"Perhaps this will mean something for the latest generation of consoles once they take on a bigger role as a general media centre"...and since Sony and Microsoft are involved in heavy, outlandish DRM, its unlikely any of their consoles will gain traction. Sony will sell you CD's but only if they get to corrupt your PC. And Microsoft will sell you songs that expire. Neither of these are popular features with most consumers.
So they'd better be good at games, because they're not good at anything else.
"As a user who has had to endure every application being a web application, even if it never needed to be"
The whole reason web apps took off IMHO was because distributing these big apps, both stand-alone and C/S was difficult and was requiring a degree of coordination that was difficult to pull off. Anybody who did C/S apps and tried to make sure all the Windows clients out there had a consistent ODBC driver will tell you what a pain these things are (plus these types of apps tended to be 2-tier, which is harder to scale than a 3-tiered app).
Web apps for all their flaws got around the entire software distribution issue and has allowed people to cut costs by allowing a more rational back-end intrastructure. While some apps suffered, overall, people like them because web apps tend to work in a very consistent way. AJAX is simply restoring the balance by allowing more complex UI's to be distributed centrally. Personally, I think its a bit of a fad, but it will probably have a long-lasting impact on people's expectation of functionality.
"An employee could accidentally (or purposefully) make the switch w/o realizing the effects"
It doesn't work that way.
Unless the employee has been given authority to make the change in license then it has no effect.
For example, if an employee of Sony took Red Hat, and inclued in mp3's of a Sony CD with the distribution, that doesn't force Sony Music to GPL the music. That would simply be unauthorized reproduction of the song and there would never be a valid permission for distribution.
Same is true of software.
As to your other point, there is no imperitive to use any GPL or LGPL software in anything! Write it yourself or pay the author of the program money to release it to you in a special license. That's always a possibility. You can simultaneously release your copyrighted work in GPL, LGPL, BSD, etc to different people.
and you'll see that while NTSC allows for up to 525 scan lines, only 480 are used due to their use for specific purposes (i.e. sync, vertical retrace)
For the horizontal resolution, the limit is really how small the dots that can be made, but in practice, that amouts to 440 (http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/vidres.htm).
"I typically don't buy "used" CD's, because 90% of them are from people doing something wrong"
Oddly enough you could make the same argument for new CD's, because 90% of the record companies are doing something wrong (i.e. screwing the public and the artist, payola, buying lawmakers, refusing to pay artists royalties due to them, etc), and so by that argument you can never buy a CD because hardly any of them don't come with some sort of legal or moral baggage.
"I have, and most of the time I can't. If the point is academic, I completely agree, as data is being lost as the decendant generations are created, and that eventually those losses will become audible, but in practice can you actually tell the difference on just the third generation?"
But that's hardly an argument for or against in general.
If you can't hear the difference, that's great. But a lot of people can; in fact, I find 128kb/s (either ogg/mp3/aac) just slightly better than FM; yes, AAC is better, but its not CD.
So the problem in general is that this method makes sound that is marginally acceptable and instroduces another generational loss which makes it to me unlistenable.
The only way to deal with this is to not put up with lossy compression in the first place. Buy your music on CD; I find if I buy used, I can get CD's for well under $10. Now you're future proof, you have an "archival" copy, and you can move it to your ipod, your whatever-is-new-this month and you're always with a format that is up to date.
Yes, I understand it is a burden to some people to wait 3-5 days to get a CD; that this method doesn't work if you have to have it in the next 10 minutes, but as music is entertainment, I find that I can wait a few days to get (a) lower cost (b) high qualtiy (c) lack of DRM.
Buying CDs not only sounds better, its common sense to avoid vendor lock-in and DRM and best of all, its cheaper if you shop a little bit.
"But the people who actually own the IP want something else."
Just to be nit-picky, they don't "own" the IP, they own the right to control copying of a song. There's a huge difference between the two. People may use the two interchangabley, but they're not the same.
