Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Decade, Fragmentation, RDRAM
A screenplay written by Jack Valenti? cc_pirate writes: "Apparently Sen. Fritz Hollings (D - Disney, er - SC) completed his hearings today on how the media needs to have content protection included in computers. Intel and other high tech companies resist and are chastized by Hollings."
Penguins are the new Turtles. Gerein writes "After many months of extreme lobbying, personal attacks, public petitions and surveys, the war over the future OS of the Bundestag (German parliament) is finally over (previous /. stories). As heise reports (in german, use the fish) Linux won't make it to the desktops (they're going with XP) but will take over the 150 servers. The last critical question over the directory service has finally been decided in favor to OpenLDAP instead of Active Directory. It's not the complete victory for Linux, many had hoped for, but it's a start for more Open Source in the German government."
Full disclosure seems like a nice idea. Merlynnus writes: "Yahoo! is running a story, Copy-protected CD makers lose battle, in which Music City Records, Fahrenheit Entertainment and digital rights management company Sunncomm have 'agreed' to stop collecting personal info, and to label copy-protected CDs as defective, er, play-challenged in certain devices. The agreement came as the result of court action by a Cali resident, Karen DeLise, over the Charlie Pride CD, 'Charley Pride: A Tribute to Jim Reeves.' Did that CD really need copy-protecting?"
This should have been transparent. Metrollica writes: "It turns out the transparent aluminium article at Spiegel was misunderstood. Sci-fighter published a correction. The transparent substance was not aluminium but alumina, shorthand for aluminium oxide. Slashdot reported on transparent aluminium here."
Odds are, somebody's written a thesis on it ... and here one is. Whether in response to this Ask Slashdot question or just a lucky guesser, Cine writes: "The standard filesystem benchmarking tools such as Bonnie++, Postmark , Mongo and others all test the optimum case for the block layouting algorithm. But in practice one also is interested to know how a filesystem performs when it is or was heavily used over a longer period (e.g. months and years).So Constantin Loizides has written a Master Thesis about the performance of filesystems under the influence of fragmentation."
Intel-Rambus break not as simple as portrayed.
Controlio writes: "Tom's Hardware Guide has posted a clarification regarding the EBN story with the sensational headline, 'Intel to drop support of Rambus in new CPU products'. The article was also posted on Slashdot. Tom reports:
EBN had the sensational headline Intel to drop support of Rambus in new CPU products, but the story goes on to say, "Intel will continue using Direct Rambus memory with its network processors. Also, although not new products, the next iterations of its 850 and 860 chipsets, supporting a 533MHz front-side, will support RDRAM when they arrive, probably in the second half of this year." A little misleading, wouldn't you say? Hard to tell, but you read it for yourself, and make your own call.Great. More sensational journalism. Maybe someone should submit Jack Robertson's resume to Fox News."
Finally, some congratulations are in order. danny writes (does he ever): "February 28th marks the 10th anniversary of my first book review; there are now over six hundred. I have written an account of ten years writing book reviews, which illustrates something of how online publication has changed over the years."
I don't think the article originally claimed it was actually alumnium...certainly someone here on /. pointed out that it was not.
--Dave Storrs
A screenplay written by Jack Valenti?
More information can be found from the SJ Mercury article from today's paper, although it was written Dan Gillmore, who tends to be quite sensationalist in style but is consistently pro-consumer and anti-DMCA.
The future isn't what it used to be.
"a book reviewer who's been publishing online longer than some slashdot readers have walked erect,"
Waitaminnit! How come nobody told me we were supposed to be walking erect??!! Dammit!
-ac
"The content community ... has historically feared technology," Vadasz said. Yet every technological breakthrough -- from Thomas Edison's little dog to the invention of home taping and digital devices -- "has proven to be a major growth catalyst for the studios."
/. about it.
.. the dog!!! damn that man was good
THOMAS EDISON INVENTED THE DOG!!!
OH MY GOD!
I am at the moment trying to invent something as cool as the dog. I was going to go for a rabit/antelope combo but saw one for sale in the cabellas catalog. Now I think ill just strive for something like a human without any genetic defects. I think I could get a post on
WOW
If I were only smart enough to accomplish the things I dream about.. Or maybe too dumb to care.
Wow.
Maybe somebody should inform the good senator of how much money the high tech sector is worth and that it is distributed nationally, where as the movie industry primarily operates out of Southern California (percentage $$$ wise). He should be reminded that if a flaw is found, then every consumer item is vulnerable. Is he planning on setting up a firmware police to make sure your refrigerator won't play pirated software?
Germany did find in my opinion. Going all of one thing is insane. An all Linux network is no better than an all Microsoft network. Lest ye protest, remember that they just found a major security hole in PHP. I wonder how many unpatched Linux boxes their will be after a week? They can join all of those unpatched Windows boxes.
Ok, am I the only one thinking if you can make windows out of alumina, that doping it correctly you can make a seriously BIG 'synthetic' ruby by doping said window with chromium? The article is non-specific about size, even a window of 4" square and 1" thick represents a pretty big honking ruby. Are sapphire (the other kind of alumina) and ruby about to go the way of aluminium itself?
:)
If I remember correctly at the time it was built, the Washington Monument was capped with an aluminum peak. This was done, because refined aluminum metal was both rare and precious.
I'm thinking ruby drinking glasses, ruby soda cans, 5c ruby rings. You get the picture.
Lee
"'Charley Pride: A Tribute to Jim Reeves.' Did that CD really need copy-protecting?"
