Yes, the DMCA makes it illegal to break DRM. However, the analog MacroVision copy protection is not strictly "Digital Rights Management" so it seems a bit of a stretch that it is covered under the "Digital Millenium Copyright Act".
That is called procedural generation, and it is hardly new. It works really well for some games, not so well for others.
Games where the environment are a vital part of the gameplay, for example, it would not work so well for. For example, consider if Prince of Persia: Sands of Time were procedurally generated.
On the other hand, open ended games like GTA where the environment is not so vitally a part of the gameplay would have an easier time working with a procedurally generated world.
With traditional packages like VMWare, virtualization is like creating an empty box and filling it with the guest OS. However, the actual virtualization isn't the filling, it is just the box, and it is entirely possible to build a box around a running OS. It just doesn't make sense for typical applications, because to build a box around an OS, you need an OS to host the virtualization. (The Blue Pill code serves as both the virtualization and the host OS.)
The only gotcha is that the computer has constrained resources, which are presumably already all owned by the running OS. So the invading system either has to make up something (Through swap file, or such), or more simply, it just tells the OS that it needs to reserve a chunk of RAM so the OS won't touch it, then uses that to install itself into.
While I am not sure I agree with your reasons for the laws (But you never presented that as fact, just as conjecture) the rest I completely agree with. The way I see it, religion is first a moral code. To be enforced, it needs to make people believe it has all the answers, so it is a very dressed up moral code.
Yes, I believe that Blue Pill is perfectly possible. (The fact that a functioning prototype exists aside.) The suggested objections are trivial. However, they have nothing to do with hardware virtualization vs software virtualization. Hardware virtualization makes the process much easier, but it doesn't enable it.
The difference is in function of the package. A virtualization product like VMWare presents a virtual machine to the user. As that is what the GP is used to, I can understand how they equate virtual machine with VMWare. However, the goal of VMWare is to provide an isolated environment within which to run a virtual invironment, possible many such virtual environments on a single physical hardware. Since they are providing theoretically limitless amounts of resources to the physical hardware's limited resources, they need to create virtual hardware. There is only one real display, so each VM gets a virtual display. This is partly for the scarcity of resources, but also partly for security. If a VM had direct access to the underlying hardware, it could interfere with other guest VMs.
Due to the nature of such a product, then, it is necessary to setup a custom environment. These custom environments are all cookie-cutter copies of the same virtual environment. Similarly, since the environment is drastically different, migrating to a VM requires shutting down the system, migrating the data, and starting up a VM.
Blue Pill, on the other hand, is intended to be discrete. It also only ever needs to run one VM. It doesn't care about such trivialities as the display, for example. So it does not need display drivers, it can just pass commands straight on to the hardware. To the user, the virtual environment looks identical to the real one. Same hardware, same system, because most operations go straight to hardware from the virtualization layer.
Similarly, since the system environment looks the same, fundamentally the running system is the same. Therefore, Blue Pill does not really do migrating in the sense of a system being migrated onto a VMWare virtual machine. It just needs to get control with a sufficient level of permissions. It then creates a thin virtual machine. (By thin virtual machine, I mean one that virtualizes the system, but passes on most requests directly to hardware.) That virtual machine is initialized with the current state of the system. Then it starts the machine running with a normal return from the Blue Pill insertion code. Most of the actual work setting up the virtual machine could probably even be done while the OS is still running normally, with just a quick set of priveleged code to switch things over to virtualization. The end result is there is not even a noticible pause when the virtualization starts.
All of that can be done with software virtualization techniques. Having hardware virtualization just makes some of the messy details easier.
Not everyone that implements spam filters is the primary user of the spam filter, and not everyone that uses a spam filter knows how it is implemented.
How many gmail users know how to implement a Bayesian spam filter? I'm sure there are many who don't even know what a spam filter is.
It is an arms race. And, from the perspective of someone who has worked in a field with a similar arms race (Network security tools, a close relative of both spam filtering and anti-virus) it is a quite tiring one at that.
I don't know about you, but I've still got a working PSX (And it was hardly treated nice... It was the early model where the disk swap still worked, and I did the disk swap many times until I finally got a mod chip) and my early run PS2 still works quite nicely as well.
I'm not claiming yours did not break, for I have to take you at your word that it did. I just think you might be being a little harsh on the hardware by projecting yours breaking onto other people and therefore seeing a trend that they "tend to break down more often than Nintendo consoles" without facts to prove such trend. (For the record, my N64 still works just fine as well, but my fiancees has occasional trouble.)
