Don't feel too good about the economy either. The bush presidency only seems to have done a good job if you can't think of anything other than what's immediately in front of you. Things are fine now, but the huge trade deficit, the budget deficit, and outsourcing combined with insufficient education to make next-gen jobs available to the average US citizen are all going to come home to roost soon. Social security issues, soaring medical costs, and particularly that trade deficit should all scare you pretty badly. People seem to think that because we've been rich for so long God somehow guarantees that wealth. Well he doesn't, and if it starts to go away everything goes with it. So please, vote for responsible and long term economic polocies (or the people that support them).
Its called an externality, meaning that they suffer a very disproportionately small amount for the good they reap. It's what polution is, it's what turning the news into entertainment is, etc, etc. So no, they could care less. Oh ye commons, thy death is so tragic.
But you might be able to still fool it depending on the range it's designed to detect shots at. If it tries to detect.22's at 100m, then I'm sure a mobile phone held right next to it would be sufficient. It would then simply be a question of how close you were willing to get to the camera.
Not that I think any of this will ever become a real life issue. I'm sure the penalties for any such efforts will be over zealous and disproportionately high, so I suspect no one will find it a good risk.
Why do they need to be different files? I encrypt the file one way to start out. It's either secure that way or its not. If it's secure when I give it to the first person, how is it any less secure when I give it to the next? There's a monoculture argument, but I would say that it's irrelevant because in this environment anyone who cracks the file is going to post the.avi, not the key. If you read the interview with him, it's windows DRM and Windows Media Player querries the Bittorrent.com server when it tries to play the file and asks for the decryption key. There's no reason for it not to get the same key back every time, ergo there is no reason for the file not to be the same every time. The only time you have different files is if you tie the encryption (And the key) to the user's computer in some unique way, as a method to prevent transfer. But since it's tied to a given media player, the media player does all that work for them (or so I gather).
It requires too much hardware support to work. The problem is that since security is of course only as strong as its weakest link, everyone has to play along. People that make the motherboard, the video card, the monitor, everybody. If any part doesn't require an encrypted stream, then some company in china can make a card that circuvents the whole process (similar to the idea, though not the way, that people modded to mod their PS2's). Maybe that hardware wouldn't be available to the average US citizen, particularly for legal reasons, but markets in other countries would support it and then pirates would upload.avi's and we're right back where we started.
So anyhow, back to my original point, I don't think the **AA's will be able to control the entire stream well enough without breaking too many anti-trust laws, or anti-competitive laws. Hardware companies can't be locked out of the market if they refuse to build to content producer's specifications, and I think we'll even see them start lobbying against media companies when it becomes obvious to them that such collaboration hurts them anyway, because its cumbursome, expensive, and annoy's their customers. Sony wouldn't, because they produce content and the hardware it's played on, but those not as vertically integrated will. Why would I cripple my hardware for someone else's benefit? Are they buying me off? Well they can't because if you buy everyone off then you'll run into anti trust legislation. So the **AA's are screwed.
Surely you could develop a system that fired a far less intense beam milliseconds before the full power beam, that was used to map the reflections? With enough computing power, it shouldnt be too hard to tell what will happen when you actually fire, and if it's not to you're liking, you don't.
This doesn't seem to neccassarily be true to me. I don't know what the wavelength constraints are based on what travels well through air without losing a lot of energy, but aside from that there's no reason to pick a wavelength that damages eyes before it melts them. Sure a star-warsesque red or green laser would be bad, as would any of the ultraviolets, but infrared, for instance, would probably be ok, especially with goggles. The real dangers would be localized concentrated reflections, i.e. parabolic armor. But if you had enough computing power, you could shoot a 1% (or.01% whatever) intensity beam first, and look at how it reflected off all the objects around it. Then if all is ok, milliseconds later you fire the real beam.
Does it really matter what the EULA says at all? If I'm already pirating the software, can any type of agreement really be construed to exist between me and the seller, particularly given the shaky standing click-through EULA's already have? If an apartment building has a policy that all tenants must take wash their windows once a week or face fines, and that they agree to that contract simply by living there, would a squatter be bound too? That seems far to close to making "by reading this t-shirt you agree to let me punch you in the face" jokes reality.