Well, the idea here, as in many unsavory endeavors, is to establish a precedent. Go after something nobody should notice and then claim "but we've been doing it for so long and the consumers accepted it."
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Every time I open a window to go the the common caue site to lookup the amount of money Fritz (Adolph? - I get names mixed up) Hollings received in contributions from whome (who?), Internet Exploder - well - explodes. There must be a conspiracy afoot.
Since IE seems to not want to go to common cause's website, I can only assume that Adolph (Fritz?) Hollings has long and gratifyingly suckled from the teat of the MPAA/RIAA. (BTW www.commoncause.org and click on the soft money laundry - very informative).
"If you do not put ze kopy protektion in de device vee vill put it in for you."--Fritz Hitler (or is it Hollings?)
Anyway, Intel's right. I don' t want my PC turned into a VCR. I also don't want to live in a world where my O/S crashes because the DRM built into the CD player doesn't play with the DRM built into the motherboard. However, the crash confuses the DRM on the hard disk to notify the BSA that I was running a pirated copy of Linux and gcc. In turn it notifies Microsoft that I was dual booting, which generates a revocation of my EULA and a nasty letter. Using the magic of .Net web services, Microsoft also notifies the BSA, BATF, FBI, and the Boy Scouts, who all raid my home, looking for pirated software and Elian Gonzales.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
EBN had the sensational headline Intel to drop support of Rambus in new CPU products, but the story goes on to say, "Intel will continue using Direct Rambus memory with its network processors. Also, although not new products, the next iterations of its 850 and 860 chipsets, supporting a 533MHz front-side, will support RDRAM when they arrive, probably in the second half of this year." A little misleading, wouldn't you say?
I don't see how that's so misleading. the i850 is hardly the flagship of Intel's product line, and neither are their network processors.
It's not like any of those are in products that generate the DRAM shortage...
>Apparently Sen. Fritz Hollings (D - Disney, er - SC)
.what was he thinking?
Um, that's mickey mouse. .
Come on, if you are reading and posting to Slashdot that is just a dream :)
'Charley Pride: A Tribute to Jim Reeves.' Did that CD really need copy-protecting?
With the huge success of a bluegrass music at last night's grammy awards, the demand for country (American Roots/bluegrass/traditional) music will, most likely, increase greatly.
I, as much as any code monkey, love "music to code by" -- especially metal -- but I was thrilled to see O Brother Where Art Thou do so well. It was a great movie with an even better soundtrack.
When I run, I really like my mp3 player. It doesn't skip like compact discs do, and it fits into my pocket. Oh wait, those aren't allowed. Ok...how about cassette tapes? Hmm...this is not as good, it's bigger and I don't have random access to songs. What's that Fritz? These aren't any good either? I can pirate stuff with these? Well, I guess I'm going to run without any of the shit that Hollywood pumps out then. It's not like Vivendi Universal is stepping in with an innovative new technology any time soon.
And of course, I would like to tape that show that is on while I'm running. Can't do that now, can I? God forbid using a PVR too, those things are brutal for Hollywood. Ok...I just won't watch it then....
I'm sure everyone on Slashdot knows where I'm going with this. If it becomes too cumbersome to access entertainment, people are going to look for something else. Lest our good friend, Fritz Hollings, the Senator from Disney forget, politicians are the same way. Too cumbersome, and before you know it, elected right out of office!
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times." Bill Hicks
But I'm sure some slashdot readers have been walking erect for quite some time now.
T1+pr0n==badness.
Did I miss something? Aren't these guys a little late?
Computers already exist that can easily handle the compression, storage and manipulation of copyrighted content. Are they going to require me to turn in my home system? If not, then what on earth is going to stop me from hooking up my video capture card to the line out (which is going to have to be there to remain compatible with all of the billions of dollars of consumer equipment out there) and divx'ing their latest and greatest?
Its too late!
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
honey, if you only knew. my darling squeezes my hard member with the strong, flexible, squishy muscles deep in her belly. then i bite her lips until she screams
Cali resident California
"The underlying issue is not old media versus new technology. It is creativity versus theft," said Disney CEO Michael Eisner.
Yeah, because The Little Mermaid, Atlantis, and Aladdin were very original ideas all thought up by the geniuses at Disney...
I don't think so. A simple label 'Warning: this is a country music' would suffice.
... they can fucking build their own!
Expecting the computer industry to do it for them for free, tailor made to their exacting specifications, and forcing it through legislation is utterly ridiculous.
hollings, valenti, and disney are just pulling off one gigantic circle jerk in front of the mass media, and are expecting consumers to open their mouths and take it all over their faces. Then they go and whine when consumers don't swallow.
"Great. More sensational journalism. Maybe someone should submit Jack Robertson's resume to Fox News."
...or CNN, CBS, ABC, or--best of all--disinfo.com....
Why do I get the sneaky suspicion this reply will be marked as a troll, while if I were to submit some news with it, it wouldn't? Hmm....
w|f
Throughout history, technology has been key to opening up new markets. It only represents a problem if it is allowed to undermine existing markets by facilitating [unauthorized copying].
Wow! New technology is okay, as long as it doesn't undermine existing markets?? That's a great quote.
Welcome to New Capitalism: from each corporation according to their ability, to each corporation according to their need.
