score:2)
As someone who's read LotR (and re-read many times), I found fault with nearly all of the script decisions that the movie made. However, the movie amazed me visually. Seeing Hobbiton, Rivendell, Moria and Orthanc come to life before my eyes made the movie well worth the price of admission (they did get Lorien wrong in my mind, but no one's perfect
And Ian McKellan *is* Gandalf...if he doesn't win an Oscar for one of the movies, I'll be upset.
Re:LOTR (Score:2)
Anyway, all I am getting at is that the movie trilogy has not been fully revealed to us, so I'd save any critique about it (as in contrast to the book) until all three movies have been released. Also, LOTR::FOTR was interesting enough that I was compelled to read the whole book. Jackson must have gotten something right, because I have an urge to see the movie again.
Now what I think would be pretty badass would be a movie-translation of the Silmarillion. No offense to those cute hobbits, but the creation of Arda thru the end of the Second Age are more interesting to me. It'd be pretty badass to witness the Music of Ainur, the beauty of the Undying Lands, the creation and loss of the Silmarils (and Morgoth getting his ass kicked but good), and the rise and fall of Numenor. After all, The Silmarillion sets the stage for Lord Of The Rings. Any fan of Middle-Earth that hasn't read The Silmarillion should do so. Now if I could just become fluent in the high-elven tongue... hehe
Re:LOTR (Score:2)
Just looking at how well LotRs is selling (the book, not the movie), and that, by itself, is a good enough reason for the movie. The fact that people are getting into the Silmarillion from the movie is icing.
(And I second your notion - the creation being a Fantasia like opening on the front (a la the Pixar shorts), and then the events of the Second Age would truely kick azz). --
Evan
Re:LOTR (Score:2)
Everything in it felt incredibly rushed; it was nuts! It turns out that the BBC play took about 4 hours to do FoTR, including narration of visuals which were obviously missing. Still they left in a whole lot more dialogue. It was actually more interesting and exciting than the movie--and ten times deeper. PJ cut an hour off that time, but on film he had the luxury of conveying a lot more information per unit time, because he has both audio and video. So why does it feel like I got so much less?
To be fair to him, I'm not sure I could pick out many parts that I thought were a waste of time. I do remember some distortions which I thought to be unnecessary because they saved no time at all, but perhaps they set us up for future distortions in the other two movies. Maybe the problem with LOTR is that it's not inherently filmable.
Re:LOTR (Score:2)
Or it could have gone off on some pervy hobbit fancying tangent.
And Sam will kill him if he tries anything.
"The universe is decidedly salmon. Really." (Score:2)
LOTR: TTT preview / trailer on Fri., *NOT* Sat. (Score:5, Informative)
That was close! I already have my tickets for my 5th screening tomorrow (Friday).
Re:LOTR: TTT preview / trailer on Fri., *NOT* Sat. (Score:2)
On a side note, when can we get a prop auction or something? The things they created for the films are just awesome.
Blizzard doesn't have a leg to stand on. (Score:5, Informative)
We have reviewed the arguments in your letter, and do not find them convincing. We continue to believe [that bnetd is] an infringement of VUG's copyrights. Those activities implicate a number of VUG's exclusive rights under copyright... etc etc.
Their response is classic, and I love their lawyer.
It would be more helpful in the future, however, if rather than summarily claiming that you believe that "the activities engaged in by www.bnetd.org" violate "a number" of your copyrights, you would state specifically what portions of the website and which particular files you believe are infringing, which of your copyrights you believe are infringed and how. We are also uncertain about the exact nature of the technological protection measure you believe has been circumvented...
The CD-Key protection isn't really a "protection measure" per se. You can install the game without using a valid key, you can even play the single-player mode (well, there IS no SP mode in the beta, but you know what I mean) without a true key. Ergo, a circumvention has only occurred if I loaded a program that caused your official server to validate my fake key.