Seems like a no go to me, regardless of what he put in his "license."
It doesn't proove their estimates were right. It prooves that they (likely) did a survey similar to this one, and that's where they got their numbers. Statistics are real, so surprise surprise, a second survey said much the same thing. Jobs isn't going to set himself up for an embarrassing fall, particularly because of the the way the Apple brand is marketed.
You believe that copyright fulfills it's premise, namely bettering society by encouraging creative works. I'm not going to voice my opinion on that, but if you do, then you would regard him as a destructive force, and harmful to society. Not much different than locking up a vandal. Or a thief. Not because the crime is overly similar (don't lecture me on it I already know), but because the end result _is_ the same. Economics are important. Remember that the only reason you have that nice computer to post from is because you were lucky enough to be born in a place with a great economy. Not so for your average Ethiopian, for instance.
But my point was that since we won't be able to "put more eggs in other baskets" for a while now, its not efficient right now to start. Since all we'd be able to do for the next few decades is get 8 or so guys up there, it's pointless from the regard of ensuring humanity's surivival. Why not work on something with more useful practical applications instead? Then when we have the tech to build a real colony, go do that. But a viable and useful human colony is too many steps at once.
Why not focus on robotic colonization instead? It's not like we'll be able to create colonies that would be useful without earth for many decades, so why not focus on building self sustaining colonies that _dont'_ contain people. In my mind it's breaking down a very hard problem into smaller, more managable ones. There aren't any compelling reasons (or at least few) to try and build a moonbase AND try and make it self-sustaining AND try and make it inhabitable all at once. We've seen the obvious benefits of unmanned craft in deep space exploration, so why not keep that in mind when we set up an installation at the moon? And anyway, in terms of trickle down tech, the advances in robotics would be HUGE. So one thing at time people.
Sure but that show would be lonelygirl15, and uh... all I'm saying is that because of what's catchy to males on the internet, the transition is going to be embarrassing.
Yeah or how important the fact that it suffers from the voluntary survey bias, i.e. people that want preinstalled linux are disproportionately vocal complainers (*ducks*). Anyhow, the whole thing is kind of masturbatory for slashdotters. We know the average consumer, and we know the average consumer isn't interested in preinstalled linux, and that the crowd that is is a fairly small minority. So great there was a statistically meaningless survey. Hopefully it reminds Dell of their dumb policy, but other than that, there's not really much news here.
This is just MAD with cameras. If someone is trying to ruin my life by watching my every move, the answer isn't to ruin his by watching all of his moves too. Human beings can't live properly under constant surveillance, particularly when those watching have power over them. Fewer cameras... not more. Thanks.
Mmm... I'm not so sure. I don't know to what extent it happened in Italy or any of the other fascist countries, but either way I think it occurred in Germany much more out of concern for efficiency then anything else. Hitler may have been smart enough to understand the power of the corporations to get him elected, and of course in passing the laws that gave him legislative powers etc, but neither he nor any of the other real power figures in the third reich were businessmen. Moreover, the reich's goals weren't really financial, and the country was hardly passive enough for the corporations to do anything other than make money through government contracts. I.e. since the country is at war or preparing for war, Nazi leadership is hardly letting Porsche et al sit around and enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the country.
So as badly as you might want to paint these people as fascists, you really can't. This is nothing more than some people being more equal than others because they have fat pocketbooks, and that's gone on since the dawn of human civilization, and it obviously that includes our history as well.
Fwiw, George Orwell wrote a good essay on the pointlessness of calling this or that "fascist" because no one really knows what it means, as it is used so broadly (google orwell+fascism+what). Anyhow, even if you just mean we are becoming like Nazi Germany, I would still have to say no, this is hardly an example of that. I mean hell, it used to be people and corporations could have private armies. Just because they send in some monkies to help carry stuff doesn't mean anything. Now if those monkies had been carrying the guns, and had come uninvited and without previous contract just hunting around, then you would have a complaint. But you really don't.
