DRM does add costumer value to the product, for Macromedia's customers. Macromedia's customers, however, are not you and me. Most of Macromedia's customers are members of an organization that ends in AA.
I'm pretty sure you meant Macrovision and not Macromedia, which makes creativity software; but I think you've a good point. I'll play Devil's advocate and say DRM does add value to a product and the customer buying it. Let's say this value is in the form of exclusivity and competitive advantage.
Person A is a Macromedia customer. Person A has made a major investment in software, training, and time to become a creative professional. This puts Person A at a competitive disadvantage for another profession, say law. Person A believes he is only competing against other professionals who have made the same basic investment. He doesn't count software pirates with equal skill as competition.
Person B is a software pirate. He acquired his copy of Macromedia Studio as well as digital copies of various training books illegally. His initial costs were zero. If he competes against Person A at an equal skill level, Person B has obtained an unfair competitive advantage.
For sake of clarity, the advantage can be early, cost-free exposure to software. Let's say these two are animators. Person A is using 3D Studio Max and Maya cause he can't afford to be using Softimage or Alias. Person B pirated both along with Maya, 3D Studio, Z-Brush, and a slew of additional components. Person B is now arguably more desirable than Person A.
We accept competition in business when that competition is fair. Whether or not Person B is enough to cause Person A to want to quit, dump his investment, and do something else is beyond me. I would think not; but we might say there is a sound economic argument in the price of high end software and the inconvenience of acquiring and using it being a healthy deterrant against software users being hurt by unfair competition. We make the software a pain in the ass to move from your workstation to your laptop because we don't want animation houses in India to open up massive rendering farms all using the same copy of the software. Let's say it's not software and DRM. Let's say it's a factory in Asia that produces cheaper widgets than the factory in America, using labor that was made possible through the pirated machine parts, textbooks, and stolen designs.
Granted, I've shifted the perspective toward those who use a protected product professionally (music needed for scoring a television series or commercial) and away from those who use a protected product for leisure (music needed cause it's friday night and you want a block party).
We would be silly to think Apple TV would prevent download and streaming of illegally acquired video anymore than the iPod could illegally acquired MP3s, so once again you're on your honor. I have to agree, go with a high quality upscaling DVD player with Faroudja chip and component and HDMI outputs such as those made by OPPO. I own a 970HD and I love it. It'll be the last standard definition DVD player I'll own and it does DivX/XviD as well as a few other formats. No WMV, MOV, or MS-MPEG4v1/2 as of my firmware. It has USB input that supports reading from a USB drive, but that's really slow for streaming an DivX/XviD recording.
The answer then would be as you said, a quality DVD player with additional video support, but which also takes FireWire. People just need to be willing to burn their porn site sample vids to disc first.
This is playing out like a game of Illuminati: New World Order. Groklaw is a puppet of IBM, which in turn is a puppet of California, which is secretly controlled by Björne the purple dinosaur who is in bed with the Congressional Wives, a secret front for Empty Vee another puppet of The Morticians along with Fnord, the Fast Food Chains, and the Anti-War Activists. And we all know The Morticians work for the Phone Company who work for the Bavarian Illuminati itself. And SCO clearly answers directly to the Servents of Cthulhu. See it all just makes sense!!!
I'm inclined to agree and call bullshit to this. I survived MCI Worldcom, Global Crossing, and Metromedia Fiber among others. I've got boxes of papers from during and after the days when people like Bernie Ebbers and John Sidgmore were screaming that there wasn't enough bandwidth, while people like Gary Winnick were out conning businessmen into cabling deals. Maybe it's post-traumatic stress, but whenever I hear business people make vague blanket statements about there not being enough bandwidth I cringe and hide behind a tree on the off chance I'll get to club Jack Grubman.
I think it was inevitable, and here's the reason: Eddie Van Halen, punk rock, hip-hop, horror movies.
Open Source is a pop culture phenomenon. Linux wasn't its first attempt at stardom, but it was a major smash hit. Everybody in the world has Linux. If you lived in the suburbs you were issued it free along with samples of Tide. Open Source was rebellious. The neighbors hated when you played it loud, and mom and dad didn't much care for the new friends you were keeping.
Open Source got big just from that one breakthrough, and they earned all these new fans. There were a bunch of people were screaming "Hey man! I knew Open Source before Linux! GNU man! FreeBSD!!!" And yeah, we the new fans said, "Hey that sounds cool, but I'm really into this Linux. Richard who? Was he the original singer?"
We outgrew that for the most part as Open source got really influential. Soon it was everywhere, but like Metallica, Open source wasn't getting the respect it deserved. All of us in our campy t-shirts, messy hair, and our hard-earned pennies; yet we still couldn't get Linux in the stores. We got zero air-time. It sucked. But we didn't care, the music was pure.