Vivendi knows this, and that's why they're unclear about the "several copyrights" that were infringed. The copyrights were to the "for" method, the "if" statement, the "void" function type and the "main()" function, is the only thing I can see here...
But I suppose I shouldn't joke about that, or we'll have some bright guy trying to patent them, eh?
Bah. I find this highly amusing....
Re:Blizzard doesn't have a leg to stand on. (Score:2)
Blizzard can't possibly claim that battle.net cd-key checking is a copy protection method: it doesn't stop the copies from being made, or even from working (they DO work) - just prevents copies (actually, 'certain reported CD-keys' - so it could actually be used to ban individual people for no reason, even though Blizzard hasn't done this - yet) from working with their servers.
I have no idea why Blizzard is doing this, or why they haven't noticed that Vivendi's lawyers are monkeys (see my other post - that letter is real big crap, and they misinterpreted the USC 512 code they quoted). Vivendi's throwing money away, when Blizzard should be working with bnetd to try to fix this. If they really want to save money and stop piracy (rather than just charge for battle.net at a later time, which is what they REALLY want to do) they'd be doing that, which is what id software and every other game manufacturer in the world with online play has done.
Re:Blizzard doesn't have a leg to stand on. (Score:2)
Blizzard doesn't like that much, and I am pretty sure that this is just Vivendi's doing. Blizzard is probably just wanting to write a damned game.
Re:Blizzard doesn't have a leg to stand on. (Score:3, Insightful)
What I'd LIKE to point out to them is that there are several solutions (hello! math!) where they can guarantee that only legal copies are being used on battle.net, and provide an easy way for bnetd to prevent illegal copies there as well.
(Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I'm aware hackers could work around this, but it would take a lot of effort, and they'd have to hack both bnetd and their own client, so then it's not so easy)
You could easily give the CD-KEY to a blizzard keychecking server, which then not only figures out if the key is correct, but then generates a unique number, which, when hashed together with the original CD-KEY on the client, activates the product. Blizzard then forwards the result back to the bnetd server, and the bnetd server passes it back to the client. If it's incorrect, the client doesn't run (here's the key - the CLIENT doesn't run, not the server doesn't allow the client. The DMCA prevents you from bypassing something designed to prevent CLIENT copying, on the CLIENT).
You could hack around this, by altering both the bnetd server, and hacking the client to do it as well, but that's complicated and then Blizzard could go after people who are distributing the hacks that do that, rather than bnetd, because THAT would be clearly illegal.
This is better than a simple blind "accept/reject" system because it requires that any battle.net server has to communicate with Blizzard (or figure out the algorithm behind the Battle.net check/second key generation, which can be made quite difficult) and Blizzard guarantees that things are OK.
Re:Blizzard doesn't have a leg to stand on. (Score:2, Insightful)
First, it wouldn't be incredibly hard to develop a method by which one found a bunch of valid keys by spamming the keyserver.
Second, if you're going to say that the server itself never knows that the key going through it is actually valid, you don't need to hack the bnetd server, just the client. If the bnetd server knows if it's correct or not, then (since this is an OSS product, it's made easier) one could make their server dump all keys that came up valid to a file, and thereby harvest many many keys.
And third, as has already been pointed out, they don't care about piracy, they want to charge for b.net access. The piracy slant is a coverup.
Re:Blizzard doesn't have a leg to stand on. (Score:2)
You're right about not hacking the server, though - the clients could just communicate with a keyserver completely separate from the bnetd protocol completely - oh wait. That would be intelligent.
Re:Blizzard doesn't have a leg to stand on. (Score:2)
Yes, what I'm suggesting is kindof something like Windows Product Activation - I'm not suggesting this is a good thing. What I'm suggesting is that if they're this paranoid about piracy, they are much more stringent restrictions they can allow.
