I always thought Patton had said "... meanest son of a bitch..." and not "... meanest mother fucker...".
Calling one's self a "son of a bitch" says something about one's opinion about one's mother, and perhaps, the harsh circumstances in which one was toghened up.
Calling one's self a "mother fucker" only says bad things about one's self.
Somehow, I can more realistically see Patton saying the former, not the latter. Are you sure you're not quoting his enemiys' misquote of him?
The general rule is to run 2xCAT5e (or Cat6) and 2xRG6/U coax (quad shielded) to every "drop" and home run back to a distribution panel. Each drop is terminated in a modular Leviton (or similar) wall plate module. You put a "drop" wherever you might want telephone, data, or TV. One can even get "Speedwrap" cable that combines the aforementioned cables (with and without 2xfiber as well) -- it adds a bit to the cost over individual cables but is easier and neater to pull.
The reasoning is as follows:
One Cat5e is for telephone (some PBXs do require all four pairs, though this is getting rarer). You don't need Cat5e for phone, but it's pennies over Cat3.
One Cat5e is for 100 Mb/s ethernet. 'nuff said.
One RG6/U is for RF (cable, local modulated channels, satellite, etc) to TVs.
The other RG6/U cable is for a "back feed" from a local video source modulated on some TV channel that is not in use -- at the headend you can combine them with the incomming cable/satellite feed, and broadcast through the house.
Anyway, that's the "recommendation". There are a few areas where it falls short, and a few other problem with it:
1. Satellite feeds can require two coax cables to each drop (so, forget about the "backfeed"), if you have a multi-satellite dish: if you have a dual satellite tuner, and want to tune different polarizations on the same satellite, or different satellites, you need two cables (at least for DirecTV). Dish Network "stacks" the horizontal and vertical polarizations on one cable, but you still need two cables if you want to watch programs on two different satellites (or watch one and record the other). So, say goodbuy to your video backfeed unless you run extra coax.
If you want to combine an OTA signal from a TV antenna (including OTA HD), you can diplex it onto and off of one of the satellite feeds, though a separate cable is better. It is generally a bad idea to try to duplex a cable feed with an internal satellite distribution network. So, add another RG6/u cable. That adds two extra coax cables (and quad-shielded ones are thick and somewhat inflexible), to each drop where you might have serious video equipment, i.e. anywhere you have a TV or computer that processes video, or video recording gear intended to archive programs. This will probably be the media/family room, computer room, and perhaps master bedroom. For good measure, you might want to add a second (or even third) such drop in such rooms, if you decide to move the furniture around. To racap: that's one Cat5e for telephone (your satellite and cable box or TiVo might need it), one Cat5e for data network (everything needs a data network port sooner or later), two coax for satellite, one for a backfeed, one for cable TV, and you can diplex the OTA signal on one of the satellite cables if you use both the backfeed and the cable feed.
Other locations where there might be a TV (kitchen, bedrooms) can probably get by without the extra two coax cables.
Next, consider the location of wired telephones. You want at least some wired telephones, that use a landline, at least one on each floor, that you can dial real 911 from. You probably want these locations at opposite ends of the room where the TV drops are, if any. Even if you go wireless for phones, you will probably want data network drops on the opposite end of the room to plug in your laptop, etc. Run 2xCat5e for phone and data.
"But why not wireless phone and/or data or MythTV over the LAN (or wireless), or VoIP over the LAN (or wireless), etc. and avoid all that cable?" I hear you cry.
Three reasons.
1. Security.
2. Bandwidth.
3. Expense.
You may have wireless phone (and VoIP, and data), to be sure, but keep it in the DMZ on your network. You definately want some real hardwired landline phones for emergencies. Wireless bandwidth is never going to be as good as what you can get on a wired network, and wired networks are easier to segment
You do realize that the whole notion of a "corporation" is a government fiction, right?
With an ordinary company, the owners are personally liable for the company's wrongdoings (I lump LLCs, i.e. limited liability companies, in with corporations). Corporate directors generally are on the hook for criminal behavior, only.
While the corporate fiction relieves small shareholders of public corporations from responsibility for the corporation's wrongdoings, and thus makes stock ownership more attractive than if they were jointly and severally libable, the separation of power from responsibility leads to the corporate abuses we see today.
Losely translated: "Drug Price", implying that the price of the drugs is noteworthy, i.e. low. There's also "Uniprix" (One Price, albeit not).
It took me about a year and a half after moving to the U.S. to start saying "convenience store" instead of "depaineur" (literally, "de-breader": one that removes bread (or facilitates the same, from its shelves)).
Almost failed my WA Drivers' License eye test, when I read off "Zed" instead of "Zee".:-)
To what extent does your lab research Free and Open Source collaborative development philosophies and processes as opposed to just "taking the pulse" of the state of the Linux art?
Expanding:
One of the supposed big advantages with OSS development is that it brings together large numbers of developers capable of cooperating in a relatively distributed manner, with little in the way of central coordination - a new feature can be implemented in a local fork, and survive globaly on it's merits.
The more specific question arises: "To what extent can such a collaborative approach can be beneficial among a large pool of potential developers who's code can be open to one another, but closed externally, such as within MS?" (The hidden assumption being that OSS network effects grow logarithmically with the size of the network of collaborators, and thus provide little incremental advantage once the pool is beyond a certain size).
If this submission is modded sufficiently high, either question can be answered (the general or specific).
If you had a copay,you did not have the best insurance you could get. I currently have no deductables, no copays, and no lifetime limit. Of course, this is rare -- I have had more conventional insurance with annual family deductables of areound $3k, and modest copays, as well. But, ya know what? With the lower taxes, it is a pittance.
For the record, I do not miss Canada one bit. The longer I stay in the U.S., the more I detest it. My wife and kids hated living there as well.
I remember when the U. moved from KRONOS to NOS. I rather liked COMPASS, particularly it's macro facility. I once hacked a set of macros to represent 6809 instructions in packed data, with address fields in the usual address locatations. That let me use the NOS Linker/Loader to resolve inter-module references. A post-procesor generated real 6809 object S1S9 records from the linked result.
I had written a cross-assembler in PASCAL already, but I never followed up with a linker. The assembler shipping with TSC Flex did not support a linker either, so one had to include all one's source in one go.
I also remember the fact that B0 was 0, and that, by convention, B1 was set (and assumed) to be 1. IIRC, that's what the SYSCON B1 macro did.
Initial access was via punched cards, with one CRT (it may have been a Hazeltine) and ten Decwriters. I finally got a 300 bps modem and ACT MIME I terminal (which could emulate a Haze 1500, among other things), around 1980 (at a cost of around CA$2000), so I could work at home.
