Its rather late in the discussion, but for a lot of philips models all it takes is ir codes to region unlock them. look here for the basic instructions.
Its clearly a form of economic censorship with video games, music, and movies. Ratings, which are unfairly and arbitrarily decided by industry groups with no public accountability, determine how many people get to see said works. For a movie, NC 17 is akin to a kiss of death, silencing alternative and unpopular viewpoints. Its the same with video games, where ratings often determine which stores carry particular games. Parents and their children should be determining who sees what, through analysis of each case, not arbitrary industry forces.
I thought it was the funniest thing when I got IDed a couple of months ago buying fallout + fallout 2 at target. Sure, I'm a little young looking, but still;-)
By lobbying, do you mean telling your elected representitives you opinion? That is what lobbying is on a basic level, and because the people with the money are more organized, their voices are heard. Have you ever shared your opinion with your representitives?
I have absolutely no basis for this, but I imagine that licensing must come in to this somewhere, i.e. we will let you have all the nisans you want in your game, but laguna seca must be plastered with our billboards. There's plenty of crappy racing games with fake versions of real cars in them.
Well, I saw Mifune last semester at film society, and it was Dogma-compliant; it even had a certificate in the beginning proclaiming it to be so. However, it didn't make too huge of a difference: it was just a mildly interesting romantic comedy.
Okay, honestly I haven't made it all the way through the article, but it seems like a watered down version of two previous Ars Technica articles (they used the same source, so its not surprising.
Why not just let the entire thing be freely distrubted in e-book fashion, then add a bunch of links to various charities: those picked by slashdot editors, and those picked by the people that submitted the comments; this should keep everyone happy, while still allowing people to give to charity if they liked the book.
personally I still think people went overboard in criticizing the book publication idea: yeah, yeah, they should have asked, let us pick the charities, etc... but it will only reach a fraction of the people if just released online. I think people should look at the big picture.
Though its always a good idea to contact your congresperson and tell them your stand on issues, its not like this is in immediate danger of being passed as is. If you go to thomas.loc.gov and read the versions of the bill, you'll find the senate version has many rider type emmendments, like a patient's bill of rights, that probably won't be included in the final version. Obviously this is anther example of how government does lots of backhanded, under the table manuvering, and another reason why you should vote for real candidates in elections instead of the dominant party stiffs, but I think people are a bit needlessly worried.
Sure the political and election process is irrevelant. Have you ever watched c-span: "My distinguished colleague on the other side of the aisle is an idiot," "I ask unanamious consent to revise and extend my remarks," blah, blah, blah... However, they still make laws that affect all of us (americans anyway). Ok, so one can ignore/bypass the DMCA or other law, but wouldn't it be easier if it wasn't on the books? Fact is there are billions and billions of dollars and hundreds of years invested in the current system, and it meets its goals well. The rich continue to get richer, the environment is destroyed, individual freedoms are subjugated to the "rights" of corporations, etc... The current system meets these needs of the plutocracy perfectly - its going to take a lot to change that.
I'm not familiar with the ideas of the particular authors Katz is speaking of; how exactly do they envision the future of politics/government ending up? How will we prevent the current power structure from taking over the new tools of indivudual empowerment, as they are attempting to do now? Honestly, the recent story about Alexa just showed that coprorations are gaining more and more control. The top 10 websites get 20% of the traffic; that doesn't seem like individual empowerment to me, just another way of getting the mainstream viewpoint.
They're just a bunch of corporate types; here's how to contact the chairman and commissioners of the fcc:
Chairman William Kennard: bkennard@fcc.gov
Commissioner Susan Ness: sness@fcc.gov
Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth: hfurchtg@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael Powell: mpowell@fcc.gov
Commissioner Gloria Tristani: gtristan@fcc.gov
Honestly, lots of candidates was the way the founding fathers intended things; unfortunately the monopoly of traditional news sources and the two dominant parties have made it so the American public don't really have a choice. Hopefully people will realize that the internet allows them to really find out about the candidates, instead of just listening to their carefully scripted lies. Perhaps people will then learn to ignore the major media and realize that their vote does make a difference, even if they vote for someone that "can't win". I mean really, only 49% of those elligible voted in 96', so there's plenty of room for anyone to get elected. So vote for whomever you think is best, not one of the the dominant party stiffs that have been rammed down our throats.