Again, this is all a moot point, as they really only care about charging for battle.net. The funny thing is that even if they win against bnetd here (which they won't) as soon as they start charging, bnetd could start again, as battle.net servers are then a monetary resource, and Blizzard would be holding an illegal monopoly.
Re:Blizzard doesn't have a leg to stand on. (Score:2)
Then maybe you might actually want to go after the people who promulgate that hack, rather than after bnetd, which is completely legal.
That said, it will completely suck if Blizzard doesn't provide remote access to the keyserver - then they're really just holding a monopoly (battle.net servers) and refusing to let anyone else play.
If you want a good example of how life SHOULD be, take a look at what Bungie did with Myth II's server - they open sourced it when they decided to take it offline. I'm not saying that Blizzard wouldn't do the same - it's just looking very likely that they won't (they'll just remove WC2 support from the next battle.net setup, and poof, we're all out of luck...)
Re:Blizzard doesn't have a leg to stand on. (Score:2)
The trick is to start at the basics, and by the way Somebody beat you to it [theonion.com]
Gheez.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice movies (Score:2)
Good stuff.
Ice caps melting from beneath (Score:2)
I just keep wondering (Score:5, Interesting)
any politician that is not strongly in favor of alternate forms of energy is a dick. not because fossil fuels are inherently evil (ok, the corps behind them may be), but more importantly, they're never going to get us off this idiot-infested rock. oh, and they're not renewable. go nuclear! it's god's favorite power source. check out, oh, say, the rest of the universe if you're in doubt. hey, god can't be wrong.
um, that's about it.
Re:I just keep wondering (Score:2)
to my point (Score:2)
the problem is that humans have this pesky habit of building their civilizations right along the shoreline. it's not a good long-term plan when you're in the thawing cycle. building further north becomes problematic during the freezing cycle because glaciers tend to be fairly persistent and, oh, huge and unstoppable.
humans have this other rather irksome habit of being, on the whole, fairly short-sighted. most civilizations aren't really planned. no where is it ingrained in our personalities to go out of our way to make sure our current agenda has any real positive bearing on future generations. and don't go thinking you're going to make a difference. the power is in the hands of the governments and megacorps.
behold the USA, pinnacle of "Democracy" and "Freedom"! how much of the wrangling that occurs in Washington, DC every day has the enlightened future of humans in mind? bingo if you said, "zippo, zilch and nada". it's grubbing for money and power with the occasional kissing of babies and touching of cripples to please the electorate. and no where else is any better.
oh, wait, it looks like florida is flooding. well, we just didn't see that coming. quick, who do we blame? who can I use this against? sorry, until we have a global change of consciousness and get past our basic animal instincts, it'll be slow and perilous going.
Re:I just keep wondering (Score:2)
I think the concern is this: first, that humans are changing their environment, and second, that we're doing it so fast (and the rate of change is accelerating?) that we won't be able to predict/deal with the consequences. In the broadest sense, that's pretty much what it boils down to.
In the case of global warming, there's a lot of evidence and research which backs up that first point. This means that the second is a valid concern, especially since many people who know more about it than you or I think that we're going to have problems (specifically, that the rate of change in the temperature of the Earth is too high to be purely natural, and is getting faster, yet that we're not doing enough to either prevent it or deal with its consequences).
After that it gets complicated. Discussing that second point at all requires making predictions, and prediction is an inexact science. Also, some of the issues related to global warming are extremely complex. For example, there are several reasons to want to move away from gasoline-burning automobiles, from concern over global warming to issues of long-term availability of fossil fuels, the health effects of automobile exhaust, city planning issues, and so on. Then there's convencience, habit, corporations trying to protect their profits, and other forces on the side of maintaining the status quo. This results in one dang complicated issue, which is why people spend a lot of time talking about it!
