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EFF Creates Endangered Gizmos List
linuxwrangler writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation this week announced the creation of the Endangered Gizmos List. According to their press release, this project highlights 'the way misguided laws and lawsuits can pollute the environment for technological innovation.' The site categorizes technologies ranging from the Betamax to the Advanced eBook Processor as 'Saved', 'Endangered' or 'Extinct'."
For God's sake, don't feed them after midnight!
Is something burning?
Oh, it's my karma.
just get him wet, and the population problem is solved.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
I was worried, for an instant, that I wouldn't be able to watch betamax tapes of hot grits eating competitions in my garage while printing poorly reproduced pictures of Natalie Portman.
/.'ed already.
The one-button mouse is always at risk of being an endangered gizmo, but Apple keeps reintroducing the species into the wild, where they are promptly eaten by 2-buttons and scroll wheels.
The slashdot duplicate post detector is at the top of the list.
When linking to a site like this, consider adding .nyud.net:8090 to the hostname; that creates a cached Coral link. This prevents slashdotting.
So here.
Support a Europe-related section on Slashdot!
FCC Chairman Michael Powell calls TiVo "God's machine," and its devotees have been known to declare, "You can take my TiVo when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!" But suppose none of us had ever been given the opportunity to use or own a TiVo -- or, for that matter, an iPod? Suppose instead that Hollywood and the record companies hunted down, hobbled, or killed these innovative gizmos in infancy or adolescence, to ensure that they wouldn't grow up to threaten the status quo?
That's the strategy the entertainment industry is using to control the next generation of TiVos and iPods. Its arsenal includes government-backed technology mandates, lawsuits, international treaties, and behind-the-scenes negotiations in seemingly obscure technology standards groups. The result is a world in which, increasingly, only industry-approved devices and technologies are "allowed" to survive in the marketplace.
This is bad news for innovation and free competition, but it also threatens a wide range of activities the entertainment conglomerates have no use for -- everything from making educational "fair" use of TV or movie clips for a classroom presentation, to creating your own "Daily Show"-style video to make a political statement, to simply copying an MP3 file to a second device so you can take your music with you.
Rather than sit back and watch as promising new technologies are picked off one-by-one, EFF has created the Endangered Gizmos List to help you defend fair use and preserve the environment for innovation.
DVD X-Copy
DVD X-Copy
Species: DVD X-Copy
Genus: DVD archiving program
Closest Surviving Relatives: DeCSS, libdvd, and more powerful CSS decryption utilities are liberally available online.
What it is: A DVD backup utility.
What it allowed you to do: Create backup copies of your DVDs, record fair-use excerpts of DVD movies.
Why it's extinct: Hollywood sued the company that made DVD X-Copy out of existence, successfully arguing that it violated the highly controversial "anti-circumvention" clause in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
What you can do about it: It's too late to save DVD X-Copy, but you can use EFF's Action Center to tell Congress that you support the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (DMCRA; HR 107) -- a bill that would amend the DMCA to restore your ability to circumvent copy protection to make legal, personal uses of your DVDs.
Replay TV 4000
Replay TV 4000 Series
Species: ReplayTV 4000
Genus: Personal Video Recorder (PVR)
Closest Surviving Relatives: TiVo's "Tivo-to-go" is heavily encumbered by DRM and its 30-second skip is hidden. Build-your-own PVRs like MythTV let you skip commercials and export files to your heart's content.
What it is: A personal video recorder with user-friendly features.
What it allowed you to do: Skip over commercials and send recorded TV programs to another ReplayTV device.
Why it's extinct: Former Turner Broadcasting CEO Jamie Kellner called skipping commercials "theft" -- and evidently the major motion picture studios agree. They sued the manufacturers of ReplayTV out of existence, and the company that purchased it buckled under and removed the contested features.
What you can do about it: EFF intervened in the case to fight for ReplayTV users' right to make perfectly legal, non-infringing uses of their PVRs, but we couldn't stop the subsequent settlement and sell-out. That means it's too late to save the original ReplayTV -- but by joining EFF as a member, you can support our efforts to stop the adoption of international trade agreements that would make it against the law in many countries to include ReplayTV-like features in new devices.
Streambox VCR
Screenshot of Streambox VCR
Species: Streambox VCR
Genus: Recorder for "time-shifting" RealAudio streams
Closest Surviving Relatives: Gizmos like the TotalRecorder, which can capture audio streams later in the path by emulating the soundcard device.
What it is: A software program for recording and playing back RealAudi
Probably from the mysterious future.
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:EIUTKvYXDkQJ: www.eff.org/endangered/+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Actual list is http://www.eff.org/endangered/list.php.
Mirrored here, but the link is NSFW so I can't check to make sure I got it right.
Funny, even the cached Google pages are slow.
Main page
Endangered Gizmos List
Promote proofreading. Don't mod up sloppy posts.
Microsoft is planning on taking their increase in earnings in order to build a humongeous flashlight, designed to wipe out all of those non-DRM enhanced gizmos out there.
The EFF has done an awesome job again. Time for my EFF donation... Did you make yours?
EFF Server endangered - ummh - make that extinct /.
Missing from their endangered species list is none other than: The Internet. The most important 'gizmo' in our lives today.
RIAA and MPAA attack every peer to peer network because of illegal filesharing. Peer to peer networks can be abused, this is true. However, so can social networks, radio networks, cable networks and etc. Yet, if these organizations had their way peer to peer networks would cease to exist. Shall I remind you that the Internet operates on protocols that essentially make it a peer to peer network?
From my viewpoint although a lot of these laws and mandates are a pain in the ass they do lead to people trying to find new and possibly better products/methodologies to get around them. Its the strengthen the product versus develop new/different products argument and sometimes new/different is definitely better. (Hell I bet if there was a law that was detrimental to Windows we might actually get a better product from them!)