-brian
I think some people are missing Katz's point
on
Frankenstein Time
·
· Score: 1
Regardless of what you think about Jon's rambling style or whatever, he always gets people talking, which seems to be his most important goal. In a world of soundbites, crucial topics like the HGP get boiled down to press conferences and one sentance summaries. The whole point of the open vs. closed media post was to push for discussion and questioning, not indoctrination. The 760 something posts at this point point toward success on Jon's part so stop nitpicking about everything. -brian
MP3's usually sound terrible!
on
Napster Wars
·
· Score: 1
Come on, I am so sick of everyone (including Lars and the kid in the article) saying that mp3's sound just like off the cd. Sure they can, but the vast majority are compressed so much they sound worse than tape. This is an important fact to spread; most every criticism of napster by rich industry types claims perfect digital copies can be spread instantly. On any halfway decent system, the difference is clear... Vinyl sounds better than cd or mp3 anyway;-)
I love the way he defines property: if you own a car, home, or the copyright on music, thats your property. However, if you shell out 25 bucks on a dvd, universal/seagram still wants to control where/how you watch it, and even tries to prevent you from watching the film digitally. Like many coporations they are hypocites: they complain about market freedom, intellectual property and the like, but try their hardest to restrict consumer freedom and choice (see microsoft,recent riaa colusion finding etc...)
I don't know, Its been my experience that real artists - people who feel that they have something important to express - will find a way no matter what the economic conditions. For example, I'm reminded of a film maker who visited my school who was a plumber by day in order to survive physically, but filmed in his free time to survive emotionally. This entire arguement really boils down to how capitalism is not getting it done - by turning everything into a big money industry, the truly dedicated are buried by the people who just want to be rock stars. Problems occur when everything must be turned into a chance for profit, including ideas; everything becomes competitive when money is involved to the extent that it is. I don't think the problem of intellectual property can be dealt with without first looking at the underlying system. -brian
This Capitalism thing really causes a lot of problems. There's nothing inherently wrong with genetic engineering (in my eyes) but whenever the object becomes making a lot of money, problems spring up. Side effects are ignored and understudied, because the companies don't really care what happens as long as they get rich. It would be better if we could all participate in the production process; if other needs besides money were considered, we might not end up with problems like this. Of course an overpopulated world adds to the problem.
This particular example illustrates how "solving" problems under this get rich quick system works. The development process at Mosansto problably went something like this:
1: Scientists realize that Bt kills potato bugs
2: Scientists add Bt gene to potatoes
They obviously didn't consider the potential effects of their decisions, or what other, less drastic, measures could be taken. I think everyone would be better off in following the custom of one of the NY Native American tribes (Oneida i think) that requires tribal leaders to sonsider seven generations in the past and seven generations in the future when making decisions. People need to consider the effects of their decisions instead of doing what is easiest or will make the most money.
I mean really, even a lazy college student such as myself can stagger out of bed and vacuum the floor once every few months. Is a robot really needed? As a society we already have more crap then we need, especially in the powered gadgets department.
I just read Brave New World for the first time, and all sorts of things I read remind me now how prescient Aldous Huxley was. Its been almost seventy years since he wrote the novel, and we are ahead of his pace.
While organized religion wouldn't be the first people I asked, It shows that these scientist considering the long term effects of their experiment. Humans in general don't often consider, or care about the side effects of their experiments. One example is the pioneer corn that has depleted monarch butterfly population.
I don't really understand why people would object to this experiment, though. As the article states: Dr Craig Venter, founder of Tigr and now head of the Celera Genomics Corporation, said the study was redefining life in terms of the genome, the collection of all a creature's genes.
Essential genes
"Will we eventually get to a molecular definition of life? I hope that will happen, yes," he told the BBC.
Understanding life at its chemical roots is a noble goal, and clearly one that organized religion would have been opposed to in the past....
As for creation being the realm of "god," humans have been making art and babies for many years....