Doctor Fun has been published on the Internet since 19930924. For that matter Where The Buffalo Roam has been on the 'net via USENET since 1991, but Dr. Fun was Internet-only. ;)
o/~ Join us now and share the software
I don't know how accurate the article is, but it states that the reason we need mandatory copy-prevention is to encourage the major content distributors to put their wares in digital form. This, therefore, will drive the adoption of high speed Internet access and HDTV.
This is a completely circular argument, that doesn't make any sense to me. The media companies want to take away my ability to own a PC that does what I want, in return for services I also don't want.
So basically, the media companies basically want to own everything, and we should just turn over control of our networks and computers to them so that they can more easily make money from us.
If you want to go after the illegal distribution of your wares, fine, go ahead, I won't stop you. But just because you want to make money doesn't mean that you now have the right to take away our freedoms.
I've been walking erect since I first saw that Farrah Fawcett poster in the '70s. Perhaps I've been around longer than the online book publisher.
Believe in things of which no person has ever learned
Since this will now result in the total demise of copyright infringement, the movie, recording, and video game industries then immediately pay taxes on the hojillions of dollars they claim to be losing per year, at the prevailing highest corporate tax rate, with no writeoffs on this amount. These additional taxes should be a small price for industry to pay for the increased profits that would result from all that sudden demand now that their material isn't available for copying in digital form, now that general purpose computers would be outlawed.
Oh--you mean they aren't going to sell all that, because the people they claimed as having been costing them money wouldn't have bought the product anyway? That's OK--we can just sell the assets of the companies benefiting from the SSSCA to take care of the taxes, then.
"who's been publishing online longer than some slashdot readers have walked erect"
/. readers don't walk erect at ALL, thereby invalidating any sense of seniority this statement might otherwise have implied. Consider a wheelchair bound reader. Or possibly a child who hasn't learned to walk yet, but sits on a parent's lap and stares at the screen, or similarily some type of animal.
I would submit that some
These last two don't count as reading, you say? I beg to differ. And for incontestable proof, I turn to Jamie Lee Curtis, keeper of all thoughts wise:
Otto: "Aha! Apes don't read Nietzsche!"
Wanda: "Yes they DO, Otto, they just don't understand it!"
- A Fish Called Wanda
(Yes, it's been one of those days)
Moderation Totals: Silly=2, Directionless=1, Waste of Electrons=3, Total=6
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Let's say the entire technology industry agrees that intel and motorola have a DRM package and it's what they're going to roll out. For the sake of argument, let's say Motorola and Intel will make the chipsets and open driver information so the DRM can be easily integrated into any OS.
I just don't see the upside for the computer manufacturers to figure this one out. If the do it they'll be blamed for creating poor protection, or blamed for raising the cost of movies, or blamed for making your new home theater useless.
It's the studio's content -they should figure out how to lock it up. After all, I don't make my neighbors wear GPS tracking devices just because I refuse to lock my door.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
I'm starting to think some folks are creating their headlines with the express purpose of being slashdotted.
-
The transcripts (what was actually said including questions & answers) will probably be available in a couple of weeks at the Government Printing Office {check out Orrin Hatch's Judiciary Committee Hearing on Copyrights while you're there}
The submitted statements are available on the Committee's own page.
The hearing was broadcast on CapitolHearings, but they don't seem to offer archives. I ripped the stream & will post an Ogg Vorbis version soon, but the everyone must have woken up today & decided to surf porn 'cause the 16kbps stream over a well-tuned DSL connection was interrupted several times, some of which failed auto-retries (do I hate RealPlayer now?).
If anyone else has a stream rip, please post it. My favorite part is Hollings saying "son of a bitch" a couple minutes before the hearing starts. Yes, that microphone is on sir.
Did anyone else listen? I thought Eisner went off the deep end during the question & answer period. He wants to protect camcorder-at-the-movie -> DivX;-) movies from distribution (not just stuff with DRM). The Intel V.P. (who was very calm despite the verbal LSD flying around) said that wasn't possible, but I don't think he was considering the full totalitarian push. Consider a law requiring ISPs to NAT and dynamic-IP all users so no one can run a server unless registered (like guns) & authorized. All P2P traffic is illegal. The entire US is firewalled off from "rouge" nations. Sure, it sounds unlikely, but that's why Eisner sounded so wacked out. He really sounded like he either wanted the net to become cable TV or just be shut down entirely (Disney isn't making any money from abc.com or disney.com or go.com- what do they need the damned pirate club for anyway?)
You might think Eisner was talking about watermarking, but he wanted 90% of "pirate" traffic catchable. He's MORE concerned about a teenage projectionist inviting over his buddy who's dad has a 3-chip DV camcorder than DRM cracks. A 400x300 divx compress from a camcorder aimed at a screen is not going to preserve watermarks unless they really fuck up the quality. I think he's heading towards the RIAA "we want the right to snoop & crack those pirate sonofabitches" idea.
-M
I would rather not have movies at all than to be forced to use copy prevention on my PC. If the lack of copy prevention is what is keeping the MPAA from joining the internet age, well, they can just stay where they are as far as I'm concerned.
I will buy neither digital products that cannot be backed up, converted into other formats, or otherwise copied. I still use VHS for this reason. I'll buy a DVD player when I can finally make backups with DVD's. Nor will I buy disabled computers. Somehow I doubt the Pacific Rim manufacturers I buy computer parts from are going to bend over backwards for this.
