Comment Re:Prior art! (Score 1) 218
But see, it is the case. Very same title. Similar plot, from what I got... from reading.. the law suit documents...
Comment Re:The author's take on this (Score 2) 218
Movie and various types of music are NOT covered under the TM he has (16) - which covers written/printed material. I'm sure he can't sue over the Buffy book because of the preface of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in the title. I don't think anyone here understands what, precisely, goes into writing a novel, or a series of novels. One of his major issues is that the themes of the new book are the same as the themes he uses, and so is the target audience.
Comment Re:Well... (Score 1) 218
The next book in the series will also be "Carnival" themed. Their web site name also uses one of his trademarks. It looks like HC is taking a top result on book searches (Amazon, I did just check this) and putting out a new series with the same title.
Comment Re:Well... (Score 3, Informative) 218
RTFA - or lawsuit. The new novel has been recognized as a "new series of novels" of which the subject matter and audience is the same as Wild's graphic novels. HC registered a web site under the name "Enter the Carnival" which happens to be yet another of Wild's "TM" names associated with a top-selling graphic novel. Graphic novels and novels fall under the same category when registering trademarks, as opposed to say, a CD and a comic book would not.
Submission + - Valve Refuses to Stock Dating and Sex SIM Called Seduce Me (ibtimes.co.uk) 2
DavidGilbert99 writes: "Seduce Me, a new point-and-click dating sim developed by Dutch indie studio No Reply Games, has been banned from Valve's Greenlight service due to its alleged explicit content.
Screenshots from Seduce Me (which feature frontal nudity and in-game sex scenes) appeared on Greenlight last Thursday, but were quickly replaced with an error message claiming the game had been removed for violating Valve's terms of service agreement.
Shortly afterward, No Reply Games received a generic email from Valve, explaining that Seduce Me's sex scenes had contravened Greenlight's usage policy.
Miriam Bellard, lead designer of the games has told IBTimes UK: "In literature, erotic fiction is an accepted category and you can find it at your local bookstore without any fuss. The same should be true for games, but it isn't. I find it strange that if sex is placed in the context of an action game — i.e. if we have both sex and violence — then the sex is deemed acceptable and appropriate — but if the sex is enjoyed for its own sake, without any surrounding violence, then it is considered inappropriate and offensive.""
Screenshots from Seduce Me (which feature frontal nudity and in-game sex scenes) appeared on Greenlight last Thursday, but were quickly replaced with an error message claiming the game had been removed for violating Valve's terms of service agreement.
Shortly afterward, No Reply Games received a generic email from Valve, explaining that Seduce Me's sex scenes had contravened Greenlight's usage policy.
Miriam Bellard, lead designer of the games has told IBTimes UK: "In literature, erotic fiction is an accepted category and you can find it at your local bookstore without any fuss. The same should be true for games, but it isn't. I find it strange that if sex is placed in the context of an action game — i.e. if we have both sex and violence — then the sex is deemed acceptable and appropriate — but if the sex is enjoyed for its own sake, without any surrounding violence, then it is considered inappropriate and offensive.""
Submission + - Tough, super-stretchy hydrogel could be used to replace cartilage (gizmag.com)
cylonlover writes: Scientists at Harvard University have created a hydrogel that’s tough, biocompatible, self-healing, and can be repeatedly stretched to 21 times its regular length without breaking – all of which are qualities that could make it an ideal replacement for damaged cartilage in humans. Being a hydrogel, it’s composed mostly of water, although it also contains calcium ions, and a mix of two common polymers. While each of those polymers are fairly weak on their own, the results are truly impressive when they’re combined.
Submission + - The 29 Most Disturbing Names People Have Given Their iPhones, iPads and iPods (huffingtonpost.com)
puddingebola writes: This is important news. As it turns out, people give their iPods and iPads names that are disturbing. We can thank Antisec for bringing this information to light. From the article, "Besides wondering why exactly the government is collecting data on the Apple products citizens are using (the FBI insists that there's no proof these data came from inside the agency) or checking if your gadget's info has be released by hackers, we have to sit and marvel at some of the disturbing names people give their iGadgets."
Comment Womp womp womp (Score 1) 608
Dear Mr. Romney:
TL;DR.
Thanks,
Samazon
Comment Re:GPL it? (Score 2) 109
Someone suggested that in the giant forum thread.