Then suddenly, Open Source became cool, and everyone started doing it. They copied it. My sister asked to borrow my copy. IBM put out cute ads mentioning Linux as a principal influence. We got our own books and magazines. We were recognized, and we the fans shared much of the credit. But what about the original Open Source? Well, it matured. It got a little pretenious... a little fat, and somewhat... boring. Like hip-hop, it's so pervasive in everything that it doesn't merit being discussed separately. What's so special about a drop D tuning? What's so controversial about a bloody death scene in a horror movie when ever TV dramas feature them? Open Source got commercialized; watered down in the hands of suits who just don't get it. Sure, they get it. Buy hey man, they don't get it! We were doing it first, man! They're just copying the sound and the look, but it's got no passion, man!
And that is the death of Open Source as a movement. After a while, movements lose steam. Not because no one cares anymore, but because they aren't seen as a challenge to contemporary conventional wisdom. If closed source was the thesis, and Open Source was the antithesis; then what we have now is the synthesis. The only people who should care about Open Source not being appreciated as a separate doctrine are those that still want to focus all astronomical talk on how the earth orbits the sun. We know already.
I'll take a stab. Websites are not common carriers in the sense that ISPs are. Someone might argue that an ISP or RBOC cannot effectively or efficiently monitor the usage of its network by customers without incurring significant cost, impeding on the legitimate activities of third-party businesses, and fracturing consumer trust by invading customer privacy. A website can take minimal steps that won't cost much in order to keep its users safe. For example, a website admin can write a python script that will filter out threatening words in your social net's private messaging system. A telco or ISP can't accomplish this without the aforementioned consequences. Hopefully that makes some sense.
I am probably incorrect and confused, but aren't there additional factors that influence whether a site can have common carrier status, such as whether or not the site promised member safety or actively attempts to provide it? I vaguely remember this issue coming up years ago in the BBS world where a BBS claimed common carrier status when its members were uploaded either pornography or pirated software. It seemed that, if you want to be a common carrier, it hurts you if you were actively involved in policing the site for the material you want to safeguarded from. The idea being, if you can't know these acts are being committed, you can't be held liable; but if you can know, then you will be liable if you didn't do anything about it.
Maybe the appellate decision in A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster will be more influential in this case than the old Sony case. On the surface, it's all just time-shifting, and in Sony the majority opinion stated that even noncommercial, nonproft time-shifting was fair use even when unauthorized. But as you said, here XM makes and sells the device. IANAL, but maybe that violates the noncommercial, nonprofit aspect of allowable time-shifting. In Napster in which Napster tried to argue Sony I believe the court said the situation was different precisely cause Napster provided the technology for copying the music and were in a position to monitor infringement.
My gut feeling is that XM will have to pay additional license royalties to the music industry since that would likely be cheaper than nixing those players that their members bought precisely to be used with the service.
Additionally, users who decide to 'upgrade' to a more expensive version of the OS can simply activate the features they want by unlocking them via online activation.
Just a clarification, but does this mean Microsoft may be steering the Windows operating system towards being a kind of microtransactions-based product where you purchase a core OS and can then keep tacking on cool plugins features at a premium like Hi-Def content, codecs, themes, and utilities; or is it more like Apple with respect to MPEG-2 decoding in QuickTime, QuickTime Pro, and now 802.11n?
Dead in the sense that if the media needed to load games onto the console no longer is being made, no future games can be expected, but the release of Trigger Heart Exelica pretty much says otherwise. I know people are still making games for the Atari 2600, and I believe even selling a few. Long live Atari!
The clause "in support of lobbying contacts on behalf of a client" in 18.A is a potential problem. The "lobbying contacts on behalf of a client" is simple enough. That should be your professional lobbyists either hired to push a client's agenda, a lobbyist working directly an interested party, or organized activists that are raising money and supporting friendly candidates in elections. Is "support" defined? How formal does the support have to be? Say my blog agrees often with Cindy Sheehan's view. I can be said to be in support of her own lobbying efforts, but that is different from me working in concert with her. A plain language reading of the earlier clause "paid attempt" implies "being paid money to operate a blog," but is there any identification of a payor or payment within the context of this clause? We assume the payor is a lobbying firm, but maybe not. If I run a blog attacking a particular candidate and accept money for the banner ads I serve on the site, does that count? If, on the strength of my blog, I get invited to some protest hosted by a grassroots organization, is that a form of payment.
I see that Part B discuss the "paid" aspect a bit, so hopefully there's a legally unambiguous explanation of what constitutes payment. Hopefully it is all just FUD as you pointed out. But still, it begs the question, why is this bill necessary? Is it to make it clear to readers that the blogger is advancing a political opinion? If so, well that's obvious to anyone who can read a politcal blog. If it's out of concern that a blog site is making certain false claims as fact, then ordinary libel law should be in effect. Let the offending party avail himself of the justice system as the rest of us must.
Hell, the Civil Rights act was passed over the opposition (including, I do seem to recall, a filibuster assisted in by none other than the current #3 in the chain of succession) of Democrats.
You're speaking of Byrd right? I think so, but it would be very disingenuous not to point out that the Democratic Party of that era, like the Republican Party then, was very different from the Democratic Party of today. That was the era of the "Southern Democrats" who were a stark contrast from far more moderate and Liberal Dems in California and New England. In fact, look at the voting record for the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
In reality, this was a North vs. South issue and not a Republican vs. Democrat issue. Actually, I didn't realize the numbers were like this myself - this bipartisanship is making me well up.