I think you're mixing specs. The current known specs are that the slot feed drive is specially designed to take Gamecube discs in addition to standard CDs/DVDs, and that the console comes with Gamecube controller ports and memory card slots on the unit itself, for no other purpose than playing Gamecube games.
The only external connectivity is wireless connectivity which allows the Nintendo DS to be used with some games.
Holography is about more than just using 3 dimensions of space to store something. It's specifically about a technique that involves generating an interference pattern between a coherent source of light split into two crossing beams. By that nature, it stores data in 3d. CD type optical storage is still a surface storage medium even with multiple layers. It just focuses the beam onto different surfaces.
As we like to say around here, if you don't like the weather, drive a bit. On extreme days, we can sometimes have a 40 degree temperature spread within the area. (Usually with less than 60 miles between the highs and lows.) The area has tons of microclimates.
Since FFVII, FFX was the first FF game I didn't play to the end. (FFXI excluded, which I never got to begin with.) The story just seemed to stall with me.
Funny, I'd say the opposite... Sports games are mostly the same between each (But I never liked sports games)...
GTA I'd agree with...
But each new numbered game in Final Fantasy is largely a new game, and Legend of Zelda has had quite large differences between games for some of the sequals. In both those cases, if you slapped different names on the characters and came up with a new name, the games could stand on their own.
But those are some of the exceptions. Those are sequals that strike out into new gameplay and new stories. Sequals that just rehash the same gameplay are of limited value.
I don't think "Final Fantasy whatever" fits into the same category. Different numbers in the Final Fantasy line are about as similar as completely different games. There is no story linking them, the world is different for each, and even the gameplay can change from game to game. Only a relatively few things carry over from one game to the next. If most companies treated sequals like Square Enix does, there would be much less of an issue with sequals.
When I worked on hardware that runs Linux, our end goal was to release the code on a ROM. Not a PROM or EPROM, but a ROM. Seems to me that gets around the whole mess in the first place. IIRC, the GPL3 section in question just requires that any keys required to run the software are provided. With ROM, technically speaking you CAN modify it and run your own version... If you have a pin compatible chip that you feel like soldering onto the board in place of the ROM with your version.
I actually do something like that for places that let you enter any question. I enter some off the wall question that could be answered any way and does not easily relate to anything, but with how I think I know the answer right away.
For example (This is not one I actually use) a friend in school when faced with the classic question "Why is a mouse when it spins?" did not know the "correct" answer (The higher, the fewer) so came up with an equally nonsensical answer (The faster it spins, the much). It is an answer I'd think of nearly right away, but nobody else would probably have even heard it answered that way before.
Sure, the bank does, at a minimum through the ATM. But the ATM is a very specific and more importantly secure environment. Just because the ATM has access to account information does not mean it is a good idea for other unrelated systems to have the same access. Any security expert would cringe at the concept of needlessly linking systems together that have different requirements of security level. The man trap needs only minimal security, since in practice nearly everyone has access. The ATM needs maximum levels of security since the access is narrowed down to an individual account and money as well as financial records are at risk.
And there is very likely strict regulations on what the account information accessed can be used for and who/what can gain access to it, to prevent the risk of fraud and misuse of the information. Even if using it for access to the ATM area seems like it would be within the spirit of such regulations, unless it is to the letter of the regulations, it is not allowed.
One of my credit union branch offices in Silicon Valley has such a setup. The others do not. It's the only place I can think of off the top of my head that I have seen it.
The record for beating Super Mario Brothers 3 is something a little over 10 minutes.
I wouldn't really call it a short game though. There is a difference between expected play time and how quickly you can beat the game. The original Myst game is a darn good example. You spend hours solving puzzles looking at scenery and learning the story, just to find out that you could have beat the game from the start if you just knew what to do. See that? That's the key. If you just knew what to do.
The platform genre of games, especially those without saves, tend to be very short in actual gameplay. But you spend a lot of time learning what to do. It is the rare person that jumps in and beats a game the first time through in anything near the shortest possible time.
Ban from live is more likely. Most companies are very shy about firmware upgrades that are not designed to be upgraded. Typically firmware that is designed for upgrades has a failsafe so if the update is interrupted, it can fall back on the failsafe (Usually an older version, or the current version if it does an active/standby firmware model). While the XBox itself may have such a failsafe, the drive is less likely to. Putting a consumer product into a state where an ordinary event (Powering off, or power failure) can effectively break it is generally a Bad Idea.
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Yes, the DMCA makes it illegal to break DRM. However, the analog MacroVision copy protection is not strictly "Digital Rights Management" so it seems a bit of a stretch that it is covered under the "Digital Millenium Copyright Act".
