Be a man. Don't reply as an Anonymous Coward. Karma whore - posting as anonymous just so you can't be moderated down.
Bruce was merely pointing out that there is a patent that could relate to the antialiasing discussed in the article. If I was working on this software I think his comment would be highly important, and I would try to make sure that anything I did didn't conflict with the patent.
You really see so much evil in this that you needed to tear him down?
You mean, aside from the fact that he was noting that Pixar has a patent that might apply here, and he actually worked for Pixar? Geez - maybe there is a smidgen of authority here.
The first invention is a method of compressing text stored in binary form, which expresses information as a series of noughts and ones, by comparing each word with its predecessor and recording only the differences between words. This compresses the data to an eighth of its normal size.
The second invention involves a different way of recording and reading information, increasing four-fold the amount of data that can be held on magneto-optical disks, which are used for storing computerised data. The third invention provides new kinds of coatings and materials that can be used in disks, providing a 30-fold increase in capacity.
The fourth and most interesting invention produces a memory system that enables up to 10.8 terabytes of data to be stored in an area the size of a credit card, with no conventionally moving parts.
If you're really concerned about compensating for the rotation of a DVD, perhaps you should look at the forces exerted by an astronaut (a few orders of magnitude more massive) as they turn around.
Unfortuneately, this problem is pretty standard across the board. Matrox is unwilling to support this card on newer OS's (Linux or Win2k) and Linux drivers just don't exist
[...]
Older, yet servicable hardware is getting more and more support on linux, but because of crap like this, it's still lacking in a big way.
Wait a minute... so where exactly are you saying the source of the problem is?
The graphical aspect adds a bit of trouble for the free servers - not only do they have to work on the "playability" aspect of their server, they have to develop all of their graphics from scratch. This takes a long time...
Netrek handled this issue decades ago. All of the source code was readily available, but if you wanted to connect to any of the public servers you would be required to have an RSA signed binary.
I'll just stick in my two cents and agree with you - Imation disks are the absolute worst you could buy. I remember quite a few people in classes I had that were using Imation disks that were losing programming projects because of their cheap quality. About one of the last places you want the stupid things is where they're sold most often.
I guess what I was thinking of included encrypting the hard disk. The BIOS could be reconfigured to a hacker's heart's content, but without the keys on the USB Key to unlock the hard drive, he wouldn't get anywhere (well, he'd still have your computer which would suck)
Your friend's solution of requiring a password on boot up to decrypt the disk is probably plenty sufficient (he's probably using PPDD). Really loses the sexiness of being able to carry around a tangible object that truly is the "key", however:)
Sounds like more of a BIOS issue than anything else. Remember when you put your last computer together, there are quite specific settings as to the boot order of the hard drive, floppy, and CDROM. I don't think I ever recall seeing "USB Key".
It's quite unfortunate that current BIOS's are such poop - we'll never see any sort of USB Key capability. I just wish I had more skills or the time that I could be useful on the OpenBIOS project.
But it is most certainly a lot more expensive to scale it up. The vendors may sell 2-way and 4-way SMP motherboards for not overly princely sums, but moving on to higher multiples guarantees pretty monstrous prices, because you're simultaneously mandating:
Small production runs, compared to the teeming hordes of single CPU motherboards, and
Didn't you just contradict yourself there? If there are "teeming hordes" of single-processor boards, why build another one to compete in an already saturated market?
IMHO, the reason why multi-processor boards are expensive is because they target corporate consumers. You see this all the time in the prices with, for example, rackmount vs. desktop computers and the like.
SMP might not be the greatest gift to man ever, but you still can't beat the price/performance that SMP systems give over seperate machines, not to mention the complexity of clustering machines together.
I think Grace Hopper's analogy still applies: when one horse isn't strong enough to pull a cart, you don't try breeding a bigger horse, you just add another horse. Intel and AMD have created the ugly situation were their companies must revolve around creating faster and faster processors (stockholders love that) when they should really put more effort in making it more efficient for multiple processors to work together. The crap of the matter is, that when that happens (think: Xeon) the price of the chip is so high that it's cheaper to buy the commodity version and then run multiple machines.
Someone will get it right, sooner or later. Until then, the consumer just gets stuck with the bill.
"Hacking the kernel code" sounds a little easier said than done. If you believe it's possible, well, you sound like the kind of person that would actually know, but I still don't think it sounds too easy:)
Regardless, you've still fallen into the same trap as DeCSS - you'd be intentionally bypassing something that controls access to a copyrighted work. It still opens up the same ol' can of worms.
Before decrypting and passing the content on to any other components, a DRM kernel component verifies that all remaining components in the path to the sound card are valid and authenticated
Hardware keys! We lost the game with DVD's, and now this.