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
Ok, so someone had to click it (and YES IT IS legit) i duno WHY its mirrored there but it is in fact a valid mirror
remember that pushing 'print screen' on your keyboard copies the screen's image onto the clipboard (at least in Windows)
Every item in every category on the list features an appeal to "join the EFF" so that the evil, toy-snatching corporations can be vanquished for good yadda yadda. If the EFF's legal team was half as as adept as their Marketing and Promotion departments, they might actually amount to something more than a 90's-era anachronism...
Hey, but I've still held onto my old orange cyber-rights clenched-fist-on-a-field-of-lightning-bolts T-Shirt after all these years, so I guess I should give props to their Creative Services Department as well...
Does anyone have a link for me to join the EFF, I couldn't find one on that page
Right now their web-server is on the brink of Extinction because of Slashdoting.
When i Moderate something -1 Flamebait, why do i not get another modpoint?
5--1 = 6
Along similar lines, Tom Jennings has a database of obsolete formats and devices of various kinds, at deadmedia.org.
His site is more focussed on older (nineteenth-century, early twentieth-century) stuff than the EFF site, and of course, not everything dies of regulatory or copyright strangulation.
2*3*3*3*3*11*251
This isn't about companies and artists being "stolen" from. It's about corporate entities finally having the kind of leverage to exert full control over content distribution from inception to consumption.
If a company can control the distribution of its "intellectual property" - e.g. a song - from the moment it's recorded until it hits your ears - then there's additional opportunities for a revenue stream at any point in that line. For instance, you can purchase a song from iTunes. Or you can pay XM $10 a month for the privilege of listening to that same song on their satellite service. Or you could go to the record store and purchase a disc you can put in your CD player and play.
But the act of copying said content, and giving it to a friend - that's completely outside the revenue stream, and the content companies seek to stop this type of action. Even if the creator of the content - the artist - would see benefit from this action. (An example: a friend recently made a copy of the Secret Machines album for me. I bought a copy for my brother, and then a copy for myself. How is this bad for the artist?)
Music, video, and other entertainment content is *not* intellectual property. Trade secrets, manufacturing methods, software - that's IP. But music in specific is undergoing a transformation. Content control is not natural in the broad scope - it's an artificial control mechanism put in place to generate revenue.
Googles cached page
You are welcome.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Interesting:
censorship bears the legacy of copyright. For example, the custom of printers and authors to have their name listed with their creations began as a law demanding this practice, not to ensure the originator due credit, but in order for the king to keep track of disobedient writers. Brendan Scott (2000)
falling costs is met with more computer capacity for a sustained price, and therefore that new computers never will reach the poor majority (Stallabrass, 1995)
"The justification for the patent system is that by slowing down diffusion of technological progress it ensures that there will be more progress to diffuse... Since it is rooted in a contradiction, there can be no such thing as an ideally beneficial patent system [...]" [60].
Yes I do lean towards marxism and no, this is not a anti-capitalism rant although this article [firstmonday.org] does point out the obvious (for some) that we have moved from feudalism to capitalism and are GRADUALLY moving towards something else.
I've said it several times before: it's mirrored there to keep my bandwidth down.
/. from work (like me) can't justify clicking on such a link, so at least the monitored business-types won't visit.
/., I can't even imagine what i'd get if i posted to legitimate-business.com....
Yes there are those weirdos that will click it because they think naked petrified natalie portman hot grits, but most people accessing
Anytime I mirror something near the top of a discussion, I get about 3 gigs a day from the zombie army that is
this project highlights 'the way misguided laws and lawsuits can pollute the environment for technological innovation The items featured here are not just nostalgic entities of the past. They are technologies that are no longer used, or are in danger of no longer being used due to laws and lawsuits. Example: Napster. Insanely popular.
I once read that the Teddy Ruckspin doll was supposed to play and "sing along" to all music cassettes. But the lawyers decided that they might get sued because it might be considered a "performance" which would require payments to the copyright holders. To play it safe, they stuck with proprietary tapes.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
The complete list with details =oP
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
it's endangered because of DMCA or people suing based on stupid reasons, not because people do not use them.
mp3 players, A/D - D/A chips, TIVOs and P2P software are on that list, and you can't say people don't use them.
What a I missing ?
--> reading the FA before posting an opinion maybe
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
MyBlog
The EFF is fighting for your rights and some of the rights you are enjoying right now exist only because of the EFF. The EFF needs your donations urgently in order to continue to do their job. Please help us all to stay free and to preserve our electronic rights and make a donation when the site comes back up again: http://www.eff.org Thank you!
Just because people invest a lot of energy into something doesn't magically make it above ridicule and parody. "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything" -Nietzsche
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
I don't know any Mac users that wouldn't like Scroll wheels and second buttons.
I think people, as a whole, are generally smart enough to handle a two button + wheel mouse and all the "complexities" that come with it.
The second button can be so useful! And the wheel indespensible for scrolling any type of documents.
I sorta-kinda like MacOSX's UI. I think I'd like it a lot more if full mouse functionality wasn't an add-on that most people probably don't have.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
EFF Defends the apple Ipod here and will defend ThinkSecret against Apple there
Funny world but it shows that EFF and their staff/volunteers are standing for principles and not products/behaviour
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
My apologies. Here is where I'm torn. I don't think we should be intentionally circumventing copy protection. At the same time I don't think there should be copy protection to limit how I use the product. Here's an idea, why don't they go after pirate rings and leave the legal folk alone. Oh yeah, its easier to punish everyone.
Three men walk into a bar. They all got concussions.