"It is also unreasonable for these guys to list all sources the CD is not compatible with. It is pretty much impossible. "
What you've done is given an excellent argument why the law must allow ripping protected CD's; since you've argued its unreasonable for Sony et al to ensure compatability in an expected way, it is reasonable for the consumer to copy the music from this CD into a format that will work. The consumer isn't gaining an advantage from ripping the CD; in fact, they're simply gaining the advertised function: they want to be able to listen to the music on their music system.
You'd have more of an argument if a CD was compliant with CD standards, but they're not; they're something proprietary that the record company is advertising as being compatible with what a consumer would expect a CD to be compatible with.
Or maybe the answer is for the record companies to accept returns from consumers? The standard answer is "no, it doesn't work on my computer/cd-player/DVD player".
Sounds like an ad placement by the company making/selling them. No quotes, nobody identifiable. Same as that lady who microwaved her cat, or the kids who found razor blades in the halloween goodies, or that toilets flush the other way below the equator.
And even if true, next time, won't the pirates just wear earplugs?
Rick's Bar (Rick's Cafe Americain) is so perfect in terms of decor, lighting, the people that even though its obviously a set you wish you were there and owned the place, its that's perfect.
I'd rather have 6% of a huge number than 9% of a large number.
No seriously, Dell is an amazing company when you consider they are competing in one of the most cutthroat market segments in high tech. IBM sold the last bits of their PC business a few months ago. Gateway is now pretty much irrelevant... even the Japanese titans can't compete with Dell.
"$20 for a movie on DVD too much in your opinion? "
Yes.
The most I've gone for a movie is $16, and that for something that I thought the whole family would like and it would be watchable 2-3 times.
Most of the DVD's I've purchased have ranged from $5-$13; flea markets are a great source for $5 movies. That's a price that I consider fair for a DVD movie since (a) I own the media and (b) I can resell it again after watching it for $2-3, so the actual price of a movie is pretty close to $2.
As I've said in previous posts, content isn't worth all that much. There's too much of it, and in general, the quality of movies is pretty consistently mediocre. I'm okay with that, but $8 for a less than DVD copy? No thanks.
For $10/month I get all of HBO's content and all HBO's moves on demand. There are typically 30-50 movies available.
So you work out the price.
For specific movies that are already out of theaters, the acceptable price would be around $2.50 for a movie that is not quite released on DVD to basically $1 for a 1-5 year old movie to free for anything older than 5 years.
Folks there is so much free content out there, and content that is inexpensive that most content really isn't worth much, particularly movies which in general are something you watch once. Let me say it again... there is tons and tons of content. You can't watch all the content out there if you tried, if you spend every hour of the day... there's too much. When there's too much of something, the price inevitably falls. Always.
($8? Did sony forget they're competing with netflix and hbo?)
Remember the PSP launch? Remember how there was ridiculous prices on ebay and for presell? Do you remember what happened launch day? The local walmart sold hardly any and had a lot left over. It makes you wonder if these companies systematically engage in PR that gives the appearance of big demand to stimulate buzz.
The Xbox360 is the same way; it looks to me that at launch there are no games worth buying combined with a high price and an admission that later consoles will be better because they'll have an HD-DVD built-in and you get the impression that this will lay a big egg on launch.
Really, is anybody chomping at the bit to get one of these *now*? Maybe in about 6-12 months, but there's nothing compelling about this right now.
"This is the only method to stop cheating, and thats to be invasive."
I think its easier, but game companies are lazy.
1) Encrypt the conversation between the client and the server using PKI
Okay. Now I've secured the data channel
2) Design the program so that when it starts, it runs in a VM of some sort. Grab the source for VMWare, as its GPL'd and mod it to suit as one suggestion. There may be simpler answers if you think about it for 15 minutes.
Okay. Now I've secured the program
3)Design the server so that it runs specific checks on the client so that if the client or surrounding VM are hacked, then it exits
Okay. Now I've secured the program against hacks.
Note that I didn't put in a lot of frivilous checks to secure an environment that can not be secured (i.e. Windows). I simply created a good environment, checked that the environment is as I created it, and then secured the data.
I realize this kind of development doesn't lend itself to the kind of hit-and-run programming that these guys like to do, and it requires these guys to think of architecture, which sounds like a 4-letter word to these companies.
