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The Real Purpose of DRM
Roberto writes "Gorgeous nerd Annalee Newitz hacked a political interpretation to recent vacuum cleaner cockfights at O'Reilly's ETech: 'Hollywood corporations have finally admitted that the real reason they built digital restriction management (DRM) software into PVRs and DVD players was to stop geeks from turning their recording devices into back-alley combat machines. You haven't seen ugly until you've watched what a DVD player without DRM can do to a TiVo.' Don't try to even think of this at home."
April fools day is *so* yesterday.
Error: password can't contain reverse spelling of ancient Chinese emperor
Oh, wait, this is slashdot...
A late attempt to keep the secret of printed word hidden from the peasants and the surfs.
Those uprisings do cause ever so much trouble.
-Lord Rove II
My work here is dung.
Why would someone even want to turn a DVD player into a battlebot? And even besides that, Why would makers care? If more DVD players get destroyed, that means more are bought. Why spend more money to make less?
echo YOUR_OPINION >
"Don't try to even think of this at home."
What the hell does that mean?
Dude! This chick just made a joke about Ubuntu *and* Gentoo users in the same sentence and then went on to disparage Red Hat users. I don't know what bug is up your nether regions, but I for one am in love. (She also discusses "USB devices." *drool*)
Another one *shudder*.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Am I the only one who feels more confused after reading TFA?
Is this supposed to be a joke, or some form of satire? A "jest" at "nerds"?
Registered Linux user #421033
i want more ponies and barbie :( :( :(:(((
i dont like the othe r stupid stories.
You're forgetting, it's "Gorgeous nerd". It's relative at that point.
In your case then, "beer holder", not "beholder".
from TFA: Posted March 14, 2006.
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
Well, imho she is not that bad, and you should consider that:
1) you don't see the body
2) the photo is BW
3) the photo is small
4) the photo is crappy
5) there are people that appear not so good in photo but they are pretty in real life.
6) and most important, a girl can be gorgeous in her ideas and behavior, and you evaluate more and more this point of view as you get older.
therefore, you have to figure out in real life.
-- "If A equals success, then the formula is A=X+Y+Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut." - Einstein
It would be nice if women could be judged on the merit of their ideas instead of their looks. Just a thought, you know :-P.
So, you're actually some kind of lord?
http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/10d-2/annalee-newitz. jpg
I would have to agree I did a search on google images for her, and well
she doesn't seem to be that how shall i put it - attractive.
and one wonders why there aren't more geek women...
Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
6) and most important, a girl can be gorgeous in her ideas and behavior
So, how was your trip down the rivers of Egypt?
Gorgeous is about looks. This "but she has a great personality" stuff doesn't apply.
You can't take the sky from me...
Which one?
"That's a man, baby!" - Austin Powers
Btw. Slashdot, thanks for fixing that.
Have Linux installed at your place in Amsterdam, for cheap
I've seen people go from drab to sexy with just a change of clothes. These webcam images say that there's a good bit of room for potential. I definitely not expect a date with her to be drab.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I guess this is funny ???? ?????
7) Pictures on-line may be hours, days, months or years old and people's appearance will change. Her techsploitation info page has her looking either slightly butch or anime (you gotta have blue hair...).
So, basically, unless looking at her turns you to stone, let the original poster have his humble opinion and, if you want to disagree, that's fine, but let's not turn this into a discussion over whether this woman is hot or not. There's a website for explicitly for made for that discussion if you're into that sort of thing.
The photos of her almost make me want to stop being a geek *man*.
It had nothing to do with preventing unauthorized copying. The Hollywood corporations didn't care about that, no sir.
They were just worried about geeks cockfighting their dvr's and tivos in a parking lot outside Fry's at 2 in the morning. How humanitarian of them.
This (!gorgeous) woman needs her journalism degree revoked, because this article is ridiculously stupid tabloid trash. Whatever she's smoking, I'd like some please.
it's "Gorgeous nerd". It's relative at that point.
30 seconds on google image search, NSFW!
You can't take the sky from me...
Its rights.. not restriction
Some more images here; though sadly the one in bikini is not her. I'm afraid on the "hot or not" scale, it's "not".
...What?