Actually (and I say this as a non-Mac owner, admittedly), in my experience the shipping of the one-button mouse is a Good Thing.
Because not all users have a right mouse-button, it maintains the very sensible UI rule that you should be able to do everything without using it - all features you'd RMB for are available in the menu.
Windows is horribly inconsistent about what the RMB is actually for, and you don't know whether or not a feature actually exists until you try right-clicking on random objects to have a look.
Extra buttons and wheels are undoubtably useful things for shortcuts, but the design principle that everything should be available in a consistent manner without HAVING to use them is great for those of us that don't use them very often.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Free to do what we want to do!
We want to be free to ride!
To ride our machines without being hassled by the man! "
When Gizmo's are outlawed, only outlaws will own gizmo's!
Seriously! There will be no extinction of gizmos which offer a high level of utility.
Prohibition resulted in a massive black market in alcohol and cigarettes. At present there is a huge trade in low/no tax cigarettes. Bootleg satellite TV subscriptions blanket Canada. Yes, there's marijuana and drug(illicit and gray) markets too.
So, hardcore experimenters will be able to buy their ADAC's and consumers their useful products. It's just gonna be a friend of a friend sort of deal.
The real danger is erosion of the USA legal system. There are already way too many 'designer' laws.
So, after reading the article I came to think in something. This DMCA law, it is supposed to be for the US only isn't it? so, if I, make some software as the DVD-x-copy in another country, and distribute it, I am allowed to do that provided that the laws of my country allow it no?
Now, it would be then "Illegal" for the people who buys it inside united states, but I think nothing stops me for selling it from, say, somwhere in south america or europe...
Am I wrong?, maybe one of the "solutions" for all this would be simply to move the company to another place out of US.
Or maybe I am missing something here...
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
This seems to be the one thing on the list that I could not imagine as being endangered. A/D and D/A converters are essential components in todays digitized world. They are necessary to allow us to view our content in our analog environment while storing and processing it in the digital world. Don't expect these to disappear anytime soon.
Speaking of beta tapes, did anyone who actually used them from the era actually find them in any way superior to VHS?
I was 18 when beta was at its peak, and both of my (separated) parents had a vhs and a beta deck each, along with a good mix of beta and vhs machines belonging to friends and their family.
I found them both as bad as one another. Neither made for a better picture or audio, though from my understanding the really high end beta gear that was used in television stations and for production was quite good quality.
Just because people invest a lot of energy into something doesn't magically make it above ridicule and parody.
I didn't say the endangered species list was above ridicule or parody. But I did say that the parody listed was feeble and in poor taste.
Just because there exists a freedom to send-up anything and everything that others hold sacred, does not mean it is right to exercise. In a truly free society, the only way to counter rotten ideas is to speak up when they are foisted upon you. However, (as my -1, Troll rating may demonstrate already) "PC" doctrine discourages speaking up against any proffered ideas. Instead, silent tolerance is supposed to be the norm. But freedom of speech implies freedom of destructive and critical speech just as it implies freedom of constructive speech. (And there are no moral connotations attached to those adjectives)
I find this bad parody of a serious endeavor in poor taste, and just as there's nothing wrong with them coming up with such bad humour, there's absolutely nothing wrong in my saying it's garbage - the querulous minds of the anonymous moderators excepted, obviously.
Can't you design the interface to be usable with one button without bundling a mouse that will not be used by a large portion of your customers?
*BSD - Endangered
Linux - Endangered
Actually, only having one button would make helping people do stuff over the phone much easier. Telling someone to click the icon, then having them ask "which button" is a pain in the ass sometimes. God forbid you have someone right click and icon, then tell them to click on rename. They invariably will ask me "wait, right click on the icon then right click rename", or some other bastardization of what I said.
i use linux and windows oh god how can i have an opinion
Can't you design the interface to be usable with one button without bundling a mouse that will not be used by a large portion of your customers?
Yes, you can, but try getting every 3rd party software manufacturer to do the same.
Music speeds up when you yawn, but does not change pitch.
The Endangered Species list serves a useful purpose if you believe that life itself is a value. The utility principle behind its doppelganger is a lot more questionable, which makes it potentially offensive (since the original is nothing but serious).
Personally, I don't find species extinction a humorous matter at all, even if the species in question aren't sapient. I just don't find oblivion amusing.
This is akin to creating a website dedicated to "emancipating slave hard drives from their masters," parodying American abolitionism from the 19th century. It's crushing a serious matter that emotionally affects others, and which others have put great energy into effecting, down to nothing, just to be the butt of a silly joke. I don't like it.
This reference to the slave/master controversy was entirely appropriate.
The Endangered Species list serves a useful purpose if you believe that life itself is a value. The utility principle behind its doppelganger is a lot more questionable, which makes it potentially offensive (since the original is nothing but serious).
Personally, I don't find species extinction a humorous matter at all, even if the species in question aren't sapient. I just don't find oblivion amusing.
This is akin to creating a website dedicated to "emancipating slave hard drives from their masters," parodying American abolitionism from the 19th century. It's crushing a serious matter that emotionally affects others, and which others have put great energy into effecting, down to nothing, just to be the butt of a silly joke. I don't like it.
Emboldened?
The author of this article seems to have missed the big picture in a couple of cases. There has been a technological revolution in the professional sound world over the last 5 years with digital equipment (Consoles, Effects processors, Playback systems, and Recording/Editing systems just to name a few) at its core. D/A and A/D converters aren't endangered; their population is growing.
"Any man who says he can see through women is missing a lot" Groucho Marx
The Endangered Species list serves a useful purpose if you believe that life itself is a value. The utility principle behind its doppelganger is a lot more questionable, which makes it potentially offensive (since the original is nothing but serious).
