Slashdot Mirror
DVDs On The International Space Station
DrGoon writes: "The BBC has reported that "After docking, the shuttle crew of five astronauts delivered supplies and gifts to the Alpha crew, including a computer, cables for the laboratory, food, water, clothes and about 20 DVD movies. " in this story, which raises the interesting question: what DVD region is the International Space Station?" So, either they have a region-free DVD player - which is theoretically illegal according to Hollywood - or only the U.S. crew gets to watch movies.
I am aware that CDs and DVDs have very little mass compared with the rest of the station, but what effect would these discs have on the station when they start and stop spinning? Could the usage of discs onboard the station require thrusters to compensate for them?
---
Desperation is a stinky cologne
that applies to any organization. whenever they need a new laptop installed for the ceo's assistant or whatever, "just go ahead and install the warez copy of win98", but when the software piracy police come in and find 328 identical copies of win98 and office installed, it's "the actions of a few rogue individuals". all too convenient...
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
Pictures the MPAA lawyers: "Now, we bill $200/hour for normal preparatory work, $300/hour+expenses for client visits, $500/hour for court time, what do we charge for time in high orbit?"
The 'correct' region for the ISS is actually region 8 which is reserved for 'international venues' like cruiseliners and aircraft (And now also the ISS technically).
Remember there are 8 regions in the system, but the world is divided in just 6. Region 8 is for aircraft and such. Region 7 is reserved for future expansion.
Probably because the laws sound so similar. ;)
I am a bad speler. Please ignore speling meestakes in me poast.
I'm personally more interested in issues than "real" news - especially from slashdot. That's what I come here for, because no other site is gonna feature this story, but if there is a huge genome breakthrough you'll know it as soon as it happens. And I do wonder the region coding of the ISS DVDs . . . it is something of a mystery. I bet it's region 1.
Of course, this bias is the whole reason why people read /. in the first place. If you don't like the linux stories, then you can always A) remove them from your preferences, or B) go away.
/. crew posts Linux stories in ALL categories.
I'm so sick of this BS answer. I *HAVE* removed Linux stories from my preferences. Yet it doesn't matter, because the
Like it or not, there are people that enjoy most slashdot stories, but do not like Linux. Slashdot used to be about news for nerds, not news for linux zealots. (And don't let me high user number fool you, I had a lower one a long time ago, and I know how Slashdot "used" to be.)
"And like that
So basically, if the laws of space were like the laws of the sea, everyone would agree that there is a law, but would argue about what that law is. The Open Skies Treaty has not entered into force yet, and in any case would only apply from Vancouver to Vladivostok, excluding the Pacific Ocean. The US may not recognize any claims of sovereignty beyond the planet, but whoever claims that sovereignty certainly will.
~~~~~~
under-paid karma whore
oh... you'd have to be french to use unlicensed words!
The only way it could be more so is if they had to decide between the Japanese and US versions, subtitled or not, of Princess Mononoke.
They should definitely watch that up there because after all, in space, no one can hear the girlie screams they'll make when Aliens come out of the walls.
Unless the ISS is in a geosynchronous orbit, you'd be outaluck when the station left the western hemisphere. I'm sure Europe and Asia have some pretty good satellite channels, just don't plan on watching 'The Real World/Road Rules Marathon' all the way through.
I don't think any laws apply in space, just like they don't on international waters. At least not for private vessels. Navy ships have to be bound by international law through their government.
Sorry, I wanted to say "eager for karma".
Sorry again, I mispelled, it's "plagiarism". But the text box it's tiny, and English it's not my mother tongue.
And again, at least I use my real name, my real email and my real URL to say that the previous message was already posted.
And last but not least, I didn't care you, the plagiarist who call me dumbass, could moderate it down.
STOP copying old posts just to get your karma up.
--ricardo
sgis ddo ekil t'nod i
4nd by a Sc0r3 4 p0st t00!
http://www.tvchannel.co.uk/news/news_stories/29_01 _01_dvd_blasts_into_space.htm
Sorry, i'll have to be a coward, but if you follow the URL above you'll find out about the DVD players on the ISS.
Something tells me that the RIAA has many members in NAMBLA...
but a space station is basicaly is not an air-plane right?