Its not hard. But it requires you to think of what you're doing first.
Okay, now I've isolated the program from the influence
Verizon has started to move their customers to fiber right to the premises, and when they do, they move your POTS line to fiber as well (although they don't tell you that very much). They're equipped to offer TV service through this same fiber, although they currently lack regulatory compliance.
Between their EVDO service and fiber, they've turned the tables on the cable companies and gone from irrelevant to the top in a space of just 2-3 years. Verizon, for all the complaints against them is actually competing and not whining. At least not yet.
"which got to be as big as it is by offering their customers consistently low prices"
People keep saying this, and every time I go to Walmart, I don't see these good prices on anything.
If you compare Game/Video prices to even Amazon, they're higher.
If you compare TV/Radio prices, they're cheaper at Costco/Best Buy whatever
Food prices seem to be the same as the grocery store.
What Walmart has, is a decent selection located in rural places that tend not to have choice or who don't know any better (maybe because of lack of choice?).
That's not a criticism; they're serving people who otherwise would not be; but low price? No.
"Americans and British faught to stop this 'new' thinking"
There was no America when Galileo was thrown in prison by Papal authorities (or it is more correct to say that Europeans hadn't discovered the Americas quite yet).
Plus, it is doubtful England cared about this at the time, since Henry VIII had broken away from Rome in 1534, while Galileo wasn't even born until 30 years later.
Incidentally, the theory you're talking about was put together by Copernicus, not Galileo.
I still don't get that part. I just don't get the leap from "humans are complicated" to "well, that must have been god who did it"
Look, I get the part where many religious people consider the teaching of evolutionary science in school objectionable.
I get the part where people who are opposed to it then attempt to "pick holes" in the theory.
I even get the part where these same people think a wise and powerful god created the universe and designed all life forms.
What I don't get is why "intelligent design" is any more worthy to be taught as an alternative than anything else.
I know the Intelligent Design people think they've been clever by couching creationism in science, but are people so uneducated (I'll bet my Catholic friends aren't) that they forget Thomas Aquinas Five Ways? Particular the 2nd Way which says:
1) There exists things that are caused by other things. 2) Nothing can be the cause of itself 3) There can not be an endless string of objects causing other objects to exist. 4) Therefore, there must be an uncaused first cause called "God".
In other words, "intelligent design" is nothing more than an 800 year old Dominican theory. Is that what we want to be teaching in school?
"Then again, much of the Windows code was created long before the terms "DoS" or "buffer overflow attack" came into existence."
Really?
Buffer overflow attacks have been known for well over 20 years, and while DoS is new, the concepts are not new. If you can still get your hands on it, take a look at the source of FWTK, written by Marcus Ranum (http://www.dreamwvr.com/fwtk.org/fwtk/docs/docume ntation.html) for an example of people have known how to write defensive code for a long time.
Now, I think there is a grain of truth to the idea that MS is most attacked because 90% of the computers run Windows. However, the codebase of Windows XP is from the 21st century, particularly since they've released SP2 in the last year, which contained significant upgrades to all of Windows.
So all things considered, either MS fibbed about reviewing all the code to make it more secure, or they don't know how to do it very well. The idea that attacks on code are something that have only come about since the AOL moved to the internet seems a bit misguided.
But it got me to thinking... everybody and everything but the *shareholders* are a liability. Everything from the actual product the company makes (or service) up to the CEO. It doesn't provide any increase in the value of the company's product.
So... how much did your company economize on the CEO position this year?
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"Perhaps this will mean something for the latest generation of consoles once they take on a bigger role as a general media centre" ...and since Sony and Microsoft are involved in heavy, outlandish DRM, its unlikely any of their consoles will gain traction. Sony will sell you CD's but only if they get to corrupt your PC. And Microsoft will sell you songs that expire. Neither of these are popular features with most consumers.
So they'd better be good at games, because they're not good at anything else.
"he has also predicted some unlikely things that came true, including Apple's migration to x86."
This was first mentioned when Apple switched to PPC, so I'm not sure he gets any points for this prediction.
