By itself, the decoding code does NOTHING.... a piece of code with passes the key to this script does NOTHING...
If I have one piece, but not the other, I don't have a "circumvention device," it doesn't work. If I have both pieces, but not hooked together, it still does nothing, so it's still not (shouldn't be?) a "circumvention device."
So, if I manually link them together on the command line every time I use them, at what point does the "circumvention device" get created?
Which ones are the A and B buttons again? All I know about are X, Circle, Square, Triangle, R1, R2, L1 and L2.
Damn you hackers and your non-standard custom-built controllers! It's a conspiracy I tell you, to keep the power of Linux from the common man! That's it, I'm writting a letter to my congressman. We're going to make it mandatory that Linux be available to ALL citizens on ALL devices with a microprocessor!
Wouldn't this lead to the ultimate overclockable machine? If you can replace the parts every day, every hour, every minute, or heck, just have the thing constantly regenerate itself, you could run WAY over spec and not care.
That might be expensive, but if that wasn't a concern....
Just a guess, but... the same people who insist that advertising doesn't make them buy stuff also have an irrational fear that marketers can force them to buy stuff simply by informing them that it exists.
I have to agree. I stopped reading Gamecenter a long time ago, mostly because I never seemed to agree with their reviews, so I didn't have much faith in them when they did finally get around to reviewing something. Gamespot is much better (but I still buy my PC Gamer in print:-) and the reader reviews can be helpful as well. www.dailyradar.com, www.gamespot.com, www.pcgr.com... that about covers my gaming needs.
How can open source "fail," in the larger sense? What are the successes of open source? Well, it's open, and it's source. Judging its success / failure by the business success metric or the money metric, or even by the number of users metric, is terribly misguided and kind of pointless.
Linux is what the people making it want it to be. It's probably not what the people leeching onto it for a quick buck want it to be, but that's their problem.
As for open source / hobbyist projects always being behind the curve and playing catch-up to the big software companies... well, that's the wrong way to play. I'm sure all academics will be relieved to hear your news that their research is totally pointless because some big company is just going to toss $$$ at every problem and solve it instantly.
I wouldn't sell the ingenuity or skills of the open source hobbyists short - they made this whole operating system thing after all. I'm not sure what more ingenuity you would like to see...
Well, I'm not much of a business person, but trying to sell something that is available for free always seemed to be a rather unstable revenue stream (although encouraging in light of RIAA/MPAA copyright paranoia).
That said, isn't it futile to argue "against Linux" in the general sense, in the same way one might argue "against pollution?" Linux is what the people making it want it to be. If it's any more, great. As long as people with the skills to improve it want to work on it, it can't be any less. Anybody who thinks differently has a pretty dangerous Reality Distortion Field thing going.
Linux was never meant to be a "business."
Linux was never meant to "destroy Microsoft."
Linux is just the Modern Hacker's dream come true - complete control over their own system/world. That control still has a lot of benefit to the business world.
letting people take $30 or $40 per month out of Hughes' pocket by not paying for the service
That's an interesting bit of logic there.... so, you're trying to say that if I download 532 billion CDs worth of mp3's, then the music company will lose (532 billion) * (price of CD)? It doesn't work that way. They can't LOSE money if you NEVER WOULD HAVE / COULD HAVE PAID THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE. I can pirate hundreds, thousands, or millions times more in sales price dollars than I could ever possibly afford. Technically it is possible to pirate more than there exists money to pay for it with.
Not justifying their actions, just saying this line of thinking is completely flawed. Piracy does not COST companies anything, at most it eliminates POTENTIAL profits, not ACTUAL profits. Take a freakin' economics course.
suprisingly, a lot of people forget this little fact. when it comes to broadcast tv and basic cable, the programs are not the product and the viewers are not the customers. in reality, the viewers are the product and the advertisers are the customers. broadcasters don't like vcrs because they let their products, you, me, and the rest of the viewers get away.
Erm... so, the solution is to not let people view things AT ALL, lose their fan base and generally become a technological nightmare to people who can't make their VCR stop flashing 12:00? That might be an extreme situation, but I still have this sneaking feeling that a) their plans aren't viable and b) they're going to find themselves without a market eventually.
PPV I can perhaps understand to some extent... except, you still have to pay for it at least ONCE, how many repeat shoppers do you get on something like that?