The Democratic Party had a very difficult time trying to wrest the party free from the Southern Dems. Maybe this is somewhat like the difficulty moderate Republicans have with the evangelical and fundamentalist conservatives who really hijacked the party after Nixon lost in 1960 being so Liberal among other things.
You think I'm being overly partisan, just slagging Democrats?
Yeah, you are. *wink* Jokes aside, I think the real point here is that the party in power is never on the side of the First Amendment. Why would they ever be? The only people who need the First Amendment are those whose speech might offend those in control. When the Republicans were in power, they regularly stopped on the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment. Of course, they didn't do it alone; and I'm not even talking about Dems like Zell Miller. Ask any street photographer. Over the last few years many of us have been harassed, intimidated, and treated like criminals without having broken any laws. John McCain's quest to bring ethics to Congress is a joke, but apparently no one remembers he was one of the Keating Five.
To be fair, in the '80s Democrats like Al Gore trampled on the First Amendment under the threat of their congressional wives denying them sex if they didn't get behind censorship: PMRC.
It's a simple and systematic way of keeping down true independent press is what it is. Perhaps the reason cable news commentators wouldn't be subject to this is because as adversarial as newsies can be to politicians, they can also be of great use. Cable news people and politicans feed off of each other. They depend on each other for mutual survival. Even a negative story about your favorite love-to-hate politican can be a good thing as it keeps that politican in the limelight.
Blogs along with high-res point & shoot cameras and small camcorders are disruptive technologies that are liberating news reporting from elitist business interests. For the first time in history, news reporting is on the verge of becoming truly democratized. The media industry does not like this because it means they risk losing control of a product they have traditionally held a monopoly on, news. Politicans don't like it because it's much harder to keep an embarrassing video of a senator fondling a stripper from being aired on a few thousand blogs than it is three news channels. Both the media industry and the political industry have a vested interest in keeping news and opinion elite.
Ah, thanks for the correction. IANAL, but the length of these sentences sounds as if the cons in Tent City are there for mostly non-violent offenses with the exception of a few batteries and assaults.
It's a jail not everyone there is a criminal, many people are awaiting trial.
Actually, is that true? I was under the assumption that Tent City was a full prison and not a jail. Ergo, everyone in Tent City is a convict. The Tent City situation then is different from say, the jailcam at the Madison Street jail where Arpaio streamed video of people who are only detained in jail and who have not been convicted of any wrongdoing.
Hmmmmm if it is good enough for our military men and women who have died in the millions through out our history...
In the millions? Fair comment still. The difference here is that these are not soldiers. Inmates in Tent City don't get the same care as soldiers in the field do. Also, soldiers and marines have a generally higher level of physical stamina as well as training that aids them in prolonged exposure to harsh climates. The Revolutionary War stats are irrelevent. There were largely civilians with little real training except for what LaFayette and Von Steuben could provide. Also, these citizen soldiers often went without the proper equipment needed to survive prolonged exposure to the cold and suffered due to poor general health. They are vastly different from the highly-trained, fit professional soldiers that we have today (Disclaiimer: professional != mercenery here). Your average offender lacks training and fortitude. Are they suffering? They would say so. Of course, I don't believe the prisoners deserve creature comforts; my point is merely that punishment in Arizona and especially Maricopa County is harsher than in other jurisdictions, that there are complaints and admonishments, and that Arpaio's methodologies have not really been effective in deterring the most violent crime. In his defense though, he has a drug rehabilitation program that seems to have been successful. Do I still irritate you?
interesting and challenging development tools vs. interesting and challenging games...
I think that is what this whole argument comes down to. Those that earn a living developing on the PSx don't want an interesting and challenging environment to work in. If the tools are *that* hard to work with, it's going to ultimately affect game quality until developers figure out the machine. More and more games could turn out wonky, buggy, and just plain substandard by player's expectations - not because of poor game design, but because that design couldn't be effectively implemented given the PS3's challenging tools and the available time developers have to work.
If you're bread and butter aren't tied into churning out software, interesting and challenging development tools can be quite fun; a kind of hacking challenge to see what you can get your system to do. That's where I am with GBA programming. It's fun, but thankfully I make my money on other platforms.
Not very good that when the prosecutors couldn't convict him for the porn they still wanted to stick some conviction on him! What's the idea that someone handing copies of playboy to their friends be convicted of a crime? There's nothing illegal in that magazine. The US have some weird attitudes to tits and nudity (playboy ain't really porn).
I agree with you, especially on your last point. In this particular case, anyone living or working in Arizona shouldn't be surprised by this kind of prosecution. From what I read about this case, it takes place in Maricopa County (Phoenix,Scottsdale,Mesa). That especially sucks for the kid. Arizona prides itself on still being the "old west", and the prosecutors and sheriffs there are very heavy-handed to the point of being draconian. Several of the sheriffs even sport the stereotypical old western sheriff look (funny hats and mustaches included). Sometimes, the law enforcement atmosphere there feels like a perversion of "Gunsmoke" with emphasis placed on maximum punishment, and barring that, public humiliation.