The point is that given a multibillion year process, even small variations in time are millions of years long. Since it's very hard to believe that all intelligent life would evolve _that_ closely side by side, seing as there aren't any obvious reasons for it to, one would assume that there are many percentage points of variation. So some races are still in the monkey or algae phases, but others... or at least they should be. Hence the paradox.
Why the hell is this modded insightful? The whole point is that they are being forced to pay someone they shouldn't have to pay for protection, how did you miss that?
I hate viacom, because I myself like to watch clips of TDS and TCR on youtube, but this is a shakedown. Corporations (at least L's like viacom) do in fact pay taxes, and they are supposed to have the protection of the law. They would have that even if they didn't pay taxes, i.e. S corporations don't suffer on that count.
So if I, a taxpayer, had to pay a local group (like say the mafia) to make sure my fence didn't get banged up or something, I shouldn't have to do that. I could hire a guard, and that may be in my best interests depending on the situation, but I shouldn't need to. Similarly, copyright ingringement, like property damage, is already against the law. Viacom shouldn't have to pay or make any agreements with another party to prevent it from occurring, and that party shouldn't say "well if you don't I'm not sure how we can help you." That's what a shakedown would is, by freaking definition.
I don't know the accuracy of that 97% statistic, but assuming Jobs wouldn't lie, and I'm willing to assume that, you could still form a pretty good argument for consumer lockin with Itunes itself. Irrespective of the amount of DRMd music on Ipods, I just checked wikipedia for it and well in excess of 2 billion songs have been sold via itunes. 2 billion dollars is a fairly significant consumer investment any way you look at it.
And to the extent that people keep itunes on their computers because of that investment, and no one really likes having two of the same thing (why would I use the Zune marketplace when I have itunes, and I'm not getting rid of itunes...), I think there is some lock in. Now, your first response might be "but apple doesn't make money off of itunes!" and that's true, but it could be a future investment for a time when, after renegotiations with lables, apple does make money there. Or perhaps keeping people using itunes and the apple brand in their mind is benefit enough.
Anyhow, I wouldn't be surprised if despite all this, when the death of DRM drastically increased the consumption of music, which it probably would, at Apple's market is music players here, then the swelling of that market in turn would outweigh any other disadvantages. BUT... as long as I'm at it, how much is 3%? If the average owner has a 1000 songs on there, thats still a thirty dollar investment, and easily enough to sway a decision over 200ish dollar players if the user decides he or she doesn't feel like burning and ripping (which I know I hate).
I like Jobs, but I also know he understands deeply that the strength of the apple brand is one of his best assets, and making sure that no consumer fallout for DRM tarnishes that in any way is important. So if he knows that he can preemptively dodge all that fallout with a letter, and the letter costs nothing and won't influence any of the execs making the calls, wouldn't he do that? AND he gets to be the good guy, like he loves.
So it's hardly cut and dry just because of that 97%.
Someone needs to explain to the general populace that GM food is still just food. If the genetic changes are bad, and cause the food to produce something dangerous, or more of something dangerous, that's one thing (and we should be weary of that of course). But there's nothing inherently dangerous about genetic alterations. I'm tired of the belief that the GM somehow gets into the food and makes it evil, explanation unneccassary. It's like people being convinced that irradiated food is radioactive or something. Sigh.
Ummm because Wikipedia is trying to be a real encyclopedia. How would you feel if you opened britanica and saw an ad for sunglasses or a fragrance? No ads in wikipedia.
I have a mixed feeling about that passage from psalms, because the language is non-authoritative, i.e. the "surely," and also it's not coming from a prophet or from Jesus, but regardless you were right, it's there. On the dinosaur thing again though, man and dinosaur can't have lived concurrently because there aren't any cave paintings of them, nor are they mentioned in any historical texts (or even the bible itself). All other large animals come up. So metaphorical interpretation looking better and better maybe. Anyhow, either way, I'm still impressed that at least someone doesn't kneejerk and halfass their religious opinions.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't feel too good about the economy either. The bush presidency only seems to have done a good job if you can't think of anything other than what's immediately in front of you. Things are fine now, but the huge trade deficit, the budget deficit, and outsourcing combined with insufficient education to make next-gen jobs available to the average US citizen are all going to come home to roost soon. Social security issues, soaring medical costs, and particularly that trade deficit should all scare you pretty badly. People seem to think that because we've been rich for so long God somehow guarantees that wealth. Well he doesn't, and if it starts to go away everything goes with it. So please, vote for responsible and long term economic polocies (or the people that support them).