Personally, I don't find species extinction a humorous matter at all, even if the species in question aren't sapient. I just don't find oblivion amusing.
This is akin to creating a website dedicated to "emancipating slave hard drives from their masters," parodying American abolitionism from the 19th century. It's crushing a serious matter that emotionally affects others, and which others have put great energy into effecting, down to nothing, just to be the butt of a silly joke. I don't like it.
Call it a night cowboy?
So no one will ever have a soundcard in their computer? Or a CD player?
Not sure what qualifications they got but whoever puts D/A converters on a endangered list has proven that they don't have much understanding of electronics...
Peter.
we are moving back towards feudalism, although the fedualist pushers don't call themselves "royal".
The new "technofeudalists" are the huge transnational corporations, who are increasingly controlling the "laws" in various nations, overtly (open lobbying, trade associations,pushing "free trade" instead of "fair trade", etc) or covertly (bribing and blackmailing their boys into power in the "legitimate" governments, copting journalists to push propoganda, etc, etc). And it's very hard to control them, because corporations act as a group of people as to profits, but the responsibilities that a normal human person might have are not conclusive or extensive enough, witness time after time corporation-x gets busted for this or that. Usually it results in a fine, said fine monies then being pushed off onto the ultimate customers to pay. The corps themselves are rarely if ever actually busted up entirely, no matter how many times their officers/managers whatever get caught in illegal acts. And to make it worse, even if that happens, they can just "go bankrupt" and most of the same people involved can just go start up another string of corporations under new corporate person names and controlling addresses.
Corporations are very similar to the old concept of "royal bloodlines" in that regard, they persist generation after generation, with the twist they can just morph away and reform, to go on and continue with unethical or illegal practices. You can't really kill them off or revolt against them,like you could with some royal feudalist gang of rank "bluebloods" in ye olden days, not in any practical sense anyway and stay inside technological civilisation.
Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of ReplayTV owners who are quite happy. The only two features they removed were internet sharing and automatic channel skip. You can still happily suck shows off of the unit over ethernet in MPEG-2 format until the cows come home. I am *still* laughing at people who purchase TiVo units.
I don't seem to have any problems getting A-D/D-A chips, I just go to an electronics store, pay some money, and I have them...didn't know there were people trying to get them banned.
Thats what worries me the most, is that if they do manage to get control of the raw silicon, then we are screwed.
We wont be even able to build our own hardware proejcts with out it being crippled, and having to license it ( at costs the average hobbiest cant afford ).. Regardless if it might 'infringe' something or not.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The Endangered Species list serves a useful purpose if you believe that life itself is a value. The utility principle behind its doppelganger is a lot more questionable, which makes it potentially offensive (since the original is nothing but serious).
Personally, I don't find species extinction a humorous matter at all, even if the species in question aren't sapient. I just don't find oblivion amusing.
This is akin to creating a website dedicated to "emancipating slave hard drives from their masters," parodying American abolitionism from the 19th century. It's crushing a serious matter that emotionally affects others, and which others have put great energy into effecting, down to nothing, just to be the butt of a silly joke. I don't like it.
Copyright laws.
story
Endangered Gizmos List
For context, click Parent.
I thought that people were going to change the information they transform so you can't use plain ordinary chips and must use DRM-encumbered DMCA-protected corporate-owned 'solutions'.
That's what this article is about.
For one, full mouse functionality is not an addon. Having replaced many a one button mouse with multi button mice, I can tell you it's fully supported.
That said, while I prefer a multibutton mouse on the desktop I DESPISE multi buttons or scroll "zones" on laptops. It gets in the way more than it's useful and since on a laptop my keyboard is right there next to the trackpad, using a modfier key is not an issue at all.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
- A/D and D/A converters aren't "endangered" anymore than vacuum tubes are. They are fundamental electronic components.
- DVD X Copy is gone because it wasn't a DVD "backup" utility, it was a "copy rented movies" utility and a "lemme borrow your DVD and copy it" utility. Tech support for the product was very conflicted over this because the owner couldn't help talking out of both sides of his face - "We don't help pirates" and "Why is there anything wrong with that". If you sell heroin on the street you will make lots of money, but eventually you will get busted. They got busted. End of story.
- When someone can actually show that Morpheus and WinMX are more useful than FTP for moving files around, they might have a case. When these two in particular have searches that return something besides music and porn, we can talk about how useful existing P2P search and download facilities are. Note I am not saying that P2P has any attributes whatsoever - just that current search tools seem to return a lot of stuff that is under copyright.
- The Replay PVR decided to push the envelope and allow "sharing" over the Internet. This is essentially redistributing content and the Replay folks knew this would cause problems. There have been several court cases recently about exactly that - redistributing broadcast content. There was never a doubt that this would be settled by removing the capability and likely costing the company a great deal of money.
- ElcomSoft is a password-cracking software company. They sell password cracking tools to forensic professionals. If you think your "protected" document or EFS file system is safe, think again - ElcomSoft makes a product for cracking it in a short period of time, and your local police certainly have access to it. I can imagine lots of people not having a lot of sympathy for ElcomSoft. They also use misspelled domain names to "advertise" - if you misspell their competition's name you get their web site. Scum, no matter how nice a face you put on it.
- Linksys - come on, these guys put it on the list to scare people and then never mentioned it in their scary paragraph. Why? Because it is completely off-topic.
All in all, this entire web page is just a lot of scare-mongering with the idea that they can stir people up by trying to convince them that something terrible is about to happen. For donations? For more membership? I have to question any organization that uses as many distortions, untruths and outright lies to make a point.In HD Beta looks even better.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
I recall reading in the 80s that K&E was dumping all the elaborate brass ruling engines used for making slide rules....darn those bowmar brains !!
