I believe that is one of the scarier parts of the DMCA... it makes ISPs liable for copyright infringement without a court order if they've been properly notified of said infringement and take no action.
Question: So what happens when the copyright is disputed?
Maybe, but Microsoft's implementation of Kereberos extensions alone could arguably be another monopolistic ploy. I think the post you replied to simply meant Microsoft would be wiser to keep a low profile for now, instead of attacking a public forum. Not only have they shot themselves in the foot, now they've turned it into a media event the whole world will notice, all to protect information that has supposedly been "published" (snicker snicker).
Please remember that US-law is not universal, global law (even if you'd want it to be so).
What idiocy.. US law is discussed often here because it affects a lot of slashdot readers, not because "they want it to be global, universal". (or redundant either). Not to imply that Belgian law isn't as important to/. readers of course.. I encourage you to submit a story detailing Belgian copywrite law. I am sure it will receive the attention it deserves.
If you're going to trash America, try and do it with some flavour...
"What do American beer and making love in a canoe have in common? They're both %$!@ing close to water."
PS I am Canadian and will gladly trade some of our beer for some of your smokes down there.:)
I'm not sure about that whole boycott strategy. If record sales drop, they will almost certainly jump on that as "evidence" that MP3 trading is demolishing their industry.. this could even bolster anti-MP3 sentiments and facilitate harsher legislation.
Normally I ignore such pathetic excuses for flamebait. Have you ever been to a Metallica concert? They formed in 1982, their concerts draw people from teenagers to 50 year olds, I would say the average being mid twenties. Their self titled black album sold 12 million copies worldwide, and they received 3 consecutive Grammy awards in 89-90-91. I suppose all the contemporary bands you listen to are far superior.. why don't you list some? They are exceptionally talented artists, and I personally find most of their music intricate, intelligent, inspiring and even beautiful.
Yes, they're a heavy rock band whose music isn't for everyone's tastes. But your immature name calling and profanity only showcases your ignorance.
As far as Napster is concerned, these artists DO have legitimate grievances... but suing Napster is the wrong move, Metallica acted hastily without considering all the issues. However this has absolutely no bearing on the quality of their music.
I'm torn on the whole MP3 deal... on one hand downloading copywrited music you haven't paid for is WRONG. If you disagree your parents didn't raise you very well. All these flowery speeches about the open source movement and free information exchange are like the desperate pleas of children who are afraid of having their newest toy taken away... completely sidestepping the central issue: you are taking someone's work and not giving anything in return, against their explicit wishes.
Now that every Napster user out there hates me, the other side of the coin is that I really don't see how downloading an MP3 is fundamentally any different from taping a song off of the radio, or a music video from MTV/Muchmusic.. you're simply making a local copy for personal use of something broadcast over a freely available medium. The only real change is that with the internet you don't have to wait for the song you want to be played. (I'm aware there are many tertiary issues such as audio quality, and advertising/sponsorship, but I believe the point is still sound)
I don't think Napster should be liable for illegal activities initiated through their servers, however they are certainly negligent in excercising their exclusive ability (thanks to their centralized listing model) to prevent it... the only question is whether this negligence is criminal or not. I'm no lawyer, but I would bet on no.
Sure. Take a blank hard drive. Copy the CAB files from a Win CD to the HD. Turn the power off, switch your HD jumpers around, boot from floppy and away you go. Scanning is painless with a blank hard drive, the actual install only takes 12-15 min on a decent speed (~500 MHz) computer.. then yes, you have to reboot way more times than you should.
The point of my post wasn't the speed anyway, my profane friend, it was the ease of hardware driver setup.
If MP3's were encoded with some sort of artist/song identifier, all you'd have to send to Napster is this identifier upon completion of a transfer.. you wouldn't need any user info since the users aren't even paying. You WOULD need an ad server with some bitchin' broadband to keep up though.:)
After that, it's simple. Napster calculates what it needs to pay out to artists based on the identifiers it receives. The ad server knows what it has dished out, (it doesn't even have to pay attention to where it sends them) so Napster bills the advertisers enough to pay off the artists. A pooled reimbursement scheme like this is simple and fair, which means it will NEVER see actual practice.