The most notorious example is Maricopa county's sheriff, Joe Arpaio. He's nicknamed "America's toughest sheriff" for the tactics he uses and his treatment of prisoners (non-convicts included). He still likes to assemble posses from among civilians. He loves to be in front of the camera. He's not giving speeches every night, but he does like to make his presence known. Many of the locals love him; but many are afraid of him. Some even argue that he is abusive.
He makes his prisoners wear pink in order to humiliate them. He forces them to live in his outdoor "tent city" suffering harsh desert conditions (bare in mind that not all convicts in tent city are violent offenders). He installed webcams in Phoenix's Madison Street Jail so that the world could see prisoners in the world's first jailcam; however, it got him sued since these "prisoners" were only in jail, hence not convicted criminals. In one case, a female prisoner was broadcasted over the web using a toilet without knowing she was being watched.
I once saw him parade a chain of crying middled-aged women (all Mexican illegals) before a row of flashing cameras. He's been criticized for torturing prisoners, allowing prisoners to die in his custody, and in allowing officers to take advantage of prostitutes in custody (see Wikipedia entry). There have even been complaints that he has allowed undercover police in prostitution raids to receive full services from prostitutes before making arrests, resulting in nearly 60 arrests being dropped.
Recently, the Phoenix area has been experiencing freezing weather below 30 F, and inmates in Arpaio's outdoor prison "tent city" have complained about the cold. The sheriff's response was that if they didn't want to suffer, they should not have committing crimes. (sorry no citation, check KPHO.com). Most recently, he has listed outstanding warrants for approx. 70,000 people on the sheriff's website, and has encouraged all citizens to read the list and report individuals they identify on the list.
Ironically, as harsh as Arpaio is, and as popular as the sheriff is among hardcore justice lovers; he has really been successful in only instilling complete fear in citizens who aren't would-be criminals. Maricopa county still suffers from extremely violent crimes including regular home invasions, teen rapes, and the Baseline Killer which made national news last year. I believe there is even an ASU study that was funded using tax dollars under Arpaio's control that reviewed his tent city prision, and then determined that Arpaio's tactics are largely ineffective.
First off things do not magically compile and Apple provides proprietary hooks for open source software like OpenSSL and LPAD
What is there to compile? You download the appropriate PKGs and install from there, or was that your point? Mac OS X shares some of the burdens of Windows when it comes to patching. Unless you're adventurous, you have to wait for a patch to become available, then install it in binary form. This can be a drag, but thankfully there's a lot of avid Macheads out there with the technical expertise and willingness to make updating things like WebKit much smoother.
Some of my Mac OS X experience parallels my Linux experience. For preinstalled software such as Python, you'll download then compile/install a fresh version on your own into/user/local but you'll want to keep that old version around in case some critical piece of the operating system relies on that particular software version. It's easy to end up with multiple versions of the same app on your system. I don't have a Debian background, so I suppose apt-get can reduce this redundancy? There's also Darwinports and Fink for getting UNIX software in a more "pure" form.
I prefer to define Web 2.0 in terms of user experience; a combination of the richness of one's contact with other users, the way in which one's digital life is enhanced, and the freedom one has to access and manipulate content as if it were real and tangible. This is all while seamlessly blurring the interface between the user and content. By digital life, I mean one's usage of the Internet as a natural and daily extension of their life.
For example, through Flickr I can interact with my photo album with the same freedom I could a real physical photo album; only now I can search for specific photos far more easily as well as virtualize my photo album by including favorites from other users. Because the interface is seamless, I can manipulate digital photos the way I might film photos without thinking about working within the bounds of a piece of software.
IMHO, if you only examine a service's ability to process many different types of information, and a lot of it, then you focusing on the technology per se and ignoring the end result, which is that increased digital lifestyle and that increased sense of contact between a user and his data.
Web 3.0 should technically be a long way off. It should probably also require a massive amount of bandwidth. I think 3.0 would have to connect users to content and each other in a very immersive way. On the far end it could be very cyberpunk: virtual better-than-life realities where you and your penpal can sit and chat over coffee in a true to life virtual representation of Prague. Maybe it's something a little closer like the ability to control a webcam on the other end of the line rather than just passively watch, or the ability to manipulate computer-controlled sex machines during... well suffice to say, cybering will be very different under Web 3.0.
Sadly, I know some marcomm team will try to label the next big social net a Web 3.0 app just to show the designers were thinking out of the box in order to create a new paradigm... bleh.
I'm very interested in placeshifting since I am virtually local in two major US cities. Getting local drive-time radio on MP3 has been easy, but local television feeds have been impossible. It's my understanding that FCC rules prevent local network affiliates from operating in other television markets. Has anyone heard complaints over the possibilities a device like Sling offer?
Just to add to your major points, a working iPod retains its value. I just upgraded to a new 5th gen video iPod and gave one of my 1st gen iPod Shuffles away to a Windows PC user. She was able to use it without fail. I've had a couple of Windows based players that were so attached to Windows or their buggy transfer software that the DAPs are too easily made obsolete. I am comforted by the fact that a few years from now, if I decide to upgrade, I can give someone an excellent DAP. Call me old fashioned, but I think there's something cool about consumer electronics devices that hold their value over time.
