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Games

Games Workshop Goes After Fan Site 174

mark.leaman writes "BoingBoing has a recent post regarding Games Workshop's aggressive posturing against fan sites featuring derivative work of their game products. 'Game publisher and miniature manufacturer Games Workshop just sent a cease and desist letter to boardgamegeek.com, telling them to remove all fan-made players' aids. This includes scenarios, rules summaries, inventory manifests, scans to help replace worn pieces — many of these created for long out of print, well-loved games...' As a lifelong hobby gamer of table, board, card and miniature games, I view this as pure heresy. It made me reject the idea of buying any Games Workshop (read Warhammer) products for my son this Christmas. Their fate was sealed, in terms of my wallet, after I Googled their shenanigans. In 2007 they forbid Warhammer fan films, this year they shut down Vassal Modules, and a while back they went after retailers as well. What ever happened to fair use?"

Comment It is actually a lot more simple... (Score -1, Redundant) 505

According to the LAWS that govern the use of a Social Security number: it is illegal to use that number for anything but social security tax purposes... In other words, you can only use it for Banks, Employment, and IRS Tax purposes. The DMV is breaking Federal Law, and any other organization, group, entity, company, or even Government Agency that uses your Social Security number as an IDENTIFICATION number are BREAKING federal law... So why not just enforce the law?
Social Networks

Submission + - People getting fired for Social Networking leaks (ksl.com)

Efialtis writes: "We have read stories about job interviews going south because of comments made on social networking sites, but this story looks at how company secrets might end up on those sites as well.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=7491222
"Some people on social-networking sites like Facebook or LinkedIn may be a little too social.
The e-mail security vendor Proofpoint recently released its sixth report on Outbound Email Security and Data Loss Prevention.
'Seventeen percent, nearly one-in-five large U.S. companies, actually investigated a leak of confidential information to a social-networking site,' the company's director of market development, Keith Crosley, said.""

Comment Another Solution... (Score 1) 411

... That could save money and trouble: Insure the Driver, not the Car. In the State of Utah, if you (an individual, no family, etc) have 4 cars that are capable of being driven (registered, etc) you are REQUIRED by law to have insurance on each vehicle...so figure as cheap as you can per vehicle and times that by 4 or as expensive as you can imagine, and times that by 4... Why not figure the most expensive to insure vehicle that you own, and just charge you that much...then you could drive any other car you own, and it would be covered, because your insurance is geared to the most expensive to insure car... This makes sense because you can only drive one vehicle at a time. Then I could also drive other people's vehicles (no real special rider needed) because my insurance would be on ME and not on the car... Rental agencies do this to some degree... As for this idea...I don't see what the problem is. Each year you go in for Safety and Emissions inspections, just have the agency take the odometer reading and report back to the insurance company, who then figures the miles driven by a simple mathematical operation called "subtraction"...who then sends you a bill for the insurance on the miles driven (or an estimate of the miles you drive per year, making up the difference (to you or to them) in subsequent years...) How much more simple could it be?

Comment The obvious answer (Score 1) 564

I worked for Microsoft for over 6 years, and I swore, when I left, that I would find a better way. I ran into Ubuntu Linux after going from Red Hat, to Fedora, and Suse... I tested it out for some time, setting up a server to handle all those functions I was paying hundreds of dollars for. Then I converted all the machines over that I own, and I have been more than happy. Every machine I set up has a RAID, My "user" machines all get RAID 1, my server and my play machines get either RAID 5 or RAID 6 I have had drives go bad, operating system troubles, hardware troubles, and everything imaginable. My data is still safe. Stuff that I have collected for 10 or more years, files, mails, etc... I don't worry about any of it. I tried raid in Windows, and without purchasing expensive hardware, forget it. It doesn't work, or at least, it doesn't work well. While I worked at Microsoft, I went in for a "blue badge" interview. While I waited, a currier brought in a box for a group in building 53. This box was a copy of Red Hat Enterprise. I thought that was funny, but when the guy came to pick it up, he explained that they had sensitive data on their servers, and they couldn't trust that data to Windows Server Addition, (back in the Win 2K days). If Microsoft cannot trust their own software, why should I?

Comment DIY (Score 1) 517

I researched Drobo, and found it to waste too much space, not to mention that the network add-on is expensive...and then reduced to usb transfer rates... I have a Buffalo on my desk, and it is ok, but if you need speed, that isn't a way to go. I found that I could buy a real RAID card and roll my own RAID NAS with little trouble and get great speeds out of it. Later I purchased a micro board, it has 6 sata ports, and I have a Software Raid running on Ubuntu server, with all the necessary bits for SAMBA, XFS, CIFS, etc. I have 6 disks all in raid and a Gigabit ethernet...faster than anything I have purchased previously...does a good job too...
XBox (Games)

Submission + - What Game Console? 1

Efialtis writes: "Christmas is coming, and I still have need to purchase one gift for the family. I have decided that it would be a good idea to get a Game Console, not that I or my kids need to sit on our butts more, but because of some of the games that are available for "family" play and other things like the Wii Fit... The problems is, there are 3 real game consoles, and I am a Born and Bread PC Gamer — if I needed better hardware, I simply built it myself. So, what do I do? Playstation 3, XBox 360, or Wii? What do I look for? Type of game, game availability, and game experience? Graphics, internet play, dvd playback (blue ray, etc)? Upgradeability, or when the next version is about to come out? Support and warranty? I know there are as many opinions out there as there are people, but I am hoping to get an idea of the types of questions to ask when trying to decide what Game Console to buy, and which Consoles answer those questions..."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Lead and China

Efialtis writes: "There have been a lot of recent news stories about Lead Contamination (paint) in the toys we have been importing from China. It wasn't one toy recall, it wasn't two toy recalls, but a whole lot more (see Toy Hazard Recalls and Toy Recalls). Unfortunately, it doesn't stop there. Bill Gephardt, an Investigative Reporter for Channel 2 News in Utah (Channel 2) recently did a story about lead in dinner ware, plates from (you guessed it) China that contain lead (Lead Dishes In Your Cabinets?, Toddler Possibly Poisoned By Lead Paint From Plates, Lead Plates Followup: Utah Wants To Know!, Lead Plate Story Getting National Attention and Lead Plate Results).
When we heard these stories, we were greatly interested as all of our dinner ware came from China (I bought it at Shopko some 14 years ago), and my daughter has shown signs of lead poisoning. Needless to say, we are now having her tested.
The part that I am complaining about was best summed up by my wife, "We should simply stop buying items from China." What I am interested in: Is it corporate or government greed that prevents us from putting sanctions on China and boycotting the import of their lead contaminated products?"
Communications

Submission + - VoIP

Efialtis writes: "After reading the dismal outlook for Vonage (whom I use for phone service), I decided it might be a good idea to seek out an alternative, just in case Vonage pulls a SunRocket.
So I searched and found 3 real solutions:
1) Stay with Vonage, ride it out, see if Vonage survives this and the later attacks for Patent Infringement of "prior art"...
2) Jump Ship and leave Vonage but stay with a traditional VoIP service provider — but this brought in its own questions; which one is better, cheaper, has more features? Vonage has 22 advertised services, and is $24.99 for one line. Comcast has 13 services for $39.95. ViaTalk has 29 services and 2 lines for (roughly) $8.30 (2 year @ $199), QWest has 11 services for $29.99, and AT&T has 9 services for $24.99.
3) Go with the "techie" solution and ditch them all for the basic, no service POTS line, set up an Asterisk box, give myself every available service, and pay $11 a month.
So, what would SlashDot do?"

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