I also don't think that this should be phrased as science versus religion, because organized science can be as rigid as organized religion. Organized anything is more interested in maintaning its dominant position than in doing whats best for humanity. We'd be better off if all these organizations were broken up and replaced with democratic cooperation between individuals and smaller groups.
Do you pay you taxes? Thats your money, that you earned somehow, going to the government. I don't see that its wrong for people to want to have more of a say in the way that THEIR government spends THEIR money. Its better to have your government spend your money according to your wishes, as opposed to other individual's wishes, or more likely, large corporation's wishes. In the US government and power is supposed to grow out of the people, so their wishes should dictate their representitive's actions.
Government already speends so much money on so many different causes and groups, such that:
1:No one can keep track of where the money goes.
2:There is no way that anyone can agree with all the different ways that government spends money
I'm not sure what you are trying to say; putting the people in charge of the way money is spent sounds like communism. Perhaps you mean that there should be no governments at all, that we should all fend for ourselves. Good luck if that happens.
As for the Mars petition: its wasteful to spend all that money at this point. Technology in this area is too primitive to really achieve anything useful. Whats the point of reaching Mars just to prove we can?
If you get rid of the entertainment industry, what would placate the hopeless masses? More money is invested in entertainment bacause it helps people forget about how big business and the corporations that run their life. A damn good investment for the capitalists, but a pretty poor one for the guy who pays eight bucks to get brainwashed for two hours.
Don't be so dramatic, if you have a job in the space industry, surely you can get one in the entertainment sector;-)
I think its great that Amphigory has found something that helps him survive in this world. However I don't think that bringing organized religion into schools is any sort of reasonable answer. Schools are already designed to teach conformity; they make sure no one has any sort of "different" ideas that might upset society. Religion would merely reiforce this training toward conformity; organized religions are based on the individual accepting certain views about the world and "reality" without questioning the ideas and actually thinking critically about the world.
To get back to the topic, its unfortunate that the fbi uses these criteria to single out these "different" students, and then observe them more closely. Obviuosly its in everyone's best interest to make sure that there is no violence in schools and society, but marking individuals for observation is not the answer. Schools need to become more flexible, more able to accept and encourage "different" viewpoints, instead of just reacting harshly to someone that doesn't buy into the system. The students and their parents should be able to take control of the education system, to tailor a curriculum that creates an individual instead of millions of little clones.
We are taking the wrong approach by encouraging fusion; it is too high tech, too central, and too capital intensive to be the solution for the imediate future. "Unlimited energy" just encourages unlimited consumption, which is not something this planet needs more of. We'd better off promoting appropriate, evironmentally concious technology, on a local level. This encourages resource conservation, something unknown in the US. The answer is to become more efficent with the current renewable/low environmental impact technologies we have, not to create new, more complicated technologies that will just casue more problems.The point is that there needs to be a shift in values toward conservation and appropriate technology, and away from the constant need for growth and more complicated, environmentally destructive technology. -Brian
Slashdot Mirror
Its rather late in the discussion, but for a lot of philips models all it takes is ir codes to region unlock them. look here for the basic instructions.
Probably too late for a response, but
.ogg?
will it support
does it work under linux?
Its clearly a form of economic censorship with video games, music, and movies. Ratings, which are unfairly and arbitrarily decided by industry groups with no public accountability, determine how many people get to see said works. For a movie, NC 17 is akin to a kiss of death, silencing alternative and unpopular viewpoints. Its the same with video games, where ratings often determine which stores carry particular games. Parents and their children should be determining who sees what, through analysis of each case, not arbitrary industry forces.
;-)
I thought it was the funniest thing when I got IDed a couple of months ago buying fallout + fallout 2 at target. Sure, I'm a little young looking, but still
By lobbying, do you mean telling your elected representitives you opinion? That is what lobbying is on a basic level, and because the people with the money are more organized, their voices are heard. Have you ever shared your opinion with your representitives?
I have absolutely no basis for this, but I imagine that licensing must come in to this somewhere, i.e. we will let you have all the nisans you want in your game, but laguna seca must be plastered with our billboards. There's plenty of crappy racing games with fake versions of real cars in them.