One of the driving reasons for the 6809 cross-assember (both versions) was that I had built a little 6809 board with 4K EPROM, 2K RAM, and three serial ports to hack with. I had assembled a little monitor program, using the 6809 machines at the U, and burned it into EPROM, so that I could manually load code in a HEX address/data (and later S1S9 format) from the console. Alas, I did not have a bigger 6809 machine at home, on which I could natively assemble code. So, the need for a cross-assembler. (One of the physics labs, with lots of 6809 machines used it for the same purpose, for a while).
So, I'd cross-assemble on the Cyber, and download (i.e. just list) the S1S9 records to the little SBC I made. Typical programs were repeating dialers for BBSs (I had a 300 bps DC. Hayes Smartmodem, eventually, around 1981/2), and a means to add a smart printer port to the MIME I -- it had one, but would not handle flow-control correctly back on the main port, and my printer was a line printer in that it took one second to print a line, regardless of how many characters were on it (an AXIOM Imp II, IIRC: around CA$1400). Slewing the paper to TOP of FORM took anywhere from 0 to 9 seconds. So, it was theoretically possible to overflow the printer buffer even at 300 bps and certainly at 1200 bps (I eventually upgraded modems -- cost me CA$700 to do so).
I prefer the random misfortunes and follys of the free market to the state playing at God.
It would be one thing for the state to ration the care it can deliver based on its resources (tax revenues). But, it is quite barbaric, after taking one's supposed "fair share" of taxes to deny them the right to spend some of the rest for care that the government can not or will not provide them.
It isn't a question of those who would and could pay (increasingly, more and more Canadians are desperate to do so, and the better off simply go to the U.S. All politicians go to the U.S.) tying up a doctor from seeing a government patient first. The government arbitrarily rations how many specific procedures can be performed and sets the price per procedure, lest doctors get "too rich".
Doctors in Canada can not distinguish themselves on the basis of skill, so the best leave to work elsewhere.
Even the argument that everyone should get the same level of service is hypocracy: politicians and the wealthy can leave for care in the U.S. any time they wish. Taken to its logical conclusion, if the equality of outcome principle were actually applied, the state would close the borders to persons leaving to obtain care elsewhere. Hmm, that would be a lot like the old Soviet Union, no?
Like I said, Commie Bastards!
Furthermore, there is increasing evidence that the personal relationship between a physician and patient can help the patient advance in the queue for service, regardless of any medically-based triage.
Barbaric and corrupt, is what Canadian health care is.
Add to this the fact that a province (at least Alberta, and possibly others) can sieze and administer the assets of anyone that the "Provincial Psychiatrist" finds mentally incompetent. No trial to determine competency, just a decree by a bureaucrat is enough. I'm sure someone, somewhere, will make the case that criticizing the "free" healthcare in Canada is a clear indication of mental incompetence. It's happened recently to a person with Parkinson's disease, cared for effectively by family, having their bank account siezed, and the costs of periodic in-home care visits passed on to their former care-givers. What's worse is that the account was a joint account with this person's wife's assets as well, and these people can not now purchase a quart (well, two litres) of milk without government permission. Sounds like Soviet Reducation Camps to me.
When I purchased a house in Ontario, I had no deed, no title, nothing to say that I owned it, and the land, just an entry in some government database, easily erased, should I become a sore in the state's side. This was supposed to be for my "convenience". Well, fine, but I want a certified deed anyway, just in case your records get "lost".
Any of these peculiarities of Canadian government and society might be explained away as some quirk, or oversight, or overapplication of an ill-worded law. But, the deeper one looks, the bigger the horror becomes because of the sheer number of such shenanigans entrenched in the fabric of Canadian law.
Those that have homes to lose likely have jobs with insurance that enables them to have afforded the home in the first place, and most probably have health insurance as a result. So, they are unlikely to be in such a dilema.
The poor and destitute already have nothing to lose when the hospital, after caring for them as required by law, sends them a bill they cannot pay.
There will always be those who fall in the cracks, of course, getting seriously ill right after losing their job, and thus health insurance. However, one must ask: why did they not make hay while the sun was shining, and sock away funds to purchase health insurance privately? When I lost my job in 2002, I extended health insurance for myself and family for around $850 a month.
The American way of life, if one can generalize such a thing, permits one to take on great financial risks: over extending themselves on their mortgage and other debts, and so on. Sometimes the rewards can be great (mortgaging the farm to go into business for one's self, as it were), but the fall can be steep. The thing is, no one is forcing anyone to buy more house than they can afford, or have more kids than they can feed and educate.
I've seen what happens when the economy sours -- heck, I've been through it, and, unlike my American friends, I had to leave the country. But, we prepared for this possiblity and survived, well enough to turn down provincial health coverage when we returned to Canada briefly (on principle, as well as not accepting the onerous demands to swear an oath to "live in Ontario permanently"), and pay out of pocket for health services (No health card? You have to pay. Sure! No problem.) I've seen others who purchase way more house than they could afford not be able to save for emergencies, like job and employer-provided health insurance loss. Frankly, I think they deserved the suffering they got. The house we had to sell when we had to leave was in the county with the highest rate of forclosures in the U.S. in 2003, IIRC, because of the telecom bust. We priced it agressively, sold it quickly (to an unrepresented buyer, saving half of the commission, which we conceeded to him), and made out O.K. Our neighbors wanted $20k more or so, and waited, and waited, and waited, and sold at a big loss 4 months later. Never mind that they had to carry the house all that time.
It is true, that the health insurance market has badly mis-priced actual risks in the U.S., but, as with all markets, this will correct. Increasingly, one is seeing doctors request waivers of liability from patients not to sue in case of some extraordinary misfortune (as opposed to blatant malpractice) -- such suits are a big part of the skyrocketing insurance costs. Gasoline is expensive too, these days. One can adjust by changing their level of copyay or annual deductable.
For all the problems in the U.S., it is a far, far, better place to live that Canada (which, admitedly is a lot better than many other places, just noticibly worse than the U.S.).
Americans should kiss the ground they walk on.
Canadians need to wake up and see how messed up their country has become. Put bluntly, the government has lied to y'all, and you bought it, hook, line, and sinker. Must be all the beer consumed.
Still, 40 to 45 million is only 10 to 15% of the population, assuming those numbers are correct, and I expect that they are inflated.
Should the other 85% suffer the kind of waits that result in 25% of newly-diagnosed patients with heart disease dying before they can be seen by a cardiac specialist after referal from a general practitioner?
Canadians routinely drop off waiting lists for medical procedures because they get too sick to survive the procedure, even though they were well enough to tolerate it when the were first diagnosed.