Its called an externality, meaning that they suffer a very disproportionately small amount for the good they reap. It's what polution is, it's what turning the news into entertainment is, etc, etc. So no, they could care less. Oh ye commons, thy death is so tragic.
But you might be able to still fool it depending on the range it's designed to detect shots at. If it tries to detect .22's at 100m, then I'm sure a mobile phone held right next to it would be sufficient. It would then simply be a question of how close you were willing to get to the camera.
Not that I think any of this will ever become a real life issue. I'm sure the penalties for any such efforts will be over zealous and disproportionately high, so I suspect no one will find it a good risk.
Why do they need to be different files? I encrypt the file one way to start out. It's either secure that way or its not. If it's secure when I give it to the first person, how is it any less secure when I give it to the next? There's a monoculture argument, but I would say that it's irrelevant because in this environment anyone who cracks the file is going to post the .avi, not the key. If you read the interview with him, it's windows DRM and Windows Media Player querries the Bittorrent.com server when it tries to play the file and asks for the decryption key. There's no reason for it not to get the same key back every time, ergo there is no reason for the file not to be the same every time. The only time you have different files is if you tie the encryption (And the key) to the user's computer in some unique way, as a method to prevent transfer. But since it's tied to a given media player, the media player does all that work for them (or so I gather).
So they win an award for biggest waste of time... and somehow I read about it on the front page of Slashdot. Methinks the award was right.
ZzzZz.
Alright so we have to wait for them to elect Tony Blair before we can deploy. The tech isn't ready anyway, and I can wait.
It requires too much hardware support to work. The problem is that since security is of course only as strong as its weakest link, everyone has to play along. People that make the motherboard, the video card, the monitor, everybody. If any part doesn't require an encrypted stream, then some company in china can make a card that circuvents the whole process (similar to the idea, though not the way, that people modded to mod their PS2's). Maybe that hardware wouldn't be available to the average US citizen, particularly for legal reasons, but markets in other countries would support it and then pirates would upload .avi's and we're right back where we started.
So anyhow, back to my original point, I don't think the **AA's will be able to control the entire stream well enough without breaking too many anti-trust laws, or anti-competitive laws. Hardware companies can't be locked out of the market if they refuse to build to content producer's specifications, and I think we'll even see them start lobbying against media companies when it becomes obvious to them that such collaboration hurts them anyway, because its cumbursome, expensive, and annoy's their customers. Sony wouldn't, because they produce content and the hardware it's played on, but those not as vertically integrated will. Why would I cripple my hardware for someone else's benefit? Are they buying me off? Well they can't because if you buy everyone off then you'll run into anti trust legislation. So the **AA's are screwed.
Surely you could develop a system that fired a far less intense beam milliseconds before the full power beam, that was used to map the reflections? With enough computing power, it shouldnt be too hard to tell what will happen when you actually fire, and if it's not to you're liking, you don't.
This doesn't seem to neccassarily be true to me. I don't know what the wavelength constraints are based on what travels well through air without losing a lot of energy, but aside from that there's no reason to pick a wavelength that damages eyes before it melts them. Sure a star-warsesque red or green laser would be bad, as would any of the ultraviolets, but infrared, for instance, would probably be ok, especially with goggles. The real dangers would be localized concentrated reflections, i.e. parabolic armor. But if you had enough computing power, you could shoot a 1% (or .01% whatever) intensity beam first, and look at how it reflected off all the objects around it. Then if all is ok, milliseconds later you fire the real beam.
Does it really matter what the EULA says at all? If I'm already pirating the software, can any type of agreement really be construed to exist between me and the seller, particularly given the shaky standing click-through EULA's already have? If an apartment building has a policy that all tenants must take wash their windows once a week or face fines, and that they agree to that contract simply by living there, would a squatter be bound too? That seems far to close to making "by reading this t-shirt you agree to let me punch you in the face" jokes reality.