"In many ways, it's a similar situation to CDs today - none of the attempts to replace CDs have been successful because CDs are "good enough" for 99% of the consumers."
Except for the ever expanding game.
Yep, and just wait till you have a leftie who discovered that they can not only move their mouse to the other side of the keyboard, but also switch the buttons. There's a frickin nightmare and a half.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -RAH
The Slashdot effect...
Second-source replacement batteries for cell phones, laptop computers, etc are also endangered. In the sincerest flattery of Lexmark's toner cartridge scheme, TI has developed a chip to ensure your next rechargeable gizmo will work only with genuine OEM batteries. Good luck finding one after they bring out next year's model.
Windows is horribly inconsistent about what the RMB is actually for
It is? Windows *applications* may be, but in Windows, the RMB is used, afaik, for context menus only. In almost all cases, any actions in the context menus can be done through the standard menus, as well. The only wacky things I can think of are right-clicking the start menu or taskbar. These items can be reached other ways, but it isn't very straightforward (control panel).
Generally, it's not until you get into specialized applications like games, imaging and CADD that the RMB is used for anything else.
You should be able to do everything without using the damn mouse at all - does that mean that PCs should be shipped without a mouse to make sure?
It's a daft justification for a very good point though - you really should be able to do everything with menus, and also with keyboard shortcuts or the arrow keys. I can tell you there are things I, as a keyboard jockey who hates mice, want to do for which keyboard shortcuts don't exist.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
...and as soon as you try to use a laptop, it's a pain in the arse. No way I'm carrying a mouse around all the time. That's the main reason I bought a ThinkPad instead.
"If a company can control the distribution of its "intellectual property" - e.g. a song - from the moment it's recorded until it hits your ears - then there's additional opportunities for a revenue stream at any point in that line. For instance, you can purchase a song from iTunes. Or you can pay XM $10 a month for the privilege of listening to that same song on their satellite service. Or you could go to the record store and purchase a disc you can put in your CD player and play. "
Or you can simply not buy the product. Funny how that one choice is always left out when the list is being compiled.
"But the act of copying said content, and giving it to a friend - that's completely outside the revenue stream, and the content companies seek to stop this type of action. Even if the creator of the content - the artist - would see benefit from this action. (An example: a friend recently made a copy of the Secret Machines album for me. I bought a copy for my brother, and then a copy for myself. How is this bad for the artist?) "
How is it you all notice when others are making a decision for you (and you generally don't like that)? But you nary blink an eye when it comes to making artist's decisions for them?
"Music, video, and other entertainment content is *not* intellectual property. Trade secrets, manufacturing methods, software - that's IP. But music in specific is undergoing a transformation. Content control is not natural in the broad scope - it's an artificial control mechanism put in place to generate revenue."
"
Of course they're all IP. But obviously there's one side with an agenda every bit as lopsided as the one some of the content providers have. I can see why ignoring that fact would be to their advantage (not that anti-social behaviour really needs a reason).
I bought the first Scooby Doo movie twice because my kids scratched the original. Now thanks to my backup software, I won't have to buy it again... at least until a new format comes out and DVD players can't be found.
" Thats what worries me the most, is that if they do manage to get control of the raw silicon, then we are screwed."
It's called magic. Seriously just at what point did people forget that they shouldn't declare war, then complain about the consequences? You all wanted to live by the motto "all information wants to be free". Well looks like you all are going to suffer by it too. Shame some innocents have to suffer in a war they didn't ask for.
....in the hearts, minds, and harddrives of exeem/BT/limewire users everywhere.
Morpheus can go off and die for all I care. Their latest program release is a modified version of the GPLed file sharing tool Gnucleus, except they added spyware and ads to the program. They are a big scam to say the least.
Haha, that reminded me of something. When we got our first computer in 92(I was 12, I believe), my dad is a lefty, so we would move the mouse to the left side. We kept the normal button configuration until the left mouse button started going out, then we switched the right and left buttons. :)
The way it ended up, on any given day, the buttons could be switched, and the mouse could be on either side of the keyboard/desk. I just learned to go into windows(or civilization 1), click something and see what happened, and adjust the rest of my computing for the day.
I guess that helps me now, since I admin an office with all kinds of people who get confused easily, including some lefties, and I can ambidextrously use any pointing device conceived by a biped
i use linux and windows oh god how can i have an opinion
Windows is horribly inconsistent about what the RMB is actually for, and you don't know whether or not a feature actually exists until you try right-clicking on random objects to have a look.
Well, since the standard(that very rarely are broken) are that RMB shows a context menu, you don't risk breaking anything when trying your way in the GUI.
I rather like GUI:s that you can learn by exploring than those that either have very limited functionality or an interface that requires reading manuals.
IMO keeping the one-button mouse is the stupidest decision apple havbe ever made, and I'm sure they have lost very many customers on that. I, for one, would really hesitate before buying an apple laptop even if I had the money. If I'd buy a desktop I'd buy a real mouse the first thing I did.
I don't know any Mac users that wouldn't like Scroll wheels and second buttons.
Have you ever watched young kids with a computer? A one button mouse is waaay easier to handle.
How about someone with fine motor difficulties due to anything from advanced age to arthritus or neuological problems
The one-button mouse is easier not only in concept, but physically easier to use. So a company that wants to sell the easiest-to-use computer would bundle the easiest-to-use mouse.
Of course a Mac can be easily "upgraded" to a the latest whiz-bang mouse (buy it, plug it in). Can other OS's easily handle being "simplified" with a one-button mouse for those who need it?
Just something to think about.
Yup, RMB is perfectly consistant in windows. Except when options are missing from a context.
Changa hates change.
No, they want to change the law so it's illegal to sell the normal chips, or so I assume.