I tried to post an article on the Genome scientists mapping out the code for 98% of the diseases affecting humans earlier and it got bumped for this? Holy shit what has /. come to?
I've been asking myself the same thing. I've submited an article from CNN.com about how increadibly inaccurate most high school science textbooks in circulation are, and a really serious "Your Rights On-Line" about some poor sods that are facing legal action against them from Apogee/3dRealms over a non-profit open source project. Both rejected, but this goofy bit about ISS region encoding gets posted.
Any chance of a spin-off site. Like slashgoof.org for this goofy shit, and slashdot.org for stuff of interest and insight.
disc-chord
Offhand I'm not sure what orbit the ISS is in, but if it's GeoSynchronous it will always stay in the same place relative to the ground, so a region code respective of that location would make sense and seem legal. Although if it's not - another funny example of how much the MPAA/RIAA/DMCA sucks.
1. Dr Strangelove - just because.
2. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - they can do all those cool flying stunts too
3. Titan A.E.
4. Mars Attacks!
5. All of the Aliens movies - that's gotta be points on the smirk meter to be watching Alien in a space station
6. 2001 - for much the same reason.
7. Solaris - again, same reason.
They should also keep a copy of Highlander II for emergencies. If they're attacked by aliens, they broadcast Highlander II at them and watch the aliens' brains turn to mush.
dave
it's starting to sound like "Celebrity Deathmatch", only with lawsuits and alphabet soup org's.
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
Did this happen? Wouldn't "We at NASA need to play our DVD's on ISS on Linux, because it was to expensive to ship the extra weight of seperate DVD players up into space. DeCSS was the only logical way" be an excelent argument in the 2600 appeal.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
I dont have a
That's amusing. I'm surprised that the MPAA didn't insist that the ISS use a Region 8 (aircraft/ships) player. The MPAA really is insisting that aircraft and ships use Region 8 players. (You'd think that US flag aircraft would be allowed to use Region 1, but no...) NASA would then have to procure special Region 8 DVDs, which are available only for a limited range of films.
20. Dumb & Dumber
19. Forbidden Planet
18. Lost in Space
17. Greater Tuna
16. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
15. Apollo 13
14. Flight of the Phoenix
13. Quest for Fire
12. The Abyss
11. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
10. Night of the Living Dead
9. The Day the Earth Stood Still
8. This Island Earth
7. The Man who Fell to Earth
6. Young Frankenstein
5. 2001, A Space Odyssy
4. Twilight's Last Gleaming
3. Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
2. Debbie Does Dallas
1. Amazon Women on the Moon
You know what it's like when travelling outside your country.
pppffft Japan, Canada, Russia etc have each contributed either money, or have built a part of the station and their own astronauts go up on the missions and they get their own experiments conducted too. the space shutttle crew is multi-national, its not say 7 americans and 1 russian
It is my impression that region-free players are in no way illegal.
Manufacturers can't get the IP they need from the DVD Consortium without agreeing to abide by region rules set out by the consortium, so they can't sell a player that's region-free. That simple.
Region mods are perfectly legal.
Also.. The government does not enforce region coding. It has no basis in Law. It is purely a construct of the DVD Consortium (or whatever they are called). Region free players are 100% perfectly legal.. region coding has nothing to do with copy protection. You can't use DMCA against it....
Modified players can be sold perfectly legally. The only reason they aren't more common in North America is because most of what the vast majority of people want to watch is released in Region 1 first anyway.
Players with hacked region coding are very common elsewhere, and mod kits for a great many players are easily obtained.
Manufacturers can't make them because they are in contract with the DVD Consortium, who they need to be in business with to make DVD (decryption and all that). Part of their contract is region-coding.
Region coding is not copy protection. THis is not at all the same thing as the decryption mods.
REgion hacks are perfectly legal pretty much everywhere.
You just don't find anyone making the players, because the manufacturers are all under contract wiht the DVD Consortium.
Yeah, but nearly 10% of the responses were discussing whether playing a DVD would destabilise the space station due to the forces required.
I found that sufficiently humerous to be glad the story was posted in the first place.
~Cederic
Not to be a cocky bastard but stigmatic is like my 50th account of which my first had about a 10-15k UID and I'm too lazy to retrace older accounts for the sake of trolling around a damn UID or the moderation bullshit so spare me the martyrism.