Instead of futiley and greedily trying to prevent the copying of data across the internet (which they will never stop) the industry should figure out a way to make some money out of this, or they will soon be extinct.
Well there is the key... a good interface needs to be simple and intuitive enough for basic users, yet highly flexible and customizable for advanced users. Windows is about as flexible as a tuning fork, but it's definitely easier for the average bear to pick up than the ultra configurable *nix's.
Hard to KILL yes, but this is still a very good point. Assuming machine sentience is an attainable goal, it is inevitable at some point they will be given rights of some kind. Turning off a computer might not quite become murder, but it is definitely incapacitating, which one could argue is a type of assault against any self-aware entity.
I'm wondering what will happen if a true AI (one that can fully interpret and comprehend all media, and is capable of making completely autonomous decisions) ever got access to the internet. Flesh and blood hackers have proven time and time again how vulnerable the vast majority of the internet is.. imagine an AI expertly hacking into 100,000 systems simultaneously and planting perfect, on the fly programs that extend its range and abilities exponentially. How could we possibly thwart such an opponent? Once this theoretical AI infiltrated the net, we'd never get it out... it would be able to mutate, replicate, and hide itself faster and better than we'd ever be able to keep up with.
Yes.. all the Asimov fans out there are saying "we'll just use the rules of robotics to protect us!" but I don't buy that... I'm betting the first true AI will become self-aware without us even really realizing it, with no such safeguards in place.
I think the Matrix is a perfect example of a well made movie that expands the minds of the audience by twisting them in really interesting ways, and I think that should be a significant goal of any creative venture. Incredible special effects, UNBELIEVABLE fight scenes, great villains, and a truly epic storyline/premise. Everyone knows that Keanu Reeves isn't exactly Oscar calibre, but they gave him a very quiet, low-key personality for Neo which (IMHO) he pulled off very well. Then there are some excellent performances from Lawrence Fushburne, Joe Pantoliano, and Carrie Anne Moss.
As for the Oscars, have you people even seen American Beauty? I have, and next to it The Matrix looks like a comic book compared to a novel. The Matrix is very entertaining and stylish, the best action movie I've seen in years. But it pales dramatically next to just about anything. It won several Oscars for the appropriate areas, but saying it was the best movie of the year is rather myopic, I think. There's a lot of great film out there.
Check out Coming Attractions, it's an amazing site with info about hundreds of upcoming movies. Their Planet of the Apes page confirms Tim Burton as Director, William Broyles as screenwriter, and Richard Zanuck as producer. Everything else seems to be up in the air.
I believe the VIC-20 only had about 5K of usable RAM too, the rest was a pair of 8K ROM chips for BIOS and BASIC. Now that's efficient coding. Yeeks.:)
I think any automated decision making system can be classified as a type of artificial intelligence in the broad sense... what we're really getting at here is artificial sentience.
I never said "using this technology to try and cure blindness/improve sight is a waste" I said it's NOT APPLICABLE! It's a microchip that takes in a video stream, identifies and tracks programmed objects, and outputs numerical data on their motion. Sure, you could conceivably find a way to feed that information in a comprehensible way directly to the human brain, which I guess would be the equivalent of giving somebody "visual sonar" or something, but if you had the technology to interface directly with the brain like that, you'd just have to feed it video.. you don't need a processor in there spitting out motion data... the brain does that. This new chip mimics the part of the brain that does this, not the actual sight organs.
If I had a penny for every time I read a "This is all just a bunch of crap" comment...
This isn't a bunch of crap, this is life. A few days ago everyone was decrying the DMCA for being a bunch of crap designed to solely benefit big greedy corporations. Now the Clinton administration states that existing laws are sufficient, and THIS is a bunch of crap done for the businesses.
Not to mention the 20 some odd completely irrelevant posts about cookies I read through. I'm starting to forget why I visit this place so much:) I'm not trying to be an asshole but I think there's more "crap" in this here thread than the new report that this forum is supposedly about./RANT (This is a relatively early post.. I have faith there will be lots of good content in this thread given a few hours to simmer.)
