I don't see us going back to installing thousands of miles of copper in a city or installing TDM technology anywhere but to the doorstep.
What about putting up huge antenna towers and running TDM through those? Some digital mobile phones are based on time-domain multiplex technology. As far as I know, GSM is like this, carrying voice and data in burst signals. (Other digital cellphones use code-division multiple access, or CDMA.)
The glossary in the back of copyright law is 17 USC 101.
What you call distribution would equally qualify for allowing the audio signal read by my CD player to travel through the RCA connectors to a series of other audio devices (amplifier, audio mixer, etc).
Only distribution "to the public" is monopolized (17 USC 106), and by "distribution" I meant "distribution to the public". I'm sorry for having possibly misled you.
Coping MY CD's (ie. I bought them and have all right entitled) to digital format for MY personal listening and use is completely legal.
I know it's perfectly legal in the States under the Betamax interpretation of fair use. I also understand that you own the phonorecord, which gives you some rights under copyright law (especially chapter 10 as interpreted by RIAA v. Diamond).
And provided your home broadband connection has 160 kbps upstream or faster, you're already perfectly free to set up password-protected HTTP streaming using Apache and play the music on your headphones[1].
[1] Using headphones avoids the danger of performing the recording and the musical work embodied therein "publicly", that is, "outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances" (17 USC 101).
Even if you do find the key in the Windows Media software, it'll be a public key, and deducing Microsoft's private signing key from the public verification key (factoring or the discrete logarithm depending on the cipher that Authenticode uses) is currently considered a Hard Problem(tm).
Most newer rock CDs are over-compressed in mastering anyways. For example, according to Cool Edit Pro's clip restore filter, Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers appears to have peaks over +9 dBFS! In fact, I find it largely unlistenable unless I pass the tracks through clip restore. To avoid destroying the depth of the sound, level compression and limiting should be used in moderation.
Oh, you mean audio data compression? FLAC is a form of data reduction coding, but it's lossless. Even lossy coding (e.g. 192 kbps VBR MP3) can sound transparent to the average listener's stannous ear.
if I need to lay the smackdown on some joker in the lane next to me, I need crystal-clear high fidelity coming out of the speakers (in my trunk)!
You'll probably overdo the bass and mask the treble, so store the treble at a lower bitrate. (Do this by EQing down the treble before you encode the audio, and then reverse EQ in the car.)
Besides, any grumbling about lossy vs. lossless coding is Offtopic in a story about iTunes Music Store, which uses a lossy format for delivery.
Sony tried to call the PS1 the PSX in Japan but it did not take.
Could be because the Nintendo and Sega fanboys were already calling it "puresute", which apparently means something like "disposable", a jab reminiscent of "GayStation" in North America.
Yes, the PlayStation and Xbox both have USB, but do the first-person shooters for those consoles let me use a keyboard and mouse plugged into the console? Or should shooter fans stick with a PC?
The "original" PS1 was a Japanese SNES with a CD drive.
Was that ever sold to the public? From what I read in Nintendo Power and elsewhere, Nintendo dropped out of that project before it was completed after seeing how Sega CD developers failed to explore what the CD-ROM format could do other than streaming background music and FMV.
"My CDs" as in "I am in a band" or "my CDs" as in "phonorecords that I own of sound recordings that an RIAA member owns"? If it's copyrighted, then any reproduction and subsequent distribution[1] needs to be authorized.
[1] Section 106 prohibits reproduction or distribution, but 107 (fair use) and 117 (software backup) authorize most reproduction without distribution, and 109 (first sale) authorizes distribution without reproduction except for rental of some works.
The crypto primitives for preventing the other guy from getting an unauthorized perfect digital copy already exist. They're called signed audio output drivers and signed codecs, and Microsoft has assembled them into a Secure Audio Path. All decryption is done in kernel space by components signed by Microsoft.
Anything less than a perfect digital copy is likely to qualify as time-shifting, which American courts consider fair use. (Australian courts say otherwise, but that's beside the point because Warner, Sony, Uni, BMG, Apple Computer, and Microsoft do quite a bit of business in the States.)
another "Type-R" with a bigger wing might pull up next to him in the 'hood, and he'll need to be able to play just the right smack-down tune for the situation
That's why you make a Smackdown CD, just for such occasions. A single CD can hold over 160 tunes that could be just the right tune.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. Nintendo is #2 worldwide among console makers. Microsoft is having trouble selling Xbox consoles outside North America.
Hollywood Syndrome [is]... the Industry's second death, and there will be no NES to save us
Even if commercial game development does slow to a trickle, then who's to say developers will stop scratching their itch for open source video games?
And how is solving problems by tagging with a spraycan any different from solving them with a gun?
It expands the audience of the game from those whose parents will let them buy T or M rated games to include those whose parents will let them buy E rated games. Super Mario Sunshine isn't too different conceptually from, say, Tomb Raider except that Mario can use the water gun as a jetpack.