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DRM does add costumer value to the product, for Macromedia's customers. Macromedia's customers, however, are not you and me. Most of Macromedia's customers are members of an organization that ends in AA.
I'm pretty sure you meant Macrovision and not Macromedia, which makes creativity software; but I think you've a good point. I'll play Devil's advocate and say DRM does add value to a product and the customer buying it. Let's say this value is in the form of exclusivity and competitive advantage.
Person A is a Macromedia customer. Person A has made a major investment in software, training, and time to become a creative professional. This puts Person A at a competitive disadvantage for another profession, say law. Person A believes he is only competing against other professionals who have made the same basic investment. He doesn't count software pirates with equal skill as competition.
Person B is a software pirate. He acquired his copy of Macromedia Studio as well as digital copies of various training books illegally. His initial costs were zero. If he competes against Person A at an equal skill level, Person B has obtained an unfair competitive advantage.
For sake of clarity, the advantage can be early, cost-free exposure to software. Let's say these two are animators. Person A is using 3D Studio Max and Maya cause he can't afford to be using Softimage or Alias. Person B pirated both along with Maya, 3D Studio, Z-Brush, and a slew of additional components. Person B is now arguably more desirable than Person A.
We accept competition in business when that competition is fair. Whether or not Person B is enough to cause Person A to want to quit, dump his investment, and do something else is beyond me. I would think not; but we might say there is a sound economic argument in the price of high end software and the inconvenience of acquiring and using it being a healthy deterrant against software users being hurt by unfair competition. We make the software a pain in the ass to move from your workstation to your laptop because we don't want animation houses in India to open up massive rendering farms all using the same copy of the software. Let's say it's not software and DRM. Let's say it's a factory in Asia that produces cheaper widgets than the factory in America, using labor that was made possible through the pirated machine parts, textbooks, and stolen designs.
Granted, I've shifted the perspective toward those who use a protected product professionally (music needed for scoring a television series or commercial) and away from those who use a protected product for leisure (music needed cause it's friday night and you want a block party).
We would be silly to think Apple TV would prevent download and streaming of illegally acquired video anymore than the iPod could illegally acquired MP3s, so once again you're on your honor. I have to agree, go with a high quality upscaling DVD player with Faroudja chip and component and HDMI outputs such as those made by OPPO. I own a 970HD and I love it. It'll be the last standard definition DVD player I'll own and it does DivX/XviD as well as a few other formats. No WMV, MOV, or MS-MPEG4v1/2 as of my firmware. It has USB input that supports reading from a USB drive, but that's really slow for streaming an DivX/XviD recording.
The answer then would be as you said, a quality DVD player with additional video support, but which also takes FireWire. People just need to be willing to burn their porn site sample vids to disc first.
This is playing out like a game of Illuminati: New World Order. Groklaw is a puppet of IBM, which in turn is a puppet of California, which is secretly controlled by Björne the purple dinosaur who is in bed with the Congressional Wives, a secret front for Empty Vee another puppet of The Morticians along with Fnord, the Fast Food Chains, and the Anti-War Activists. And we all know The Morticians work for the Phone Company who work for the Bavarian Illuminati itself. And SCO clearly answers directly to the Servents of Cthulhu. See it all just makes sense!!!
I'm inclined to agree and call bullshit to this. I survived MCI Worldcom, Global Crossing, and Metromedia Fiber among others. I've got boxes of papers from during and after the days when people like Bernie Ebbers and John Sidgmore were screaming that there wasn't enough bandwidth, while people like Gary Winnick were out conning businessmen into cabling deals. Maybe it's post-traumatic stress, but whenever I hear business people make vague blanket statements about there not being enough bandwidth I cringe and hide behind a tree on the off chance I'll get to club Jack Grubman.
I think it was inevitable, and here's the reason: Eddie Van Halen, punk rock, hip-hop, horror movies.
Open Source is a pop culture phenomenon. Linux wasn't its first attempt at stardom, but it was a major smash hit. Everybody in the world has Linux. If you lived in the suburbs you were issued it free along with samples of Tide. Open Source was rebellious. The neighbors hated when you played it loud, and mom and dad didn't much care for the new friends you were keeping.
Open Source got big just from that one breakthrough, and they earned all these new fans. There were a bunch of people were screaming "Hey man! I knew Open Source before Linux! GNU man! FreeBSD!!!" And yeah, we the new fans said, "Hey that sounds cool, but I'm really into this Linux. Richard who? Was he the original singer?"
We outgrew that for the most part as Open source got really influential. Soon it was everywhere, but like Metallica, Open source wasn't getting the respect it deserved. All of us in our campy t-shirts, messy hair, and our hard-earned pennies; yet we still couldn't get Linux in the stores. We got zero air-time. It sucked. But we didn't care, the music was pure.