"The world is changing every day; the only question is who's doing it.
intelligent air bags that monitor passenger size and traffic congestion monitors; pedestrian detection, license plate recognition, electronic toll collection, automatic parking management, and automatic inspection; and medical uses, including disease identification. The chip could also prove useful in unmanned aircraft, miniature smart weapons, ground reconnaissance and other military applications, as well as in security access using facial, iris, fingerprint, or height and gait identification.
A 100 proposed applications in 10 industries? I don't know, sounds pretty versatile to me. Of course the chip doesn't do all of that stuff natively, are you insane? But it is the crucial, missing component in an enormous variety of applications, and they're selling a powerful chip they've been developing since the early nineties for $6, and you guys are skeptical because you think they just "stumbled across it"?
Why is everybody talking about curing sight defects with these? Nowhere in the article does it mention interfacing these things with humans, despite Hemos' eye gouging joke in the post.
This is basically a revolution in hardware accelerated shape/object recognition. With this you could build cars that automatically avoid accidents, robots that navigate through the world like normal people (seing eye droids?), and security systems that track every person in a building.
Maybe in the future we will be able to link devices directly to the human brain and solve vision problems, but you wouldn't need anything as esoteric as this... you just need the right type of camera to replace an eyeball, not an object recognition chip.
The recording industry is worried (and rightly so) about becoming redundant in our new information age where any joe blow can set up a worldwide distribution network through the internet, and so they are fighting back with everything they've got.
The same thing happens whenever technology empowers consumers to manage their own content... just look at the VCR. When they first came out, the movie companies all screamed bloody murder, and kept whining about how this was going to obliterate box office sales. Now 20 years later, box office sales are still soaring, and the production houses are making billions off of rental sales. The invention of the magnetic audio cassette was before my time, but I imagine a similar debate raged then.
Of course now the boogeyman is "perfect digital copies". One word: BUL^&$T! You ever listened to an MP3 on a hi-fi stereo? Sounds AWFUL compared to the real deal. How is listening to an MP3 from Napster any different from recording a song from the radio onto a cassette tape? They broadcast this stuff freely on the radio all over the planet and then sick the lawyers on us when we use technology to migrate to the internet, which not only makes sense, but is INEVITABLE! If the bloated media giants weren't drowning in red tape and shortsightedness, they'd have been selling music on the net 5 years ago.
The real solution, IMHO, is to get all of this out in the open, and talk to the people who really matter, the artists whose work is being spread. When exactly did the corporations that simply sell the music become more of a focus than the people who create the music?
What happens if Windows goes Open Source, an entire legion of pissed off Win32 hackers goes to work on it and it becomes stable and secure, and starts winning back market share from Linux?
Another good question: Would this be a bad thing? Real competition would probably improve Windows AND Linux.
I've had the same problem with smaller sites, but I believe it's being caused by the slowdown in Alter.net in Chicago.. it seems like half the sites on the net go through Chicago from Canada, where I am.
There was an earlier post than mentioned this, and also had a good link; Internet Traffic Report.
not necessary to attribute something to malice that can adequately be explained by ignorance.
If you're paraphrasing Napolean, I believe it ends with "incompetence", not "ignorance".:) Mind you I suppose in the proper context, they mean basically the same thing.
This public service announcement has been brought to you by your friendly neighborhood nitpicker.
How about client based checking then? Look at it from another angle completely. A simple, miniscule piece of java and/or javascript code that executes on the client machine, and reports failures to the central server before sending the client's browser there?
I wrote a pretty neat conversation program many years ago on my parents' old 386 in QuickBasic. The program had two agendas.. the first was asking questions and trying to store the information in memory. The second was to respond to dialog from the user, for which I built a simple expression language for... I then constructed a library of "response classes".. which were just data objects which had conditions built in, and as many varied responses using keywords and "knowledge" of the person as I could come up with.
One thing I had to make sure of was to check the conditions for each class in a random order every time to prevent predictable responses to similar statements. Then I built in a few checking systems, to handle if the user does certain things like repeating themselves over and over ("Yeah I heard you the first 5 times, %name%!") or if they start mimicking the program.. ("Hey stop that!")
When it was good enough, I modified it to look like a DOS prompt, inserted it into autoexec.. and watched my family's confusion ensue.:)
Well what would be really cool is if the engine could somehow detect a bad link as soon as a visitor fails to access it.. then the server double checks it the next day, and if it's still down, then POOF the link gets munched.