The technologies that I can backup, copy and preserve? Sure, I download MP3's, but usually just to check out a band or to find something thats not available on CD. If its something I like I buy the CD, because MP3 takes away too much for me to fully enjoy the sound. I spend at least $100 a month on music, and another $50 or so buying movies. But I will spend $0 on products I can't back up or copy, or computers that are bastardized with copy protection.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Yes, that is a quote directly from Senator Fritz Hollings. It is portrayed in Frank Zappa's song Porn Wars which can be found on the album Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers of Prevention. For those old enough to remember, this is a harkening back to the PMRC (an attempt to force the listing of song lyrics on album jackets). The hearing is a matter of public record, and is out on the web somewhere ... unfortunately I don't have a link to provide, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
The most interesting thing about the hearing IMO is when Mr. Zappa simply keeps asking "Okay, so who's going to pay for it?". I just think it's funny to see how 20 years later these guys are still trying to take away as many freedoms as possible.
For what it's worth, the only artists from the music industry that showed up to testify at the PMRC hearings were Frank Zappa and John Denver. Of course both of them are dead now.
RFC2119
It would be Bill Gates the Fourth. Bill Gates Jr. is the father of the Microsoft founder.
They wont stop until every device produced capable of video/audio output has to have watermark checking and is mandated to connect to central servers every so often for continued use at which time it will report any possible infringement. The less cooperative the manufacturers are the happier they are, it makes their scam all the easier.
What exactly are they going to store on the OpenLDAP server? Shares? Permissions? Application settings? Where can I learn more about the integration of OpenLDAP and Windows 2000/XP?
I'm interested because we do some work with clients that have 2000/XP on the desktop. We use Samba right now but we want to move from the simple sharing to domains. I know Samba can be a PDC and we are working on that but I'm wondering where OpenLDAP fits into all of it.
And people complain about grade inflation.
--Blair
Looks like we've slashdotted Germany! Good Work!
"It's just me in front of a brick wall for 90 minutes. It cost 80 million dollars. Here's a clip"
Jack:Thieves!....That's the joke.
Consumer:You suck Valenti! *BOOM*
Jack:You stole 350 billion songs!
Consumer:Get off the stage! *Bang*
Jack:You will be responsible for the starvation deaths of corporate tools like Metallica!
Apologies to the Simpsons and McBain
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Unfortunately, he's wrong. Perhaps he's never heard of the Greeks and the Romans? The Greeks got as far as inventing mechanical calculators, while the Romans had central heating. These technologies were not rediscovered until the last couple hundred years.
Never, ever make the mistake of thinking that our prosperity must last forever. We could fall at any time, and it's a long way down.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
The article quoted Hollings as saying to Intel, "We don't want to legislate. We want to give you time... to develop technology."
I think the real-world translation of this might indicate that the Honorable Senator from Disney is looking for a settlement of sorts.
Maybe Intel ends up producing DRM-enabled CPUs and mainboards for entertainment-oriented PCs, and Congress refrains from banning traditional general-purpose computers.
Then the "content" industry produces stuff that only works on the DRM-enabled systems, and those of us who don't care about watching the latest Disney flicks on our rack-mount servers will be left alone.
In other words, the scenario that Seth Finkelstein described in a comment to the previous SSSCA article.
But I don't think that's such a horrible outcome. You'll have your regular computers like you have now, and then you'll have a glorified VCR to use with all your "content." A work computer and a "fun" computer.
*shrug*
Being a trained attack dog for Disney and AOL doesn't serve anyone living in your state. It just gets him campaign money.
If you find that it's literally impossible to back up your hard drive or your company's data storage a year from now because he got those "anti-piracy" (note: in Hollings-speak, fair use = piracy) laws passed, do you think Hollings will help you? Maybe he can get a law passed making it illegal for hard drives to fail.
His public contact page is http://hollings.senate.gov/webform.html.
Be as nasty as you like, there's no possibility of working with him. He has been bought and being an honest politician, will probably stay that way.
From http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/indus.asp?C ID=N00002423&cycle=2002
The top industries supporting Ernest F. Hollings are:
1 Lawyers/Law Firms $1,151,134
2 TV/Movies/Music $260,034
Note: you may safely assume that at least some of the law firm contributions are from organizations on media industry payrolls.
Since I don't live in South Carolina, the only way he's going to pay any attention to what I say as a non-constituent is if I send it via snailmail with a check for over $1,000 enclosed. Since hell will freeze over before I send him money, I didn't see any reason to bother writing him.
Here's a copy of the e-mail I didn't bother sending. Perhaps some of you who live in SC can get some inspiration from it. Note: URL below is
a fair usage quote from Yahoo News:
Dear Senator Hollings:The above comment makes you either a liar or a fool.
There was a time I used to admire you. After you decided you now represent AOL/TimeWarner, the MPAA, and Disney instead of the poor suckers who voted for you, I no longer can respect you as a public leader or even a human being.
You're just another political whore. You are a disgrace to the US Senate and a living indictment of American democracy.
Of course, this is not news to any of your staff member who reads this, but if that person had any personal integrity or decency, he or she wouldn't be working for you anyway.
Hopefully, when those companies you attack finish with you, you'll be just someone who's trying to become a lobbyist and finding that nobody in politics can afford to be associated with you, instead of the "powerful senator" you are no longer fit to be.
A.Lizard
Tech Public Policy stuff
During the hearing, Eisner played a clip from Sony Pictures' "Black Hawk Down" -- now playing in theaters -- that was ripped from the Internet.
Heh. I can't help wondering about the employee at Disney who was instructed to go out on Gnutella and warez some movies for Michael Eisner...