Incidentally, last time a global warming story was posted on SlashDot, someone got modded way up for pointing out that we are in a cooling period, not a warming period. Another reason why there's so much discussion is the massive amount of misinformation out there. Plus there's the fact that the issue is way to big for a discussion to cover every aspect of it. On top of that, there's a tendancy for people to believe what they want to believe (a general tendancy - ask any tech support person!) The result: massive amounts of discussion.
what the heck kind of letter was that??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Vivendi didn't address ANY of their claims, specifically the point that 1201(c) and 1201(f) clearly ALLOW software such as bnetd (they might as well have specifically given this as an example of what the DMCA does NOT prevent) - just saying "no, you suck, go away." They also misinterpreted 17 U.S.C. it looks like, thinking that bnetd only had 10 business days to respond or they can't file a counter notification, whereas the statute is saying that the offending material can't be redistributed in less than 10 days after sending a counter notification.
Vivendi's actions are going to look really bad from a court's perspective - they're being very aggressive and holding their cards all to their chest, so if they do sue, and try to pull some trick, a judge isn't going to be very lenient.
I am very glad that the EFF is handling this, though - it would've been very difficult, if not impossible, for bnetd to handle it themselves.
Tickle Me Elmco Soft? (Score:2)
I can think of something else that's salmon (Score:2, Funny)
XML based dbs? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:XML based dbs? (Score:2)
Re:XML based dbs? (Score:2)
Re:XML based dbs? (Score:2)
Nevermind that it is text, the important point is that is is a tree structure.
Standard databases are relational, and are great at storing simple attributes for an object. They are absolutely horrible at storing relationships between these objects and, more importantly, in managing those relationships.
So, for example, if you have a grommet that can consist of multiple other grommets, each of couse consisting of grommets etc., then in XML you are laughing:
In a standard relational database you end up with a grommet table and, perhaps, an attribute that is the parent grommet. To get the list I just suggested above, you need to do a self-join on the grommet table an unknown number of times, something SQL just can't do.
Object-oriented databases are good at this (and much more), and it is funny that the old style of databases that preceeded the relational databases, were often hierachical, i.e. tree structures!
So the scoop is this: the trees are back.
Trespassing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Trespassing (Score:2, Insightful)
What makes these scientists brilliant... (Score:5, Funny)
Johns Hopkins Administration: Okay, what are you guys working on now?
Astronomers (quickly alt-tabbing from Return to Castle Wolfenstein to a spreadsheet): Uhhh... we're calculating... the... color of the universe! We'll need at least two weeks.
JHA: Right then. Talk to you in two weeks.
Astronomer 1: Whew. How're we gonna figure out the color of the universe?
Astronomer 2: Who cares? It's turquoise. Now be quiet. I'm sniping.
[two weeks later]
Astronomer 1: Hey check it out! The Warcraft III beta is out!
[JH Admin comes in]
JHA: Hey guys, got your report on the universe being turquoise. Great work.
Astronomer 2: Yeah, um, we've got a problem. We think it might be beige. We've got to do spectral graphalisys and whatnot. we'll need another two weeks.
JHA: Okay.
etc...
Re:What makes these scientists brilliant... (Score:5, Funny)
Salmon [slamonidaho.net]
Correction: LoTR - Friday, not saturday (Score:2, Redundant)
At the end, before the credits (Score:2)
I saw a two towers preview last weekend (Score:2)
looked pretty cool.
Boycott Blizzard, and a petition (Score:3, Interesting)
http://boycottblizzard.org/ [boycottblizzard.org]
I also have a link from there to a petition that I would appreciate signatures by anyone against the use of the DMCA by
Blizzard (Vivendi Universal Games) in this case (even if you don't plan on boycotting).
Re:Boycott Blizzard, and a petition (Score:2)
Hah, I'm _still_ boycotting blizzard over their complete disregard for privacy and malware concerns over the starcraft name emailing debacle.
The big deal there was not so much that they erred, or that they shipped such an egrious piece of software that would pass your personal registry items to blizarred if you miskeyed your registration code, but that they refused to admit that there was anything questionable about this or that there was any other angle from which to view the situation.
