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Terence Eden's Blog There is no HTTP code for censorship (but perhaps there should be) where Tim Bray announced the Internet-Draft proposal.

I hope that they finally amend it to include the
451 Unavailable for Legal Reasons of Resource magnet:?xt=urn:ed2k:354B15E68FB8F36D7CD88FF94116CDC1&xl=10826029

XD

Anybody who thinks time is easy to get right has never looked too closely at it. There are a million complications, many of which are political or historical. Leap Seconds are only part of it. There are also Leap Years (quick, is the year 4000 a leap year?), changes in the calendar system (what happens when you try to display September 3, 1752? What if you change your locale to the US? What if you change it to France?), politicians deciding to screw around with Daylight Savings Time (thank you George W. Bush), Time Zones, politicians deciding to screw around with time zones (thank you Kim Jong Un), etc...

Modern timekeeping is a nightmare. Even if you have a library dedicated to getting it right, they usually don't ask enough information to get it 100% correct because 99.9% of the time said inputs would be annoying and irrelevant. It's like asking for a library that just magically makes your code support Unicode. It's impossible because the implications extend into your own code as well. You have to think about the thousands of weird edge cases to get it completely right, there's no magic bullet. Oh, and virtually no program in the world gets it right. Not even huge ones that have thousands of professional developers. For example: Firefox and Chrome have issues with the RTL indicator, one of the first and most obvious pitfalls of Unicode development.

Since Terence Eden's Blog post "There is no HTTP code for censorship (but perhaps there should be)"

Although to be more informative one of the comments should suggest to include the urn of the censored resource:

451 Unavailable for Legal Reasons of Resource magnet:?xt=urn:ed2k:354B15E68FB8F36D7CD88FF94116CDC1&xl=10826029

That would be as fun as the chillingeffect links.

He's been sucked into the wifi! http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/03/howto-make-a-doctor-who-bells-of-st-john-style-wifi-name/

WTFF!!???

Apple's reputation management team is trying to deflect discussion from their lockin. If you read the moderation and comments below, you'll see they're desperate to divert discussion to an ad-hominem attack on RMS. These are deeply unethical people.

Here's a sentiment similar to Stallman's:

"Music, movies, TV, and podcast subscriptions. All tied up in Apple's little ecosystem. A very pretty noose to keep people chained to its hardware.

Imagine, just for a moment, that your Sony DVD player would only play Sony Movies' films. When you decided to buy a new DVD player from Samsung, none of those media files would work on your new kit without some serious fiddling.

That's the walled garden that so many companies are now trying to drag us into. And I think it stinks.

On a mobile phone network in the UK, you can use any phone you want. Hardware and services are totally divorced. It promotes competition because customers know that if they have a poor experience with HTC, they can move to Nokia and everything will carry on working just as it did before.

But, if all of your contacts, entertainment services, and backups are chained into HTC - well, then you're just shit out of luck if you want to move.

I want to see a complete separation of church and state here. Hardware should be separate from software. Software should be separate from services.

I want to watch Nokia movies on my Samsung hardware running Google's Android, and then back them up to DropBox.

That's how it works - more or less - in the PC space. I don't understand why it doesn't in the tablet and smartphone space? Why would I buy a tablet that only worked with content from one provider? Whether that's Amazon, Microsoft or Apple - it's setting up a nasty little monopoly which will drive up prices and drive down quality.

I know, I know. The mantra of "It Just Works". I'm mildly sick of having to configure my tablet to talk to my NAS, and then get the TV to talk to both of them. That situation isn't just due to my equipment all coming from different manufacturers - it's mostly due to those manufacturers not implementing open standards"

http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/11/i-dont-want-to-be-part-of-your-fucking-ecosystem/

"Music, movies, TV, and podcast subscriptions. All tied up in Apple's little ecosystem. A very pretty noose to keep people chained to its hardware.

Imagine, just for a moment, that your Sony DVD player would only play Sony Movies' films. When you decided to buy a new DVD player from Samsung, none of those media files would work on your new kit without some serious fiddling.

That's the walled garden that so many companies are now trying to drag us into. And I think it stinks.

On a mobile phone network in the UK, you can use any phone you want. Hardware and services are totally divorced. It promotes competition because customers know that if they have a poor experience with HTC, they can move to Nokia and everything will carry on working just as it did before.

But, if all of your contacts, entertainment services, and backups are chained into HTC - well, then you're just shit out of luck if you want to move.