Well, I saw Mifune last semester at film society, and it was Dogma-compliant; it even had a certificate in the beginning proclaiming it to be so. However, it didn't make too huge of a difference: it was just a mildly interesting romantic comedy.
-brian
Okay, honestly I haven't made it all the way through the article, but it seems like a watered down version of two previous Ars Technica articles (they used the same source, so its not surprising.
emotion engine overview
ps2 vs pc
-brian
Why not just let the entire thing be freely distrubted in e-book fashion, then add a bunch of links to various charities: those picked by slashdot editors, and those picked by the people that submitted the comments; this should keep everyone happy, while still allowing people to give to charity if they liked the book.
personally I still think people went overboard in criticizing the book publication idea: yeah, yeah, they should have asked, let us pick the charities, etc... but it will only reach a fraction of the people if just released online. I think people should look at the big picture.
-brian
Though its always a good idea to contact your congresperson and tell them your stand on issues, its not like this is in immediate danger of being passed as is. If you go to thomas.loc.gov and read the versions of the bill, you'll find the senate version has many rider type emmendments, like a patient's bill of rights, that probably won't be included in the final version. Obviously this is anther example of how government does lots of backhanded, under the table manuvering, and another reason why you should vote for real candidates in elections instead of the dominant party stiffs, but I think people are a bit needlessly worried.
-brian
Sure the political and election process is irrevelant. Have you ever watched c-span: "My distinguished colleague on the other side of the aisle is an idiot," "I ask unanamious consent to revise and extend my remarks," blah, blah, blah...
However, they still make laws that affect all of us (americans anyway). Ok, so one can ignore/bypass the DMCA or other law, but wouldn't it be easier if it wasn't on the books? Fact is there are billions and billions of dollars and hundreds of years invested in the current system, and it meets its goals well. The rich continue to get richer, the environment is destroyed, individual freedoms are subjugated to the "rights" of corporations, etc... The current system meets these needs of the plutocracy perfectly - its going to take a lot to change that.
I'm not familiar with the ideas of the particular authors Katz is speaking of; how exactly do they envision the future of politics/government ending up? How will we prevent the current power structure from taking over the new tools of indivudual empowerment, as they are attempting to do now? Honestly, the recent story about Alexa just showed that coprorations are gaining more and more control. The top 10 websites get 20% of the traffic; that doesn't seem like individual empowerment to me, just another way of getting the mainstream viewpoint.
How can I, as an individual, fight back?
-brian
They're just a bunch of corporate types; here's how to contact the chairman and commissioners of the fcc:
Chairman William Kennard: bkennard@fcc.gov
Commissioner Susan Ness: sness@fcc.gov
Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth: hfurchtg@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael Powell: mpowell@fcc.gov
Commissioner Gloria Tristani: gtristan@fcc.gov
-brian
Honestly, lots of candidates was the way the founding fathers intended things; unfortunately the monopoly of traditional news sources and the two dominant parties have made it so the American public don't really have a choice. Hopefully people will realize that the internet allows them to really find out about the candidates, instead of just listening to their carefully scripted lies. Perhaps people will then learn to ignore the major media and realize that their vote does make a difference, even if they vote for someone that "can't win". I mean really, only 49% of those elligible voted in 96', so there's plenty of room for anyone to get elected. So vote for whomever you think is best, not one of the the dominant party stiffs that have been rammed down our throats.
-brian
Regardless of what you think about Jon's rambling style or whatever, he always gets people talking, which seems to be his most important goal. In a world of soundbites, crucial topics like the HGP get boiled down to press conferences and one sentance summaries. The whole point of the open vs. closed media post was to push for discussion and questioning, not indoctrination. The 760 something posts at this point point toward success on Jon's part so stop nitpicking about everything. -brian
Come on, I am so sick of everyone (including Lars and the kid in the article) saying that mp3's sound just like off the cd. Sure they can, but the vast majority are compressed so much they sound worse than tape. This is an important fact to spread; most every criticism of napster by rich industry types claims perfect digital copies can be spread instantly. On any halfway decent system, the difference is clear... Vinyl sounds better than cd or mp3 anyway ;-)
I love the way he defines property: if you own a car, home, or the copyright on music, thats your property. However, if you shell out 25 bucks on a dvd, universal/seagram still wants to control where/how you watch it, and even tries to prevent you from watching the film digitally. Like many coporations they are hypocites: they complain about market freedom, intellectual property and the like, but try their hardest to restrict consumer freedom and choice (see microsoft,recent riaa colusion finding etc...)