So, where is this anti copy stuff going to go? Ill just not compile the crap into my linux kernel, so its not in the OS, that's too simple to get around. BIOS? How long till we see people flashing their computers with bootleg BIOS w/o copy protection? Mobo mods? Soldering jumpers across the "copy protection unit?" Just how far will i have to go to get a computer that doesnt keep me from watching movies in an "approved" (microsoft) operating system?
/usr/games/fortune
Ahh yes, but [Disney] don't derive, look at their view of such things as: 'anastasia'
Di$ney never animated Anastasia. That was Fox.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You forgot Hunchback of Notre Dame, Cinderella, Snow White, Winnie the Pooh, etc.
Winnie-the-Pooh isn't expired. Di$ney just bought the rights outright from the company that inherited them from the Milne family. Under the Bono Act, "The House at Pooh Corner" (1928) by A. A. Milne (d. 1956), which introduced many of the popular Pooh characters, doesn't expire in the US until 2024 (1928+96) or in the EU until 2027 (1956+71).
Will I retire or break 10K?
What is the effect of the SSSCA upon open hardware developers, such as opencores.org? If I wish to learn how to design and develop a MPEG codec in an FPGA will I get sent to jail? [current wording appears to suggest so]. How can the USA "land of the free" decide that amature hobbiest nolonger have the right to experiment with hardware? Why don't corporations consider what their customers have to say (an online survey?)? Wouldn't it make sense for the government to rule in favor of the PEOPLE?
[some of the above may be redundant from previous comments]
Why not ruby red slippers! Take me back home to Kansas! Uncle Ed! Is that you?
Fox TV is indeed tabloid GOP-TV.
CNN, and all the others you list, are moderate to conservative entities, if they can be characterized at all. Besides, "liberalism" is defined as open-mindedness, fairness, and the ability to see all sides of a story. Any TV network should be proud to be called such.
But they are not "liberal". CNN is changing its lineup to suck up to the FOX crowd. ABC, and most certainly NBC are owned by extremely conservative corporations, Disney and GE respectively. The bosses of those Republican companies are influencing hiring and firing of upper and middle level management, causing a tilt towards the right that is becoming discernible even to a casual viewer.
FOX is not in the fairness business. It follows the meme, a wrong one, that all who do not agree with their views are Liberal, and part of a Liberal powerbase that they are in biz to negate.
FOX is Murdoch's wet dream. He wants a no-apologies propoganda machine for deregulation, insulting Clinton, religion, slandering Clinton, corporate welfare kings, removing Clinton, military buildups, destroying Clinton, and destroying any damned body that gets in his way to enormous wealth and power for himself and all of his ideological stripe.
No, I'm not going to cite sources. I 'm not going to exhaust myself proving water is wet for the millionth time. And anyway, it is the hallmark of conservatism that they can NEVER be wrong, and that the other side IS. And immoral and evil and godless and...
Liberalism's hallmark, and the hallmark of good journalism as well, is the ability to see all sides of an argument, and to doubt and question deeply held beliefs. FOX fails this test, and is not a journalistic network. It is an attack vehicle for a narrow slice of American life -- angry white suburban USAian men who think that blacks have more rights than they, that all their money is being shipped overseas, that women are too damned uppity, and that their religion is the right and only one. And like lots of guns in case the Guvmint needs overthrowing, or blacks leave the cities and attack their suburban strongholds... believe me, I grew up reading the pamphets spread by milita, Birchers and similar. I'm not exaggerating.
Anyhow, to sum up: Murdoch is a right Uberwinger who created the FOX NEWS network to destroy the influence of anyone who does not support his ideology. FOX exists to demonize its opponents and slavishly promote its politicians.
"Liberals" (anyone not a Murdochian) have no such parallel network of ruthless lying attack dogs. By "Liberals" I mean the 75% of the USA that are not conservatives.
"Troll" indeed.
This ignorance has become dangerous to all of us. Like to back up your system using mass storage with Hollywood-style copy protection built in?
Hollywood has already bought the politicians who are going to decide on this. They don't get it. There's no political profit in getting this.
I've said for some time if the high-tech community from CEOs to end users all decided to pull together on an issue, that we can win regardless of opposition.
Collectively, Compaq, Dell, IBM, Intuit, Microsoft, Sybase, and Unisys are a probably lot bigger and employ more people than the motion picture industry. I mention these companies because their leaders signed an open letter to MPAA asking that the movie industry start having real discussions with them with respect to a solution everyone can live with.
Jack Valenti figures correctly that he doesn't have to compromise, and by the time Hollywood finds out that their own computers have been compromised by the solution the top corporate suits bought from Congress, he'll be in a very well paid retirement.
Perhaps it's time for high-tech industry to stop kissing their asses and start kicking them and see about enlisting our help in kicking them as well.
If these high-tech companies start buying media time and doing press campaigns about just what the Hollywood solution means (start with pictures of dark factory floors, blue screens on computers, etc.) in conjunction to putting out a call to write letters to Congress to their employees and their developer communities and to communities like this one.
I'd certainly write my own Senators over this issue even if the request was signed by Bill Gates.
I've been telling people to avoid XP and I've been running AMD in my boxes for years and years. However, there are issues where the most die-hard Linux fanatic with any sense will realize that we've got common interests.
If the Senators don't get the point, a number of them are up for re-election this fall. High-tech money and voters can make the difference between who wins and who loses.