While I have to agree with everyone who has posted that she doesn't strike me as particularly ravishing, I'm more annoyed with the fact that the submitter has to make any comment at all about her looks. I don't recall any submitted stories that began "Handsome hunk hacker Joe Blow has an article about...". While I'm used to people in the outside world thinking about looks first and substance second, I'm dismayed to find that seems to hold true for slashdot as well.
It's one thing for comments about people's looks to occur in the comments section. Lord knows there's always tons of comments about that one Mythbusters woman everytime a story about that show gets posted. It's more annoying when some comment about a female geek's looks appears on the front page of slashdot. It's almost as though slashdot is officially condoning that kind of crap.
I'm curious to know what the lady nerds here thought when they read the summary. You gals think I'm making too big of a deal of this or are you equally disappointed to find that female geeks are judged first on looks and second on substance?
GMD
watch this
How many hot babes do you know that have ID pictures that make them look like complete blobs?
;- )
That's a trick question!
You can't take the sky from me...
She's still no Jeri Ellsworth (inventor of C64-in-a-joystick). But maybe someone who can actually make cool hardware is more appealing to me than someone who just knows Linux in-jokes... I guess we can each have our own geek-girl appearance modifiers.
Some of these comments suggest that urgent humor transplants are needed.
http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=46278165&size= o
z .jpg
http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/10d-20/annalee-newit
rooooar
Your digital rights to swing your digital arm ends where my digital nose begins!
(Digital, digital, didgeridoo...)
Hollywood doesn't want the words "fair use" to be uttered to their congresscritters, and they want to draw attention away from the Sony fiasco. This is just an evasive tactic to lend legitimacy to DRM.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
As was pointed out yesterday by several posters, this year's April Fool's was more than a little misogynistic in that it seemed to imply(obviously through exaggerations as Slashdot normally does on April Fool's) that women would like pink and ponies rather than technology news. I'm quite willing to let that slide, knowing that subtle humour is not really Slashdot's forte - but really, they shouldn't push their luck by describing female writers as being "gorgeous" the day afterwards.
(I do know that "political correctness" is largely frowned upon at Slashdot, but really, this isn't about submitting to some ever-changing and arbitrary standard, it's about basic politeness and showing respect for the people you are describing. You don't bring things like physical looks into the picture unless they are somehow relevant, and you certainly don't set different standards for what is relevant depending on the gender of the person being described.)
(Oh, and if anyone feels the need to argue that though "gorgeous" in this context obviously wouldn't be said about a male subject - given the gender of the Slashdot editors - it is a harmless one-word compliment which doesn't lastingly change the focus of the discussion: do note that there's already a thread contesting that Ms. Newitz is "gorgeous" based on a 120x130 grayscale picture in her profile. (Which in and of itself confirms some stereotypes about geeks.) Would there be such a thread debating this unless the submitter/editor had seen it fit to mention this in the introduction?)
Is this really such a slow news day that this is news?
All women are beautiful.
ok ok... I saw much better, but also much worse.
Her eyes are really beautiful, though.
-- "If A equals success, then the formula is A=X+Y+Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut." - Einstein
Is it a slow Sunday or what? Is this the best that's come into the old Inbox today?
Aw Frell this
Just guessing, but probably this is what she is going to reply to the slashdot crowd relatively to this thread :DDD
-- "If A equals success, then the formula is A=X+Y+Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut." - Einstein
I think Annalee would have a response similar to this
I have absolutely no idea what that article was about. Whenever I thought something insightful was about to be said I was disappointed. Can someone actually tell me what that article was about (if anything)? Was it meant to be a joke article? What was the point of it?
That's the last time I do anything in a backalley with a vacuum cleaner and a cock, hur hur hur...
Do you see what I did there?
I'm sorry, but she has a signifiant other. "Annalee Newitz of the San Francisco Bay Guardian and significant other at the Computers Freedom and Privacy conference" :-)
I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
With the tagging system, we can tag this garbage as stupid! Maybe they'll realize we don't care.
If you read Slashdot, you've already read Annalee Newitz's columns about 3 months before they come out. If that doesn't give you a limp penis, you're probably a homo.