The bottom line, is that it is absolutely criminal for the state to prevent people from spending their own after-tax dollars to purchase health care that the state can not provide in a timely matter even as it promises it. That's not just my opinion, that's a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada (well, they used the word unconstitutional as opposed to criminal, to be precise).
Of course, Canada is so messed up that a provincial or federal government can overrule the highest court in the land, and Quebec (in this case) has anounced that it intends to.
Like I said, "Commie Bastards".
One would think that the economies of scale that come with a single insurer system would be sufficient to subsidize basic care to those that otherwise could not afford private insurance. However, this has not happened in Canada. Without competition, the system has become fat, and ineffective.
14,000,000 Americans have no health insurance. It sounds like a lot, but represents about 5% of the population.
Now, no American hospital can turn away an uninsured patient for lack of funds, in case of emergency. I view that as about on a par with Canadian health care, for the uninsured. So, in the very worst case, the U.S. is no worse than Canada, and it's that bad for only 5% of it's population.
Hmm, not quite - A0:X0 were used for transferring data to/from ECS (extended core storage).
Interesting.
I still have a copy of "Assembly Language Programming," by Ralph Grishman (IIRC the author correctly) and it makes no mention of this. Was it a priv. instruction?
The only care someone covered by provincial health insurance can purchase is that which is not covered by the province's health care plan, which, in turn, is governed by the federal Canada Health Act. For example, you can pay for an upgrade to a semi-private room for a hospital stay. Basically, the provinces administer what the federal law mandates of them. Oh, and healthcare providers do not get government reimburtsement for uncovered foreigners. They pay and can be seen in a private clinic right away. Such private clinics are off-limits to Canadians but are available in cities with major sports franchises -- see many of the players are foreign, so such clinics cater to them. Need an MRI at 23:30? No problem. Sorry, Canuk, no amount of money gets YOU one.
The penalty for a doctor in British Columbia for accepting funds in exchange for care is CA$20,000.
I recently developed a nasty case of cellulitis in my elbow. A concerned relative in Canada sent me a medical factsheet from their doctor explaining how to "deal with the pain of cellulitis or until surgical treatment is avaolable. I'm going like, WTF? I call my Dr. at 8:00, get a 9:30 appoiontment, get diagnosed, admitted to the hospital at 11:00, put on broad spectrum antibiotics, have surgery the next day at 17:00, and leave a day and a half later. They make sure the infection has not spread to the blood. My private insurance pays for it. And, I pay one third the taxes I would in Canada.
NO! You can't use your money to buy the life-saving care you need! We'll fine the doctor that gives it to you $20,000. Get in line with everyone else. We'll decide how bad you need it. We provide free healthcare. Now, shut up and wait!
NO! We don't care if the court ruled that unconstitutional. We'll use the Notwithstanding Clause to overrule the Supreme Court of Canada. Now, shut up and pay your taxes for the free health care we give you!
If that isn't a physical threat (i.e. a threat to one's physical well-being), I don't know what is.
Investigative reporters this side of the border have started to call the Canadian government's treatment of its citizens, "Naziism", Godwin's law not withstanding.
When we back were in Canada for a short while (thankfully, a very short while, but still too long for my liking), and my son needed health care, I just trotted him to the head of the line, presented his American passport, paid, got him taken care of, and that was that. Funny how they let Canadians willing to pay die waiting, yet wouldn't dream of turning down a paying foreigner.
Seriously, though, both were rather cool as far as calculators went (but mine had a card reader/writer, yours didn't, nyeah, nyeah (the TI-59 did)). The 224 program steps in the SR-52 were a bit limiting, though. 1972, sheesh.
I fondly remember Concordia University's (Montreal, Canada) Control Data Corporation Cyber 6600 series mainframe, and later the new 800 series (shhhh!) model 835.
Ah, six bit display code. Didja know that display code:D in columns 1 and 2 (or 10x+1 and 10x+2 for x>=0) of a terminal output line would log the user off? (mwahahahaha!). There was another sequence that would case an internal buffer to be spewed to the terminal. Sometimes this contained account and password information. (I discovered this quite by accident when downloading the same text file twice to a SWTPC 6809-based micro (pre-IBM PC days) and getting different results. Nothing like applying one's binary search skills to track down the "interesting characters".)
I had implemented RATFOR (Rational Fortran, from Kernighan & Plaugher's "Software Tools") for the Cyber, as well as a 6809 cross-assembler, and had a hand in modifying the ETH Zurich Pascal compiler, so, among other things, the printout would have a backtrace to the previous compile-time error -- useful when having a dozen bugs in a 300 page printout. I still remember that you save data to core using A6 and A7, and retrieve data from core via A1 through A5. A0 was a scratch register. Ah, mainframe assembly.
RA+1 calls. (Did you know that you could use negative array indexing to make RA+1 calls, like loading (0,0) overlays, from within a Fortran program? Loading the popular reentrant Fix editor as a (0,0) overlay would cause it to crash for everyone? I wonder why FIXDOWN suddenly disappeared... it was an innocent four line FORTRAN program.
Then, there was that certain someone who used RJE to steal passwords when people tried to start up Adventure: "While walking through the two-pit room / We were too rash and met our doom. / We were about to say GOODBYE / When the size of the DAYFILE caught our eye. / 'Twas very ugly but plain to see: / Our password stolen through RJE." Personally, I preferred doing things the old-fashioned way: with blue 6/7/8 cards that did not have the 9 hole punched: never knew who you'd get. Just never mention SYSZSYS, O.K.? FUCKOFF! TWXMESS Hello, is anybody out there?
I know the Gameskeeper (In my day, to typeset your thesis, you first wrote a typesetting program. Sometimes, that was your thesis. In my case, I used the one produced by the Gameskeeper. That was so FORMAL) hangs out here sometimes, but I have no idea whatever happened to The Junk Dealer, Dragon Lady, or Ivan The Terrible. Yes, I was a top Honours CS student. No, the Computer Center did not always approve of my 'research'.
*** Host Processor Not Available ***, indeed.
Punched cards... magnetic tapes... 6/7/8/9 cards. Adventure ("You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike").
:D
Microprocessors work on a SWTPC clone running TSC Flex was fun... I had writetten a hard disk driver for the massive 10 Mb disk drive we got for the lab.
My favorate "orphan" system was the Alpha Microsostems AM-100, 100/L, and 680x0 series of machines: 16 bit data bus (AM/100), multitasking, multiuser operating system (complete with flat filesystem with six character upper case names and three character extensions)... in 1976. MITS Altair Basic, eat your heart out!. CP/M, and MS/DOS were toys compared to this (microprogrammed LSI-11 clone, and later 68k based). Around 1981/2, I had one on loan, at home, complete with a 10 MB CDC Hawk disk drive. I still lived with my parents at the time, and they had learned to not ask what was making the "jet plane taking off" sound and dimming the lights. I did not pay the power bill.