The point is to get some sort of real time checking and self monitoring. I've worked on numerous search engines, and most of them just have a batch verify command to parse the entire link database... there are better ways out there.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe that is one of the scarier parts of the DMCA... it makes ISPs liable for copyright infringement without a court order if they've been properly notified of said infringement and take no action.
Question: So what happens when the copyright is disputed?
Answer: We're about to find out! :)
Maybe, but Microsoft's implementation of Kereberos extensions alone could arguably be another monopolistic ploy. I think the post you replied to simply meant Microsoft would be wiser to keep a low profile for now, instead of attacking a public forum. Not only have they shot themselves in the foot, now they've turned it into a media event the whole world will notice, all to protect information that has supposedly been "published" (snicker snicker).
What idiocy.. US law is discussed often here because it affects a lot of slashdot readers, not because "they want it to be global, universal". (or redundant either). Not to imply that Belgian law isn't as important to /. readers of course.. I encourage you to submit a story detailing Belgian copywrite law. I am sure it will receive the attention it deserves.
If you're going to trash America, try and do it with some flavour...
PS I am Canadian and will gladly trade some of our beer for some of your smokes down there. :)
I'm not sure about that whole boycott strategy. If record sales drop, they will almost certainly jump on that as "evidence" that MP3 trading is demolishing their industry.. this could even bolster anti-MP3 sentiments and facilitate harsher legislation.
Normally I ignore such pathetic excuses for flamebait. Have you ever been to a Metallica concert? They formed in 1982, their concerts draw people from teenagers to 50 year olds, I would say the average being mid twenties. Their self titled black album sold 12 million copies worldwide, and they received 3 consecutive Grammy awards in 89-90-91. I suppose all the contemporary bands you listen to are far superior.. why don't you list some? They are exceptionally talented artists, and I personally find most of their music intricate, intelligent, inspiring and even beautiful.
Yes, they're a heavy rock band whose music isn't for everyone's tastes. But your immature name calling and profanity only showcases your ignorance.
As far as Napster is concerned, these artists DO have legitimate grievances... but suing Napster is the wrong move, Metallica acted hastily without considering all the issues. However this has absolutely no bearing on the quality of their music.
I'm torn on the whole MP3 deal... on one hand downloading copywrited music you haven't paid for is WRONG. If you disagree your parents didn't raise you very well. All these flowery speeches about the open source movement and free information exchange are like the desperate pleas of children who are afraid of having their newest toy taken away... completely sidestepping the central issue: you are taking someone's work and not giving anything in return, against their explicit wishes.
Now that every Napster user out there hates me, the other side of the coin is that I really don't see how downloading an MP3 is fundamentally any different from taping a song off of the radio, or a music video from MTV/Muchmusic.. you're simply making a local copy for personal use of something broadcast over a freely available medium. The only real change is that with the internet you don't have to wait for the song you want to be played. (I'm aware there are many tertiary issues such as audio quality, and advertising/sponsorship, but I believe the point is still sound)
I don't think Napster should be liable for illegal activities initiated through their servers, however they are certainly negligent in excercising their exclusive ability (thanks to their centralized listing model) to prevent it... the only question is whether this negligence is criminal or not. I'm no lawyer, but I would bet on no.
Sure. Take a blank hard drive. Copy the CAB files from a Win CD to the HD. Turn the power off, switch your HD jumpers around, boot from floppy and away you go. Scanning is painless with a blank hard drive, the actual install only takes 12-15 min on a decent speed (~500 MHz) computer.. then yes, you have to reboot way more times than you should.
The point of my post wasn't the speed anyway, my profane friend, it was the ease of hardware driver setup.
If MP3's were encoded with some sort of artist/song identifier, all you'd have to send to Napster is this identifier upon completion of a transfer.. you wouldn't need any user info since the users aren't even paying. You WOULD need an ad server with some bitchin' broadband to keep up though. :)
After that, it's simple. Napster calculates what it needs to pay out to artists based on the identifiers it receives. The ad server knows what it has dished out, (it doesn't even have to pay attention to where it sends them) so Napster bills the advertisers enough to pay off the artists. A pooled reimbursement scheme like this is simple and fair, which means it will NEVER see actual practice.