A company that effectively implants spyware in their product and refuses to accept that this was an undesirable action is untrustworthy and is not a reasonable source of software products. At least, that's my view.
DiabloII.Net Censors Bnetd Discussions (Score:5, Interesting)
As of a few days ago, the fan website has been banned any discussion of the legality of bnetd in their chatroom, #diabloii on irc.wiregrass.com. Furthermore, when many of the regular members protested this action by included [censored] or [oppressed] in their nicknames, they were banned. The nickname modifications that resulted in being banned include: [bnetd], [censored], [oppressed], and [not_battle_net] (there may have been others).
A posting to their forums [diabloii.net] mentioning the censorship was deleted, and the account of the poster (myself) is no longer allowed to post (not a big deal, I created the account specifically for that purpose). Don't petty tyrants surpress news of censorship, too?
As it stands, discussing bnetd is forbidden in the chat room. Protesting the censorship in any way is forbidden. Discussing bnetd or the censorship in the forums is forbidden.
Under a different account, I posted a rebuttal [diabloii.net] to their recent anti-bnetd article [diabloii.net]. I wonder if they will censor that as well?
Re:DiabloII.Net Censors Bnetd Discussions (Score:2)
I hope you never have to release closed source code and have to worry about someone reverse engineering some of the profitibility out of it.
Breaking news! (Score:3, Funny)
After the latest press conference some color experts were asking how it could possibly be yellow. The head astronomer explained that it was a red-shift effect. "My assistant Bob can explain it to you, he entered the red-shift adjustments..." Bob: "Me? I didn't enter them. You were supposed to do that" Head astronomer: "You didn't? Oh shit..."
-
Blizzard of Issues (Score:2)
It summarizes a lot of how I feel about this issue.
I'd also like to add that I think that the precedent that bnetd is trying to set is eerily dangerous while on the other hand I think Blizz's invocation of the DMCA is also not-a-good-thing.
Music Companies != Blizzard (Score:3, Interesting)
Every so often people talk about napster/kazaa/morpheus, and someone usually says, "It's not the government's responsibility to protect companies that depend on an obsolete business model." By this they mean that music is too expensive, artists get stiffed, there's no way to buy single tracks, etc., etc. I think we all feel stiffed by the music industry sometimes.
Now Blizzard has a much better business model. They sell game boxes in the store, and then they let you spawn multiple copies to play it with your friends locally. (Real companies actually support fair use?)
The best part is, when you start getting good and enjoying the game, all they ask is that you get your own copy so that you can play on the Internet. If you only like the game enough to play once in a while at your friends' house, you can go your own way. I mean, they'll even let you create your own account on your friend's machine, because they know sooner or later you'll want your own copy so you can play alongside your friends. This business model lets each customer decide for themselves the threshold at which they pay for the product.
This is one of the best, most fair business models I've ever seen. The thing that saddens me is that if we try to take advantage of Blizzard, they (unlike the music companies) are talented and flexible enough to switch straight over to writing console games, and where will we be then?
If Blizzard is forced to change their business model, we, the consumers, will lose out. We'll end up with games that can only be played on XBox via a proprietary network, and nobody will be able to spawn guest copies.
I know code = free.speech; I know that some people whine about how battle.net can get slow; but wouldn't you rather have the EFF fight to defend open source licenses instead of fighting to help people crack into the Warcraft 3 beta?
XML databases obsolete 30 years already (Score:2)
An XML database amounts to a domain-specific technology – hierarchical databases, a special case of network (in the connecting conceptual nodes representing pieces of data sense, not the connecting physical computers over cables, protocols and radio sense) databases – that has been obsolete for 30 years now, since EF ‘Ted’ Codd published his ‘A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks [acm.org]’ paper.