The material can only be accessed by downloading a software patch, created by an independent third party without Rockstar's permission, which is now freely available on the internet and through console accessories.
So, let me get this straight. You provide digital entertainment content of some kind to your customers. I make it possible for your customers to make it possible to replace it with material thqt would carry a "more mature" rating. You have to rerate your distribution media.
Yo, Disney! How much you gonna pay me to not tell people how to overwrite their "Lion King" video tapes with copies of "Debbie Does Dallas"? After all, having to re-rate all those "Lion King" VHS cassettes would cost you, no?
Sheesh.
And before someone points out that the offensive content was already there, just unaccessable, offensive content is always there on digital media, but inaccessable: ah, the magic of XOR to reveal it.
The problem with this scheme is that it requires access to a viewer authentication system, to limit the number of simultaneous viewers. Where such access is not available, it reduces to what I propose, with the nunber of copies of a key/content pair being 1. I'm not sure how you "lock" the content to a single device, without a network connection, though. Did you mean a physical lock?
Also, it has the flaw that it only prevents simultaneous viewings, not sequential ones, and requires a centralized service. The thought of someone knowing what I watch and when is unsettling.
Keeping a key secret in hardware is doable (it currently costs about $4k for ATM encryption hardware, though the high price is largely due to (a) the lack of any real economies of scale, (b) IBM holding the banks over a barrel). Key renewal and revocation is always a possiblity, though I'd implement it periodically, and not require a continuous net connection.
The notes about relying on central authorities are valid. The best compromise is to ensure that one has a choice of authorities and, as much as possible, not require subscription to services that can be optional (i.e. key escrow). I do not buy the argument that all free markets reduce to monopolies or that cooperation (formation of cartels) is always better than cooperation -- only under certain circumstances is this true. Otherwise, communism would reign supreme (and work better than capitalism).
RSH:You should be able to take your content, and temporarily be able to play it at a friend's house anyway, like you can today.
Wait. If my content is encrypted for my key, then wouldn't I have to take my key over there? Doesn't that make it too easy for someone to steal my key?
No. Your key is transferred from the viewer that has it to the viewer that needs it, with a reduction in the count of permitted transfers from the source viewer noted. In fact, the transfer need not be direct: you might have a secure fob to which it can be transfered to be carried in transit from your house to your friend's.
For that matter, if I can transfer my key from one device to another, what's stopping someone from simply taking my key, transferring it into software, then using that software to decode (not transcode) content, and then distribute it as if it were public domain?
Keys can only be transfered between devices that authenticate with one another to permit key transfer. Records are kept to limit the number of copies of a single key that can "float around" this way.
I do hope your scheme has a way to allow public domain in the first place...
There is no technical reason that viewers can't accept unencrypted content, or content encrypted with a known common public key. The problem with many existing DRM schemes is precisely that (a) they do not permit unencrypted content at all, and (b) they prevent "ordinary Janes and Joes" from producing encrypted content "like the big boys and girls." This is unacceptable.
I like the idea of owning my content, rather than licencing it. And although my model is technically licencing content, it behaves as though I own it.
As does mine, within the practical limit that an unlimited number of copies of a given key can not be allowed to exist. However, the combination of a limited number of key copies, and support for multiple keys in a device ameliorates the main objection. The difficulties over present day non-DRM schemes are mainly due to infrastructure bootstrapping - all devices that should be able to view restricted content must be able to, so one does have the problem of the "legacy dumb TV". However, content providers are starting to realize that permitting an analog hole for lower resolution content retrieval might not be a bad thing (witness the 480p restriction on upsampling DVD player component video outputs). This dovetails nicely with display devices with limited resolution to begin with. It does mean that those of us with HDTVs having only component video inputs that can do 720p and 1080i are rather SOL. The question is how big is that "early adopter" base, and how much political clout do they have? I suspect, in the grand scheme of things, the answers are "not very" and "not much".
The only downside to my model is that it needs a centrallized form of control -- but so does yours.
Mine doesn't. Key escrow is not essential -- it is a convenience, rather like online disk backup services. What my scheme does require is a web of trust between viewers, devices that hold keys, and content providers. However such a web need not have a single root (witness the multiple CAs out there today that all browsers support -- granted an unlimited number is impractical, but it should be sufficient for a small number of CAs to divide the market).
Under your model, what do I have to do to give my "licence" to someone else? Under my model, I simply give them a DVD. It can even be a burned DVD, so long as I no longer use the original or any other copies myself.
My model does not provide an implicit doctrine of first sale -- such a transfer would require the intervention and approval of the content holder. The problem is that there is no guarantee that the original has been destroyed. OTOH, my model provides for unlimited copying of encrypted content, and temporary authorization for anyone else to view it (sequentially). You appear to solve the problem by attacking th
Doesn't this defeat the purpose? I make 20 copies of my key, burn 15 copies of a DVD, and give them to 15 people who play them on 15 different DVD players using my key.
Well, then you've just lost the ability to view that content on 15 devices in your own home. Actually, it wouldn't be the DVD player so much as your friends' TVs that you'd share the key with, but the rest of your argumemt holds.
Furthermore, if your friends try to get commercial content coded for your key in their TV, and the same public key shows up against 16 different credit cards, someone will get suspicious. Of course, your friends will only ever use their own public keys to request content (assuming TVs can hold multiple keys), right? And never make a mistake, right? This does not stop non-mainstream content providers from transcoding for your friends without detection (or even you, for that matter), but a limit on the "transcode times" counter in the content restricts how much transcoding can take place. (To reset it, if necessary, you'd need an appropriately authorized transcoder).
So, no this scheme does not prevent limited sharing and distribution to your friends. You should be able to take your content, and temporarily be able to play it at a friend's house anyway, like you can today.
However, it is a large scale imediment to mass duplication and distribution of copyright content. Of course, current content providers would likely wish to lock down even this degree of sharing.
I suspect any relaxing of duplication for personal use can lead to sharing with others. But, there is some degree to which such duplication is necessary to offset the otherwise restrictive nature of DRM "getting in the way" when one's playback device breaks, or is replaced, etc. A finite limit on key redistribution strikes me as a reasonable balance between no such limit (because of no keys in a non-DRM system) leading to easy wide-spread illegal distribution, and a draconian limit that enforces the one copy, one viewer view the content providers want.
Of course, the content providers need to budge, too. It is unreasonable if a fire destroys all readers in one's house, with no key escrow, that the escrow service and/or content providers charge a price commensurate with relicencing content all over again to either install the escrowed key on new devices, or transcode the content to a new key (surely the content providers keep track of who licensed what and so can produce new copies with the same or different keys).