Like in many things, I suspect it's the negative stuff that gets noticed. That, and the fact that there are a HUGE number of immature geeks on slashdot. I'm not slamming the whole crowd here ... but with this many people and anonymity you'll get a lot of gits turning up.
I cringe at comments quite frequently, but there's just nothing to be done beyond grimace and stagger onward. In an anonymous online situation the chances are that if they said something dodgy in the first place they're not going to care if you pull them up on it.
Does anyone have a clue WTF this article is about?
If the summary is that bad, I'm not about to click the link.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
I was thinking more along the lines of "fat-assed, hook-nosed kike", but YMMV.
You can't fuck her eyes. Only her eye sockets.
OK, time to log off WoW for a few moments and catch your breath.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
She looks like a man, man!
http://www.techsploitation.com/img/conference.jpg
Mod parent up please, since I was beaten to the punch.
Oh five-digit member number, I salute thee.
TFA is useless! No kittens! No ponies! No fluffies!
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
...as soon as I read the first four words: "Gorgeous nerd Annalee Newitz"
what a crock of shit. I am so pissed I followed the link.
Damn you Cowboy Neal.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
There's more on Google if you're REALLY that interested...
i mg0171sized.html
h l=en&btnG=Search+Images
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oreilly/6770009/
http://joi.typepad.com/photos/cc_anniversary_03/c
http://images.google.com/images?q=Annalee+Newitz&
Registered Linux user #421033
Annalee Newitz a "nerd"? This is a woman who, after a visit to New York City, actually wrote a column fretting about how difficult it was to figure out the New York subway system. I mean, come on. Maybe it would be more appropriate to introduce her as "pony-loving Annalee Newitz..."
Breakfast served all day!
It's sad when an entire discussion on the dangers of DRM descends into a debate on the relative "hotness" of a woman shown in a 120x130 grayscale picture.
.... and a freaking school photo! How many hot babes do you know..
You must be new here.
This article reminds me of German. You have a sentence and about 3/4 of the sentence is a build up to the end of the sentence. Sort of like saying "The answer is 2*34-28+2, 42", instead of saying, "The answer is 42". This is why I labor trying to read any German book!!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Can I buy a Roomba and reprogram it to think it's a pony? OMG!!!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Roomba Frogger
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Quit bitching like a woman.
That all depends if she puts out or not.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
yeah women really hate it when you call them pretty. pfft.
if a girl thinks she looks ugly, you say she's pretty. if she thinks she's stupid you say she is smart. no wonder you nerds cant get laid.
...as ugly as hell to lay out this tripe commentary of your insecurity. :P
I'm not sure what you think you own. Good luck having a thought that has not been published in the last 100 years. RMS won't try to stop you from using the above phrase, but others will keep you from using equally common phrases and words. Then again, your view of what such an original thought entitles you to is skewed. Slaves frequently and paradoxicly side with their masters and direct the ire of their condition at their would be benefactors with comments that resemble yours.
Copyright has nothing to do with natural rights and everything to do with artificial restrictions. Copyright, in the US, is supposed to be a temporary exclusive franchise granted to the creator of a work. There is nothing natural about exclusive franchises and the framers of the US constitution hated them. They made a careful balance between such an odious restriction and encouraging publishers back in the very expensive days before machine produced paper and ink. Fourteen years. These restrictions should have gone down with the higher rewards, lower costs and risks of modern publishing.
Digital Restrictions are even more odious restrictions. This is because your DRM'd DVD player never has to give up the things copyright law expects eventually and it can enforce things no lawmaker could ever pass. The only thing worse than DRM is the raft of bad laws that make DRM and whatever a device maker decides into defacto laws.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Only if you roll higher than or equal to her armor class. ..What?
hmm, looks like a ball-busting lesbidike to me.
Hey makeup and lighting can work miracles... I've seen photos of Princess Ann where she looked like an absolute honey!
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
If you can't make a computer do what you want, you don't really own it. As computers become part of everything, it becomes possible for you to not own anyting. There's more to be worried about than appliances and vehicles. Your books, private photographs, recordings, and public records may all one day be owned by others.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Thought it might just be me, but the summary seemed almost incomprehensible to me...... I think I get the gist of it, but the phrasing seemed to be so awkward that it was almost impossible to figure out.
the RIAA and MPAA joined forces to have one global association called MAFIAA (Music And Film Industry Association of America).