Weird and different? This place has become first posting trollisms with the same redundant stories:
Linux kernel released
Microsoft does someshit
Linux kernel released
Microsoft does some other shit
Linus takes a shit
Oh wait I do appreciate the stuff posted, however according to the motto "News for nerds stuff that matters, it seems 2001 made need a replacement. How about News for nerds who only use Linux or Microsoft and want to see other assinine shit in the middle of it all?
sitgmatic / deran9ed / sil / xp0rnstar ++ a shitload of others I choose not to trace.
Thanks for the memories
That Kicks Ass!
Too Bad they dont have those here in Alaska!
For all the lobbyists they employ, they may as well be. But in the context of the article, Hollywood == MPAA, which may as well be true. So yeah, Hollywood has a staggering influence on US policy.
Once upon a time /. actually used to be about Malda having fun and posting whatever shit he thought was cool.
Yeah, now those postings happen every once in a while, and the rest of the time it's LINUX 'R' US!
"And like that
I don't see how it can be illegal if its outside any terrestrial jurisdiction...
Why not simply transmit them up as DivX ;-), and dump them to a DVD-RAM disc? Saves on transport costs, and offers more of a selection.
Or does this kind of bandwidth not exist for earth --> space transmission?
----
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
When the MPAA realise what has gone on, it is possible they will just write a special license allowing the ISS to bypass the regs.
See my journal, I write things there
~Forager
student of animation and the fine arts
Not only that but HMV (a subsidiary of EMI Group) was selling them recently. Yes, a record company selling a multiregion DVD player!!!!
See my journal, I write things there
...to circumvent the DVD region restrictions by playing the DVDs on an orbiting satellite, and beaming down the picture?
(I said theoretically possible, not cheap...)
It seemed to be applicable enough when the MPAA had Jon Johansen arrested.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
If it is in fact 10000usd/lb then DVDs are most defintely the solution. However could this be like the "smoking statistics"? Each cigarette takes 8 minutes off your life, bull crap. They take the average life expectancy difference and divide by the number cigarettes that the average person smokes. That assumes the damage is strictly linear. If someone takes 100 dvds and someone takes 20 dvds, does it change the price of the launch? Don't they always over compensate anyway? --Joey
accordig to this table there are very few region 4 countries with 110 V power and one region 2 country.
Perhaps, but I'm not sure which jurisdiction space falls under.
Many of the people (but not all) involved are military personal. The US Military Personal fall under the Uniform Code of Military Justice regardless of where they are. I suspect the militaries of other countries have similar codes. I am also sure NASA has their own set of bylaws which govern any civilians who travel into space.
Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
I was under the impression that all other nations have come to realize how useless the whole effort is.
According to a CNN broadcast, one of the movies brought was an early DVD release (presumably for Oscar handouts or the like) of "13 Days." Since this is about the Cold War, it'd be pretty interesting to know how the Russians and Americans interacted after the fact. They also should've brought up "Goldfinger" or another good Bond flick since those were banned in the U.S.S.R. at the time of release.
Don't worry about the Russians. They're probably stuck watching VHS tapes on a dusty old multisystem VCR. There aren't a whole lot of DVDs being made with Russian translations. In Russia, a typical solution is to watch an American or Western European DVD with the sound turned off, and simultaneously play an unofficial MP3 dubbed translation downloaded from the net.
Unfortunately, they don't have fast Internet access in space, so they can't download the MP3s up there. And it seems unlikely an American space shuttle crew would think to burn some CDs of the Russian audio dubs to bring along.
Maybe they have a cheap off-brand DVD player like an Apex, so the Russians can play pirated VideoCDs.. that's one video format for which one can get movies dubbed in Russian that are playable on a DVD player. Either way, they likely have to wait for a Russian crew to fly up to bring them any such pirated stuff. Hollywood would have a fit if illegal VideoCDs and unofficial dubbed soundtracks were being transported on an American spacecraft.
I would rather like to know whether I can apply my own tax laws if I dock a personal module to the ISS.
How do you moderate an entire story down to flamebait?
1: U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
3: Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
5: Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
6: China
7: Reserved
8: Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)
-Dave
According to their website, UK company Techtronics (www.techtronics.com) supplied 2 Sony FX1 players to NASA which had been modified to be multi-region. These players were also delivered by Atlantis.