The present model of having to pay to relicense the same content one has already licensed in case of accidental loss is unreasonable. It may be O.K. to pay $30 to license the movie, but getting another copy should cost no more than $1 or so. A revised version should cost, perhaps, $5. Separate the licensing of content from the other charges to obtain it.
No. You have backups. You can make 20 copies, for example.
You lose 15 of the devices, provide adequate proof, and get one of the remaining devices to share its key with 15 more.
A minor inconvenience, but not the same as losing all access to your data.
If you're not believed, then you just get a new key for new content on, say 20 devices, and get your existing content transcoded. Of course, keys can be irretrievably moved as well as copied to move from out of date playback devices to new ones.
Third party key escrow can be offered as a key backup service (trusted by the content holder), but, and this is the important bit, is not strictly necessary.
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Calling one's self a "son of a bitch" says something about one's opinion about one's mother, and perhaps, the harsh circumstances in which one was toghened up.
Calling one's self a "mother fucker" only says bad things about one's self.
Somehow, I can more realistically see Patton saying the former, not the latter. Are you sure you're not quoting his enemiys' misquote of him?
The reasoning is as follows:
One Cat5e is for telephone (some PBXs do require all four pairs, though this is getting rarer). You don't need Cat5e for phone, but it's pennies over Cat3.
One Cat5e is for 100 Mb/s ethernet. 'nuff said.
One RG6/U is for RF (cable, local modulated channels, satellite, etc) to TVs.
The other RG6/U cable is for a "back feed" from a local video source modulated on some TV channel that is not in use -- at the headend you can combine them with the incomming cable/satellite feed, and broadcast through the house.
Anyway, that's the "recommendation". There are a few areas where it falls short, and a few other problem with it:
1. Satellite feeds can require two coax cables to each drop (so, forget about the "backfeed"), if you have a multi-satellite dish: if you have a dual satellite tuner, and want to tune different polarizations on the same satellite, or different satellites, you need two cables (at least for DirecTV). Dish Network "stacks" the horizontal and vertical polarizations on one cable, but you still need two cables if you want to watch programs on two different satellites (or watch one and record the other). So, say goodbuy to your video backfeed unless you run extra coax.
If you want to combine an OTA signal from a TV antenna (including OTA HD), you can diplex it onto and off of one of the satellite feeds, though a separate cable is better. It is generally a bad idea to try to duplex a cable feed with an internal satellite distribution network. So, add another RG6/u cable. That adds two extra coax cables (and quad-shielded ones are thick and somewhat inflexible), to each drop where you might have serious video equipment, i.e. anywhere you have a TV or computer that processes video, or video recording gear intended to archive programs. This will probably be the media/family room, computer room, and perhaps master bedroom. For good measure, you might want to add a second (or even third) such drop in such rooms, if you decide to move the furniture around. To racap: that's one Cat5e for telephone (your satellite and cable box or TiVo might need it), one Cat5e for data network (everything needs a data network port sooner or later), two coax for satellite, one for a backfeed, one for cable TV, and you can diplex the OTA signal on one of the satellite cables if you use both the backfeed and the cable feed.
Other locations where there might be a TV (kitchen, bedrooms) can probably get by without the extra two coax cables.
Next, consider the location of wired telephones. You want at least some wired telephones, that use a landline, at least one on each floor, that you can dial real 911 from. You probably want these locations at opposite ends of the room where the TV drops are, if any. Even if you go wireless for phones, you will probably want data network drops on the opposite end of the room to plug in your laptop, etc. Run 2xCat5e for phone and data.
"But why not wireless phone and/or data or MythTV over the LAN (or wireless), or VoIP over the LAN (or wireless), etc. and avoid all that cable?" I hear you cry.
Three reasons.
1. Security.
2. Bandwidth.
3. Expense.
You may have wireless phone (and VoIP, and data), to be sure, but keep it in the DMZ on your network. You definately want some real hardwired landline phones for emergencies. Wireless bandwidth is never going to be as good as what you can get on a wired network, and wired networks are easier to segment
My personal opinion is that the companies who market those "anti-terrorism" devices are run by would-be terrorists.
FWIW, I sink my own email for a personal domain, and use a backup MX. It shouldn't be hard to do it for a small biz.
With an ordinary company, the owners are personally liable for the company's wrongdoings (I lump LLCs, i.e. limited liability companies, in with corporations). Corporate directors generally are on the hook for criminal behavior, only.
While the corporate fiction relieves small shareholders of public corporations from responsibility for the corporation's wrongdoings, and thus makes stock ownership more attractive than if they were jointly and severally libable, the separation of power from responsibility leads to the corporate abuses we see today.
It took me about a year and a half after moving to the U.S. to start saying "convenience store" instead of "depaineur" (literally, "de-breader": one that removes bread (or facilitates the same, from its shelves)).
Almost failed my WA Drivers' License eye test, when I read off "Zed" instead of "Zee". :-)
Expanding:
One of the supposed big advantages with OSS development is that it brings together large numbers of developers capable of cooperating in a relatively distributed manner, with little in the way of central coordination - a new feature can be implemented in a local fork, and survive globaly on it's merits.
The more specific question arises: "To what extent can such a collaborative approach can be beneficial among a large pool of potential developers who's code can be open to one another, but closed externally, such as within MS?" (The hidden assumption being that OSS network effects grow logarithmically with the size of the network of collaborators, and thus provide little incremental advantage once the pool is beyond a certain size).
If this submission is modded sufficiently high, either question can be answered (the general or specific).
Google for Slow Glass.
For the record, I do not miss Canada one bit. The longer I stay in the U.S., the more I detest it. My wife and kids hated living there as well.
I remember when the U. moved from KRONOS to NOS. I rather liked COMPASS, particularly it's macro facility. I once hacked a set of macros to represent 6809 instructions in packed data, with address fields in the usual address locatations. That let me use the NOS Linker/Loader to resolve inter-module references. A post-procesor generated real 6809 object S1S9 records from the linked result.
I had written a cross-assembler in PASCAL already, but I never followed up with a linker. The assembler shipping with TSC Flex did not support a linker either, so one had to include all one's source in one go.
I also remember the fact that B0 was 0, and that, by convention, B1 was set (and assumed) to be 1. IIRC, that's what the SYSCON B1 macro did.
Initial access was via punched cards, with one CRT (it may have been a Hazeltine) and ten Decwriters. I finally got a 300 bps modem and ACT MIME I terminal (which could emulate a Haze 1500, among other things), around 1980 (at a cost of around CA$2000), so I could work at home.