-brian
I don't know, Its been my experience that real artists - people who feel that they have something important to express - will find a way no matter what the economic conditions. For example, I'm reminded of a film maker who visited my school who was a plumber by day in order to survive physically, but filmed in his free time to survive emotionally. This entire arguement really boils down to how capitalism is not getting it done - by turning everything into a big money industry, the truly dedicated are buried by the people who just want to be rock stars. Problems occur when everything must be turned into a chance for profit, including ideas; everything becomes competitive when money is involved to the extent that it is. I don't think the problem of intellectual property can be dealt with without first looking at the underlying system. -brian
This particular example illustrates how "solving" problems under this get rich quick system works. The development process at Mosansto problably went something like this:
1: Scientists realize that Bt kills potato bugs
2: Scientists add Bt gene to potatoes
They obviously didn't consider the potential effects of their decisions, or what other, less drastic, measures could be taken. I think everyone would be better off in following the custom of one of the NY Native American tribes (Oneida i think) that requires tribal leaders to sonsider seven generations in the past and seven generations in the future when making decisions. People need to consider the effects of their decisions instead of doing what is easiest or will make the most money.
-Brian
I just read Brave New World for the first time, and all sorts of things I read remind me now how prescient Aldous Huxley was. Its been almost seventy years since he wrote the novel, and we are ahead of his pace.
-Brian
I don't really understand why people would object to this experiment, though. As the article states: Dr Craig Venter, founder of Tigr and now head of the Celera Genomics Corporation, said the study was redefining life in terms of the genome, the collection of all a creature's genes.
Essential genes
"Will we eventually get to a molecular definition of life? I hope that will happen, yes," he told the BBC.
Understanding life at its chemical roots is a noble goal, and clearly one that organized religion would have been opposed to in the past....
As for creation being the realm of "god," humans have been making art and babies for many years....
I also don't think that this should be phrased as science versus religion, because organized science can be as rigid as organized religion. Organized anything is more interested in maintaning its dominant position than in doing whats best for humanity. We'd be better off if all these organizations were broken up and replaced with democratic cooperation between individuals and smaller groups.
-Brian
Government already speends so much money on so many different causes and groups, such that:
1:No one can keep track of where the money goes.
2:There is no way that anyone can agree with all the different ways that government spends money
I'm not sure what you are trying to say; putting the people in charge of the way money is spent sounds like communism. Perhaps you mean that there should be no governments at all, that we should all fend for ourselves. Good luck if that happens.
As for the Mars petition: its wasteful to spend all that money at this point. Technology in this area is too primitive to really achieve anything useful. Whats the point of reaching Mars just to prove we can?
-Brian
Don't be so dramatic, if you have a job in the space industry, surely you can get one in the entertainment sector ;-)
-Brian
To get back to the topic, its unfortunate that the fbi uses these criteria to single out these "different" students, and then observe them more closely. Obviuosly its in everyone's best interest to make sure that there is no violence in schools and society, but marking individuals for observation is not the answer. Schools need to become more flexible, more able to accept and encourage "different" viewpoints, instead of just reacting harshly to someone that doesn't buy into the system. The students and their parents should be able to take control of the education system, to tailor a curriculum that creates an individual instead of millions of little clones.
-Brian
We are taking the wrong approach by encouraging fusion; it is too high tech, too central, and too capital intensive to be the solution for the imediate future. "Unlimited energy" just encourages unlimited consumption, which is not something this planet needs more of. We'd better off promoting appropriate, evironmentally concious technology, on a local level. This encourages resource conservation, something unknown in the US. The answer is to become more efficent with the current renewable/low environmental impact technologies we have, not to create new, more complicated technologies that will just casue more problems.The point is that there needs to be a shift in values toward conservation and appropriate technology, and away from the constant need for growth and more complicated, environmentally destructive technology. -Brian