Kithran
Addendum to my own post above: There's always the handful of Russian and Soviet movies available on DVD, but those won't have any English dubbing or subtitles. And do you think the Americans are going to stand for the Russian cosmonauts watching something they can't?
Actually the Russians speak English fairly well, and the Americans speak Russian fairly well
What about the Europeans and the Japanese? aren't they supposed to fly?
Should they try Esperanto?
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
It is, of course, the people who voted for nader (at least in Florida) who created this mess. If even a few of you Nader-voters in florida had voted for Gore, we would not have a conservative anti-choice, anti-environment, drinking and driving hypocrite in the oval office.
True, a vote for Nader was not a vote for Bush directly, but it certainly wasn't a vote against Bush.
Sory for the rant. I voted my conscience too--my conscience said that a person like Bush is not the sort of person to lead the country.
--Ben
Hehe--rock on!
They can get DVDs to play in space but not on Earth. If you're using Linux that is. It's a sign of the times.
But NASA is a government agency type thing . . . aren't they subject to U.S. law?? I say this is a good precedent.
I, myself read /. about half an hour every day, tops, and I still try to take a look at every headline that interests me. How do you expect me to be able to keep up with all that? Right by using the scoring system of /.. (I'd like something like that for Usenet, but unfortunately that's impossible.)
Another reason for us "old farts" not to post is that we (I, that is, in this case ;-)) have learned to read all the posts first, just to avoid redundancy! Most of the time someone has already posted the statement I just wanted to add, so it's pointless to post and stupid "me too!"-posts are AOL at best... ;-)
I hope this clears this up a bit. :-)
Ulli
P.S.: Just for the record, I agree with luge 100%! ;-)
Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.
Oh boy, another, "I've been around since the old days, sonny." post.
/. We had to walk 20 miles to the nearest internet kiosk first. Backwards, through 2 feet of snow. Uphill both ways.
Back then, we couldn't just post on
very good point. The shuttle ought to be called the "earth shuttle".
Now I'd love to see the cost of a casino junket to ISS... :)
"A goldfish was his muse, eternally amused"
Vs lbh pna ernq guvf, ybt bss abj. Tb bhgfvqr. Syl n xvgr.
Space Camp
Oh, c'mon. I'm sure they got DVDs more like "Alien" and "Space Odyssey 2001."
In all seriousness, I would expect pretty "green" films--nothing like having sterilized air, sterilized clothes, sterilized food, sterilized water, and trapped in a stainless steel tuna can to make you want organic rmovies.
--
$tar -xvf
Ummm.. the link points to a story about the connecting of the sci. lab to the ISS, and the DVDs are indeed mentioned, by the end of the article, in one single sentence: "After docking, the shuttle crew of five astronauts
delivered supplies and gifts to the Alpha crew,
including a computer, cables for the laboratory, food,
water, clothes and about 20 DVD movies."
I don't see any reference to region codes, or titles of the movies?!
Sigged!
here
hmm Illegal under the DMCA but NASA does it? HMmm I hope the MPAA sues them just cuz it will make news and rile some people up =]
Yup, region 0. The only movies i've ever seen with this region is "dances with wolves" and pr0n movies. Gotta love the pr0n industry. Its seems they're not only in it for the money, like certain hollywood companies are. :)
In Space no one can hear Carnivore scanning your ass
ToiletDuk
Protector of the Wastes
Actually, last time I checked the ISS was outside the 200 mile airspace limit (stratosphere?) agreed to in the UN by most nations as being part of their sovereign territory. Technically the ISS is whithin the same jurisdiction as the international seas are. Hollywood and the US govt can bitch all they want. (That's assuming they even are.) It ain't illegal up there.
It's quite possible that the morale benefits to the crew are more than worth the measly $20k (compared to the rest of the station) it might cost to send up the DVDs.
17 GB / 700 mb (decent rip) about 24 movies per DVD, Multiply that by 20 DVD's - about 480 movies.
Good to know that the astronauts will be working:)
Seriously though, would they really bring up a DVD player (about $10,000 to put up in space, plus an AC adaptor (another $10,000) assuming it's the tiny one Panasonic) or a laptop...