I'm aware that someone has written an audio driver that is able to copy any digital output directly to a.wav file. Since any developer can create audio drivers, this must be what the "Secure Audio Path" protects.
...but what's even scarier, if this scheme is going to work, then the manufacturers of sound cards are going to require some sort of encryption keys in order for their audio drivers to "stay the path", so to speak. Looks like we just lost another one to the DMCA.
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Bruce was merely pointing out that there is a patent that could relate to the antialiasing discussed in the article. If I was working on this software I think his comment would be highly important, and I would try to make sure that anything I did didn't conflict with the patent.
You really see so much evil in this that you needed to tear him down?
You mean, aside from the fact that he was noting that Pixar has a patent that might apply here, and he actually worked for Pixar? Geez - maybe there is a smidgen of authority here.
Strangely enough, none of his comments were moderated above a score of 1.
The second invention involves a different way of recording and reading information, increasing four-fold the amount of data that can be held on magneto-optical disks, which are used for storing computerised data. The third invention provides new kinds of coatings and materials that can be used in disks, providing a 30-fold increase in capacity.
The fourth and most interesting invention produces a memory system that enables up to 10.8 terabytes of data to be stored in an area the size of a credit card, with no conventionally moving parts.
This is like a total technological troll.
You're nuts. Linux rules the internet arena in terms of FTP or HTTP installations, and all the big guys either run on Sun or IBM.
I think it's called the DISPLAY environment variable.
- Unfortuneately, this problem is pretty standard across the board. Matrox is unwilling to support this card on newer OS's (Linux or Win2k) and Linux drivers just don't exist
Wait a minute... so where exactly are you saying the source of the problem is?[...]
Older, yet servicable hardware is getting more and more support on linux, but because of crap like this, it's still lacking in a big way.
You played netrek too I take it? Damn that game rocks. Did you ever consider signing the clients in the same way as netrek?
- Other divers can be added, including a software mode for those who really want one.
Must be some kind of ocean game.The graphical aspect adds a bit of trouble for the free servers - not only do they have to work on the "playability" aspect of their server, they have to develop all of their graphics from scratch. This takes a long time...
Netrek handled this issue decades ago. All of the source code was readily available, but if you wanted to connect to any of the public servers you would be required to have an RSA signed binary.
Perhaps not, but I don't think cameras do this anyway. They assuredly have some sort of memory buffer to handle this.
I'll just stick in my two cents and agree with you - Imation disks are the absolute worst you could buy. I remember quite a few people in classes I had that were using Imation disks that were losing programming projects because of their cheap quality. About one of the last places you want the stupid things is where they're sold most often.
Your friend's solution of requiring a password on boot up to decrypt the disk is probably plenty sufficient (he's probably using PPDD). Really loses the sexiness of being able to carry around a tangible object that truly is the "key", however :)
The original rebuttal quoted 3Dfx. It kinda slipped off track of main processors, but the argument still stands.
It's quite unfortunate that current BIOS's are such poop - we'll never see any sort of USB Key capability. I just wish I had more skills or the time that I could be useful on the OpenBIOS project.
Didn't you just contradict yourself there? If there are "teeming hordes" of single-processor boards, why build another one to compete in an already saturated market?
IMHO, the reason why multi-processor boards are expensive is because they target corporate consumers. You see this all the time in the prices with, for example, rackmount vs. desktop computers and the like.
Tried what? Making a card that ran with two or more processors? The Nvidia Geforce cards seem to do it pretty well.
I think Grace Hopper's analogy still applies: when one horse isn't strong enough to pull a cart, you don't try breeding a bigger horse, you just add another horse. Intel and AMD have created the ugly situation were their companies must revolve around creating faster and faster processors (stockholders love that) when they should really put more effort in making it more efficient for multiple processors to work together. The crap of the matter is, that when that happens (think: Xeon) the price of the chip is so high that it's cheaper to buy the commodity version and then run multiple machines.
Someone will get it right, sooner or later. Until then, the consumer just gets stuck with the bill.
Regardless, you've still fallen into the same trap as DeCSS - you'd be intentionally bypassing something that controls access to a copyrighted work. It still opens up the same ol' can of worms.
- Before decrypting and passing the content on to any other components, a DRM kernel component verifies that all remaining components in the path to the sound card are valid and authenticated
Hardware keys! We lost the game with DVD's, and now this.Thank you DMCA!
At least we won't have to pay a music industry tax for owning a technology that can copy music!
- Now if only the right motherboards would start showing up in quantity on pricewatch
...
www.pricescan.com is a much better engine for searching prices.