I want to see a complete separation of church and state here. Hardware should be separate from software. Software should be separate from services.

I want to watch Nokia movies on my Samsung hardware running Google's Android, and then back them up to DropBox.

That's how it works - more or less - in the PC space. I don't understand why it doesn't in the tablet and smartphone space? Why would I buy a tablet that only worked with content from one provider? Whether that's Amazon, Microsoft or Apple - it's setting up a nasty little monopoly which will drive up prices and drive down quality.

I know, I know. The mantra of "It Just Works". I'm mildly sick of having to configure my tablet to talk to my NAS, and then get the TV to talk to both of them. That situation isn't just due to my equipment all coming from different manufacturers - it's mostly due to those manufacturers not implementing open standards."

http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/11/i-dont-want-to-be-part-of-your-fucking-ecosystem/ [shkspr.mobi]

"Music, movies, TV, and podcast subscriptions. All tied up in Apple's little ecosystem. A very pretty noose to keep people chained to its hardware.

Imagine, just for a moment, that your Sony DVD player would only play Sony Movies' films. When you decided to buy a new DVD player from Samsung, none of those media files would work on your new kit without some serious fiddling.

That's the walled garden that so many companies are now trying to drag us into. And I think it stinks.

On a mobile phone network in the UK, you can use any phone you want. Hardware and services are totally divorced. It promotes competition because customers know that if they have a poor experience with HTC, they can move to Nokia and everything will carry on working just as it did before.

But, if all of your contacts, entertainment services, and backups are chained into HTC - well, then you're just shit out of luck if you want to move.

I want to see a complete separation of church and state here. Hardware should be separate from software. Software should be separate from services.

I want to watch Nokia movies on my Samsung hardware running Google's Android, and then back them up to DropBox.

That's how it works - more or less - in the PC space. I don't understand why it doesn't in the tablet and smartphone space? Why would I buy a tablet that only worked with content from one provider? Whether that's Amazon, Microsoft or Apple - it's setting up a nasty little monopoly which will drive up prices and drive down quality.

I know, I know. The mantra of "It Just Works". I'm mildly sick of having to configure my tablet to talk to my NAS, and then get the TV to talk to both of them. That situation isn't just due to my equipment all coming from different manufacturers - it's mostly due to those manufacturers not implementing open standards.

http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/11/i-dont-want-to-be-part-of-your-fucking-ecosystem/

"If all of your contacts, entertainment services, and backups are chained into Apple - well, then you're just shit out of luck if you want to move.

I want to see a complete separation of church and state here. Hardware should be separate from software. Software should be separate from services.

I want to watch Nokia movies on my Samsung hardware running Google's Android, and then back them up to DropBox.

That's how it works - more or less - in the PC space. I don't understand why it doesn't in the tablet and smartphone space? Why would I buy a tablet that only worked with content from one provider? Whether that's Amazon, Microsoft or Apple - it's setting up a nasty little monopoly which will drive up prices and drive down quality.

I know, I know. The mantra of "It Just Works". I'm mildly sick of having to configure my tablet to talk to my NAS, and then get the TV to talk to both of them. That situation isn't just due to my equipment all coming from different manufacturers - it's mostly due to those manufacturers not implementing open standards."

http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/11/i-dont-want-to-be-part-of-your-fucking-ecosystem/

If all of your contacts, entertainment services, and backups are chained into Apple - well, then you're just shit out of luck if you want to move.

I want to see a complete separation of church and state here. Hardware should be separate from software. Software should be separate from services.

I want to watch Nokia movies on my Samsung hardware running Google's Android, and then back them up to DropBox.

That's how it works - more or less - in the PC space. I don't understand why it doesn't in the tablet and smartphone space? Why would I buy a tablet that only worked with content from one provider? Whether that's Amazon, Microsoft or Apple - it's setting up a nasty little monopoly which will drive up prices and drive down quality.

I know, I know. The mantra of "It Just Works". I'm mildly sick of having to configure my tablet to talk to my NAS, and then get the TV to talk to both of them. That situation isn't just due to my equipment all coming from different manufacturers - it's mostly due to those manufacturers not implementing open standards.

http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/11/i-dont-want-to-be-part-of-your-fucking-ecosystem/

I want to see a complete separation of church and state here. Hardware should be separate from software. Software should be separate from services.

I want to watch Nokia movies on my Samsung hardware running Google's Android, and then back them up to DropBox.