Also listed are a set of "premium" services, including transport of cargo to and from the station by the space shuttle, at a cost of $22,000/kg ($10,000/lb.) for pressurized cargo and $26,400/kg ($12,000/lb.) for unpressurized cargo. Transportation costs were not included in the standard bundle prices because of the possibility that cargo may be ferried to and from the station by private spacecraft.
Other premium services include additional crew time, at $15,000 per hour, and energy, at $2,000 per KWh, as well as Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) transponder time, at a rate of $100 per minute..
http://www.spaceviews.com/2000/02/29a.html
Actual Slashdot post/reply
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
They have. It happened to Xing. It doesn't matter because the entire keyspace has been discovered though. And it really doesn't matter in this case, because it's a Sony. I'll eat my hat if the MPAA did something like that to Sony. They're too damn big.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Where the fsck is Western Europe?
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
I live in Brazil, an I was considering buying a DVD player. Then, I just went to an electronics shop in the local mall. I was expecting to find a lot of area 5 DVD players. What I found:
There were about 10 different DVD players for sale, of different brands. 8 of them, came FROM THE FACTORY with no area code restriction (and that was not only brazilian brands, like gradiente, but also a lot of japonese brands, but all manufactured in Brazil). I guess it is that way everywhere outside US.
After that, I came to the conclusion that soon, all the DVDs in the world market will be coded to area 1, since the US is the only place that can't play every DVD.
Thats not good. I wasn't aware that "hollywood" was now a U.S.Government agency.
hmm, heh, how about the law of gravity? or the laws of physics? hmm, do they apply in space? I just had to be a smart ass...
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
Every little story I see like this gives me some confidence that technology is putting power back in the hands of individuals, and taking power away from coorporations.
Republicans are Nazis. LetsRiot!
most of the pr0n I have seen is region 0. Reason, I don't know, but I assume it is because the volume produced is a lot different to the Hollywood stuff, and that pr0n is not constrained to an international release schedule.
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
You don't necessarily have to have a low user id to appreciate how slashdot has changed. Mine is around 120000; I read slashdot for about six months before getting it though - had I have registered immediately, I would have possibly got an id 100k.
Nevertheless, I can still notice how slashdot has changed. It has become more "serious" and I tend to read a lot less than I used to. I used to read a good few articles a day. Now I maybe read one.
You'll notice that I agree with you though as this was the article that I was reading.
oojah
Do you have any better hostages?
see above
Isn't it obvious? Hollywood should be really excited now because they've identified a whole new region that consists of a growing handful of wealthy people.. Just imagine. A handfull of people willing to pay thousands of times above sticker for copies of Apollo 13. Man what a lucrative market. Wish I could have gotten in.
-Michael
-Michael
Imagine for a moment that the disk in the DVD weighed *far more* than the ISS. Imagine it's a huge disk, floating in the vacuum of space on perfect bearings, and the ISS is just a thin shell around it. Now motors attached to the thin shell introduce torsion on the bearings: surely the shell will spin, not the disk?
The earlier answer was correct.
--
Xenu loves you!
Just because you're in outer space does not put you beyond the reach of lawyers. Same for death.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
It is not illegal for a European, Asian or African to stare at a TV playing a US DVD
Except when this is ID4 or a Chuck Norris movie : torture is not allowed even in the US (execution is, but that's another story).
I thought Region 7 was reserved for Atlantis when it's found.
karma is for the weak >)
Not to be an arrogant ass or anything, but "what has slashdot come to" from someone with a > 300K user ID is pretty damn funny, since you clearly have no idea what /. once was. So, a little history lesson: Once upon a time /. actually used to be about Malda having fun and posting whatever shit he thought was cool. This article falls pretty damn squarely into the "I think this is cool" category (which, if you ask me, is probably the best category on /.) If you don't think that this is interesting, take your "serious and important news" and go write for CNet. I mean- every other news source on Earth has something about the Human Genome Project this weekend... go read about it there. I'll stay here and continue to read things like this that I wouldn't have noticed anywhere else. In short: you go Rob, michael, etc. keep posting whatever the fuck you want to. Some of us still appreciate the weird and the different, and don't want to see this place become CNN.