(Stripes Quote)
Perhaps all those 1-button Mac mice could be gutted out and converted to computer microphones or something useful?
Clickety Click
Just curious, what folder options are you using for the Desktop? I guess if you wanted to copy all of the things on the desktop you could use the folder level copy. That's about all I can think of.. or maybe you wanted to give other users access to your desktop. The desktop isn't "just another folder" though. It's a special folder whose contents are displayed, duh, on the desktop. If you want a folder, use a folder, not the desktop.
Also, you'll note that most of my statements above are couched with "almost", etc., and even pointed out one of the wacky cases. You pointed out another. Congrats.
I couldn't agree more. I firmly believe that a "pointing device" should only provide cursor movement and selection (ie: only one mouse button).
I know it's a flame to say such a thing, but I feel a "well written" gui should only need those two simple operations for full functionality. Things like right mouse clicks, double clicks, chords, and scroll wheels sould be for convience only and not an expectation of the gui. I think of it as a challenge to create a fully functioning gui with such minimal requirements.
That's not to say I don't enjoy having a scroll wheel or extra button or two on a pointing device, but I just don't feel that sould be a requirement for the gui.
So, although I never owned a mac, I've always admired the one button mouse concept. Although two button mice are nice, I always felt that Windows destroyed the gui by requiring such a pointing device. Then X Windows upped the bid with the three button mouse and the stupid backward compatible chording functionality (which always sucks).
I don't know about making it a requirement, but that certainly did the job. If I remember correctly, a mouse was merely "recommended" for Windows 1.0, and as a result, nearly every element of the early Windows UI could be accessed via the keyboard. OK, so those underlined Alt-letters get ugly (which is why MS is now hiding them by default), but if you care about efficiency, they're a godsend.
By contrast, every Mac ever sold came with a mouse (until very recently, that is), so the UI neglected to include decent keyboard support. It wasn't until OS X (and not even the first version) that it finally became possible to access the pull-down menu with the keyboard (and even so, it's still off by default... and even requires the use of a mouse to enable it).
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
The site's with the Electronic Freedom Foudnation, is about media freedom and electronic freedom, so I made the assumption that the phrases used were a criticism of DRM technology. That would mean that the content the D/A & A/D chips play with is encrypted; the only way to stop the sale of these essntial pieces of electronics would be under the INDUCE Act (as items that made possible breach of copyrights).
I assume that chip foundries wil still produce the existing chips: digital solutions require D/A conversion, but newer models won't exist without rights management on silicon next to the D/A.
Conveniently enough, right clicking the icon and then right clicking 'rename' does the exact same thing as right clicking the icon and then left clicking 'rename'.
as far as i can tell, my replay 5000 series does everything the 4000 series did, except share shows over the internet - a dubious feature at best (when the service was available, there was no bittorrent to make the bandwidth burden easier. when a show i copy from my 5080 over to my mac takes a half hour over ethernet, i cringe to think how long it would take to upload to a friend over cable/DSL)
there's still a 30 second skip button, and it doesn't take a hack to activate it. for that matter, if you press the forward arrow on the remote, the show skips forward to the next "chapter" - on most shows these are set (don't ask me how they're set - the box seems to know where they are) at the beginning and end of each commercial break. even the 30 second skip knows where these are and usually drops into the video about a second before the end of the last commercial in a break in lieu of jumping the full 30 seconds ahead.
as a longtime mac user, i'm used to people forecasting the doom and extinction of the things i own and their manufacturer, so i'm not too upset by my "fringe" DVR being called extinct. i just hope replay (or their new owners, anyway) stick around and do as well as Apple has since they were all but declared dead in the mid '90s
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
...you must be a criminal by the MPAA and RIAA's definitions.
At this point, I've accepted that there are things I do that may someday be considered a crime. I don't plan to stop:
-Record TV shows from my DirecTV reciever that I pay a monthly subscription fee for into my computer using a Hauppauge PVR250 card for archival purposes (to show friends and family when they come over)
-Rip all CDs that I buy to the infinitely more convenient Ogg Vorbis format so that I can listen to my music anywhere
-Stream any audio or video from my house to wherever I happen to be using a VPN connection and broadbad. This means I can listen to my music collection, watch my DVDs or even DirecTV as long as I have an internet connection
-Build custom digital media devices that don't have the limitations that commercial products do
The way things are going, I'm sure these things will become illegal eventually. It's a wonder it's not illegal to use a hammer, nails, screwdriver, drywall, plaster and screws to build or modify your house any way you want to.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
So you're saying the target audience for a Mac is 5yr old children.
Makes sense.
99% of users have two or more mouse buttons.
it maintains the very sensible UI rule that you should be able to do everything without using it - all features you'd RMB for are available in the menu
For moronically simple programs, yes, that's true. For programs that are involve multiple tools, preferences, whatever, what you do is essentially bury things in the menu that could also be contextual. I'd rather right click and see the options that pertain to what I clicked on, than find it buried in a menu, Also, double-clicking, holding the button for two seconds after clicking, or doing the old CMD-click, alt-click, or whatever are all more awkward ways of getting around a right click, so those don't count.
So ultimately, the challenge is to develop a program that can do everything using either a single click, or a click and drag, without using the keyboard. That's hard - even Apple's given that up long ago. Now the mess they have is trying to remember which key I have to hit while clicking to get the necessary functionality, and that is NOT better than a second button. I say this as a powerbook owner.
Extra buttons and wheels are undoubtably useful things for shortcuts, but the design principle that everything should be available in a consistent manner without HAVING to use them is great for those of us that don't use them very often.