There have long been the desire for a truly relational [dbdebunk.com.] DBMS that would solve not only hierarchical problems like XML and bills-of-materials cases, but also would provide a much saner OO database foundation than current OODBMSs or ORDBMSs. There’s even a proprietary beta implementation [alphora.com] that I’ve submitted twice to Slashdot, being twice ignored if we don’t pay attention this could give the Microsoft camp a real technology first and jumpstart over us – ‘ meaning both the free software and the open standards ’ for the first time, except the ease-of-use issue where they are still a step ahead.
Email the media! (Score:5, Informative)
tell them you hate DMCA and why
Re:Email the media! (Score:2)
Better yet, tell jim Jesse Jackson supports it! That'll get his attention!
#insert "drippingsarcasm.h"
Re:Email the media! (Score:2)
Were you trying to say something? Accuse me of something? Obviously it must have been important or you would have spewed vitriol like you did.
Re:DMCA in action (Score:5, Insightful)
You're either a troll, or someone incredibly ignorant. Did it occur to you that Vivendi might just be firing off BULLSHIT in their letters? Reading a legal document from the bad guy isn't going to give you an accurate profile of the entirety of the situation. Hence, your ignorance.
Bnetd wasn't created to pirate Blizzard games any more than DeCSS was created to pirate DVDs. It was created so people playing Blizzard games could have multiplayer games on local LANs without having to rely on battle.net.
Blizzard is just using the lack of CD key authentication as a reason to kill the project. Bnetd asked Blizzard to provide a means to authenticate CD keys, and Blizzard refused. So what happens? Bnetd functions happily without it.
They tried to take their ball and run home, but they made their OWN ball. Boo hoo for Blizzard.
Re:DMCA in action (Score:2)
B: That's not a game server - that's connecting to play with friends. Blizzard provided a functionality for playing with a game server - they can't restrict it and say "uh, no, only ours." I could give reams of reasons why this is valid, but I only need to give one. It's fair use.
Re:DMCA in action (Score:2, Interesting)
Sorry, but IPX REALLY sucks. Network performance is terrible if you're on a local LAN and want to connect to someone across the Internet (with Kali, let's say), especially if that person is on a slow modem. Under IPX, everyone's performance is synced to the person with the slowest network connection. Battle.Net is also pretty bad -- laggy as hell, unstable, and filled with people where the average maturity seems to be that of a 12-year old. Setting up a bnetd server on my box was the best way for myself and a small circle of friends to connect together, have our own ladder games, and play in our own private environment. It probably wouldn't have been necessary if Starcraft came with a TCP/IP option, but it doesn't. (for that matter, why doesn't the TCP/IP option in Diablo2 accept hostnames instead of IP addresses?)
Re:You are mistaken (Score:2)
Sure. But I don't see purely LAN games too often myself. Often it's "people on a LAN... and a guy halfway across the country." That was the nice thing about Kali -- even though people might be scattered, from the game's perspective they were all on the local LAN.
Some of Blizz's games are synchronous, like the starcraft you mentioned, so your friend with the modem is going to slow down everyone else, IPX vs. TCP/IP is irrelevant in this case.
Actually with Starcraft, that is not the case. When you connect with Battle.Net, a slow modem user does not slow down the other users like he would if he were using IPX. If the net-connection is completely unresponsive, then the game freezes for everyone until the lagger is dropped or unlags, but that is the extent to which a slow modem user (aren't they all? ;) ) lags the game. The behavior is completely different for an IPX game.
Nearly all of Blizz's games are peer-to-peer, again the starcraft you mention, so battle.net is not lagging your game.