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
evilone wrote:
I am aware that CDs and DVDs have very little mass compared with the rest of the station, but what effect would these discs have on the station when they start and stop spinning? Could the usage of discs onboard the station require thrusters to compensate for them?
Good novice question. Anything spinning acts as a kind of gyroscope, but you should realize that for the most part that gyroscope works to conserve angular momentum. Pick up a spinning box fan and turn it, you'll see what I mean. There are actually many small fans aboard the ISS, not to mention computer disc drives, so that gives you an idea of how serious an issue this is.
For comparison, check out the Control Moment Gyroscopes that are installed on the ISS and used for stabilization and attitude control. They're huge and will dwarf any effects of something like a DVD player. They'll be activated after the Destiny lab goes online. In the meantime, the Zvezda and Zarya modules each have their own smaller gyroscopes.
Incidentally, the gyroscopes are more important for attitude control than thrusters. Rather than constantly firing in different directions, where you're fighting your own efforts, the gyroscope stabilizes the station and makes it harder for it to get out of control where thrusters would be required.
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
and you would expect a 110V 60Hz DVD machine to output in NTSC. There are Region 2 (Japan) and Region 4 (I forget which countries) which also run on NTSC, and therefore also run on 110V 60Hz. I live in a Region 4 zone, and although most of our DVD players are in fact multizone from the manufacturer or distributer, the few that are just Region 4 have multiple PAL and NTSC playback.
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
ivi asks:
So, who's laws apply in Space?
(Whose.)
Legally, under Article VIII of the 1967 UN Space Treaty, the laws of the owner of the vehicle. Outer space itself is subject to international law and may not be claimed. On the Space Shuttle, US law applies. On Soyuz, Russian law. On the ISS, sovereignty still rests with the owner of a particular vehicle: Zarya and Zvezda are Russian, Node 1 and Destiny are American. In theory, Russia could remove its equipment and give us the hand-in-elbow gesture, or we could remove ours and give them the finger. In practice, most of this stuff is decided on the ground beforehand (as with the recent ESA announcement against permitting the Russians to bring Dennis Tito to ISS). In practice, there's a complicated usage formula based on assumptions about how much various groups (NASA, NASDA, ESA, CSA, RSA) contributed to the station.
If one astronaut were to murder another there might be some trouble deciding who had criminal jurisdiction. This has been studied for some time but won't be completely sorted out until we have more experience.
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
And every 15 minutes they have to change DVDs/Players because they're in a new zone.
That's some good thinking there...
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
http://www.msgeek.org/html/
You'll at least get a good hearing. I can't guarantee posting but I will at least READ your submissions and consider posting them. Judging from the subject matter you're talking about there's a good chance it'll make it.
Take care,
Michelle "MsGeek" Klein-Hass
Editor-in-chief, MsGeek.Org
----
http://www.msgeek.org/ -- All your estrogen are belong to us!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Right so now these damn Americans are assuming they own space and can push their laws out there too?
They can hassle someone in Norway, so this would hardly be a surprise...
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
Its seems they're not only in it for the money
Well, they're in it to get paid to have sex.
Note "air-space" and "space" are not the same things. The region coding on DVDs is supposed to protect against piracy (yeah, right) and to allow the MPAA and/or studios to control better (ostensibly) what version of the content gets released where, and when.
Until a lot of people get up into space, and stay up there on a regular basis (i.e., in a space, moon, or Mars 'base',) I seriously doubt anyone at the MPAA would really give a rat's ass if a half-dozen or so people out in orbit are watching a region-1 encoded DVD as they fly over, for example, Europe.
And if it does upset them, screw 'em. Maybe this will somehow provide ammo against the MPAA in favor of DeCSS and related technologies! :)
Just my 1/50 dollar.
I browse at +2... am I being too selective?
-Cesium.
--------
Have you hugged your consitiutionally guaranteed right to freedom of expression today?
This would be very inconvenient - the ISS circles the Earth in, IIRC, 90 minutes.
Thus, they are over any given continent at most maybe fifteen minutes, in the case of Asia.
If you want to get an idea how fast they're going, you can see the ISS move in realtime here.
>the plane is from USA, even if you are over China, legally, you are in Area 1.
Yeah, except the ISS supposedly isn't from one specific country.