It still boggles the mind though... if the video and sound can reach my eyes and ears, it can be recorded. How many millions are they pissing away on unscrupulous lawyers, faulty statistics and bad technical advice? To achieve what? There can't be any long term benefit as long as we have any sort of ability (not even necessarily freedom) to break their protections, because they will keep going through the same money-losing cycle of R&D and litigation. Have they recouped a single dollar of their investment?
Just seems like bad business, but it all sounds really good to the inverstors, I imagine...
Interesting concept... I think that is the fatally flawed argument that comes up around all copyright issues - that every copy is a lost sale. It isn't. This is a luxory item, and if people can't get it for free, they will go without and not lose a second of sleep over it. The largest effect controlling distribution has is reducing the size your fan base, not recouping imaginary "lost sales."
And I'm aware 90%+ of the population isn't interested in anything but the stuff force-fed to them. It's my opinion that copy controls are MORE DAMAGING to the entertainment industry than ALL individual copying (organized, large scale piracy is something else entirely, but is not addressed at ALL by ANY of the current "copy control" mechanisms) by limiting interest in their product.
So, either there's something else going on, or the people in charge are incomprehensibly stupid.
My goal is not to boycott the MPAA or RIAA until they change their ways. My goal is to stop caring about anything they produce AND NEVER, EVER GO BACK.
If we demand to be entertained and are willing to sell our freedoms for it, we have little imagination or soul left to save.
Wow, a thoughful response to my random pondering.:-)
Have you seen the ads on places like the History Channel offering to sell you a tape of the show you just saw for $20? Have you then thought to yourself, "I don't need to spend $20 for their tape. I'll just tape the show the next time it airs."
You wouldn't happen to have any stats on the number of people who actually purchase such things? I have to suspect that the numbers are pretty low and the profit less than impressive. The only thing I've ever been tempted to buy was the Babylon 5 series, but fortunately I can do math and discovered just how expensive 5 seasons was going to be (ow).
All told, I really don't care too much about the RIAA or MPAA or HDTV. I've watched about 2 hours of live TV in the last 4 months. I have about 20 hours of Voyager, Stargate and South Park taped that I just haven't been motivated to watch.:-) Haven't been to a movie in ages (part boycott, mostly apathy). I'm much more interested in my computer - probably had more fun playing The Longest Journey than I would have at any recent movie anyway.
I did have a realization some time ago: if you really don't care about what these <replace by expletive of choice> are producing, they don't have any power over you. I don't want their crap, basically. I can create my own music and computer games and entertainment... or at least I can until all methods of creation are "potential pirating/copyright infringement devices" and declared illegal. That part bothers me. Fortunately (or unfortunately, take your pick) I'm not in the States... so the effect on me is lessened, but also my ability to do anything about it and keep the poison from seeping up here into Canada.
How much money does the MPAA lose from average people taping stuff that's being freely transmitted? ZERO? How much are they going to lose if people get fed up with these sorts of restrictions and find something better to do with their time?
I see two possibilities for such absurdity:
1. Somebody's getting paid a lot of money to LIE to the management of these companies (paid by the company as consultants I would imagine). This person would cease to be paid if there were no problems, so they get created artificially.
2. These companies are consciously trying to monopolize content distribution by making all distibution methods under their sole control.
There are probably more, these just popped into my conspiratorital (that's not a word, is it?) little mind the most quickly.
Instead, we're so imbued with certain stereotypes that we even let The Phantom Menace's "midiclorians" - the "tiny organism that inhabit every cell in your body and channel the Force" - slip by with little complaint.
So, a movie that isn't TRYING to portray realistic physics by any stretch of the imagination is probably closer to the truth than many that ARE trying.
Slashdot Mirror
That's very interesting...
By itself, the decoding code does NOTHING.... a piece of code with passes the key to this script does NOTHING...
If I have one piece, but not the other, I don't have a "circumvention device," it doesn't work. If I have both pieces, but not hooked together, it still does nothing, so it's still not (shouldn't be?) a "circumvention device."
So, if I manually link them together on the command line every time I use them, at what point does the "circumvention device" get created?
Which ones are the A and B buttons again? All I know about are X, Circle, Square, Triangle, R1, R2, L1 and L2.
Damn you hackers and your non-standard custom-built controllers! It's a conspiracy I tell you, to keep the power of Linux from the common man! That's it, I'm writting a letter to my congressman. We're going to make it mandatory that Linux be available to ALL citizens on ALL devices with a microprocessor!