That's how it works - more or less - in the PC space. I don't understand why it doesn't in the tablet and smartphone space? Why would I buy a tablet that only worked with content from one provider? Whether that's Amazon, Microsoft or Apple - it's setting up a nasty little monopoly which will drive up prices and drive down quality.

I know, I know. The mantra of "It Just Works". I'm mildly sick of having to configure my tablet to talk to my NAS, and then get the TV to talk to both of them. That situation isn't just due to my equipment all coming from different manufacturers - it's mostly due to those manufacturers not implementing open standards.

http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/11/i-dont-want-to-be-part-of-your-fucking-ecosystem/

You don't have Linux trying to overcomplicate something simple like plugging in a hard drive or an Android device and just using it.

Yes you do. Android devices running Android 3.x or 4.x connect to the computer using file-level access through MTP instead of a FAT-formatted mass storage device, and even the latest Xubuntu doesn't recognize MTP devices. One currently has to do some edit some config files as root and manually mount and unmount devices using command line aliases. Though these instructions work for fairly small files, when I tried copying a large (162 MB) file to my Nexus 7 tablet with these instructions, it ended up 0 bytes.

There were a few links, the one I read explained the legal case very clearly but did not explain what OpenDDR was at all. Grandparent mentioned Konami possibly suing, so I assumed openDDR was an open DDR game project that used the WURFL for peripheral support. I guess he was just concerned about the "DDR" initialism being used in any context, but yeah, as people pointed out, if its not in the same field, it doesn't count. Calm down, I did read TFA and TFS.

"ScientiaMobile, the company formed behind the open source library WURFL, an API used to do mobile device detection for web applications, has issued a DMCA takedown notice against the OpenDDR project on Github. ScientiaMobile claims that OpenDDR is 'ripping them off' by forking their database, which used to be licensed under a liberal license. Newer versions of the device database are licensed under restrictive licenses which do not allow any modification or redistribution."

You show me where in that it is

From the 1st link, first two paragraphs (emphasis added):

So... What is WURFL? WURFL is a Device Description Repository (DDR), i.e. a software component which contains the descriptions of thousands of mobile devices. In its simplest incarnation, WURFL is an XML configuration file plus a set of programming APIs to access the data in real-time environments.

The main scope of the WURFL Project is to be an independent central repository of device information , which Open-Source developers from around the globe can utilize to build their mobile web applications.

From the 2nd link fourth paragraph (emphasis added):

elow some background to explain the origins of the story. OpenDDR project has been made by a group of web & mobile developers aware of the importance for their work of an always up-to-date Device Description Repository (DDR), and of good APIs to access it.

From the 3rd link, first two paragraphs (emphasis added):

Everyone knows it. There is nothing worse than a not tailored content. Just think how frustrating is surfing a very complex website on the small screen of your cellular phone. You probably waste your time zooming and scrolling the pages, but, anyway, it’s clear: if you want a comfortable user experience you need dinamically adaptable contents according to hardware and browser specifications of your device .

That’s the reason why Device Description Repositories (DDR) exist. These are databases that store a huge amount of information concerning mobile phones, tablets, Interactive TVs, set top boxes and any device having a Web browser , in order to allow developers to realize applications extremely enjoyable on each client.

From the fourth link, first and third paragraphs (emphasis added):

When a phone’s web browser visits your site, how can you tell what capabilities that phone has? How can you work out its screensize, whether it can play mp3s, or know if it supports a particular bit of JavaScript?

...

Out of this frustration, a number of databases have been developed to track the capabilities of as many devices as possible. For the longest time, the most popular and accurate was WURFL – the Wireless Universal Resource FiLe.

it's pretty obvious even from TFS that they are not

It specifies that it is used for web applications, but games can be web applications. It does say mobile device detection, and I might have skimmed that as just "device detection", but still, not exactly spelling it out.

And from TFS (

http://shkspr.mobi/blog/index.php/2010/08/ebook-libraries-and-drm/
I wrote about this a few weeks ago.

It works in Linux if you can get Adobe Digital Editions to run under WINE.

But the whole concept of "borrowing" a digital file is nonsense.

The system for borrowing music is run on Overdrive Media Console. Linux unfriendly - but works on Android.... Go figure.

This happened to me.

I was stopped & searched by the police on the London Transport System. I streamed it live to Qik via an N95 8GB.
It was very interesting to see how quickly the video spread around.

Qik - and other live streaming services - could be a very important part of our society. I dislike the idea of a panopticon - but I'd rather have one controlled by "us" rather than "them".