Instead of futiley and greedily trying to prevent the copying of data across the internet (which they will never stop) the industry should figure out a way to make some money out of this, or they will soon be extinct.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I read that the casing is airtight and full of some gas, and if it's cracked the drive is ruined.
Well there is the key... a good interface needs to be simple and intuitive enough for basic users, yet highly flexible and customizable for advanced users. Windows is about as flexible as a tuning fork, but it's definitely easier for the average bear to pick up than the ultra configurable *nix's.
Hard to KILL yes, but this is still a very good point. Assuming machine sentience is an attainable goal, it is inevitable at some point they will be given rights of some kind. Turning off a computer might not quite become murder, but it is definitely incapacitating, which one could argue is a type of assault against any self-aware entity.
I'm wondering what will happen if a true AI (one that can fully interpret and comprehend all media, and is capable of making completely autonomous decisions) ever got access to the internet. Flesh and blood hackers have proven time and time again how vulnerable the vast majority of the internet is.. imagine an AI expertly hacking into 100,000 systems simultaneously and planting perfect, on the fly programs that extend its range and abilities exponentially. How could we possibly thwart such an opponent? Once this theoretical AI infiltrated the net, we'd never get it out... it would be able to mutate, replicate, and hide itself faster and better than we'd ever be able to keep up with.
Yes.. all the Asimov fans out there are saying "we'll just use the rules of robotics to protect us!" but I don't buy that... I'm betting the first true AI will become self-aware without us even really realizing it, with no such safeguards in place.
I think the Matrix is a perfect example of a well made movie that expands the minds of the audience by twisting them in really interesting ways, and I think that should be a significant goal of any creative venture. Incredible special effects, UNBELIEVABLE fight scenes, great villains, and a truly epic storyline/premise. Everyone knows that Keanu Reeves isn't exactly Oscar calibre, but they gave him a very quiet, low-key personality for Neo which (IMHO) he pulled off very well. Then there are some excellent performances from Lawrence Fushburne, Joe Pantoliano, and Carrie Anne Moss.
As for the Oscars, have you people even seen American Beauty? I have, and next to it The Matrix looks like a comic book compared to a novel. The Matrix is very entertaining and stylish, the best action movie I've seen in years. But it pales dramatically next to just about anything. It won several Oscars for the appropriate areas, but saying it was the best movie of the year is rather myopic, I think. There's a lot of great film out there.
This been confirmed anywhere else?
Check out Coming Attractions, it's an amazing site with info about hundreds of upcoming movies. Their Planet of the Apes page confirms Tim Burton as Director, William Broyles as screenwriter, and Richard Zanuck as producer. Everything else seems to be up in the air.
I believe the VIC-20 only had about 5K of usable RAM too, the rest was a pair of 8K ROM chips for BIOS and BASIC. Now that's efficient coding. Yeeks. :)
I think any automated decision making system can be classified as a type of artificial intelligence in the broad sense... what we're really getting at here is artificial sentience.
I never said "using this technology to try and cure blindness/improve sight is a waste" I said it's NOT APPLICABLE! It's a microchip that takes in a video stream, identifies and tracks programmed objects, and outputs numerical data on their motion. Sure, you could conceivably find a way to feed that information in a comprehensible way directly to the human brain, which I guess would be the equivalent of giving somebody "visual sonar" or something, but if you had the technology to interface directly with the brain like that, you'd just have to feed it video.. you don't need a processor in there spitting out motion data... the brain does that. This new chip mimics the part of the brain that does this, not the actual sight organs.
If I had a penny for every time I read a "This is all just a bunch of crap" comment...
This isn't a bunch of crap, this is life. A few days ago everyone was decrying the DMCA for being a bunch of crap designed to solely benefit big greedy corporations. Now the Clinton administration states that existing laws are sufficient, and THIS is a bunch of crap done for the businesses.
Not to mention the 20 some odd completely irrelevant posts about cookies I read through. I'm starting to forget why I visit this place so much :) I'm not trying to be an asshole but I think there's more "crap" in this here thread than the new report that this forum is supposedly about. /RANT (This is a relatively early post.. I have faith there will be lots of good content in this thread given a few hours to simmer.)