That is called procedural generation, and it is hardly new. It works really well for some games, not so well for others.
Games where the environment are a vital part of the gameplay, for example, it would not work so well for. For example, consider if Prince of Persia: Sands of Time were procedurally generated.
On the other hand, open ended games like GTA where the environment is not so vitally a part of the gameplay would have an easier time working with a procedurally generated world.
With traditional packages like VMWare, virtualization is like creating an empty box and filling it with the guest OS. However, the actual virtualization isn't the filling, it is just the box, and it is entirely possible to build a box around a running OS. It just doesn't make sense for typical applications, because to build a box around an OS, you need an OS to host the virtualization. (The Blue Pill code serves as both the virtualization and the host OS.)
The only gotcha is that the computer has constrained resources, which are presumably already all owned by the running OS. So the invading system either has to make up something (Through swap file, or such), or more simply, it just tells the OS that it needs to reserve a chunk of RAM so the OS won't touch it, then uses that to install itself into.
If I had mod points, you'd get a +1 Insightful.
While I am not sure I agree with your reasons for the laws (But you never presented that as fact, just as conjecture) the rest I completely agree with. The way I see it, religion is first a moral code. To be enforced, it needs to make people believe it has all the answers, so it is a very dressed up moral code.
I agree and disagree.
Yes, I believe that Blue Pill is perfectly possible. (The fact that a functioning prototype exists aside.) The suggested objections are trivial. However, they have nothing to do with hardware virtualization vs software virtualization. Hardware virtualization makes the process much easier, but it doesn't enable it.
The difference is in function of the package. A virtualization product like VMWare presents a virtual machine to the user. As that is what the GP is used to, I can understand how they equate virtual machine with VMWare. However, the goal of VMWare is to provide an isolated environment within which to run a virtual invironment, possible many such virtual environments on a single physical hardware. Since they are providing theoretically limitless amounts of resources to the physical hardware's limited resources, they need to create virtual hardware. There is only one real display, so each VM gets a virtual display. This is partly for the scarcity of resources, but also partly for security. If a VM had direct access to the underlying hardware, it could interfere with other guest VMs.
Due to the nature of such a product, then, it is necessary to setup a custom environment. These custom environments are all cookie-cutter copies of the same virtual environment. Similarly, since the environment is drastically different, migrating to a VM requires shutting down the system, migrating the data, and starting up a VM.
Blue Pill, on the other hand, is intended to be discrete. It also only ever needs to run one VM. It doesn't care about such trivialities as the display, for example. So it does not need display drivers, it can just pass commands straight on to the hardware. To the user, the virtual environment looks identical to the real one. Same hardware, same system, because most operations go straight to hardware from the virtualization layer.
Similarly, since the system environment looks the same, fundamentally the running system is the same. Therefore, Blue Pill does not really do migrating in the sense of a system being migrated onto a VMWare virtual machine. It just needs to get control with a sufficient level of permissions. It then creates a thin virtual machine. (By thin virtual machine, I mean one that virtualizes the system, but passes on most requests directly to hardware.) That virtual machine is initialized with the current state of the system. Then it starts the machine running with a normal return from the Blue Pill insertion code. Most of the actual work setting up the virtual machine could probably even be done while the OS is still running normally, with just a quick set of priveleged code to switch things over to virtualization. The end result is there is not even a noticible pause when the virtualization starts.
All of that can be done with software virtualization techniques. Having hardware virtualization just makes some of the messy details easier.
Not everyone that implements spam filters is the primary user of the spam filter, and not everyone that uses a spam filter knows how it is implemented.
How many gmail users know how to implement a Bayesian spam filter? I'm sure there are many who don't even know what a spam filter is.
It is an arms race. And, from the perspective of someone who has worked in a field with a similar arms race (Network security tools, a close relative of both spam filtering and anti-virus) it is a quite tiring one at that.
Or a porn/warez site put up on an unsecured host.
I find it ironic that someone named "Karma Farmer" is trolling.
I don't know about you, but I've still got a working PSX (And it was hardly treated nice... It was the early model where the disk swap still worked, and I did the disk swap many times until I finally got a mod chip) and my early run PS2 still works quite nicely as well.
I'm not claiming yours did not break, for I have to take you at your word that it did. I just think you might be being a little harsh on the hardware by projecting yours breaking onto other people and therefore seeing a trend that they "tend to break down more often than Nintendo consoles" without facts to prove such trend. (For the record, my N64 still works just fine as well, but my fiancees has occasional trouble.)
