Should We Fight for Ogg Vorbis?
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I'm a big fan of Richard Stallman and his work â even though, the first time I interviewed him, he proceeded to criticise my questions before answering them, not a journalistic experience I'd had before.  Without his vision and sheer bloody-mindedness in the face of indifference and outright hostility, we would not have the vast array of free software we enjoy today.
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Tycho:  With PAX coming up this weekend (!!!), we didn't really have time on Friday to invest in Virgil's Wikiscanner - that mystical oracle that takes a raw IP range and then excretes a list of that organization's Wikipedia edits.  This is the pulsing, possibly Martian device that dished up last week's awesome Electronic Arts edits.    I wasn't sure if we should feel sorry for them or not - now that EA is situated in the number two slot, does that make them the scrappy underdog? - but I quickly realized it probably doesn't matter.  They can come right out and say "Yes, we edit it all the time," mischaracterize the nature of the edits, and by the time it's on the second page the events in question never happened.  People don't remember anything these days that isn't on the first page of their feed aggregators. In any case, the entire affair is talking place  on Wikipedia.  Kudzu will grow over the propaganda soon enough.    Though time was indeed in short supply, we did fritter some portion of it pawing through ancient email headers, scraping for filth on old enemies.  Or enemies with whom we have resumed talks.  Or enemies who are now friends!  Even people I hope to make enemies in the future by my careless commentary must fall beneath the scanner's baleful eye.    Like a chugging trawler, we hauled up net after net of treasure onto the deck, sifting it on hands and knees.  I'd never expose it, of course - sparking a desperate arms race to find self-serving commentary is a conflict I'm likely to lose.  And with the deep catalogue of nemeses we've inspired worldwide (and even below the world, in the warrens of the pale Gambrya, where hate is eternal) it's not what I'd call a fabulous scenario.  For us, at least; no doubt, our foes have already begun their malevolent harvest.
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We'll fight them on the breaches... Interview If Microsoft is aiming for a courtroom collision with the world of free software, it may be disappointed.â¦
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It's important to debate Canada's war &nbsp;mission in Afghanistan. It's a legitimate and necessary debate. It's a debate occurring in all the NATO countries now being asked to send more troops. Most of these countries, with the exception of Poland and Canada, have resisted further commitments. As in Canada, there is broad questioning within their populations about the core wisdom and merits of this mission. This is not, or as some are suggesting, a re-staging of the Second World War. The fate of the Western world is not hanging in the balance.
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Open source has many good uses.  Beating up one's competitors shouldn't be the primary one.
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One great way to determine whether your digital product is destined for greatness is how many people want to steal it. The same goes for open source.
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Tycho:   The foe revealed, Armadeaddon is now almost complete.  Monday will see the promised epilogue, so at this point you have very nearly survived the ordeal.  We have endeavored these past weeks to reward the true "enthusiast," that man or woman who, brow heavy, has faced such cruel abuse at our hand for the last seven years.  It is apparently our policy to honor such dedication one every decade.    Since it was announced a couple days ago, the revelation that MS would be actively courting the hardcore boardgame player is something I've thought about almost constantly.  It may be that you weren't aware there was such a thing as a hardcore player of boardgames if your last experience with the context was playing Sorry! with your sister when you were eight.  Things have progressed.   There's a million experiences in this space I could use to lure you in, but one company in particular - Days of Wonder has already decided to make electronic variants of their tabletop crack, so they occupy a twilight space between the worlds.  I hope they see an opportunity to take their (already completed!) games over to the 360, or that Microsoft offers them a locked case containing an unspecified amount of untraceable U.S. Currency, because I'd love to see this prescient move by MS turn into a new era.   Days of Wonder makes a game called Shadows Over Camelot that could quickly become a dangerous obsession, obscuring biological realities with a single-minded focus on grails.  Well, grail I guess.  There's just the one.    But it's a completely cooperative boardgame, so every player is working toward the same goals - fighting back invasions, questing, all of it.  Except there might be a traitor in the group, determined by a hidden draw, who tries to derail the effort.  He's not always there, but the potentiality of that nefarious force can create unbelievable social tension.    The gaming table's fixed coordinate in space is its asset and its obstacle - managing space and time is actually the primary challenge of any gaming group, as opposed to banishing necromancers, though that also ranks up there.  Boardgames are so rich in design that, when one of these gets dropped in front of them on Live, I think many gamers will be shocked at their sophistication.    My thumbs hurt.  (CW)TB out.