Then suddenly, Open Source became cool, and everyone started doing it. They copied it. My sister asked to borrow my copy. IBM put out cute ads mentioning Linux as a principal influence. We got our own books and magazines. We were recognized, and we the fans shared much of the credit. But what about the original Open Source? Well, it matured. It got a little pretenious... a little fat, and somewhat... boring. Like hip-hop, it's so pervasive in everything that it doesn't merit being discussed separately. What's so special about a drop D tuning? What's so controversial about a bloody death scene in a horror movie when ever TV dramas feature them? Open Source got commercialized; watered down in the hands of suits who just don't get it. Sure, they get it. Buy hey man, they don't get it! We were doing it first, man! They're just copying the sound and the look, but it's got no passion, man!
And that is the death of Open Source as a movement. After a while, movements lose steam. Not because no one cares anymore, but because they aren't seen as a challenge to contemporary conventional wisdom. If closed source was the thesis, and Open Source was the antithesis; then what we have now is the synthesis. The only people who should care about Open Source not being appreciated as a separate doctrine are those that still want to focus all astronomical talk on how the earth orbits the sun. We know already.
I'll take a stab. Websites are not common carriers in the sense that ISPs are. Someone might argue that an ISP or RBOC cannot effectively or efficiently monitor the usage of its network by customers without incurring significant cost, impeding on the legitimate activities of third-party businesses, and fracturing consumer trust by invading customer privacy. A website can take minimal steps that won't cost much in order to keep its users safe. For example, a website admin can write a python script that will filter out threatening words in your social net's private messaging system. A telco or ISP can't accomplish this without the aforementioned consequences. Hopefully that makes some sense.
I am probably incorrect and confused, but aren't there additional factors that influence whether a site can have common carrier status, such as whether or not the site promised member safety or actively attempts to provide it? I vaguely remember this issue coming up years ago in the BBS world where a BBS claimed common carrier status when its members were uploaded either pornography or pirated software. It seemed that, if you want to be a common carrier, it hurts you if you were actively involved in policing the site for the material you want to safeguarded from. The idea being, if you can't know these acts are being committed, you can't be held liable; but if you can know, then you will be liable if you didn't do anything about it.
Maybe the appellate decision in A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster will be more influential in this case than the old Sony case. On the surface, it's all just time-shifting, and in Sony the majority opinion stated that even noncommercial, nonproft time-shifting was fair use even when unauthorized. But as you said, here XM makes and sells the device. IANAL, but maybe that violates the noncommercial, nonprofit aspect of allowable time-shifting. In Napster in which Napster tried to argue Sony I believe the court said the situation was different precisely cause Napster provided the technology for copying the music and were in a position to monitor infringement.
My gut feeling is that XM will have to pay additional license royalties to the music industry since that would likely be cheaper than nixing those players that their members bought precisely to be used with the service.
Additionally, users who decide to 'upgrade' to a more expensive version of the OS can simply activate the features they want by unlocking them via online activation.
Just a clarification, but does this mean Microsoft may be steering the Windows operating system towards being a kind of microtransactions-based product where you purchase a core OS and can then keep tacking on cool plugins features at a premium like Hi-Def content, codecs, themes, and utilities; or is it more like Apple with respect to MPEG-2 decoding in QuickTime, QuickTime Pro, and now 802.11n?
Dead in the sense that if the media needed to load games onto the console no longer is being made, no future games can be expected, but the release of Trigger Heart Exelica pretty much says otherwise. I know people are still making games for the Atari 2600, and I believe even selling a few. Long live Atari!
The clause "in support of lobbying contacts on behalf of a client" in 18.A is a potential problem. The "lobbying contacts on behalf of a client" is simple enough. That should be your professional lobbyists either hired to push a client's agenda, a lobbyist working directly an interested party, or organized activists that are raising money and supporting friendly candidates in elections. Is "support" defined? How formal does the support have to be? Say my blog agrees often with Cindy Sheehan's view. I can be said to be in support of her own lobbying efforts, but that is different from me working in concert with her. A plain language reading of the earlier clause "paid attempt" implies "being paid money to operate a blog," but is there any identification of a payor or payment within the context of this clause? We assume the payor is a lobbying firm, but maybe not. If I run a blog attacking a particular candidate and accept money for the banner ads I serve on the site, does that count? If, on the strength of my blog, I get invited to some protest hosted by a grassroots organization, is that a form of payment.
I see that Part B discuss the "paid" aspect a bit, so hopefully there's a legally unambiguous explanation of what constitutes payment. Hopefully it is all just FUD as you pointed out. But still, it begs the question, why is this bill necessary? Is it to make it clear to readers that the blogger is advancing a political opinion? If so, well that's obvious to anyone who can read a politcal blog. If it's out of concern that a blog site is making certain false claims as fact, then ordinary libel law should be in effect. Let the offending party avail himself of the justice system as the rest of us must.
You're speaking of Byrd right? I think so, but it would be very disingenuous not to point out that the Democratic Party of that era, like the Republican Party then, was very different from the Democratic Party of today. That was the era of the "Southern Democrats" who were a stark contrast from far more moderate and Liberal Dems in California and New England. In fact, look at the voting record for the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
In reality, this was a North vs. South issue and not a Republican vs. Democrat issue. Actually, I didn't realize the numbers were like this myself - this bipartisanship is making me well up.