The thing is, the people who still play CoH are SUPER dedicated. I know people who spend hours a day doing world-related stuff, who run radio stations themed around and listened to in-game, people who RP... If they open-sourced it, the current player base would probably only need, say, three servers - two American, one European - and a few people dedicated to making sure that if something bugged, it got fixed.
I don't know anything about video game management or development though, so that's just my assumption. It could be that it's an unmanageable task by anyone but industry professionals.
But IMHO, it's been running this long (albeit, I hear, with duct tape and bubblegum) - it couldn't take too much effort to keep the servers lit up.
Comment Comes as a BIG surprise. (Score 4, Interesting) 109
Only four months after Matt Miller promised "a ton of plans for content beyond Issue 24 and 25. We have a pencil sketch of the stories, arcs, zones, and trials for the next few years (I say pencil, because we still want to be agile and work to bring you things you actively ask for, things even you don't know you want yet!)" and less than two weeks after the release of a new power set.
As much as I enjoy GW2, I am FURIOUS with NCSoft for pulling the plug on an eight year old game. The LEAST they could do is keep the servers up, or sell it to someone who will do so.
Comment Without warning... (Score 1) 1
This is only ten days after the release of a new power set and only four months after a statement from Matt Miller promising, "We've got a ton of plans for content beyond Issue 24 and 25. We have a pencil sketch of the stories, arcs, zones, and trials for the next few years (I say pencil, because we still want to be agile and work to bring you things you actively ask for, things even you don't know you want yet!)"
Submission + - NCSoft Closes Paragon Studios (cityofheroes.com) 1
samazon writes: Earlier today, City of Heroes community manager Andy Belford announced that NCSoft is shutting down Paragon Studios. Over 7,500 individuals were viewing the official CoH forums as of 3:00 PM EST, and this thread from Belford, AKA Zwilinger, notes that "In a realignment of company focus and publishing support, NCsoft has made the decision to close Paragon Studios. Effective immediately, all development on City of Heroes will cease and we will begin preparations to sunset the world’s first, and best, Super Hero MMORPG before the end of the year."
A petition has already been created to save City of Heroes.
A petition has already been created to save City of Heroes.
Submission + - Simple Sugar Detected Surrounding a Binary Star (nationalgeographic.com)
eldavojohn writes: Slashdot has covered organic compounds in meteorites as well as in stellar ejecta but now scientists are claiming to have found sugar — glycoaldehyde to be exact — surrounding a star with the aid of the radio telescope Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. The results were peer reviewed in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and a PDF release of the paper is available. From an explanation of how they detected this: 'The gas and dust clouds that collapse to form new stars are extremely cold and many gases solidify as ice on the particles of dust where they then bond together and form more complex molecules. But once a star has been formed in the middle of a rotating cloud of gas and dust, it heats the inner parts of the cloud to around room temperature, evaporating the chemically complex molecules, and forming gases that emit their characteristic radiation as radio waves that can be mapped using powerful radio telescopes such as ALMA.'
Submission + - Promiscuity Alters DNA and Boosts Immunity in Mice 1
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley found that promiscuous mice have significantly stronger immune systems than monogamous mice, suggesting that promiscuous mice may have developed more robust immunity to protect them against the disease-causing bacteria they are exposed to from mating with multiple partners.
Submission + - 'Severe abnormalities' found in Fukushima butterflies (nature.com)
Dupple writes: The collapse of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant caused a massive release of radioactive materials to the environment. A prompt and reliable system for evaluating the biological impacts of this accident on animals has not been available. Here we show that the accident caused physiological and genetic damage to the pale grass blue Zizeeria maha, a common lycaenid butterfly in Japan. We collected the first-voltine adults in the Fukushima area in May 2011, some of which showed relatively mild abnormalities. The F1 offspring from the first-voltine females showed more severe abnormalities, which were inherited by the F2 generation. Adult butterflies collected in September 2011 showed more severe abnormalities than those collected in May.
Similar abnormalities were experimentally reproduced in individuals from a non-contaminated area by external and internal low-dose exposures. We conclude that artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant caused physiological and genetic damage to this species.
Similar abnormalities were experimentally reproduced in individuals from a non-contaminated area by external and internal low-dose exposures. We conclude that artificial radionuclides from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant caused physiological and genetic damage to this species.