I think you're mixing specs. The current known specs are that the slot feed drive is specially designed to take Gamecube discs in addition to standard CDs/DVDs, and that the console comes with Gamecube controller ports and memory card slots on the unit itself, for no other purpose than playing Gamecube games.
The only external connectivity is wireless connectivity which allows the Nintendo DS to be used with some games.
Holography is about more than just using 3 dimensions of space to store something. It's specifically about a technique that involves generating an interference pattern between a coherent source of light split into two crossing beams. By that nature, it stores data in 3d. CD type optical storage is still a surface storage medium even with multiple layers. It just focuses the beam onto different surfaces.
San Francisco is not the Bay Area.
As we like to say around here, if you don't like the weather, drive a bit. On extreme days, we can sometimes have a 40 degree temperature spread within the area. (Usually with less than 60 miles between the highs and lows.) The area has tons of microclimates.
I, for one, welcome our new slime overlords.
Maybe by "The media" they mean people like Zonk.
Since FFVII, FFX was the first FF game I didn't play to the end. (FFXI excluded, which I never got to begin with.) The story just seemed to stall with me.
Funny, I'd say the opposite... Sports games are mostly the same between each (But I never liked sports games)...
GTA I'd agree with...
But each new numbered game in Final Fantasy is largely a new game, and Legend of Zelda has had quite large differences between games for some of the sequals. In both those cases, if you slapped different names on the characters and came up with a new name, the games could stand on their own.
But those are some of the exceptions. Those are sequals that strike out into new gameplay and new stories. Sequals that just rehash the same gameplay are of limited value.
While I agree on most counts...
I don't think "Final Fantasy whatever" fits into the same category. Different numbers in the Final Fantasy line are about as similar as completely different games. There is no story linking them, the world is different for each, and even the gameplay can change from game to game. Only a relatively few things carry over from one game to the next. If most companies treated sequals like Square Enix does, there would be much less of an issue with sequals.
When I worked on hardware that runs Linux, our end goal was to release the code on a ROM. Not a PROM or EPROM, but a ROM. Seems to me that gets around the whole mess in the first place. IIRC, the GPL3 section in question just requires that any keys required to run the software are provided. With ROM, technically speaking you CAN modify it and run your own version... If you have a pin compatible chip that you feel like soldering onto the board in place of the ROM with your version.
I actually do something like that for places that let you enter any question. I enter some off the wall question that could be answered any way and does not easily relate to anything, but with how I think I know the answer right away.
For example (This is not one I actually use) a friend in school when faced with the classic question "Why is a mouse when it spins?" did not know the "correct" answer (The higher, the fewer) so came up with an equally nonsensical answer (The faster it spins, the much). It is an answer I'd think of nearly right away, but nobody else would probably have even heard it answered that way before.
But what reason does the retailer have to care? As long as they move inventory, they make money.
Sure, the bank does, at a minimum through the ATM. But the ATM is a very specific and more importantly secure environment. Just because the ATM has access to account information does not mean it is a good idea for other unrelated systems to have the same access. Any security expert would cringe at the concept of needlessly linking systems together that have different requirements of security level. The man trap needs only minimal security, since in practice nearly everyone has access. The ATM needs maximum levels of security since the access is narrowed down to an individual account and money as well as financial records are at risk.
And there is very likely strict regulations on what the account information accessed can be used for and who/what can gain access to it, to prevent the risk of fraud and misuse of the information. Even if using it for access to the ATM area seems like it would be within the spirit of such regulations, unless it is to the letter of the regulations, it is not allowed.
One of my credit union branch offices in Silicon Valley has such a setup. The others do not. It's the only place I can think of off the top of my head that I have seen it.
The record for beating Super Mario Brothers 3 is something a little over 10 minutes.
I wouldn't really call it a short game though. There is a difference between expected play time and how quickly you can beat the game. The original Myst game is a darn good example. You spend hours solving puzzles looking at scenery and learning the story, just to find out that you could have beat the game from the start if you just knew what to do. See that? That's the key. If you just knew what to do.
The platform genre of games, especially those without saves, tend to be very short in actual gameplay. But you spend a lot of time learning what to do. It is the rare person that jumps in and beats a game the first time through in anything near the shortest possible time.
Ban from live is more likely. Most companies are very shy about firmware upgrades that are not designed to be upgraded. Typically firmware that is designed for upgrades has a failsafe so if the update is interrupted, it can fall back on the failsafe (Usually an older version, or the current version if it does an active/standby firmware model). While the XBox itself may have such a failsafe, the drive is less likely to. Putting a consumer product into a state where an ordinary event (Powering off, or power failure) can effectively break it is generally a Bad Idea.