People read him because he's entertaining, not for his knowledge or predictive powers.
"As a user who has had to endure every application being a web application, even if it never needed to be"
The whole reason web apps took off IMHO was because distributing these big apps, both stand-alone and C/S was difficult and was requiring a degree of coordination that was difficult to pull off. Anybody who did C/S apps and tried to make sure all the Windows clients out there had a consistent ODBC driver will tell you what a pain these things are (plus these types of apps tended to be 2-tier, which is harder to scale than a 3-tiered app).
Web apps for all their flaws got around the entire software distribution issue and has allowed people to cut costs by allowing a more rational back-end intrastructure. While some apps suffered, overall, people like them because web apps tend to work in a very consistent way. AJAX is simply restoring the balance by allowing more complex UI's to be distributed centrally. Personally, I think its a bit of a fad, but it will probably have a long-lasting impact on people's expectation of functionality.
"An employee could accidentally (or purposefully) make the switch w/o realizing the effects"
It doesn't work that way.
Unless the employee has been given authority to make the change in license then it has no effect.
For example, if an employee of Sony took Red Hat, and inclued in mp3's of a Sony CD with the distribution, that doesn't force Sony Music to GPL the music. That would simply be unauthorized reproduction of the song and there would never be a valid permission for distribution.
Same is true of software.
As to your other point, there is no imperitive to use any GPL or LGPL software in anything! Write it yourself or pay the author of the program money to release it to you in a special license. That's always a possibility. You can simultaneously release your copyrighted work in GPL, LGPL, BSD, etc to different people.
"So they are going to buy Sony PS3 or Microsoft XBox 360."
They might try, but when they see $400 for either of those, they might think twice.
" NTSC is 720x480, not 640x480."
l s
Its neither of those resolutions.
Take a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC#Technical_detai
and you'll see that while NTSC allows for up to 525 scan lines, only 480 are used due to their use for specific purposes (i.e. sync, vertical retrace)
For the horizontal resolution, the limit is really how small the dots that can be made, but in practice, that amouts to 440 (http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/vidres.htm).
Thus, the maximum resolution of NTSC is 480x440.
"I typically don't buy "used" CD's, because 90% of them are from people doing something wrong"
Oddly enough you could make the same argument for new CD's, because 90% of the record companies are doing something wrong (i.e. screwing the public and the artist, payola, buying lawmakers, refusing to pay artists royalties due to them, etc), and so by that argument you can never buy a CD because hardly any of them don't come with some sort of legal or moral baggage.
"I have, and most of the time I can't. If the point is academic, I completely agree, as data is being lost as the decendant generations are created, and that eventually those losses will become audible, but in practice can you actually tell the difference on just the third generation?"
But that's hardly an argument for or against in general.
If you can't hear the difference, that's great. But a lot of people can; in fact, I find 128kb/s (either ogg/mp3/aac) just slightly better than FM; yes, AAC is better, but its not CD.
So the problem in general is that this method makes sound that is marginally acceptable and instroduces another generational loss which makes it to me unlistenable.
The only way to deal with this is to not put up with lossy compression in the first place. Buy your music on CD; I find if I buy used, I can get CD's for well under $10. Now you're future proof, you have an "archival" copy, and you can move it to your ipod, your whatever-is-new-this month and you're always with a format that is up to date.
Yes, I understand it is a burden to some people to wait 3-5 days to get a CD; that this method doesn't work if you have to have it in the next 10 minutes, but as music is entertainment, I find that I can wait a few days to get (a) lower cost (b) high qualtiy (c) lack of DRM.
Buying CDs not only sounds better, its common sense to avoid vendor lock-in and DRM and best of all, its cheaper if you shop a little bit.
If you subscribe to Verizon's 3G service (which uses CDMA, I believe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G#CDMA_2000 ), you pay a flat $60 fee for unlimited usage.
"But the people who actually own the IP want something else."
Just to be nit-picky, they don't "own" the IP, they own the right to control copying of a song. There's a huge difference between the two. People may use the two interchangabley, but they're not the same.