You're right, but the part I was refering to was the initial game setup which occurs on Battle.Net -- gathering in a channel, hosting a game, letting people join... then finally when the game starts it's out of Battle.Net's hands. I've had nights where I gathered a small handful of friends, and we weren't even able to start a game together. When Battle.Net lags, it will often incorrectly claim a game doesn't exist (I think a lot of famous misleading error message like "game doesn't exist" and "character not found" are generic catchall error responses). When I tracerouted uswest.battle.net, the trace was perfectly clean... until the very last hop, where the times spiked by at least half a second. Packet loss was pretty high as well. Fortunately that's not the norm, but it's very annoying when it happens. That night of frustration when we couldn't start a Starcraft game (Kali wouldn't work since one of my friends was on a modem) was the night I decided to compile and setup the bnetd server. We haven't looked back since.
You are mistaken, Starcraft does have TCP/IP LAN play. It was added about the time the MacOS X version was released.
Starcraft, as of the current version, only has local TCP/IP capabilities. DiabloII has true TCP/IP over the Internet, but Starcraft's UDP support is still limited to the local lan. (though I've yet to try this with Kali -- might be interesting to see if it doesn't lag anymore)
Re:DMCA in action (Score:2)
mmorpg games make a nice tidy sum from their player base, I pay for two different ones every month. Sony have had nearly £300 from me so far to play Everquest.
Mark my words, battle.net will not remain free and I predict that it will change with the release of WC3.
bnetd is a real threat to that and the piracy thing is just a smokescreen .
Re:DMCA in action (Score:3, Interesting)
My server, my resources, my decision about who I let on it, and how I verify them.
The onus is on the player, imo, in a keygen situation. The player is the one infringing by using a keygen and infringing copyright - bnetd is simply reverse-engineering and providing a plug-compatible solution.
(that's one point of view, in any case)
Re:DMCA in action (Score:3, Interesting)
Failure to include copyright controls in your own work is not the same as NOPing them out of someone elses software.
Re:DMCA in action (Score:2)
I'm really glad this started a thread. For the
most part I was ignorant of the details of
the bnetd/blizzard controversy. My post was
not meant to be a troll. The question was answered.
The existence of a single positive use (TCP LAN
play) may be a good reason for its existence.
The real problem that people are struggling
with here is that ownership of information
doesn't make sense. That is why everyone
here is so hell bent against the DMCA,
because, the way I see it, the DMCA puts teeth
into that ownership. I don't really agree
with the DMCA, but if you really belive in
content ownership, I can see how the DMCA
makes sense.
People don't really believe (me included)
that it really makes sense that you can own
an idea. Before the last five years, before
sharing big sets of ideas (digital content)
was so easy -- it wasn't really a problem for
the content owners.
I see the DMCA, and recent legislation, as a
symptom of a more fundamental problem -- most
people instinctively don't believe that its
OK to own ideas. It flys against a basic
fundamental nature.
It used to be that individuals survived
through cooperation, sharing -- for hundred of
thousands of years our species all shared to
survive. Only in the last 6,000 years has
the norm shifted to one of individuals
competing to survive. Not sharing to survive.
Welcome to business 101.
see my site
Re:DMCA in action (Score:5, Informative)
How is what bnetd doing OK in any way?
Perhaps you should read EFF's response, and possibly even Title 17, Chapter 12 [cornell.edu] where it says (as referenced by the EFF letter):
1201 (c) Other Rights, Etc., Not Affected.
... (3)
1201 (f) Reverse Engineering... (3)
Nonsense. (Score:4, Insightful)
Idiot.
TheFrood
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
What ever happened to this supposed posthumous release from Adams?
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
Man, I still feel like crying when I think about it.
Meghan
Re:A New Sentence to Absolutely Hate. (Score:2)
Ever heard of the idea that there might be ways to express disagreement without resorting to moderation? Like, y'know, engaging Mr Braincell before hitting that darn' Reply link?
Yes, I think he had quite a valid point. Over here [UK] we had an article on the radio news about how it was "6 months on since Sept 11th" - like, erm, gee, let's just define a whole calendar around the incident.
It's like after Princess Di died - Elton John was well reported as saying "she's gone, now let's get on with it". The world does not revolve around her, or the absence of the twin towers, or about some idiot moderator on