[in Frequency,] you trigger the music, an instrument at a time, which feels like playing the song not the song playing you [as in Beatmania]
You're confusing Beatmania with the dance-based rhythm games such as Para Para Paradise and Dance Dance Revolution. In Beatmania and Drummania, the player actually does play an instrument (a sampler in BM and a drum set in DM).
You can also play your remixes and online, both firsts for a music-rhythm game.
and speaking of which - where the hell are the indie artists' and their music on iTMS? Huh?
You know, you can suggest recording artists to the iTunes Music Store. Try doing that and also approaching the label; it may be more effective.
It also takes time to encode a label's catalog and to negotiate digital distribution rights with artists whose contracts were written before digital distribution rights existed.
Because i don't feel like carrying around 70 gig of cd-r's you fucking nimrod.
If you listen to music for twelve straight hours a day, then at just under 1 MB/min (iTunes's data rate), you've only filled about one 700 MB CD. Why do you feel the need to carry 100 half-days worth of music?
Yes, but that requires that you have two copies of your music (which could be several gigs worth). That's a hassle that was otherwise avoided.
Avoid? Bull. CD-R is much cheaper than streaming the data repeatedly through a network connection, especially because entry-level residential high-speed Internet access 1. isn't affordable everywhere and 2. is most often limited to 112 kbps upstream after TCP/IP overhead is subtracted. A hundred dollars worth of iTunes recordings encoded as 128 kbps AAC will fit on a single 50 cent CD-R disc; how much does it cost to upgrade to second-tier residential broadband?
the primary reason for coming up with these bogus units is that it makes it more difficult to compare performance with vanilla x86 machines.
If these bogus units catch on commercially, AMD will just stop using P4 equivalent MHz ratings as model numbers and will start using something based on computons.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see us going back to installing thousands of miles of copper in a city or installing TDM technology anywhere but to the doorstep.
What about putting up huge antenna towers and running TDM through those? Some digital mobile phones are based on time-domain multiplex technology. As far as I know, GSM is like this, carrying voice and data in burst signals. (Other digital cellphones use code-division multiple access, or CDMA.)
Should be a glossary in the back.
The glossary in the back of copyright law is 17 USC 101.
What you call distribution would equally qualify for allowing the audio signal read by my CD player to travel through the RCA connectors to a series of other audio devices (amplifier, audio mixer, etc).
Only distribution "to the public" is monopolized (17 USC 106), and by "distribution" I meant "distribution to the public". I'm sorry for having possibly misled you.
Coping MY CD's (ie. I bought them and have all right entitled) to digital format for MY personal listening and use is completely legal.
I know it's perfectly legal in the States under the Betamax interpretation of fair use. I also understand that you own the phonorecord, which gives you some rights under copyright law (especially chapter 10 as interpreted by RIAA v. Diamond).
And provided your home broadband connection has 160 kbps upstream or faster, you're already perfectly free to set up password-protected HTTP streaming using Apache and play the music on your headphones[1].
[1] Using headphones avoids the danger of performing the recording and the musical work embodied therein "publicly", that is, "outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances" (17 USC 101).
The link you gave is a rant and probably doesn't describe the technology accuretly
"Rant" is misleading. Most of the description is condensed directly from Microsoft's own Secure Audio Path documentation.
finding a key hidden in plain view in the code
Even if you do find the key in the Windows Media software, it'll be a public key, and deducing Microsoft's private signing key from the public verification key (factoring or the discrete logarithm depending on the cipher that Authenticode uses) is currently considered a Hard Problem(tm).
Yeah, in a compressed format
Most newer rock CDs are over-compressed in mastering anyways. For example, according to Cool Edit Pro's clip restore filter, Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers appears to have peaks over +9 dBFS! In fact, I find it largely unlistenable unless I pass the tracks through clip restore. To avoid destroying the depth of the sound, level compression and limiting should be used in moderation.
Oh, you mean audio data compression? FLAC is a form of data reduction coding, but it's lossless. Even lossy coding (e.g. 192 kbps VBR MP3) can sound transparent to the average listener's stannous ear.
if I need to lay the smackdown on some joker in the lane next to me, I need crystal-clear high fidelity coming out of the speakers (in my trunk)!
You'll probably overdo the bass and mask the treble, so store the treble at a lower bitrate. (Do this by EQing down the treble before you encode the audio, and then reverse EQ in the car.)
Besides, any grumbling about lossy vs. lossless coding is Offtopic in a story about iTunes Music Store, which uses a lossy format for delivery.
There are crap games on every system. Just because a publisher has a lot of money doesn't mean that its developers will create a fun game.
What is worse is that some people call the PS2 the PSX2.
Probably the people who call the PlayStation 2 console the "PSX2" are the ones who had used an IBM PS/2 computer.
Sony tried to call the PS1 the PSX in Japan but it did not take.
Could be because the Nintendo and Sega fanboys were already calling it "puresute", which apparently means something like "disposable", a jab reminiscent of "GayStation" in North America.
Ever heard of USB?
Yes, the PlayStation and Xbox both have USB, but do the first-person shooters for those consoles let me use a keyboard and mouse plugged into the console? Or should shooter fans stick with a PC?
The "original" PS1 was a Japanese SNES with a CD drive.