Seems like a no go to me, regardless of what he put in his "license."
It doesn't proove their estimates were right. It prooves that they (likely) did a survey similar to this one, and that's where they got their numbers. Statistics are real, so surprise surprise, a second survey said much the same thing. Jobs isn't going to set himself up for an embarrassing fall, particularly because of the the way the Apple brand is marketed.
These _are_ just estimates.
You believe that copyright fulfills it's premise, namely bettering society by encouraging creative works. I'm not going to voice my opinion on that, but if you do, then you would regard him as a destructive force, and harmful to society. Not much different than locking up a vandal. Or a thief. Not because the crime is overly similar (don't lecture me on it I already know), but because the end result _is_ the same. Economics are important. Remember that the only reason you have that nice computer to post from is because you were lucky enough to be born in a place with a great economy. Not so for your average Ethiopian, for instance.
But my point was that since we won't be able to "put more eggs in other baskets" for a while now, its not efficient right now to start. Since all we'd be able to do for the next few decades is get 8 or so guys up there, it's pointless from the regard of ensuring humanity's surivival. Why not work on something with more useful practical applications instead? Then when we have the tech to build a real colony, go do that. But a viable and useful human colony is too many steps at once.
Why not focus on robotic colonization instead? It's not like we'll be able to create colonies that would be useful without earth for many decades, so why not focus on building self sustaining colonies that _dont'_ contain people. In my mind it's breaking down a very hard problem into smaller, more managable ones. There aren't any compelling reasons (or at least few) to try and build a moonbase AND try and make it self-sustaining AND try and make it inhabitable all at once. We've seen the obvious benefits of unmanned craft in deep space exploration, so why not keep that in mind when we set up an installation at the moon? And anyway, in terms of trickle down tech, the advances in robotics would be HUGE. So one thing at time people.
Sure but that show would be lonelygirl15, and uh... all I'm saying is that because of what's catchy to males on the internet, the transition is going to be embarrassing.
Yeah or how important the fact that it suffers from the voluntary survey bias, i.e. people that want preinstalled linux are disproportionately vocal complainers (*ducks*). Anyhow, the whole thing is kind of masturbatory for slashdotters. We know the average consumer, and we know the average consumer isn't interested in preinstalled linux, and that the crowd that is is a fairly small minority. So great there was a statistically meaningless survey. Hopefully it reminds Dell of their dumb policy, but other than that, there's not really much news here.
This is just MAD with cameras. If someone is trying to ruin my life by watching my every move, the answer isn't to ruin his by watching all of his moves too. Human beings can't live properly under constant surveillance, particularly when those watching have power over them. Fewer cameras... not more. Thanks.
Mmm... I'm not so sure. I don't know to what extent it happened in Italy or any of the other fascist countries, but either way I think it occurred in Germany much more out of concern for efficiency then anything else. Hitler may have been smart enough to understand the power of the corporations to get him elected, and of course in passing the laws that gave him legislative powers etc, but neither he nor any of the other real power figures in the third reich were businessmen. Moreover, the reich's goals weren't really financial, and the country was hardly passive enough for the corporations to do anything other than make money through government contracts. I.e. since the country is at war or preparing for war, Nazi leadership is hardly letting Porsche et al sit around and enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the country.
So as badly as you might want to paint these people as fascists, you really can't. This is nothing more than some people being more equal than others because they have fat pocketbooks, and that's gone on since the dawn of human civilization, and it obviously that includes our history as well.
Fwiw, George Orwell wrote a good essay on the pointlessness of calling this or that "fascist" because no one really knows what it means, as it is used so broadly (google orwell+fascism+what). Anyhow, even if you just mean we are becoming like Nazi Germany, I would still have to say no, this is hardly an example of that. I mean hell, it used to be people and corporations could have private armies. Just because they send in some monkies to help carry stuff doesn't mean anything. Now if those monkies had been carrying the guns, and had come uninvited and without previous contract just hunting around, then you would have a complaint. But you really don't.