:-)
Wouldn't this lead to the ultimate overclockable machine? If you can replace the parts every day, every hour, every minute, or heck, just have the thing constantly regenerate itself, you could run WAY over spec and not care.
That might be expensive, but if that wasn't a concern....
That's my point - there is no equivalent "legitimate" service to download my favorite music. Not that I know of anyway.
Why not use a legitimate site and support the music you love so much.
Hmm, like which site? Anybody have a link? Anybody?
Does that make you part of the "paranoid isolationist" target market or the "dislikes advertising" target market?
:-)
Why is everyone so f%^&ing paranoid?
Just a guess, but... the same people who insist that advertising doesn't make them buy stuff also have an irrational fear that marketers can force them to buy stuff simply by informing them that it exists.
On the topic of reviews...
:-) and the reader reviews can be helpful as well. www.dailyradar.com, www.gamespot.com, www.pcgr.com... that about covers my gaming needs.
I have to agree. I stopped reading Gamecenter a long time ago, mostly because I never seemed to agree with their reviews, so I didn't have much faith in them when they did finally get around to reviewing something. Gamespot is much better (but I still buy my PC Gamer in print
How can open source "fail," in the larger sense? What are the successes of open source? Well, it's open, and it's source. Judging its success / failure by the business success metric or the money metric, or even by the number of users metric, is terribly misguided and kind of pointless.
Linux is what the people making it want it to be. It's probably not what the people leeching onto it for a quick buck want it to be, but that's their problem.
As for open source / hobbyist projects always being behind the curve and playing catch-up to the big software companies... well, that's the wrong way to play. I'm sure all academics will be relieved to hear your news that their research is totally pointless because some big company is just going to toss $$$ at every problem and solve it instantly.
I wouldn't sell the ingenuity or skills of the open source hobbyists short - they made this whole operating system thing after all. I'm not sure what more ingenuity you would like to see...
Well, I'm not much of a business person, but trying to sell something that is available for free always seemed to be a rather unstable revenue stream (although encouraging in light of RIAA/MPAA copyright paranoia).
That said, isn't it futile to argue "against Linux" in the general sense, in the same way one might argue "against pollution?" Linux is what the people making it want it to be. If it's any more, great. As long as people with the skills to improve it want to work on it, it can't be any less. Anybody who thinks differently has a pretty dangerous Reality Distortion Field thing going.
Linux was never meant to be a "business."
Linux was never meant to "destroy Microsoft."
Linux is just the Modern Hacker's dream come true - complete control over their own system/world. That control still has a lot of benefit to the business world.
letting people take $30 or $40 per month out of Hughes' pocket by not paying for the service
That's an interesting bit of logic there.... so, you're trying to say that if I download 532 billion CDs worth of mp3's, then the music company will lose (532 billion) * (price of CD)? It doesn't work that way. They can't LOSE money if you NEVER WOULD HAVE / COULD HAVE PAID THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE. I can pirate hundreds, thousands, or millions times more in sales price dollars than I could ever possibly afford. Technically it is possible to pirate more than there exists money to pay for it with.
Not justifying their actions, just saying this line of thinking is completely flawed. Piracy does not COST companies anything, at most it eliminates POTENTIAL profits, not ACTUAL profits. Take a freakin' economics course.
OK, rant done.
suprisingly, a lot of people forget this little fact. when it comes to broadcast tv and basic cable, the programs are not the product and the viewers are not the customers. in reality, the viewers are the product and the advertisers are the customers. broadcasters don't like vcrs because they let their products, you, me, and the rest of the viewers get away.
Erm... so, the solution is to not let people view things AT ALL, lose their fan base and generally become a technological nightmare to people who can't make their VCR stop flashing 12:00? That might be an extreme situation, but I still have this sneaking feeling that a) their plans aren't viable and b) they're going to find themselves without a market eventually.
PPV I can perhaps understand to some extent... except, you still have to pay for it at least ONCE, how many repeat shoppers do you get on something like that?
It still boggles the mind though... if the video and sound can reach my eyes and ears, it can be recorded. How many millions are they pissing away on unscrupulous lawyers, faulty statistics and bad technical advice? To achieve what? There can't be any long term benefit as long as we have any sort of ability (not even necessarily freedom) to break their protections, because they will keep going through the same money-losing cycle of R&D and litigation. Have they recouped a single dollar of their investment?