It always is. I've NEVER seen a functionality that could ONLY be found through use of the right mouse button. Anyone who does that as a programmer, I agree, should be shot. For that matter, I don't much like functionality that can only be done with keyboard or only with mouse.
Ultimately, right-clicking when used well is a convenient redundancy - everything's still in the main menu, but who wouldn't rather have it attached to the object being used?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I laughed at the "Endangered: Unencumbered Digital-to-Analog (D/A) and Analog-to-Digital (A/D) converters" . Any EE with half a brain can build a converter with a single I/O pin, a couple of resistors & capacitors costing pennies from Radio Shack, and enough CPU speed. Good luck getting rid of those!
Yes. You can do everything in Windows without using the scroll wheel or the right mouse button.
But it slows you way down - to MacOSX speeds, because you have to roll the mouse so much more.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
The problem is, since the majority of Mac users won't upgrade a perfectly working mouse, many 3rd party softwares won't take advantage of it.
You might get mouse wheel functionality, maybe it will be consistent maybe it won't. If all Mac users had a multi-button mouse, there would be more uniformity in the way they work. Sure, Windows apps don't all do the same thing, but for 99% of the time when you right-click something it brings up a menu of operations you can do on the current mouse target.
I like a simple mouse. Two buttons, and the mouse scroll wheel in the middle, which doubles as the middle mouse button. I don't like the web browsing crap or anything. But one button is just frustrating.
As far as the notebook thing, I don't personally have any trouble working a multi-button mouse on one. And I like the scroll zones on the touchpads, and I prefer tapping over using a button. I rarely right-click on notebook as it's not comfortable to do so, and you never HAVE to not even in Windows.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
shipping of the one-button mouse is a Good Thing.
Because not all users have a right mouse-button
Holy circular logic Batman!
All users would have a right mouse button if they hadn't been shipping one-button meese in the first place.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
If you have to go out and buy a multi-button mouse because no Mac's come with them, it is an add-on. Supported, sure. But not standard equipment.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
It's a wonder it's not illegal to use a hammer, nails, screwdriver, drywall, plaster and screws to build or modify your house any way you want to.
There are building codes, so in some way, it is illegal. Also, for those who bother to ask, there are permits and regulation requirements. This means that in order to conduct a legal alteration of your house, you need at least a permit in many cases, and in cases where certain wiring needs to be done, or work is being done for a tenant (even if it's your house), then the regulations may require a licensed and bonded professional to do some or all of the work.
It's because of this crapola that I've learned not to ask government agencies about the legality of doing things myself. There seems to be no end to the requirements they pull out of the air, and then there's the too-frequent shock later on in finding out another "requirement" that no one told you about in the first place (but since you involved some inspector, you are utterly liable for it now -- kind of in line with Dracula's alleged motto "enter freely and of your own will").
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
How is it gun manufacturers can get away with manufacturing semi-autos that are a easily converted into full-autos, but a (say for example) HDTVtuner card manufacturer couldn't make the broadcast flag decoder dependant on one little easily removed jumper? Then somehow the knowledge of this jumper would work its way onto the internet and coincidentally their sales jump through the roof. Of course it's still illegal for you or I to remove this jumper, but that's not their fault that there are so many criminals in the world, is it? After all, PC cards don't violate copyright...people do.
"In many ways, it's a similar situation to CDs today - none of the attempts to replace CDs have been successful because CDs are "good enough" for 99% of the consumers."
Lets step back a minute here.
CD's offer very high quality digital music with no DRM.
The replacments offered so far are significantly poorer in terms of sonic quality and come with DRM.
SACD and DVD-Audio are fine for audio, but the music libraries available are a tiny fraction of CD's, and they come with DRM restrictions.
At this point, because of the way the RIAA views its customers as thieves, CD's will live longer than vinyl.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
There have in fact been some truely midboggling draft bills. Some which would in fact attempt to outlaw "non-compliant" A/D and D/A converters. It's the only way to "plug the analog hole". If such a chip thought it detected a DRM watermark it would shut down and stop converting data.
Remember, the people lobbying for these laws - and the legislators voting these laws through - have absolutely no understanding of what they are dealing with and what adding DRM circuitry to basic A/D and D/A converters means. All they know is that there is a "piracy problem" and that the experts state that this is the only way to "fix" it. They generally have no interest in listening to some commie pinko hacker theif explain why it is a STUPID plan.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Oh, I'm sure it does for you and me. I have no idea how, but when I tell people to do that, it ends up not working at all.
i use linux and windows oh god how can i have an opinion
Like the other poster has mentioned, in Windows you can key just about everything.
I've never had a hard time navigating a Windows system with a busted mouse. With my Notebook, I often just use the mouse for everything. The only time you run into some problems is with some 3rd party softare - but most of it works just fine.
"It's a daft justification for a very good point though - you really should be able to do everything with menus,"
I've never once seen a single application in Windows that you cannot access all the functions of "right-click" that you can via menus.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Shouldn't that fall under "died of natural causes"?
Because of geographical and political reasons, the United States of America has been the most important trade partner for these countries, so this agreement seems very important for the economic future of the region. Some people talk about the dangers of this treaty not being approbed, how many jobs will be lost and so forth. (Some of these concerns may be real, but some are FUD spread by the bussines which would get more benefits from this agreement)
Well, it just happens that this agreement has clauses that will require these countries to implement DMCA-like measures, like the outlaw of anti-circunvention devices for copyrighted materials.
Also, it will force the adoption of an US-like patent system, which will include software patents; and an extended protection time for pharma patents
It seems like to be eligible for the priviledge of "free trade" with the US, other countries will have to change their legislation to appeal more to the corporations that fund the U.S. goverment.
The way things are going, I'm sure these things will become illegal eventually.