The Democratic Party had a very difficult time trying to wrest the party free from the Southern Dems. Maybe this is somewhat like the difficulty moderate Republicans have with the evangelical and fundamentalist conservatives who really hijacked the party after Nixon lost in 1960 being so Liberal among other things.
You think I'm being overly partisan, just slagging Democrats?
Yeah, you are. *wink* Jokes aside, I think the real point here is that the party in power is never on the side of the First Amendment. Why would they ever be? The only people who need the First Amendment are those whose speech might offend those in control. When the Republicans were in power, they regularly stopped on the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment. Of course, they didn't do it alone; and I'm not even talking about Dems like Zell Miller. Ask any street photographer. Over the last few years many of us have been harassed, intimidated, and treated like criminals without having broken any laws. John McCain's quest to bring ethics to Congress is a joke, but apparently no one remembers he was one of the Keating Five.
To be fair, in the '80s Democrats like Al Gore trampled on the First Amendment under the threat of their congressional wives denying them sex if they didn't get behind censorship: PMRC.
It's a simple and systematic way of keeping down true independent press is what it is. Perhaps the reason cable news commentators wouldn't be subject to this is because as adversarial as newsies can be to politicians, they can also be of great use. Cable news people and politicans feed off of each other. They depend on each other for mutual survival. Even a negative story about your favorite love-to-hate politican can be a good thing as it keeps that politican in the limelight.
Blogs along with high-res point & shoot cameras and small camcorders are disruptive technologies that are liberating news reporting from elitist business interests. For the first time in history, news reporting is on the verge of becoming truly democratized. The media industry does not like this because it means they risk losing control of a product they have traditionally held a monopoly on, news. Politicans don't like it because it's much harder to keep an embarrassing video of a senator fondling a stripper from being aired on a few thousand blogs than it is three news channels. Both the media industry and the political industry have a vested interest in keeping news and opinion elite.
Ah, thanks for the correction. IANAL, but the length of these sentences sounds as if the cons in Tent City are there for mostly non-violent offenses with the exception of a few batteries and assaults.
It's a jail not everyone there is a criminal, many people are awaiting trial.
Actually, is that true? I was under the assumption that Tent City was a full prison and not a jail. Ergo, everyone in Tent City is a convict. The Tent City situation then is different from say, the jailcam at the Madison Street jail where Arpaio streamed video of people who are only detained in jail and who have not been convicted of any wrongdoing.
Hmmmmm if it is good enough for our military men and women who have died in the millions through out our history...
In the millions? Fair comment still. The difference here is that these are not soldiers. Inmates in Tent City don't get the same care as soldiers in the field do. Also, soldiers and marines have a generally higher level of physical stamina as well as training that aids them in prolonged exposure to harsh climates. The Revolutionary War stats are irrelevent. There were largely civilians with little real training except for what LaFayette and Von Steuben could provide. Also, these citizen soldiers often went without the proper equipment needed to survive prolonged exposure to the cold and suffered due to poor general health. They are vastly different from the highly-trained, fit professional soldiers that we have today (Disclaiimer: professional != mercenery here). Your average offender lacks training and fortitude. Are they suffering? They would say so. Of course, I don't believe the prisoners deserve creature comforts; my point is merely that punishment in Arizona and especially Maricopa County is harsher than in other jurisdictions, that there are complaints and admonishments, and that Arpaio's methodologies have not really been effective in deterring the most violent crime. In his defense though, he has a drug rehabilitation program that seems to have been successful. Do I still irritate you?
interesting and challenging development tools vs. interesting and challenging games...
I think that is what this whole argument comes down to. Those that earn a living developing on the PSx don't want an interesting and challenging environment to work in. If the tools are *that* hard to work with, it's going to ultimately affect game quality until developers figure out the machine. More and more games could turn out wonky, buggy, and just plain substandard by player's expectations - not because of poor game design, but because that design couldn't be effectively implemented given the PS3's challenging tools and the available time developers have to work.
If you're bread and butter aren't tied into churning out software, interesting and challenging development tools can be quite fun; a kind of hacking challenge to see what you can get your system to do. That's where I am with GBA programming. It's fun, but thankfully I make my money on other platforms.
Not very good that when the prosecutors couldn't convict him for the porn they still wanted to stick some conviction on him! What's the idea that someone handing copies of playboy to their friends be convicted of a crime? There's nothing illegal in that magazine. The US have some weird attitudes to tits and nudity (playboy ain't really porn).
I agree with you, especially on your last point. In this particular case, anyone living or working in Arizona shouldn't be surprised by this kind of prosecution. From what I read about this case, it takes place in Maricopa County (Phoenix,Scottsdale,Mesa). That especially sucks for the kid. Arizona prides itself on still being the "old west", and the prosecutors and sheriffs there are very heavy-handed to the point of being draconian. Several of the sheriffs even sport the stereotypical old western sheriff look (funny hats and mustaches included). Sometimes, the law enforcement atmosphere there feels like a perversion of "Gunsmoke" with emphasis placed on maximum punishment, and barring that, public humiliation.