We know who our enemies are. We can't do anything permanent on them by ourselves. A high-tech coalition can probably remake Congress in our own image. We don't have to like Microsoft, just be glad they're on our side for a change and be willing to work with them.
There are other major corporations who would be greatly inconvenienced by having MPAA use Congress to tell us what our computers are going to look like and what can and can't be done on the Internet.
It's coalition time. It's single-issue politics time. . . us vs. the laws Hollywood has used Congress to ram down our collective throats. I know that every major corporation I mentioned specifically has people reading slashdot. Carry the word back to your bosses that it's time to see what kind of coalition we can put together.
High tech developers and users plus high-tech corporate money is probably an unstoppable political force. There are few issues that we can all agree on, but on those issues, we need to work together.
Tech Public Policy stuff
In an alternate history near you:
... almost as long as Europeans are alleged by radicals to have had widespread use of the horseless carriage.
Throughout history, technology has been key to opening up new markets. It only represents a problem if it is allowed to undermine existing markets
said Buggy whip manufacturers, demanding that a one hundred year old law banning horseless carriages within the United States be renewed for another century. In other news, hundreds of eye witnesses reported a mysterious flying object high above the skies of Los Angeles. Subversive elements claim it is was an Aeroplane, the rumored heavier-than-air flying device said to have been in use in much of the rest of the world for the last seventy years or so
"Nonesense," said Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C. (chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee), "the United States remains the leader in world technology, and will continue to do so, without endangering the hard earned profits of buggy whip manufacturers and liveries everywhere. Anyone alleging the existence of horseless carriages or mysterious flying Aeroplanes is Unamerican and a traitor to the republic."
Thankfully, our leadership in the early part of the twentieth century was nowhere near as pathetic as it has become today.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Guess that anti- DVD-CCA T-shirt I've been wearing finally paid off...
Never never never smoke crack before geometry class!
You should probably switch from using DivX 3.11 to using XviD (the free continuation of the OpenDivX project). Recent viewing tests at
Doom9 have shown that it has at least as good quality as DivX 3.11 and DivX 4, but you get the extra benefit of it being open, and rapidly developed.
Also, you probably want to switch to using something like the excellent Gordian Knot (see the download link at Doom9 for it). See the ripping/encoding guides at Doom9.
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
Tonight I ran into my first defective CD. It was the newly-released Alanis Morissette album (you have your tastes, I have mine). My wife and I bought this along with the new release from Pink, came home and popped it into one of our computers while we made dinner.
After a minute or two I noticed that the speakers remained mysteriously quiet, and that no music puntuated the sounds of rattling dishes in the kitchen. Ambling over to the computer I popped open Windows Explorer (my wife had booted into Windows on her computer to play a game and hadn't booted back to Linux) and noticed...
...nothing.
Well, not quite nothing. There was a 'special media presentation' on the CD just begging for our attention, but other than that *no tracks* appeared on the CD. Wisely expressing my confusion with the words "what the fuck?" I popped the disc back in...and still there were no tracks.
Just that goddamned media thingy trying to get my attention. I didn't buy the damned CD for any bloody commercial, I bought it for *music*. Fuck the damned commercial, where the hell was my MUSIC???
With growing horror I realized I'd just been given the RIAA shaft up the ass for the first time. Here I was, with a CD I legally purchased, unable to play it in my - goddamnit - CD player.
Quickly I scanned the case and the plastic wrap the CD came in, thinking I'd missed some disclaimer like 'won't play on a computer, you mp3-ripping pirate asshole'. But no. Even the tiny print on the back said nothing of the sort. There was no warning of any kind to indicate that the CD was intentionally defective.
With something akin to a cry of rage, echoed by my incredibly pissed-off wife, I transferred the cd to my computer - which was running Linux - and fired up the burning software to see if it could find the tracks. It did without any problem whatsoever. Put it back into the machine running windows - the tracks were gone. Rebooted my machine to windows - no tracks. Booted my wife's computer to Linux and ran the ripping software - the tracks were there.
Yep, no doubt about it, the CD was crippled with 'copy protection'. I'd heard about CDs that Windows couldn't play but that Linux could, but I'd never actually seen them before. This was my first.
So here I am, ripping the Alanis Morissette cd so that I can copy the tracks back onto one of my own blank cds, in the hopes that the protection is on the cd itself and not incorporated into the tracks. If I'm right I'll soon have an Alanis Morissette CD that'll play in Windows as well as Linux - which is what I goddamned well paid for when I went to the store in the first place.
It's one thing to hear about this shit and express outrage over another persons misfortune, and quite another to find out you've been fucked yourself. I work for my money and I bloody well expect value when I plunk down my cash; if they're going to cripple the CD then the motherfuckers had better goddamn well label the shitty product so I can avoid it in the first place.
Until now I've downloaded music off of Napster, Bearshare, Gnutella, etc. to 'try before I buy' - just like everyone else I know. Our CD collection has quadrupled in the last two years because we've discovered artists we'd never in a million years consider seriously if we hadn't been able to hear the album first. Alanis was one of those artists and we now own everything she's put out.
But I have to ask myself now: if the music industry is going to deliberately sell me defective products, why on God's green earth should I waste the money I work hard for on fucked-up CDs? In this case it looks as if I can rip the songs to the computer and burn them back to a blank CD; but why should I have to do this? I didn't consent to buy a defective product, nor was I informed of the defect before purchase. I was more than willing to hand over $16 bucks to the RIAA bloodsuckers to buy Alanis's new album - and they screwed me anyway.