"It is also unreasonable for these guys to list all sources the CD is not compatible with. It is pretty much impossible. "
What you've done is given an excellent argument why the law must allow ripping protected CD's; since you've argued its unreasonable for Sony et al to ensure compatability in an expected way, it is reasonable for the consumer to copy the music from this CD into a format that will work. The consumer isn't gaining an advantage from ripping the CD; in fact, they're simply gaining the advertised function: they want to be able to listen to the music on their music system.
You'd have more of an argument if a CD was compliant with CD standards, but they're not; they're something proprietary that the record company is advertising as being compatible with what a consumer would expect a CD to be compatible with.
Or maybe the answer is for the record companies to accept returns from consumers? The standard answer is "no, it doesn't work on my computer/cd-player/DVD player".
Sounds like an ad placement by the company making/selling them. No quotes, nobody identifiable. Same as that lady who microwaved her cat, or the kids who found razor blades in the halloween goodies, or that toilets flush the other way below the equator.
And even if true, next time, won't the pirates just wear earplugs?
Rick's Bar (Rick's Cafe Americain) is so perfect in terms of decor, lighting, the people that even though its obviously a set you wish you were there and owned the place, its that's perfect.
I'd rather have 6% of a huge number than 9% of a large number.
No seriously, Dell is an amazing company when you consider they are competing in one of the most cutthroat market segments in high tech. IBM sold the last bits of their PC business a few months ago. Gateway is now pretty much irrelevant... even the Japanese titans can't compete with Dell.
"$20 for a movie on DVD too much in your opinion? "
Yes.
The most I've gone for a movie is $16, and that for something that I thought the whole family would like and it would be watchable 2-3 times.
Most of the DVD's I've purchased have ranged from $5-$13; flea markets are a great source for $5 movies. That's a price that I consider fair for a DVD movie since (a) I own the media and (b) I can resell it again after watching it for $2-3, so the actual price of a movie is pretty close to $2.
As I've said in previous posts, content isn't worth all that much. There's too much of it, and in general, the quality of movies is pretty consistently mediocre. I'm okay with that, but $8 for a less than DVD copy? No thanks.
For $10/month I get all of HBO's content and all HBO's moves on demand. There are typically 30-50 movies available.
So you work out the price.
For specific movies that are already out of theaters, the acceptable price would be around $2.50 for a movie that is not quite released on DVD to basically $1 for a 1-5 year old movie to free for anything older than 5 years.
Folks there is so much free content out there, and content that is inexpensive that most content really isn't worth much, particularly movies which in general are something you watch once. Let me say it again... there is tons and tons of content. You can't watch all the content out there if you tried, if you spend every hour of the day... there's too much. When there's too much of something, the price inevitably falls. Always.
($8? Did sony forget they're competing with netflix and hbo?)
Remember the PSP launch? Remember how there was ridiculous prices on ebay and for presell? Do you remember what happened launch day? The local walmart sold hardly any and had a lot left over. It makes you wonder if these companies systematically engage in PR that gives the appearance of big demand to stimulate buzz.
The Xbox360 is the same way; it looks to me that at launch there are no games worth buying combined with a high price and an admission that later consoles will be better because they'll have an HD-DVD built-in and you get the impression that this will lay a big egg on launch.
Really, is anybody chomping at the bit to get one of these *now*? Maybe in about 6-12 months, but there's nothing compelling about this right now.
Verizon is offering 30Mb down and 5 Mb up with a fiber connection.
The base connection (which I have) is 5 down and 2 up. Still very nice.
"This is the only method to stop cheating, and thats to be invasive."
I think its easier, but game companies are lazy.
1) Encrypt the conversation between the client and the server using PKI
Okay. Now I've secured the data channel
2) Design the program so that when it starts, it runs in a VM of some sort. Grab the source for VMWare, as its GPL'd and mod it to suit as one suggestion. There may be simpler answers if you think about it for 15 minutes.
Okay. Now I've secured the program
3)Design the server so that it runs specific checks on the client so that if the client or surrounding VM are hacked, then it exits
Okay. Now I've secured the program against hacks.
