Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: OpenDocument, Intelligent Design, More DRM
Sony still not "getting it". c writes "Mark Russinovich continues his investigation of Sony's DRM as he tries out the official uninstaller. His verdict? 'I've analyzed virulent forms of spyware/adware that provide more straightforward means of uninstall.'" Relatedly Cronos1388 writes "According to the Inquirer an Italian group is also suing Sony over the rootkit." Also, an unexpected side effect of this technology is that script kiddies have been able to leverage Sony's tool to hide unauthorized cheat programs from the watchful eye of MMO creators.
Intelligent design supporters ousted. PMuse writes "The Register and others are reporting that all eight of the members of the Dover, PA school board that had required Intelligent Design to be taught alongside Evolution have been canned by voters in yesterday's election."
What does avian flu look like? DevL writes "Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson has managed to capture images of a H5N1 (bird flu) virus entering and taking control of a cell. While the text is in Swedish, the images speak for themselves."
Torrent user goes up the river. stinerman writes to tell us that the Hong Kong man who was recently arrested for making several movies available via BitTorrent has had his sentence handed down. Chan aka "Big Crook" uploaded Daredevil, Red Planet, and Miss Congeniality which landed him 3 months in jail.
Golden weighs in on OpenDocument debate. OSS_ilation writes "With so much FUD and anti-FUD flying in the face of Massachusetts' decision to go with OpenDocument, it's no surprise that open source advocate Bernard Golden weighs in with his take on current events."
User says new downloadable television just plain "sucks." Thomas Hawk writes "In the past few weeks the three major studios have all announced deals to begin offering downloadable television for consumers -- Apple/ABC, DirecTV/NBC, and Comcast/CBS. The problem with each of these respective offerings is that they largely suck. Apple sells expensive low res limited television from ABC. NBC's new service will only work on DirecTV DVRs (uh hello McFly, why pay money for this service when I can just record it for free). And CBS' downloadable programming could contain commercials."
Apple video uses QVGA, which is Quater VGA. It means exactly what you think it does, you can put 4 tiles of QVGA into one VGA image. That's 320x240 pixels. 320x240 VERY compressed pixels. VGA is the same resolution as NTSC. Yes, it's crappier than network television quality, if that's possible.
Go to TorrentSpy.com and download a 350 meg episode of Prison Break. With just DSL you can download faster than you can watch. Or go for a 700 meg version, which is insane quality.
These are just words, and words can not describe the bullshit that Apple is selling.
detailed at Washingtonpost.com's Security fix blog.:
From the article: "A class-action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of California consumers who may have been harmed by anti-piracy software installed by some Sony music CDs. A second, nationwide class-action lawsuit is expected to be filed against Sony in a New York court on Wednesday seeking relief for all U.S. consumers who have purchased any of the 20 music CDs in question.
The suit alleges that Sony's software violates at least three California statutes, including the "Consumer Legal Remedies Act," which governs unfair and/or deceptive trade acts; and the "Consumer Protection against Computer Spyware Act," which prohibits -- among other things -- software that takes control over the user's computer or misrepresents the user's ability or right to uninstall the program. The suit also alleges that Sony's actions violate the California Unfair Competition law, which allows public prosecutors and private citizens to file lawsuits to protect businesses and consumers from unfair business practice."
The Post also has a PDF of the California filing and suggests another nationwide class action will be filed in New York shortly.
The affiliates probably wouldn't be happy about either of those options.
" NTSC is 720x480, not 640x480."
l s
Its neither of those resolutions.
Take a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC#Technical_detai
and you'll see that while NTSC allows for up to 525 scan lines, only 480 are used due to their use for specific purposes (i.e. sync, vertical retrace)
For the horizontal resolution, the limit is really how small the dots that can be made, but in practice, that amouts to 440 (http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/vidres.htm).
Thus, the maximum resolution of NTSC is 480x440.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
There are no theories in evolution about how life began. You're yet another example of why people who don't know what they're talking about should keep it shut.
Good idea, but it only solves half the ad revenue problem. The network is happy, it gets the national ads put into place. But the affiliates don't get to sell the local ads.
Us old time satelite dish guys still remember the dead air "holes" the networks leave in place for the locals to insert local spots in. You can tell the locals, they are the ones with real prices, real dates, locations you recognize, etc. Sometimes you can hear the little tweedle-chirp that triggers the local tape players on and off.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
How the heck to you propose to prove that life spontaneously emerged from nothing?
How do you propose to prove that God spontaneously emerged from nothing? And let's not have the "oh he was always there" chickenshit answer - if that can happen with God, it can happen with the Universe.
Plus, evolution makes no comment on the origin of life. It is a theory on the origin of new species, which is a different thing entirely.
If scientific observation indicates that current theories are inadequate to explain the complexities biological structures, why would you want to supress that information?
That information is not being surpressed. Scientists acknowledge that, for example, we don't know what was around prior to the Big Bang. Scientists acknowledge that we're not sure of the exact mechanism of the beginning of biological life. Scientists acknowledge that we're still learning bits about how evolution works.
Intelligent design is being surpressed, but that's a different story alltogether. ID is just saying "we don't know how this works yet, so LET'S MAKE SHIT UP!"
Are You Infected by Sony-BMG's Rootkit? has a list of known infected CDs.
Here's the list as of this post:
==========
Trey Anastasio, Shine (Columbia)
Celine Dion, On ne Change Pas (Epic)
Neil Diamond, 12 Songs (Columbia)
Our Lady Peace, Healthy in Paranoid Times (Columbia)
Chris Botti, To Love Again (Columbia)
Van Zant, Get Right with the Man (Columbia)
Switchfoot, Nothing is Sound (Columbia)
The Coral, The Invisible Invasion (Columbia)
Acceptance, Phantoms (Columbia)
Susie Suh, Susie Suh (Epic)
Amerie, Touch (Columbia)
Life of Agony, Broken Valley (Epic)
Horace Silver Quintet, Silver's Blue (Epic Legacy)
Gerry Mulligan, Jeru (Columbia Legacy)
Dexter Gordon, Manhattan Symphonie (Columbia Legacy)
The Bad Plus, Suspicious Activity (Columbia)
The Dead 60s, The Dead 60s (Epic)
Dion, The Essential Dion (Columbia Legacy)
Natasha Bedingfield, Unwritten (Epic)
Ricky Martin, Life (Columbia) (labeled as XCP, but, oddly, our disc had no protection)
Several other Sony-BMG CDs are protected with a different copy-protection technology, sourced from SunnComm, including:
My Morning Jacket, Z
Santana, All That I Am
Sarah McLachlan, Bloom Remix Album
==========
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
A good portion of the voting Americans are crazy anti-science religious zealots, who are well-organized, and write lots of letters to Congressmen. How do you think Bush got elected? Well, a good portion of the Bush electorate are simply rich people who want to keep their tax breaks and ability to pollute without repercussion (specifically his homies in Texas--I'm looking at you, ALCOA).
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
That word does not mean what you think it means.
Don't worry. We'll get our chance in 2006. 4 of the 6 conservative board members who voted for this embarassement are up for re-election.
I'll do my part, and I'm sure my fellow Kansans will help me in trying to earn back a bit of the credibility we just lost.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!