"The world is changing every day; the only question is who's doing it.
A 100 proposed applications in 10 industries? I don't know, sounds pretty versatile to me. Of course the chip doesn't do all of that stuff natively, are you insane? But it is the crucial, missing component in an enormous variety of applications, and they're selling a powerful chip they've been developing since the early nineties for $6, and you guys are skeptical because you think they just "stumbled across it"?
Why is everybody talking about curing sight defects with these? Nowhere in the article does it mention interfacing these things with humans, despite Hemos' eye gouging joke in the post.
This is basically a revolution in hardware accelerated shape/object recognition. With this you could build cars that automatically avoid accidents, robots that navigate through the world like normal people (seing eye droids?), and security systems that track every person in a building.
Maybe in the future we will be able to link devices directly to the human brain and solve vision problems, but you wouldn't need anything as esoteric as this... you just need the right type of camera to replace an eyeball, not an object recognition chip.
The recording industry is worried (and rightly so) about becoming redundant in our new information age where any joe blow can set up a worldwide distribution network through the internet, and so they are fighting back with everything they've got.
The same thing happens whenever technology empowers consumers to manage their own content... just look at the VCR. When they first came out, the movie companies all screamed bloody murder, and kept whining about how this was going to obliterate box office sales. Now 20 years later, box office sales are still soaring, and the production houses are making billions off of rental sales. The invention of the magnetic audio cassette was before my time, but I imagine a similar debate raged then.
Of course now the boogeyman is "perfect digital copies". One word: BUL^&$T! You ever listened to an MP3 on a hi-fi stereo? Sounds AWFUL compared to the real deal. How is listening to an MP3 from Napster any different from recording a song from the radio onto a cassette tape? They broadcast this stuff freely on the radio all over the planet and then sick the lawyers on us when we use technology to migrate to the internet, which not only makes sense, but is INEVITABLE! If the bloated media giants weren't drowning in red tape and shortsightedness, they'd have been selling music on the net 5 years ago.
The real solution, IMHO, is to get all of this out in the open, and talk to the people who really matter, the artists whose work is being spread. When exactly did the corporations that simply sell the music become more of a focus than the people who create the music?
What happens if Windows goes Open Source, an entire legion of pissed off Win32 hackers goes to work on it and it becomes stable and secure, and starts winning back market share from Linux?
Another good question: Would this be a bad thing? Real competition would probably improve Windows AND Linux.
I've had the same problem with smaller sites, but I believe it's being caused by the slowdown in Alter.net in Chicago.. it seems like half the sites on the net go through Chicago from Canada, where I am.
There was an earlier post than mentioned this, and also had a good link; Internet Traffic Report.
If you're paraphrasing Napolean, I believe it ends with "incompetence", not "ignorance". :) Mind you I suppose in the proper context, they mean basically the same thing.
This public service announcement has been brought to you by your friendly neighborhood nitpicker.
How about client based checking then? Look at it from another angle completely. A simple, miniscule piece of java and/or javascript code that executes on the client machine, and reports failures to the central server before sending the client's browser there?
I wrote a pretty neat conversation program many years ago on my parents' old 386 in QuickBasic. The program had two agendas.. the first was asking questions and trying to store the information in memory. The second was to respond to dialog from the user, for which I built a simple expression language for... I then constructed a library of "response classes".. which were just data objects which had conditions built in, and as many varied responses using keywords and "knowledge" of the person as I could come up with.
One thing I had to make sure of was to check the conditions for each class in a random order every time to prevent predictable responses to similar statements. Then I built in a few checking systems, to handle if the user does certain things like repeating themselves over and over ("Yeah I heard you the first 5 times, %name%!") or if they start mimicking the program.. ("Hey stop that!")
When it was good enough, I modified it to look like a DOS prompt, inserted it into autoexec.. and watched my family's confusion ensue. :)
Well what would be really cool is if the engine could somehow detect a bad link as soon as a visitor fails to access it.. then the server double checks it the next day, and if it's still down, then POOF the link gets munched.
The point is to get some sort of real time checking and self monitoring. I've worked on numerous search engines, and most of them just have a batch verify command to parse the entire link database... there are better ways out there.