Assholes. Please tell me - how is this supposed to encourage a generally honest joe like myself to remain honest and buy CDs of songs I've downloaded and liked? If I know I stand a chance of being reamed, with the potential battle of trying to return the CD for a refund to the tight-fisted music store bastards that own my town, what incentive do I have to buy? All this is going to do is encourage piracy, not contain it.
Well, at least the Pink CD works like it should.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Ah Rupert,
.
What we lost by importing the cane toad,
we gained by exporting Rupert.
I think you err in assuming that the man has an ideology beyond that of paying no taxes, expanding without limits and eliminating all competition.
What he is doing to America is an extension of what he has done to Britain & what previously he & his forebears did in Australia.
He makes little apeal/concession to the poor, 'cause frankly, they don't have any money.
He rarely targets the rich, it's hard to prise $$$'s from their grip & after all, there aren't that many ++billionaires.
His market, & thus how he positions his media empire, is all the others.
The horror of Murdoch is that he is a mirror to the dark underbelly of the middle classes.
That, and the fact that he charges $1.50 a peek . .
It's all very well lambasting Hollywood - but until *we* make better content than Hollywood, Joe IQ-of-only-110 Consumer is going to support Hollywood.
Making movies is _easy_ nowadays. It's fun, too. We need to flood the internet with non--media-mafia content, and PROVE that we can do better than hollywood, for less/free.
Open source movie production!
I know....
Alexis Hublot
So, while I wrote this post I decided I should do my homework first. On Freshmeat I found a defrag program for linux, but it seems to be totally dead, abandoned since 1998. On sourceforge a search for defrag only gives a hit for some Windows application. A Google search finally points me to a Debian page which advertises exactly the kind of defrag program I was looking for. The buglist shows that it is still being maintained, but there does not seem to be much going on (which might be a sign of stability, but the developer could have tried to impress me with promises to support more filesystems than only ext2, minix and xiafs). Why isn't this program a standard solution that makes fragmentation a non-issue? Do people here have experience with this tool?
Do you believe in death after life?
Holy sweet Jee-yazuz! Are you serious? Methinks you have become too accustomed to hearing only the left's views, and it insults you to be subjected to differing opinions. The fact of the matter is, Fox News presents a 50/50 balance of left wing vs. right wing views! ABC, NBC, CBS, and most especially Disney all positively fester with rabid left wing sentiment. If you consider those networks conservative, you are a very scary individual.
99% of the CD's that do this can be handled by opening CDplayer.exe and hitting play. It is ADware crap, but it isn't copy protection as almost any ripper software will grab it.
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
The last time (actually, first, last and only time) I was at Disney World, in a tribute to Walt himself, I saw this him quoted:
If this is Walt's view, then Eisner & Co. must have him spinning in his grave!
An interesting side note on the whole liberal v. conservative thing: when driving home last night I heard an interesting piece on NPR (bet you can guess which side of liberal/conservative that puts me on :) about Judicial Watch. This organization was put together from scratch in '94, primarily with donations from conservative groups and individuals, in order to generally harass the Clinton administration over their various illegal and questionable activities. They were the poster child for conservative attack dogs.
But now that there's a new administration, apparently Judicial Watch is still on a roll, taking on the Bush administration! They're currently going after, among others, House Whip Tom Delay for selling access to the Bush administration. Apparently this is causing a bit of consternation among conservatives, who had assumed that Judicial Watch was bought and paid for and would stay that way :)
So my point, if I even have one, is that there are still individuals and organizations out there who are insane, cranky, or perhaps actually even principled enough to take on whomever is letting down their country. It made me happy to hear about this; hopefully it will brighten your day a little too.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
And frequently do.
... hey, malice and nihilsm have their own charms, apparently. Escape from Mordor where the shadows lie and all that.
Some people prefer to make others miserable rather than happy, and some seem to have mixed motivations. I think submitting real stories / information would be a much more pleasant use of time than trolling, overall, but
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
... write your letter, letting them know that you're a lifelong Democrat and enclose a copy of your contribution check made out to the Green Party (the larger, the better). Send a copy of the letter and the check to the DNC, as well. His aides will get hit with a cluestick really, really fast.
That is all.
Excuse me if this is a bit long, but...
:-) retiree Disney stockholder constituents in Hilton Head, Beaufort, Bluffton, Del Webb Sun City, etc. than there ever will be oligarchs who own movie studios and distributors. Frankly, sir, you need to review the fundamentals of democratic, representive government, particularly if you want to get reelected.
1) The tech is there now. Software and hardware. All Hollywood could concievably need to roll out god knows how many forms of pay downloads, pay-per-view, pay-per-play, etc. They just want somebody else to pay for implementing it, and they don't give a shit if it cripples our computers and networks, stifles the development and deployment of even better security (among other things), or entails yet another intrusive, stifling, and costly, government bureaucracy. They are a bunch of fucking parasites, sir, looking to duck costs and use men-with-guns and and taxpayers' money to get a better return than a free market would provide otherwise. They're lazy and greedy and don't want to subject themselves to the vicissitudes of supply and demand. They want to guarantee full ticket price that they decide upon in advance, for everything, not what the market will bear, unlike the rest of us mortals who are rightly derided as unrealistic leeches if we act the same way. Instead of negotioting contracts and licenses with software developers, manufacturers, ISP's, etc., they want the govt. to step in and club everyone into submission if they don't hop into line and do the entertainment industry's work for them at no charge, and regardles of the cost to third parties, both in direct economic terms and in terms of reduced choice, crippled computers, and permanently hobbled technical innovation, at least for the law-abiding.