The most notorious example is Maricopa county's sheriff, Joe Arpaio. He's nicknamed "America's toughest sheriff" for the tactics he uses and his treatment of prisoners (non-convicts included). He still likes to assemble posses from among civilians. He loves to be in front of the camera. He's not giving speeches every night, but he does like to make his presence known. Many of the locals love him; but many are afraid of him. Some even argue that he is abusive.
He makes his prisoners wear pink in order to humiliate them. He forces them to live in his outdoor "tent city" suffering harsh desert conditions (bare in mind that not all convicts in tent city are violent offenders). He installed webcams in Phoenix's Madison Street Jail so that the world could see prisoners in the world's first jailcam; however, it got him sued since these "prisoners" were only in jail, hence not convicted criminals. In one case, a female prisoner was broadcasted over the web using a toilet without knowing she was being watched.
I once saw him parade a chain of crying middled-aged women (all Mexican illegals) before a row of flashing cameras. He's been criticized for torturing prisoners, allowing prisoners to die in his custody, and in allowing officers to take advantage of prostitutes in custody (see Wikipedia entry). There have even been complaints that he has allowed undercover police in prostitution raids to receive full services from prostitutes before making arrests, resulting in nearly 60 arrests being dropped.
Recently, the Phoenix area has been experiencing freezing weather below 30 F, and inmates in Arpaio's outdoor prison "tent city" have complained about the cold. The sheriff's response was that if they didn't want to suffer, they should not have committing crimes. (sorry no citation, check KPHO.com). Most recently, he has listed outstanding warrants for approx. 70,000 people on the sheriff's website, and has encouraged all citizens to read the list and report individuals they identify on the list.
Ironically, as harsh as Arpaio is, and as popular as the sheriff is among hardcore justice lovers; he has really been successful in only instilling complete fear in citizens who aren't would-be criminals. Maricopa county still suffers from extremely violent crimes including regular home invasions, teen rapes, and the Baseline Killer which made national news last year. I believe there is even an ASU study that was funded using tax dollars under Arpaio's control that reviewed his tent city prision, and then determined that Arpaio's tactics are largely ineffective.
First off things do not magically compile and Apple provides proprietary hooks for open source software like OpenSSL and LPAD
/user/local but you'll want to keep that old version around in case some critical piece of the operating system relies on that particular software version. It's easy to end up with multiple versions of the same app on your system. I don't have a Debian background, so I suppose apt-get can reduce this redundancy? There's also Darwinports and Fink for getting UNIX software in a more "pure" form.
What is there to compile? You download the appropriate PKGs and install from there, or was that your point? Mac OS X shares some of the burdens of Windows when it comes to patching. Unless you're adventurous, you have to wait for a patch to become available, then install it in binary form. This can be a drag, but thankfully there's a lot of avid Macheads out there with the technical expertise and willingness to make updating things like WebKit much smoother.
Some of my Mac OS X experience parallels my Linux experience. For preinstalled software such as Python, you'll download then compile/install a fresh version on your own into
I prefer to define Web 2.0 in terms of user experience; a combination of the richness of one's contact with other users, the way in which one's digital life is enhanced, and the freedom one has to access and manipulate content as if it were real and tangible. This is all while seamlessly blurring the interface between the user and content. By digital life, I mean one's usage of the Internet as a natural and daily extension of their life.
For example, through Flickr I can interact with my photo album with the same freedom I could a real physical photo album; only now I can search for specific photos far more easily as well as virtualize my photo album by including favorites from other users. Because the interface is seamless, I can manipulate digital photos the way I might film photos without thinking about working within the bounds of a piece of software.
IMHO, if you only examine a service's ability to process many different types of information, and a lot of it, then you focusing on the technology per se and ignoring the end result, which is that increased digital lifestyle and that increased sense of contact between a user and his data.
Web 3.0 should technically be a long way off. It should probably also require a massive amount of bandwidth. I think 3.0 would have to connect users to content and each other in a very immersive way. On the far end it could be very cyberpunk: virtual better-than-life realities where you and your penpal can sit and chat over coffee in a true to life virtual representation of Prague. Maybe it's something a little closer like the ability to control a webcam on the other end of the line rather than just passively watch, or the ability to manipulate computer-controlled sex machines during... well suffice to say, cybering will be very different under Web 3.0.
Sadly, I know some marcomm team will try to label the next big social net a Web 3.0 app just to show the designers were thinking out of the box in order to create a new paradigm... bleh.
I'm very interested in placeshifting since I am virtually local in two major US cities. Getting local drive-time radio on MP3 has been easy, but local television feeds have been impossible. It's my understanding that FCC rules prevent local network affiliates from operating in other television markets. Has anyone heard complaints over the possibilities a device like Sling offer?
Just to add to your major points, a working iPod retains its value. I just upgraded to a new 5th gen video iPod and gave one of my 1st gen iPod Shuffles away to a Windows PC user. She was able to use it without fail. I've had a couple of Windows based players that were so attached to Windows or their buggy transfer software that the DAPs are too easily made obsolete. I am comforted by the fact that a few years from now, if I decide to upgrade, I can give someone an excellent DAP. Call me old fashioned, but I think there's something cool about consumer electronics devices that hold their value over time.