One of the driving reasons for the 6809 cross-assember (both versions) was that I had built a little 6809 board with 4K EPROM, 2K RAM, and three serial ports to hack with. I had assembled a little monitor program, using the 6809 machines at the U, and burned it into EPROM, so that I could manually load code in a HEX address/data (and later S1S9 format) from the console. Alas, I did not have a bigger 6809 machine at home, on which I could natively assemble code. So, the need for a cross-assembler. (One of the physics labs, with lots of 6809 machines used it for the same purpose, for a while).
So, I'd cross-assemble on the Cyber, and download (i.e. just list) the S1S9 records to the little SBC I made. Typical programs were repeating dialers for BBSs (I had a 300 bps DC. Hayes Smartmodem, eventually, around 1981/2), and a means to add a smart printer port to the MIME I -- it had one, but would not handle flow-control correctly back on the main port, and my printer was a line printer in that it took one second to print a line, regardless of how many characters were on it (an AXIOM Imp II, IIRC: around CA$1400). Slewing the paper to TOP of FORM took anywhere from 0 to 9 seconds. So, it was theoretically possible to overflow the printer buffer even at 300 bps and certainly at 1200 bps (I eventually upgraded modems -- cost me CA$700 to do so).
Kids today, they're SOOO spoiled. ;->
It would be one thing for the state to ration the care it can deliver based on its resources (tax revenues). But, it is quite barbaric, after taking one's supposed "fair share" of taxes to deny them the right to spend some of the rest for care that the government can not or will not provide them.
It isn't a question of those who would and could pay (increasingly, more and more Canadians are desperate to do so, and the better off simply go to the U.S. All politicians go to the U.S.) tying up a doctor from seeing a government patient first. The government arbitrarily rations how many specific procedures can be performed and sets the price per procedure, lest doctors get "too rich".
Doctors in Canada can not distinguish themselves on the basis of skill, so the best leave to work elsewhere.
Even the argument that everyone should get the same level of service is hypocracy: politicians and the wealthy can leave for care in the U.S. any time they wish. Taken to its logical conclusion, if the equality of outcome principle were actually applied, the state would close the borders to persons leaving to obtain care elsewhere. Hmm, that would be a lot like the old Soviet Union, no?
Like I said, Commie Bastards!
Furthermore, there is increasing evidence that the personal relationship between a physician and patient can help the patient advance in the queue for service, regardless of any medically-based triage.
Barbaric and corrupt, is what Canadian health care is.
Add to this the fact that a province (at least Alberta, and possibly others) can sieze and administer the assets of anyone that the "Provincial Psychiatrist" finds mentally incompetent. No trial to determine competency, just a decree by a bureaucrat is enough. I'm sure someone, somewhere, will make the case that criticizing the "free" healthcare in Canada is a clear indication of mental incompetence. It's happened recently to a person with Parkinson's disease, cared for effectively by family, having their bank account siezed, and the costs of periodic in-home care visits passed on to their former care-givers. What's worse is that the account was a joint account with this person's wife's assets as well, and these people can not now purchase a quart (well, two litres) of milk without government permission. Sounds like Soviet Reducation Camps to me.
When I purchased a house in Ontario, I had no deed, no title, nothing to say that I owned it, and the land, just an entry in some government database, easily erased, should I become a sore in the state's side. This was supposed to be for my "convenience". Well, fine, but I want a certified deed anyway, just in case your records get "lost".
Any of these peculiarities of Canadian government and society might be explained away as some quirk, or oversight, or overapplication of an ill-worded law. But, the deeper one looks, the bigger the horror becomes because of the sheer number of such shenanigans entrenched in the fabric of Canadian law.
Those that have homes to lose likely have jobs with insurance that enables them to have afforded the home in the first place, and most probably have health insurance as a result. So, they are unlikely to be in such a dilema.
The poor and destitute already have nothing to lose when the hospital, after caring for them as required by law, sends them a bill they cannot pay.
There will always be those who fall in the cracks, of course, getting seriously ill right after losing their job, and thus health insurance. However, one must ask: why did they not make hay while the sun was shining, and sock away funds to purchase health insurance privately? When I lost my job in 2002, I extended health insurance for myself and family for around $850 a month.
The American way of life, if one can generalize such a thing, permits one to take on great financial risks: over extending themselves on their mortgage and other debts, and so on. Sometimes the rewards can be great (mortgaging the farm to go into business for one's self, as it were), but the fall can be steep. The thing is, no one is forcing anyone to buy more house than they can afford, or have more kids than they can feed and educate.
I've seen what happens when the economy sours -- heck, I've been through it, and, unlike my American friends, I had to leave the country. But, we prepared for this possiblity and survived, well enough to turn down provincial health coverage when we returned to Canada briefly (on principle, as well as not accepting the onerous demands to swear an oath to "live in Ontario permanently"), and pay out of pocket for health services (No health card? You have to pay. Sure! No problem.) I've seen others who purchase way more house than they could afford not be able to save for emergencies, like job and employer-provided health insurance loss. Frankly, I think they deserved the suffering they got. The house we had to sell when we had to leave was in the county with the highest rate of forclosures in the U.S. in 2003, IIRC, because of the telecom bust. We priced it agressively, sold it quickly (to an unrepresented buyer, saving half of the commission, which we conceeded to him), and made out O.K. Our neighbors wanted $20k more or so, and waited, and waited, and waited, and sold at a big loss 4 months later. Never mind that they had to carry the house all that time.
It is true, that the health insurance market has badly mis-priced actual risks in the U.S., but, as with all markets, this will correct. Increasingly, one is seeing doctors request waivers of liability from patients not to sue in case of some extraordinary misfortune (as opposed to blatant malpractice) -- such suits are a big part of the skyrocketing insurance costs. Gasoline is expensive too, these days. One can adjust by changing their level of copyay or annual deductable.
For all the problems in the U.S., it is a far, far, better place to live that Canada (which, admitedly is a lot better than many other places, just noticibly worse than the U.S.).
Americans should kiss the ground they walk on.
Canadians need to wake up and see how messed up their country has become. Put bluntly, the government has lied to y'all, and you bought it, hook, line, and sinker. Must be all the beer consumed.
Should the other 85% suffer the kind of waits that result in 25% of newly-diagnosed patients with heart disease dying before they can be seen by a cardiac specialist after referal from a general practitioner?
Canadians routinely drop off waiting lists for medical procedures because they get too sick to survive the procedure, even though they were well enough to tolerate it when the were first diagnosed.
The bottom line, is that it is absolutely criminal for the state to prevent people from spending their own after-tax dollars to purchase health care that the state can not provide in a timely matter even as it promises it. That's not just my opinion, that's a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada (well, they used the word unconstitutional as opposed to criminal, to be precise).