Was that ever sold to the public? From what I read in Nintendo Power and elsewhere, Nintendo dropped out of that project before it was completed after seeing how Sega CD developers failed to explore what the CD-ROM format could do other than streaming background music and FMV.
With a console I don't have to go out and buy a brand new $300 video card every six months to be able to play the latest games.
You also can't play games by smaller publishers who don't have enough money to pay the up-front console license fee.
Most of it are MP3s that I ripped from my CDs.
"My CDs" as in "I am in a band" or "my CDs" as in "phonorecords that I own of sound recordings that an RIAA member owns"? If it's copyrighted, then any reproduction and subsequent distribution[1] needs to be authorized.
[1] Section 106 prohibits reproduction or distribution, but 107 (fair use) and 117 (software backup) authorize most reproduction without distribution, and 109 (first sale) authorizes distribution without reproduction except for rental of some works.
When the other guy already has a copy
The crypto primitives for preventing the other guy from getting an unauthorized perfect digital copy already exist. They're called signed audio output drivers and signed codecs, and Microsoft has assembled them into a Secure Audio Path. All decryption is done in kernel space by components signed by Microsoft.
Anything less than a perfect digital copy is likely to qualify as time-shifting, which American courts consider fair use. (Australian courts say otherwise, but that's beside the point because Warner, Sony, Uni, BMG, Apple Computer, and Microsoft do quite a bit of business in the States.)
another "Type-R" with a bigger wing might pull up next to him in the 'hood, and he'll need to be able to play just the right smack-down tune for the situation
That's why you make a Smackdown CD, just for such occasions. A single CD can hold over 160 tunes that could be just the right tune.
Nintendo's demise looming
I wouldn't be so sure about that. Nintendo is #2 worldwide among console makers. Microsoft is having trouble selling Xbox consoles outside North America.
Hollywood Syndrome [is] ... the Industry's second death, and there will be no NES to save us
Even if commercial game development does slow to a trickle, then who's to say developers will stop scratching their itch for open source video games?
Think DDR is original? Have you tried Dance Aerobics by Nintendo?
DDR is also a descendant of Beatmania, which is a nearly direct clone of Parappa the Rapper.
And how is solving problems by tagging with a spraycan any different from solving them with a gun?
It expands the audience of the game from those whose parents will let them buy T or M rated games to include those whose parents will let them buy E rated games. Super Mario Sunshine isn't too different conceptually from, say, Tomb Raider except that Mario can use the water gun as a jetpack.
You claim Metroid Prime was the first first-person adventure. What about Drakkhen or Real Myst?
[in Frequency,] you trigger the music, an instrument at a time, which feels like playing the song not the song playing you [as in Beatmania]
You're confusing Beatmania with the dance-based rhythm games such as Para Para Paradise and Dance Dance Revolution. In Beatmania and Drummania, the player actually does play an instrument (a sampler in BM and a drum set in DM).
You can also play your remixes and online, both firsts for a music-rhythm game.
Did the online features of Freq and Amp come before or after the first release of PC-based clones of Bemani games?
wolfenstein and doom were shareware
If Doom was shareware, then so is any commercial game with a downloadable playable demo. Doom did show up on Wal*Mart shelves.
and speaking of which - where the hell are the indie artists' and their music on iTMS? Huh?
You know, you can suggest recording artists to the iTunes Music Store. Try doing that and also approaching the label; it may be more effective.
It also takes time to encode a label's catalog and to negotiate digital distribution rights with artists whose contracts were written before digital distribution rights existed.
Because the cryptographic primitives needed to implement [a limit of one stream] securely don't exist?
You mean like opening the file for reading in exclusive mode? What cryptographic primitives are you talking about?
Because i don't feel like carrying around 70 gig of cd-r's you fucking nimrod.
If you listen to music for twelve straight hours a day, then at just under 1 MB/min (iTunes's data rate), you've only filled about one 700 MB CD. Why do you feel the need to carry 100 half-days worth of music?
The point of putting the music on my PowerMac was that I wouldn't be taking up 1/3 of my PowerBook HDD space for music.
Then why not leave the music on a DVD-R disc?
Yes, but that requires that you have two copies of your music (which could be several gigs worth). That's a hassle that was otherwise avoided.
Avoid? Bull. CD-R is much cheaper than streaming the data repeatedly through a network connection, especially because entry-level residential high-speed Internet access 1. isn't affordable everywhere and 2. is most often limited to 112 kbps upstream after TCP/IP overhead is subtracted. A hundred dollars worth of iTunes recordings encoded as 128 kbps AAC will fit on a single 50 cent CD-R disc; how much does it cost to upgrade to second-tier residential broadband?
the primary reason for coming up with these bogus units is that it makes it more difficult to compare performance with vanilla x86 machines.
If these bogus units catch on commercially, AMD will just stop using P4 equivalent MHz ratings as model numbers and will start using something based on computons.
IANAE, but if the market cost of entrance is low enough, as it presumably would be with computation, then monopolies cannot form.
Unless somebody corners the market for twenty years, correct?