Just seems like bad business, but it all sounds really good to the inverstors, I imagine...
...force them to spend...
Interesting concept... I think that is the fatally flawed argument that comes up around all copyright issues - that every copy is a lost sale. It isn't. This is a luxory item, and if people can't get it for free, they will go without and not lose a second of sleep over it. The largest effect controlling distribution has is reducing the size your fan base, not recouping imaginary "lost sales."
And I'm aware 90%+ of the population isn't interested in anything but the stuff force-fed to them. It's my opinion that copy controls are MORE DAMAGING to the entertainment industry than ALL individual copying (organized, large scale piracy is something else entirely, but is not addressed at ALL by ANY of the current "copy control" mechanisms) by limiting interest in their product.
So, either there's something else going on, or the people in charge are incomprehensibly stupid.
One further thought:
My goal is not to boycott the MPAA or RIAA until they change their ways. My goal is to stop caring about anything they produce AND NEVER, EVER GO BACK.
If we demand to be entertained and are willing to sell our freedoms for it, we have little imagination or soul left to save.
Wow, a thoughful response to my random pondering.
Have you seen the ads on places like the History Channel offering to sell you a tape of the show you just saw for $20? Have you then thought to yourself, "I don't need to spend $20 for their tape. I'll just tape the show the next time it airs."
You wouldn't happen to have any stats on the number of people who actually purchase such things? I have to suspect that the numbers are pretty low and the profit less than impressive. The only thing I've ever been tempted to buy was the Babylon 5 series, but fortunately I can do math and discovered just how expensive 5 seasons was going to be (ow).
All told, I really don't care too much about the RIAA or MPAA or HDTV. I've watched about 2 hours of live TV in the last 4 months. I have about 20 hours of Voyager, Stargate and South Park taped that I just haven't been motivated to watch.
I did have a realization some time ago: if you really don't care about what these <replace by expletive of choice> are producing, they don't have any power over you. I don't want their crap, basically. I can create my own music and computer games and entertainment... or at least I can until all methods of creation are "potential pirating/copyright infringement devices" and declared illegal. That part bothers me. Fortunately (or unfortunately, take your pick) I'm not in the States... so the effect on me is lessened, but also my ability to do anything about it and keep the poison from seeping up here into Canada.
Prepare to disengage random ranting...
Apparently I can't type (conspiratorital?) even though I can make up real words. :-)
How much money does the MPAA lose from average people taping stuff that's being freely transmitted? ZERO? How much are they going to lose if people get fed up with these sorts of restrictions and find something better to do with their time?
I see two possibilities for such absurdity:
1. Somebody's getting paid a lot of money to LIE to the management of these companies (paid by the company as consultants I would imagine). This person would cease to be paid if there were no problems, so they get created artificially.
2. These companies are consciously trying to monopolize content distribution by making all distibution methods under their sole control.
There are probably more, these just popped into my conspiratorital (that's not a word, is it?) little mind the most quickly.
<sigh>
More to the point... what would you have compiled WITH?? Hard to compile an OS or compiler without a binary OS and compiler...
Isn't that a lot like taxing me for all of the valuable code that I have obtained by writing it myself?
In more common terms, isn't that like getting taxed on furniture that you made for yourself? Or food you prepared for yourself?
Actually, that's exactly like getting taxed for the painting your amateur artist sister made and gave to you as a gift.
Exchange is Inappropriate for The Enterprise when it violates the Prime Directive!
Duh! (Not that it ever stops them though...)
Build a bridge out of her!
Instead, we're so imbued with certain stereotypes that we even let The Phantom Menace's "midiclorians" - the "tiny organism that inhabit every cell in your body and channel the Force" - slip by with little complaint.
Erm...
"Midiclorians" are probably supposed to be somewhat similar to "mitochondria," part of our cells that "are semiautonomous in that they can divide and grow to make more of themselves. They also have their own DNA and ribosomes."
So, a movie that isn't TRYING to portray realistic physics by any stretch of the imagination is probably closer to the truth than many that ARE trying.
[Flame omitted]
km = kilometer (1000)
m = meter (1)
mm = millimeter (1/1000)
um = micrometer (1/1000000)
so:
m/s = meters/second
um/s = micrometers/second
I don't know why it's a u (usually written in script, more like u... too many other m's I guess.
If you can enter code by keyword (i.e. select it from a menu) instead of by letter, it might work better...
No idea how this one is supposed to work though.