Of course, Canada is so messed up that a provincial or federal government can overrule the highest court in the land, and Quebec (in this case) has anounced that it intends to.
Like I said, "Commie Bastards".
One would think that the economies of scale that come with a single insurer system would be sufficient to subsidize basic care to those that otherwise could not afford private insurance. However, this has not happened in Canada. Without competition, the system has become fat, and ineffective.
14,000,000 Americans have no health insurance. It sounds like a lot, but represents about 5% of the population.
Now, no American hospital can turn away an uninsured patient for lack of funds, in case of emergency. I view that as about on a par with Canadian health care, for the uninsured. So, in the very worst case, the U.S. is no worse than Canada, and it's that bad for only 5% of it's population.
That sounds pretty damn successful to me.
Interesting.
I still have a copy of "Assembly Language Programming," by Ralph Grishman (IIRC the author correctly) and it makes no mention of this. Was it a priv. instruction?
Remember the CMU and "forcing upper".
The only care someone covered by provincial health insurance can purchase is that which is not covered by the province's health care plan, which, in turn, is governed by the federal Canada Health Act. For example, you can pay for an upgrade to a semi-private room for a hospital stay. Basically, the provinces administer what the federal law mandates of them. Oh, and healthcare providers do not get government reimburtsement for uncovered foreigners. They pay and can be seen in a private clinic right away. Such private clinics are off-limits to Canadians but are available in cities with major sports franchises -- see many of the players are foreign, so such clinics cater to them. Need an MRI at 23:30? No problem. Sorry, Canuk, no amount of money gets YOU one.
The penalty for a doctor in British Columbia for accepting funds in exchange for care is CA$20,000.
I recently developed a nasty case of cellulitis in my elbow. A concerned relative in Canada sent me a medical factsheet from their doctor explaining how to "deal with the pain of cellulitis or until surgical treatment is avaolable. I'm going like, WTF? I call my Dr. at 8:00, get a 9:30 appoiontment, get diagnosed, admitted to the hospital at 11:00, put on broad spectrum antibiotics, have surgery the next day at 17:00, and leave a day and a half later. They make sure the infection has not spread to the blood. My private insurance pays for it. And, I pay one third the taxes I would in Canada.
NO! You can't use your money to buy the life-saving care you need! We'll fine the doctor that gives it to you $20,000. Get in line with everyone else. We'll decide how bad you need it. We provide free healthcare. Now, shut up and wait!
NO! We don't care if the court ruled that unconstitutional. We'll use the Notwithstanding Clause to overrule the Supreme Court of Canada. Now, shut up and pay your taxes for the free health care we give you!
If that isn't a physical threat (i.e. a threat to one's physical well-being), I don't know what is.
Investigative reporters this side of the border have started to call the Canadian government's treatment of its citizens, "Naziism", Godwin's law not withstanding.
When we back were in Canada for a short while (thankfully, a very short while, but still too long for my liking), and my son needed health care, I just trotted him to the head of the line, presented his American passport, paid, got him taken care of, and that was that. Funny how they let Canadians willing to pay die waiting, yet wouldn't dream of turning down a paying foreigner.
Commie bastards.
Seriously, though, both were rather cool as far as calculators went (but mine had a card reader/writer, yours didn't, nyeah, nyeah (the TI-59 did)). The 224 program steps in the SR-52 were a bit limiting, though. 1972, sheesh.
Ah, six bit display code. Didja know that display code :D in columns 1 and 2 (or 10x+1 and 10x+2 for x>=0) of a terminal output line would log the user off? (mwahahahaha!). There was another sequence that would case an internal buffer to be spewed to the terminal. Sometimes this contained account and password information. (I discovered this quite by accident when downloading the same text file twice to a SWTPC 6809-based micro (pre-IBM PC days) and getting different results. Nothing like applying one's binary search skills to track down the "interesting characters".)
I had implemented RATFOR (Rational Fortran, from Kernighan & Plaugher's "Software Tools") for the Cyber, as well as a 6809 cross-assembler, and had a hand in modifying the ETH Zurich Pascal compiler, so, among other things, the printout would have a backtrace to the previous compile-time error -- useful when having a dozen bugs in a 300 page printout. I still remember that you save data to core using A6 and A7, and retrieve data from core via A1 through A5. A0 was a scratch register. Ah, mainframe assembly.
RA+1 calls. (Did you know that you could use negative array indexing to make RA+1 calls, like loading (0,0) overlays, from within a Fortran program? Loading the popular reentrant Fix editor as a (0,0) overlay would cause it to crash for everyone? I wonder why FIXDOWN suddenly disappeared... it was an innocent four line FORTRAN program.
Then, there was that certain someone who used RJE to steal passwords when people tried to start up Adventure: "While walking through the two-pit room / We were too rash and met our doom. / We were about to say GOODBYE / When the size of the DAYFILE caught our eye. / 'Twas very ugly but plain to see: / Our password stolen through RJE." Personally, I preferred doing things the old-fashioned way: with blue 6/7/8 cards that did not have the 9 hole punched: never knew who you'd get. Just never mention SYSZSYS, O.K.? FUCKOFF! TWXMESS Hello, is anybody out there?
I know the Gameskeeper (In my day, to typeset your thesis, you first wrote a typesetting program. Sometimes, that was your thesis. In my case, I used the one produced by the Gameskeeper. That was so FORMAL) hangs out here sometimes, but I have no idea whatever happened to The Junk Dealer, Dragon Lady, or Ivan The Terrible. Yes, I was a top Honours CS student. No, the Computer Center did not always approve of my 'research'.
*** Host Processor Not Available ***, indeed.
Punched cards... magnetic tapes... 6/7/8/9 cards. Adventure ("You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike").
Microprocessors work on a SWTPC clone running TSC Flex was fun... I had writetten a hard disk driver for the massive 10 Mb disk drive we got for the lab.
My favorate "orphan" system was the Alpha Microsostems AM-100, 100/L, and 680x0 series of machines: 16 bit data bus (AM/100), multitasking, multiuser operating system (complete with flat filesystem with six character upper case names and three character extensions)... in 1976. MITS Altair Basic, eat your heart out!. CP/M, and MS/DOS were toys compared to this (microprogrammed LSI-11 clone, and later 68k based). Around 1981/2, I had one on loan, at home, complete with a 10 MB CDC Hawk disk drive. I still lived with my parents at the time, and they had learned to not ask what was making the "jet plane taking off" sound and dimming the lights. I did not pay the power bill.
Phbbbbbbbt!