I'll grant that you're a politician, not a technologist, and you maybe don't understand how requirements such as those Mr. Valenti et al. seek to impose would cripple the hardware in many areas entirely unconnected to copy-protection issues, and would stifle not just future innovation, but past achievements. So I won't call you a bald-face d liar here, but I will assure you that it's true, and that, furthermore, you are antagonising the entire population of technically literate people, who do know that it is, and who also know it would seriously diminish the liberating freedom of the personal computer, in all kinds of areas that have nothing to do with "pirating"* software who are aware of it's historical, consciously-intended role as such, who *know*, with all due respect, that you're talking out your ass here, and who will not take this lying down.
2)If anyone else does this without a Senator in their pocket, we are rightly called extortionists. They've already got you benevolent, wise leaders to make copyright effectively perpetual. This is not what the founders intended, to invest some God-given property right in created works. Only to stimulate creation via a temporary exchange. Truth be told, sir, these bastards, who do not create themselves, but hire it done for far less than it's worth, generally, are the real pirates, and they would deserve to be stolen from, except that historically, "piracy" has *always* benefited the content producers and distributors in the long run. They've even been known to discreetly promote it in marketing campaigns. The software industry learned these lessons twenty years ago, and either employ bulletproof copy protection when it's required (without any bullshit laws needed. Pardon me, but you need to realize that most of us outside of Washington do indeed see most of what Congress does as utter bullshit.) or eschew it when they prefer market share and volume demand instead. The self-serving fabrications of opportunistic third-party vultures like the BSA notwithstanding.
I am digressing slightly, but truth be told, "piracy" is not the real issue here. What's really happening is that some people are not happy with just owning AOL, which for the most parts panders only to the rubest of manipulable consumer sheep, and want to take over the rest of the computer industry, that dangerous upstart empowering all those pesky, smart, little players out there, the better to manage them.
It's a flat out power grab. They want bring the entire tech industry under their thumb. This is an utterly unrealistic goal they can't even hope to achieve with help from actors with more clout even than the banks they own. Or even the incalculable power to shape public perception and opinion that they have. What they don't understand is that you can't always buy that kind of help with mere money. A hundred Senators can only be reliably had for sale only if their next election is not in serious question as a result. Which is exactly what anything like your SSSCA would entail, becuase it pisses too many of all kinds of dedicated opponents whose very survival is threatened by it, whereas all it does for the entertainment industry is attempt, ineffectually but at great cost, to cement an existing privilege to plunder the public at large, which is *already* deeply resented.
You would be well-advised to dissociate yourself from this endeavor, and you would be very much doing them a favor, sir, to offer them some sage advice in exchange for their generous campaign contributions and all the sweetheart movie projects they send to S.C., to wit: It's too late, you should have said something 30 years ago.
Nowadays there is a computer store on main street along with the bank, the insurance agent, the car dealership, etc. Not only are you pissing of some big players, anybody who uses a computer, *and* John.Q. Settop, but the mass of the petty bourgeois, as well. Not only that, but there are a thousand and one ways for mass circumvention of anything we could do, once people decide to refuse to put up with it and start breaking and bending laws on a wholesale basis, as is certain to happen if anything like this law is passed. Especially with all that old, unregulated hardware out there. So forget about it. You're biting off more than you can chew. Get a life and deal with it, like everybody else has to.
2) You're flying in the face of the numbers here, to put things in practical political terms. There are way more "pirates" out there, real or potential, in addition to everyone above, even among your damyankee
Yours respectfully,
--rgb
* Quote marks included because the copyright moguls also want to make existing, established, fair use criminal.
More likely, this disk has multiple sessions - one CDDA session and one ISO9660 session. These disks are commonly referred to as CD-Extra disks.
The way this is supposed to work is that your computer should access both sessions, and you should be presented with both the Data and audio - this way you can enjoy the music as well as the additional data - links to interesting websites, lyrics to the songs, karaoke sing-along, etc.
Unfortunately, most (all?) versions of Windows are too stupid to know what to do with a multi-session CD. They will only show you the data session automatically.
There are two simple solutions to this problem:
1. Start the Windows CD player manually, and it should find the audio session automatically.
or
2. Use an OS that doesn't suck (Mac OS handles these disks just fine, for instance).
-Mark
I'm aware Judicial Watch is on the attack against the current administration. It is surprising, and should be a warning to all fanatics everywhere -- be careful what you wish for; you may just get it. In this case, they wanted an attack dog, forgetting that sometimes a badly trained dog will bite the trainer.
/.ers -- you know what a Honey Pot trap is.
Hm. You know, about those documents everyone wants to see about the task force. You all are
Those documents may be a honey pot. The Boys from Texas may have a cute little secret -- there may be no record of egregious dealmaking or influence in those supoenaed docs. The communications may have been off the record, in a more social milleu.
When those docs are finally analyzed, the GAO and JW may find that there isn't anything incriminating -- and the WH may score a calulated victory in the public's eye, with the aim of building polical capital against the next time they refuse to give up public records. The current president's people are ruthless, and are capable of such a simple trick. Beware a honey pot!
"The current president's people are ruthless"
...
Hahahahaha.
Both of them are motherfuckers but compared to Clinton and what he did to various people, Bush is a fucking saint.
You must be paid by someone to write this shit or just stupid