You know, that's an interesting idea, in general. What if an ISS crew member commited some serious crime while in space, like killing someone? Where would he/she be tried and under whose laws? Wonder if they'd go to all the trouble of convening an international tribunal in The Hague for somthing like that, or they'd be extradited to the country of origin of the victim to stand trial?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
First of all, there is only one American on Alpha so he is in minority when the other guys want to watch the Russian DVDs. Second of all, Bill Shepard the American dude speaks and understands Russians well enough to watch Russian movies. As a matter of fact, they watched a classic Russian movie before going to Alpha.
>What is illegal is to play a US encoded DVD in a non-US DVD player.
:)
When you're in the US
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
In Germany it is legal to sell and buy region free DVD players...
just my 2 cets
and slashdot.org for stuff of interest and insight.
That would be kuro5hin.
In fact the UN has an Office for Outer Space Affairs and there is a bit of International Space Law.m for more info.
One of the treaties says that outer space is not subject to national appropation by claims of sovereignity, interesting.
Check http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/SpaceLaw/spacelaw.ht
Yes, and we all know that U.S. Government agencies never break any laws...
So how is this interesting news?!
First off would it matter what region they're in at this point in time, they're in space for crying out loud and no government can claim juridstiction over that.
Secondly who cares about which cypher of DVD's they're watching, their astronauts in outer space watching a movie. Who do you think they're going to fence a DVD to an alien?
I tried to post an article on the Genome scientists mapping out the code for 98% of the diseases affecting humans earlier and it got bumped for this? Holy shit what has
Slashdot 2001 could it be true?
"When I was a Buddhist, it drove my parents and friends crazy, but when I am buddha, nobody is upset at all"
Yes, the players will be more expensive. Why? Because Congress and the GSA (the guvmint purchasing watchdog) won't simply allow you to hike over to your local electronics store and buy one off the shelf. It has to be a competitive bid process. Otherwise you end up defending yourself for not buying from some other vendor. And what may seem like a local buy to you, may not be local to some interested party . Remember there are LOTS of states that have a hand in the ISS and NASA pies.
Purchasing is just part of the process. Somebody gets to write documentation for the requirement, purchasing, operating manual (not kidding), and lots of other fun things.
Oh, and you actually have to TEST the bloody thing. Somebody has to write the test procedures ($). Get a test lab that can certify operation in a weightless environment ($$). Personnel to do the testing? Right, more money.
Gee, doesn't look so damned like straight forward fraud anymore, does it? Unless of course you believe the sophmoric BS from some losing "interest".
My oxygen bill was high this month...
I hope Bush will lower taxes on the ability to eat...
I hope I didn't mess up again and used unlicensed letters and words...
Fucked up!
--------------
--------------
$_='hfflbwfsbhfzp vs';s/(^.{4})(.{7 })(.+$)/$3 $2 $1/
Who'd be suing who?
MPAA vs NASA
RIAA vs NAMBLA
FBI vs CIA
NSA vs KGB
TOO many lawsuits from TOO many companies with TOO many acronyms.
Small cost of buying them? The US Government *never* buys anything for a "small cost". I would expect each DVD player to have been purchased for at least $12,000 dollars. While YOU may see them as identical to the $200 model you see at Circuit City, they are actually structurally reinforced and radiation proofed for special hazardous ops on the ISS.
Maybe we can let the UN control that chunk of the Universe...
Region 8 is for "special international venues" like in-flight films or cruise ships. I suspect it's just a normal NTSC disc with extra license cost built into it. So it's possible. But I doubt that's what they got.
(Those school teachers are mean :-).
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
While over North America, they use the regional encoded DVD with the appropriatately sanctioned player.
Having all sanctioned players on the ISS as well as their DVDs, the ISS will pave the way as a shining example of how the MPAA wishes the whole world to watch.
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
A good link is here, but I don't think that's what you are really thinking about. The Coriolis force relates more to moving objects (and their forces) on the surface of a rotating sphere IIRC.
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
Ha! Thanks, dude, I have found this link on techtronics.com, and it looks like they really got Multi-fucking-Region players up there! This made my day, folkz! For one moment I thought it'll be Region 8 or something, but since they needed something that will play Region 5, too, they got themselves tvo nice portable multi region players.
Sigged!
-Martin
SoftMaker Office for Windows|Linux|Android
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
They have 6 DVD players.