So, let me get this straight. You provide digital entertainment content of some kind to your customers. I make it possible for your customers to make it possible to replace it with material thqt would carry a "more mature" rating. You have to rerate your distribution media.
Yo, Disney! How much you gonna pay me to not tell people how to overwrite their "Lion King" video tapes with copies of "Debbie Does Dallas"? After all, having to re-rate all those "Lion King" VHS cassettes would cost you, no?
Sheesh.
And before someone points out that the offensive content was already there, just unaccessable, offensive content is always there on digital media, but inaccessable: ah, the magic of XOR to reveal it.
Idiots.
Also, it has the flaw that it only prevents simultaneous viewings, not sequential ones, and requires a centralized service. The thought of someone knowing what I watch and when is unsettling.
Keeping a key secret in hardware is doable (it currently costs about $4k for ATM encryption hardware, though the high price is largely due to (a) the lack of any real economies of scale, (b) IBM holding the banks over a barrel). Key renewal and revocation is always a possiblity, though I'd implement it periodically, and not require a continuous net connection.
The notes about relying on central authorities are valid. The best compromise is to ensure that one has a choice of authorities and, as much as possible, not require subscription to services that can be optional (i.e. key escrow). I do not buy the argument that all free markets reduce to monopolies or that cooperation (formation of cartels) is always better than cooperation -- only under certain circumstances is this true. Otherwise, communism would reign supreme (and work better than capitalism).
Wait. If my content is encrypted for my key, then wouldn't I have to take my key over there? Doesn't that make it too easy for someone to steal my key?
No. Your key is transferred from the viewer that has it to the viewer that needs it, with a reduction in the count of permitted transfers from the source viewer noted. In fact, the transfer need not be direct: you might have a secure fob to which it can be transfered to be carried in transit from your house to your friend's.
For that matter, if I can transfer my key from one device to another, what's stopping someone from simply taking my key, transferring it into software, then using that software to decode (not transcode) content, and then distribute it as if it were public domain?
Keys can only be transfered between devices that authenticate with one another to permit key transfer. Records are kept to limit the number of copies of a single key that can "float around" this way.
I do hope your scheme has a way to allow public domain in the first place...
There is no technical reason that viewers can't accept unencrypted content, or content encrypted with a known common public key. The problem with many existing DRM schemes is precisely that (a) they do not permit unencrypted content at all, and (b) they prevent "ordinary Janes and Joes" from producing encrypted content "like the big boys and girls." This is unacceptable.
I like the idea of owning my content, rather than licencing it. And although my model is technically licencing content, it behaves as though I own it.
As does mine, within the practical limit that an unlimited number of copies of a given key can not be allowed to exist. However, the combination of a limited number of key copies, and support for multiple keys in a device ameliorates the main objection. The difficulties over present day non-DRM schemes are mainly due to infrastructure bootstrapping - all devices that should be able to view restricted content must be able to, so one does have the problem of the "legacy dumb TV". However, content providers are starting to realize that permitting an analog hole for lower resolution content retrieval might not be a bad thing (witness the 480p restriction on upsampling DVD player component video outputs). This dovetails nicely with display devices with limited resolution to begin with. It does mean that those of us with HDTVs having only component video inputs that can do 720p and 1080i are rather SOL. The question is how big is that "early adopter" base, and how much political clout do they have? I suspect, in the grand scheme of things, the answers are "not very" and "not much".
The only downside to my model is that it needs a centrallized form of control -- but so does yours.
Mine doesn't. Key escrow is not essential -- it is a convenience, rather like online disk backup services. What my scheme does require is a web of trust between viewers, devices that hold keys, and content providers. However such a web need not have a single root (witness the multiple CAs out there today that all browsers support -- granted an unlimited number is impractical, but it should be sufficient for a small number of CAs to divide the market).
Under your model, what do I have to do to give my "licence" to someone else? Under my model, I simply give them a DVD. It can even be a burned DVD, so long as I no longer use the original or any other copies myself.
My model does not provide an implicit doctrine of first sale -- such a transfer would require the intervention and approval of the content holder. The problem is that there is no guarantee that the original has been destroyed. OTOH, my model provides for unlimited copying of encrypted content, and temporary authorization for anyone else to view it (sequentially). You appear to solve the problem by attacking th
Well, then you've just lost the ability to view that content on 15 devices in your own home. Actually, it wouldn't be the DVD player so much as your friends' TVs that you'd share the key with, but the rest of your argumemt holds.
Furthermore, if your friends try to get commercial content coded for your key in their TV, and the same public key shows up against 16 different credit cards, someone will get suspicious. Of course, your friends will only ever use their own public keys to request content (assuming TVs can hold multiple keys), right? And never make a mistake, right? This does not stop non-mainstream content providers from transcoding for your friends without detection (or even you, for that matter), but a limit on the "transcode times" counter in the content restricts how much transcoding can take place. (To reset it, if necessary, you'd need an appropriately authorized transcoder).
So, no this scheme does not prevent limited sharing and distribution to your friends. You should be able to take your content, and temporarily be able to play it at a friend's house anyway, like you can today. However, it is a large scale imediment to mass duplication and distribution of copyright content. Of course, current content providers would likely wish to lock down even this degree of sharing.
I suspect any relaxing of duplication for personal use can lead to sharing with others. But, there is some degree to which such duplication is necessary to offset the otherwise restrictive nature of DRM "getting in the way" when one's playback device breaks, or is replaced, etc. A finite limit on key redistribution strikes me as a reasonable balance between no such limit (because of no keys in a non-DRM system) leading to easy wide-spread illegal distribution, and a draconian limit that enforces the one copy, one viewer view the content providers want.
Of course, the content providers need to budge, too. It is unreasonable if a fire destroys all readers in one's house, with no key escrow, that the escrow service and/or content providers charge a price commensurate with relicencing content all over again to either install the escrowed key on new devices, or transcode the content to a new key (surely the content providers keep track of who licensed what and so can produce new copies with the same or different keys).
The present model of having to pay to relicense the same content one has already licensed in case of accidental loss is unreasonable. It may be O.K. to pay $30 to license the movie, but getting another copy should cost no more than $1 or so. A revised version should cost, perhaps, $5. Separate the licensing of content from the other charges to obtain it.
You lose 15 of the devices, provide adequate proof, and get one of the remaining devices to share its key with 15 more.
A minor inconvenience, but not the same as losing all access to your data.
If you're not believed, then you just get a new key for new content on, say 20 devices, and get your existing content transcoded. Of course, keys can be irretrievably moved as well as copied to move from out of date playback devices to new ones.
Third party key escrow can be offered as a key backup service (trusted by the content holder), but, and this is the important bit, is not strictly necessary.