The point is that given a multibillion year process, even small variations in time are millions of years long. Since it's very hard to believe that all intelligent life would evolve _that_ closely side by side, seing as there aren't any obvious reasons for it to, one would assume that there are many percentage points of variation. So some races are still in the monkey or algae phases, but others... or at least they should be. Hence the paradox.
Why the hell is this modded insightful? The whole point is that they are being forced to pay someone they shouldn't have to pay for protection, how did you miss that?
I hate viacom, because I myself like to watch clips of TDS and TCR on youtube, but this is a shakedown. Corporations (at least L's like viacom) do in fact pay taxes, and they are supposed to have the protection of the law. They would have that even if they didn't pay taxes, i.e. S corporations don't suffer on that count.
So if I, a taxpayer, had to pay a local group (like say the mafia) to make sure my fence didn't get banged up or something, I shouldn't have to do that. I could hire a guard, and that may be in my best interests depending on the situation, but I shouldn't need to. Similarly, copyright ingringement, like property damage, is already against the law. Viacom shouldn't have to pay or make any agreements with another party to prevent it from occurring, and that party shouldn't say "well if you don't I'm not sure how we can help you." That's what a shakedown would is, by freaking definition.
Are we all that blinded by our anger?
I don't know the accuracy of that 97% statistic, but assuming Jobs wouldn't lie, and I'm willing to assume that, you could still form a pretty good argument for consumer lockin with Itunes itself. Irrespective of the amount of DRMd music on Ipods, I just checked wikipedia for it and well in excess of 2 billion songs have been sold via itunes. 2 billion dollars is a fairly significant consumer investment any way you look at it.
And to the extent that people keep itunes on their computers because of that investment, and no one really likes having two of the same thing (why would I use the Zune marketplace when I have itunes, and I'm not getting rid of itunes...), I think there is some lock in. Now, your first response might be "but apple doesn't make money off of itunes!" and that's true, but it could be a future investment for a time when, after renegotiations with lables, apple does make money there. Or perhaps keeping people using itunes and the apple brand in their mind is benefit enough.
Anyhow, I wouldn't be surprised if despite all this, when the death of DRM drastically increased the consumption of music, which it probably would, at Apple's market is music players here, then the swelling of that market in turn would outweigh any other disadvantages. BUT... as long as I'm at it, how much is 3%? If the average owner has a 1000 songs on there, thats still a thirty dollar investment, and easily enough to sway a decision over 200ish dollar players if the user decides he or she doesn't feel like burning and ripping (which I know I hate).
I like Jobs, but I also know he understands deeply that the strength of the apple brand is one of his best assets, and making sure that no consumer fallout for DRM tarnishes that in any way is important. So if he knows that he can preemptively dodge all that fallout with a letter, and the letter costs nothing and won't influence any of the execs making the calls, wouldn't he do that? AND he gets to be the good guy, like he loves.
So it's hardly cut and dry just because of that 97%.
Someone needs to explain to the general populace that GM food is still just food. If the genetic changes are bad, and cause the food to produce something dangerous, or more of something dangerous, that's one thing (and we should be weary of that of course). But there's nothing inherently dangerous about genetic alterations. I'm tired of the belief that the GM somehow gets into the food and makes it evil, explanation unneccassary. It's like people being convinced that irradiated food is radioactive or something. Sigh.
Ummm because Wikipedia is trying to be a real encyclopedia. How would you feel if you opened britanica and saw an ad for sunglasses or a fragrance? No ads in wikipedia.
Tapping a cane around forward to this.
Because the joke is... you can't... you can't see well... er... yeah sorry.
I have a mixed feeling about that passage from psalms, because the language is non-authoritative, i.e. the "surely," and also it's not coming from a prophet or from Jesus, but regardless you were right, it's there. On the dinosaur thing again though, man and dinosaur can't have lived concurrently because there aren't any cave paintings of them, nor are they mentioned in any historical texts (or even the bible itself). All other large animals come up. So metaphorical interpretation looking better and better maybe. Anyhow, either way, I'm still impressed that at least someone doesn't kneejerk and halfass their religious opinions.
Cheers.