(</humor>)
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
With all the billions of dollars that the International Space Station is costing, I would assume that they could afford one player for each region.
- In Capitalist America, law violates YOU!
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I think the law that should be applied is according to the ship. Like in the sea or in the planes. So, the plane is from USA, even if you are over China, legally, you are in Area 1.
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
the DVD might be only US, but that does not mean the rest of the crew (the non-US people) can not watch it. It is not illegal for a European, Asian or African to stare at a TV playing a US DVD! Furthermore, it is not illegal to buy a US TV and US DVD player and operate them in Europe (or vice versa)! What is illegal is to play a US encoded DVD in a non-US DVD player.
I still want to know what movies they brought up there. Rocky IV perhaps? ;)
Since ISS uses 110V 60hz power, I expect they have a region one player. On a good orbit they will be over rgion one area for long enough to watch an entire movie.
I seem to recall that region 0 is the region that should be possible to play by all players, so if they get region 0 DVDs they should be able to play them on any player, legally.
Same interresting question applies to when the Astronauts (or more likely Cosmonauts) get a little drunk on the Vodka and start hitting their heads on all of the walls.
Then the DVD player spins down, counteracting that torque. Net impulse: zero
One astronaut doing one tumbling exercise in the new module will impart more spin on the station than the DVD player through its useful lifespan.
-c.
--
Casey
More scratches on the cave wall, thanks be to anonymity.
Yeap, another plagiarist eager for. This document was copied from previous Slashdot articles:
h tm l
h tm l
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/05/23/2021213.s
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/08/12/1528230.s
--ricardo
sgis ddo ekil t'nod i
_ _ _
I was working on a flat tax proposal and I accidentally proved there's no god.
Really, only Slashdot could get over 200 comments in response to this totally silly and arcane question. It's space! It's video! It's a loophole in the DVD region-code rules! And it's yet another threat to Your Rights Online! I must say I'm impressed and amused.
sulli
RTFJ.
#1 - US airspace does not extend into where spaceships orbit to. So US law won't effect them.
#2 - There is a region for international use. It's not toatally unbelivable that the MPAA would make DVDs that fall under that region (either 7 or 8 I belive)
#3 - The DVD player going to the space station is comming from another country so again, it doesn't fall under US law.
#4 - If it is a region 1 DVD player with Region 1 DVDs they'll just put it in the US section of the space station because that should/could be considered US teritory.
--
Free Mac Mini
"theoretically illegal under US law"
Right so now these damn Americans are assuming they own space and can push their laws out there too?
Last I heard it was not owned by anyone and was without *any* laws.
> So, who's laws apply in Space?
Locally, Newton's.
Globally, Einstein's.
How does this apply to boats or airplanes in or over international waters?
I'd like an order of free speech, hold the spittle please.
> I would assume that they could afford one player for each region.
Silly, they got 20 _DVD's_, not 20 Movies.
One for each region.
Ummm, it's David Hasselhof. Doesn't make him a better actor, but at least it gives him proper (dis)credit.
Possibly you were thinking of Michael Knight, the part he played in Knight Rider.
Geeebus, I'm ashamed I remember this shit...
Blaming guns for crime is like blaming keyboards for first posters. More Guns != More Crime
That may be true, but on the ISS it rocks! ;-)
I can only wonder how many times 20-odd movies will last among a small group wihout someone getting annoyed by having to see the same one twice. :) It's not like they can just go get another.
Interesting concept though. I love that we're so far past the point of space occupancy being so foreign. I wonder how long before they ask for a DirecTV subscription...
ad
Because I can! [Brainrub.com]
The player actually chosen by NASA is a Sony FX1 which was specially modified for space and multi regionality by a UK company called Techtronics
http://www.techtronics.com/uk/shop/510-nasa.htm
instead of the stupid and pointless slashdot MPAA jab(I agree with it, but at some point - like about a year ago - it just became repetative and annoying), what I'm wondering is how much NASA spent to get the player and discs up to the station. doesn't it cost like $10,000/lb? so we're probably talking the price of a nice car just to get it all up there. maybe almost $1000/DVD
I'm not saying it's a waste, but you'd want to choose your movies carefully. some of the ones they brought up were shitty. is Pleastanville really worth $1000?