:)
About time someone came out with this joke
Every day there's a new "real reason" for DRM. There is one reason which always seems true no matter what the daily fad is. DVD players are $40 because you can download DVD players for free. Blu-Ray players are $1800 because you can't download Blu-Ray players for free.
It's not her fault (she didn't say she was gorgeous, some random guy did), but IMO people can be held accountable for their beauty.
For example, people say I'm articulate, have a solid sense of humor and am pretty good with computers. If anyone said I'm "handsome" I'd immediately shoot them down because I'm not. I wouldn't want people to even remotely consider that part of my attribute list, because people meeting me would inevitably be disappointed.
Considering beauty is a measurable, sellable quality in business (Think how much models make -- and for what? Moving around and staring at a camera?), being "meat" has some value in our society. As one shouldn't say "I can fix computers" on a resume when they can't, one shouldn't be known for beauty when they're not.
Well, while there are a goodly number of geek males that would qualify as acceptable. The range of ones that would qualify as gorgeous (to females, or gay males I suppose) are probably rather smallish. However, were there to be a geek of bodybuilder scale, I wouldn't mind at all if it were mentioned as many here seem to equate that brains and brawn must run opposite to each other (or in the case of females, brains and beauty).
In my books, it's always nice to see geeks who can qualify as both intelligent and attractive. Not that it should comprise a whole topic of discussion, but at least they serve to show that you don't have to compromise in one area to develop another.
Since nothing interesting is going on in the comment department for this slashdot article, this is a neeto video on trusted computing I found on Youtube.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=K1H7omJW4TI
Well, at our last company Christmas gathering we had a little get-together with a gift exchange (or rather, a gift lotto). It was mentioned that several women at our main office had been wishing that they could have more painting projects as apparently one of our painters had a rather nice butt.
They awarded him a little name plaque attesting to his nice-assedness at Chistmas. Now if the environment were totally PR, or likely if he were a woman, this would have caused problems. However, as a guy he blushed a bit and really didn't seem that bothered. Personally, if it were me being nominated for nice-assedness (or having women ask me to get on a ladder to reach that "missed spot up there") I would take it as more compliment than insult.
As for the geeks... well it's not geeks chasing her out, it's juvenile males. Certainly I have no objections to striking female figures at work, and between my various locations there are quite a few to whom I'm always happy to trade a smile and hello. I wouldn't, however, go attempting to put somebody in an uncomfortable position, and if such a thing was happening it would be dealt with be management if mentioned.
So really, I wouldn't pin the problems on geeks in general, but rather the fine line between what's acceptable for the various genders, and how well it's controlled. And given that I don't wear my white-collar-and-tie for the very reason that I do some under-desk-crawling amongst the dust-bunnies, perhaps a skirt really isn't the best attire for a workplace where such activities can be required. I personally prefer to save my sleeveless shirts, ass-hugging jeans, and various other clothing for outside of my workplace.
Is this supposed to be funny? Sad what passes for comedy these days.
www.blueapples.org
1 - this article is bollocks 2 - i'm sure that all of you slashdotters out there are such paragons of beauty that you have the right to rip this lass apart, based on some mugshots? having seen the recent conduct of some people on here, i'm wondering why i even bother reading this anymore.
http://xkcd.com/313/
"Asking her to crawl under a desk to fix a cable whenever she'd wear a skirt (never on the jeans days)"
She wore skirts when she knew that her job would sometimes entail climbing under a desk?!?!?!?! Your friend simply dressed inappropriatly for her job. She was a hypocrate for complaining. You were kidding right? She didn't really wear skirts to a job that required climbing under a desk did she?
Simply amazing, all +5 comments are about this 'IT Woman' thing. Not even one +5 comment about the frikkin article!
Seriously guys, you are screwed up.
I don't know if anybody thinks Slashdot has journalistic/editorial integrity of any sort, but this kind of thing undermines even the illusion of being a serious news-and-discussion site. Geez...
Oh well. I've been around here too long to expect better.