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The Motley Fool - Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL - News), certainly likes enemies. Perhaps he reasons combativeness will motivate the troops in the battle for software dominance. And, of course, he did win his long battle with PeopleSoft, which he now owns.
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Monday's article, "Do vouchers = segregation?" helps all reasonable people realize that vouchers must be a good thing. Once again, the race card has been played by the side with no other valid argument (remember O.J.?).
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Tycho:  It's floating around now, out there on the Wub, and it calls to you.  Or maybe it does, I don't actually know.  In any case, it can be got from 3D Downloads, the Fileplanets, GamersHell, or WorthDownloading.  Download it from mulltiple sites simultaneously for a naughty thrill.  God only knows how this would run on my Vista rig at home, but it's a Vista rig, so you can probably guess.  (CW)TB
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Gabe: I've gotten some mail about the Sony Defense Force site we mentioned in the strip today. Most people seem to want to know if it's a joke or not. I am of the opinion that it is. I'm not sure about Tycho but I think it's 100% fake. Stuff like the Lair review and their spin on the video of Halo 3 running on a PS3 demo station just can't be real. I think the guy running the site and making the articles is a genius. He's pulling in all kinds of traffic with an incredible parody and best of all, he even has people in his forums who think the whole thing is real. My guess is, in a couple weeks or maybe a month he'll drop the charade and reveal the whole thing was a gag. Maybe he can keep it going longer than that but I doubt it. I hope he can though because honestly it's fucking hilarious.   128016001920  Also Kiko made you this cool wallpaper based on one of his PAX photos. He has also posted two more sets including the final round of the Omegathon and general PAX culture.  -Gabe out
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Here's the problem with GW being the feel-good, Little Team That Could: After enough giant-killing, you become the ogre yourself.
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By WG Caddick  WHAT a lovely surprise I had in the post this morning - two vouchers for pounds 5 to be rendered at Argos.   Following a phone call to your officers, I was told that it was because I had taken the Birmingham Mail for some time now.
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Tycho: Two new shirts today. One based on the Broodax Strips, which can be found here, and looks like this:   And another shirt based on the control scheme for Starfire Saga V: Laserion, which can be found here, and looks like this:   (CW)TB
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In a quick post to his blog, Lukas Smith notes his support of the recent announcement of the PEAR elections.   I am confident that both of the proposals will help in improving collaboration in PEAR, mainly because they basically provide the same organization we used to have for all of PEAR (which worked great in the beginning), now for categories of related packages.   He reasons that, since PEAR is such a huge project, it needs this kind of approach - a method to the madness - to help keep the project on the right path.
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Tycho:  There's a new Alternate Reality Game spinning up for Halo 3, God Damn them - God Damn them to hell.  I know perfectly well that I am being subjugated by a sophisticated marketing effort, that the best one can accomplish in these games is to get a real good look at the teeth before the mouth closes around you.  I type this even as the rabbit holes stand open in two other windows.  I don't presume to speak for the entire species, but there is something about secrets that does bit the mind.
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Tycho:  I watched this video myself on Friday, and then watched it again, and then watched it a third time when Khoo came in - providing commentary throughout, which I'm almost certain was unwelcome.  I urge you not to watch the embedded, nasty  version over at GameVideos, but to take advantage of their "Download" or "Watch Larger Version" options.  This way, you can obsess as I have - pausing on each screen of the character generator or battle interface, drinking deep of their  forbidden texts.  (CW)TB