Note that I didn't put in a lot of frivilous checks to secure an environment that can not be secured (i.e. Windows). I simply created a good environment, checked that the environment is as I created it, and then secured the data.
I realize this kind of development doesn't lend itself to the kind of hit-and-run programming that these guys like to do, and it requires these guys to think of architecture, which sounds like a 4-letter word to these companies.
Its not hard. But it requires you to think of what you're doing first.
Okay, now I've isolated the program from the influence
Verizon has started to move their customers to fiber right to the premises, and when they do, they move your POTS line to fiber as well (although they don't tell you that very much). They're equipped to offer TV service through this same fiber, although they currently lack regulatory compliance.
Between their EVDO service and fiber, they've turned the tables on the cable companies and gone from irrelevant to the top in a space of just 2-3 years. Verizon, for all the complaints against them is actually competing and not whining. At least not yet.
I didn't realize that Xena, Buffy, or Laura Croft were science fiction?
"which got to be as big as it is by offering their customers consistently low prices"
People keep saying this, and every time I go to Walmart, I don't see these good prices on anything.
If you compare Game/Video prices to even Amazon, they're higher.
If you compare TV/Radio prices, they're cheaper at Costco/Best Buy whatever
Food prices seem to be the same as the grocery store.
What Walmart has, is a decent selection located in rural places that tend not to have choice or who don't know any better (maybe because of lack of choice?).
That's not a criticism; they're serving people who otherwise would not be; but low price? No.
"Americans and British faught to stop this 'new' thinking"
There was no America when Galileo was thrown in prison by Papal authorities (or it is more correct to say that Europeans hadn't discovered the Americas quite yet).
Plus, it is doubtful England cared about this at the time, since Henry VIII had broken away from Rome in 1534, while Galileo wasn't even born until 30 years later.
Incidentally, the theory you're talking about was put together by Copernicus, not Galileo.
"and that intelligent design happens."
I still don't get that part. I just don't get the leap from "humans are complicated" to "well, that must have been god who did it"
Look, I get the part where many religious people consider the teaching of evolutionary science in school objectionable.
I get the part where people who are opposed to it then attempt to "pick holes" in the theory.
I even get the part where these same people think a wise and powerful god created the universe and designed all life forms.
What I don't get is why "intelligent design" is any more worthy to be taught as an alternative than anything else.
I know the Intelligent Design people think they've been clever by couching creationism in science, but are people so uneducated (I'll bet my Catholic friends aren't) that they forget Thomas Aquinas Five Ways? Particular the 2nd Way which says:
1) There exists things that are caused by other things.
2) Nothing can be the cause of itself
3) There can not be an endless string of objects causing other objects to exist.
4) Therefore, there must be an uncaused first cause called "God".
In other words, "intelligent design" is nothing more than an 800 year old Dominican theory. Is that what we want to be teaching in school?
"Then again, much of the Windows code was created long before the terms "DoS" or "buffer overflow attack" came into existence."
e ntation.html) for an example of people have known how to write defensive code for a long time.
/ feb02/02-20mundieqa.mspx) they were looking at all their old code to focus on security.
Really?
Buffer overflow attacks have been known for well over 20 years, and while DoS is new, the concepts are not new. If you can still get your hands on it, take a look at the source of FWTK, written by Marcus Ranum (http://www.dreamwvr.com/fwtk.org/fwtk/docs/docum
Now, I think there is a grain of truth to the idea that MS is most attacked because 90% of the computers run Windows. However, the codebase of Windows XP is from the 21st century, particularly since they've released SP2 in the last year, which contained significant upgrades to all of Windows.
Especially since this was written after the time that MS announced (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2002
So all things considered, either MS fibbed about reviewing all the code to make it more secure, or they don't know how to do it very well. The idea that attacks on code are something that have only come about since the AOL moved to the internet seems a bit misguided.
You know, you're right.
But it got me to thinking... everybody and everything but the *shareholders* are a liability. Everything from the actual product the company makes (or service) up to the CEO. It doesn't provide any increase in the value of the company's product.
So... how much did your company economize on the CEO position this year?