DRM, like "two tier Internet", copyright abuse, IP lockdowns, domain name tyranny, and all kinds of corporate grabs of virtual property rights, are certainly means to a primarily political end. Even severely asymmetrical broadband, stymied 3G, and proprietary software requirements. The goal is to protect an official publisher class from encroachment by hordes of merely populist entrants, like you and me. 20th Century politics depends on special deals between political incumbents and media for mutual self-perpetuation. Leveling the playing field for incumbents and new, more diversified entrants who can fill all the niches more efficiently, is bad for everyone who's already got power.
That's why we find the same people on each side of each of those apparently different conflicts. Prosumers are the wave of the future, but the powers that be are hyperextending the "long now" as late as possible.
--
make install -not war
...until you get to know them.
BTW: How about posting your own mug so we can all sit around and judge you?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
In a non-serious, non-professional context, is it OK to slip in an irrelevant compliment about someone looks?
Sure. if it's relevant. When Bob Cringely interviews gorgeous supermodel Anina about mobile application development, that she's gorgeous is essential to the niche she occupies (and I back her use of "wee-fee" networking)
Or when Peter Quinn gets disgusted by the hoardes of stinky unkempt FLOSS nerds in Cambridge, it's relevant.
But when Slashdot starts posting stories about "Hunky Linus Torvalds" releasing the 2.6.17 kernel, that's just over the line.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"Gorgeous nerd Annalee Newitz..."
_ tech.jpg
http://www.alternet.org/images/managed/Columnists
You, sir, need to get a cock.
What the fuck.
She can take it out on the submitter who called her "gorgeous". Probbaly one of her buddies taking the piss.
Too Right!
I just wanted to provide you with an extract of my favorite song at the moment: Ugly - the Sugababes
People are all the same
And we only get judged by what we do
Personality reflects name
And if I'm ugly then so are you
So are you
What a bunch of blind shallow (yes, shallow) ninnies!
It is called a 5 dollar 12 pack of beer or 1 dollar 40's. In some countries they make a limit on how cheap alchohol can be, not in the US.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Why don't you post some pics of yourself and we'll let her comment?
Do you dudes wonder why you don't get laid? When you put a woman down like that it shows off your ego for the nanoparticle that it is.
This isn't "Women 101": this is the test you need to pass to get into Women 101.
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
Is that all?
You're forgetting, it's really "gorgeuous jewish nerd".
We're entering "dry water" or "a quick tortoise" domains of relativity here.
In most other cases, "gorgeous" rarely evokes nausea and vomiting.
DVD players have DRM ? This is news to me.
[sVen]
one wonders why there aren't more geek women
Because most women shower.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
...is best left to professionals.
Long ago, Rich Hall appeared on the Larry King show, and Larry suggested that people call in with suggestions for sniglets (which, you'll recall, are words that should be in the dictionary but aren't, that are supposed to have funny definitions, e.g. "elaccelleration, the belief that pushing the elevator button more times will speed it up").
The segment failed miserably. People's suggestions were not at all funny.
It was at that point I realized one advantage of being a programmer: everybody believes him/herself funny, but not everybody believe him/herself to be a programmer. Programmers don't get told at parties, "Hey, check out this great sort routine I wrote--you'll really like it."
Oh please. This has nothing to do with whether or not she is a geek. My point was, the submitter called her gorgeous when judging from other peoples responses, she clearly IS NOT (at least according to mainstream definitions of physical attractiveness). That was why I made my comment.
And if your comment was trying to say that women as a whole are driven away from geeks because they make these comments...well, NEWSFLASH! Most guys would make that same comment, not just geeks. In fact I think I phrased it rather gently compared to what a lot of other people were probably thinking.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
What we call things is up to us, the users of the English language. There is no reason to call something by a name pushed upon us by corporate propaganda machines--the RIAA doesn't own the English language.
If we want to call this technology "Digital Restrictions Management", it's bloody well our right to do so.
The comments are prompted by the description "gorgeous". I know exactly what I look like, and it isn't that, and I never claimed to be. But despite that somehow I do get laid, since you ask.
so wouldnt comments from morons prevent women from doing any job... because those comments exist in every form of work by some idiots
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Looks don't play a part here. The woman in question is not pretty, let alone gorgeous. Thick glasses and Breznev-style eyebrows don't spell beautiful to me, at least.