For people like Mr. Gates who seem to like to throw around the label of "free-culture communists" at "Linux hippies" very loosely, they sure seem to enjoy centralizing the means of production.
"It's because of this crapola that I've learned not to ask government agencies about the legality of doing things myself. There seems to be no end to the requirements they pull out of the air, and then there's the too-frequent shock later on in finding out another "requirement" that no one told you about in the first place (but since you involved some inspector, you are utterly liable for it now -- kind of in line with Dracula's alleged motto "enter freely and of your own will")."
Uh huh. Remind me not to live next to you. If your house burns down because you couldn't be bothered with the rules? I don't want to catch the fallout.
You're correct in a way. But I think there is still a difference between reasonable application of building codes and what the MPAA and RIAA are doing. The buildig codes are put in place to protect your best interests if the city is reasonable. I live in a fairly reasonable inner ring suburb. I have completely rewired my circa 1914 house to code. That's reasonable. But I have heard of some other cities nearby fining people because they didn't use a metered torque wrench on their water main. In that city, the city "just so happens" to have such a wrench with a city employee available for hire to correct the "violation". That's unreasonable. The later is more akin to what the MPAA and RIAA are doing. They are getting laws made to protect THEIR own best interests, not the artists and certainly not ours. They are fucking abusers of the law.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
not only that, but anything available from the RMB is also available with the context-menu key
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
when the corporations are our new overlords /. on his forehead ... in the year 2000
and reign supreme over our lives in big brother fashion, some crazy geek with a
will start a cult of suicide bombers fighting evil corporaterism
Personally im willing to continue the battle, I do understand what is at stake, and think its worth fighting, even if we do lose in the end.
Always have.
The innocents need somone to fight for them, beacuse they dont uderstand what is going on around them. And wont until its far far too late.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Regulation is perfectly fine as a first cut ... but as I implied, and you noted anecdotally, secret rules are bullshit. If we are going to regulate home construction and alterations, we MUST disclose these regulations so the homeowner can comply.
You're correct that this is not exactly what the *AA are doing. What they are doing is Fascism. They are merging corporate power with state power. Since Fascism must eventually be fought outside courtrooms and legislative halls with a hail of bullets, I really have little problem with the *AA. We The People will simply disobey the law until the actual shooting starts (or less likely, the laws are revoked in favor of individual liberty). All those highly degreed twits in corporate offices should be educated enough to know that the bullets are coming from what they're doing, and if they don't, then they must be the best educated stupid motherfuckers on Earth. And "stupid" is eventually a lethal aspect to life.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
At least for the near term, FPGA's may be our salvation when that time comes..
We can control what goes in, and what is left out.
Sure speeds wont compare, but sometimes you have to comprimise to stay free.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The problem is, since the majority of Mac users won't upgrade a perfectly working mouse, many 3rd party softwares won't take advantage of it.
You might get mouse wheel functionality, maybe it will be consistent maybe it won't. If all Mac users had a multi-button mouse, there would be more uniformity in the way they work. Sure, Windows apps don't all do the same thing, but for 99% of the time when you right-click something it brings up a menu of operations you can do on the current mouse target.
What the hell? Do you even know what you're talking about? It's built into the system, that if you click the second mouse button on a mac, it's a ctrl-click, and hence brings up the contextual menu. And the mouse wheel is always a third button, though it may not have specific funtionality, and the scrolling works the same way every time.
I like a simple mouse. Two buttons, and the mouse scroll wheel in the middle, which doubles as the middle mouse button. I don't like the web browsing crap or anything. But one button is just frustrating.
It's only frustrating in a system designed for more than one button. Since OS X is designed with a single button in mind, it's not frustrating for the users because everything is accesable with one or two clicks.
As far as the notebook thing, I don't personally have any trouble working a multi-button mouse on one. And I like the scroll zones on the touchpads, and I prefer tapping over using a button. I rarely right-click on notebook as it's not comfortable to do so, and you never HAVE to not even in Windows.
So you do have a problem with multibutton mice on your laptops. You just said it isn't comfortable to use them, so you avoid the buttons alltogether and use the trackpad tap. That's exactly what i'm talking about. Two buttons on a tack pad make them uncomfortable.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Personally, I think that at some point the 'off switch' will be disabled, not just 'virtually' as you suggest ( which I do agree with you that it will happen )
At the point 'old' software wont be allowed to run. Be it directly by the trusted chip being 'on' and disallowing it, or due to the fact you cant get online and verify your software is ok to run with the 'central authorizing authority' ( who ever that ends up being )..
But its same result regardless.. It will effect older software on 'newer' hardware.
As far as not being able to get online, when it gets to that point I wont care. Ill turn off my access willingly. Remember there is more to computing then being online and playing the latest white-box game..
If I HAVE to be online at home due to work or something, then ill buy a small throw away comptuer and not use it for anything important and wont store anything personal on it.... I will just do my real comptuer work off line with the FPGA's ( and old un-encumbered machines )
There will also be the option for a return to a BBS style online-world, where freedom meant something... Assuming that isnt outlawed by then 'for our security'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Further, Apple provides the same type of functionality, but you have to use a control key. So what they're actually saying is "yes, it's a good idea to be able to quickly access a menu of common features, but we think it's better to have to use 2 hands instead of 2 fingers"
Umm, why don't all users have a right mouse button? Because they ship a mouse with only 1 button. When's the last time you saw a non-Mac mouse for sale with only 1 button?
Anyway, 1) all features using the RMB should be available through menus, the RMB just saves a lot of time; and 2) Apple agrees with being able to quickly perform common operations without browsing the menu lists, but without a RMB you have you to memorize tons of control keys (not a problem for an expert, but for newbs and casual users, it's more of a pain to remember all that crap than to just use the menus).