I will be interviewing Harmony Gold representative Kevin McKeever at 7:00 Eastern tonight about this and other new Robotech developments on my live talk podcast Space Station Liberty. Please call in with your questions!
G.K. Chesterton noticed this a century ago
on
Why Myths Persist
·
· Score: 1
"You've got to understand one of the tricks of the modern mind, a tendency that most people obey without noticing it. In the village or suburb outside there's an inn with the sign of St. George and the Dragon. Now suppose I went about telling everybody that this was only a corruption of King George and the Dragoon. Scores of people would believe it, without any inquiry, from a vague feeling that it's probable because it's prosaic. It turns something romantic and legendary into something recent and ordinary. And that somehow makes it sound rational, though it is unsupported by reason. Of course some people would have the sense to remember having seen St. George in old Italian pictures and French romances, but a good many wouldn't think about it at all. They would just swallow the skepticism because it was skepticism. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority."
Andrew Burt was responsible for the first real unfettered access I had to USENET, back in the days when my telnet access was through a CP/CMS machine, and so telnet into Nyx.net (back when it was still known as nyx.cs.du.edu) was all cluttered with ANSI codes and improper scrolling yet still readable. aburt's Nyx site was where I went to read the anime newsgroup rec.arts.anime that a friend had told me about, and where I was inducted into online writing circles where we wrote our tales and shared our stories freely on the Internet. Though defunct now, alt.pub.dragons-inn and alt.pub.havens-rest were really jumping back in the day.
And Burt was also a more direct champion of writing circles, in his work with Critters. According to the article, he believed that espousing some of the principles of the Open Source movement in writing would lead to more and better writers.
And now look what he's doing. What a shame that it should come to this.
Right, it's basically just a CYA stating, "If you post something intended to be viewed by the public, then we reserve the non-exclusive right to show that something to the public."
It's just a big tempest in a teapot stirred up by people who having nothing better to do with their time than look for something else "evil" that Google has done, and will naturally put that spin on anything they find. A bit pathetic, really. Google does more than enough bad stuff already that there's no need to manufacture more, and crying wolf too often detracts from the seriousness of the real bad stuff when it is pointed out.
Thing is, that if statement is false. As one of the other commenters put it more eloquently than I, the fellow's just claiming it's a "rootkit" to bring in traffic. There's no evidence it demonstrates any rootkitlike behavior, other than being detected by a detector that also detects rootkits.
If you RTFA, or specifically its comments, you find that it's not technically a rootkit that it installs, it's just a registry directory that contains a * and so a rootkit detector tags it. It's just a very hard to remove registry directory, and not necessarily an actual rootkit qua rootkit.
The funny thing is, it's actually the other way around. The first Super Sentai (the live-action rubber-suit series that has provided the grist for all the Power Rangers incarnations) predates GoLions (the Japanese name for the Voltron lion series) cartoon by several years. If anything, it's GoLions that was the "ripoff" (if you can call "Hey, let's use the sentai formula in animation instead of live action) of Sentai. (So was Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets, for that matter.)
Interestingly enough, the quote you used sort of emphasizes the original point of the article. Lincoln was able to overcome his unpleasant voice with the aid of his body language. But how well would Lincoln do over a telephone?
(This also brings up that televised debate Nixon was in, where everyone who listened to it on the radio thought Nixon won, but everyone who watched it on TV and saw Nixon's shifty body language thought he lost.)
The funny thing about this question is that Abraham Lincoln's voice in real life was anything but the deep, resonant tone that he is usually given in the movies.
And companies don't have to file lawsuits to make life difficult for people using the service; if it's against their policies (and it usually is) to exchange virtual currency for external considerations, they'll happily boot players from the game if they find out they're doing it.
I'd like to know how/whether this company will work with the companies that run the games to keep this from happening.
Although I have nothing to do with the torrent myself, I should note for the benefit of those who are finding starcraft2.com to be sluggishly slashdotted, all the "good stuff" from the site is available via BitTorrent.
If I understand the article right, SET looks at individual files within a particular download. DHT just looks at the whole download.
For instance, if I'm uploading my "Songs I Like to Dance To" mp3 mix, and someone else is uploading an "All-Time Greatest Dance Hits" CD rip, and there are a couple of songs both uploads have in common, SET would enable someone downloading my MP3 mix to treat the CD rip as a partial seed (and vice versa), and pull down the songs held in common from either one.
Whereas DHT would simply enable people to pull down my mix from other people uploading the mix, or the CD rip from other people uploading the CD rip, even if the tracker was down. (If I understand what DHT does correctly. Which it is possible I don't.)
I jot down stuff about patronage by rich individuals, by well-to-do groups and how these might be organized. I jot down stuff about tangential, rivalrous goods that could be sold (ye olde T-shirts and swag strats) to wider audiences. I jot down stuff about reducing the cost of production...
The problem with patronage is that it gives the patrons the right to censor or make change in the thing that is patronized. You see this all the time in sponsored TV shows: a sponsor insists that changes be made, often to the detriment of the story, until sometimes the show can end up looking completely different than it had been intended to be. (This was quite rampant in Japan in the 1980s, where a favorite refrain of toy and model companies sponsoring TV series was "Stick giant robots in it, it worked for Macross, and that way we'll have something to sell.")
The asinine thing about the whole debate is that you will not find the word "cause" or "causes" anywhere in the article. Flint never says it. He says that DRM "fuels" piracy--that is, that it makes piracy more attractive--not that it "causes" it. In fact, he says that there are people who will pirate no matter what you do.
"Given all that, who is going to bother to steal a Baen title? [...] Some, sure. There are always a few fruitcakes here and there."
The headline is wrong. The submitter oversimplified it into error. TFA does not claim that DRM "causes" piracy. What it says is that, because of the conditions of scarcity, expense, and nuisance that DRM creates, "far from being an impediment to so-called 'online piracy,' it's DRM itself that keeps fueling it and driving it forward." It doesn't cause it, but it does promote it.
Slashdot Mirror
This only makes him more suitable to play Rick Hunter, of course.
I will be interviewing Harmony Gold representative Kevin McKeever at 7:00 Eastern tonight about this and other new Robotech developments on my live talk podcast Space Station Liberty. Please call in with your questions!
G.K. Chesterton once wrote:
"You've got to understand one of the tricks of the modern mind, a tendency that most people obey without noticing it. In the village or suburb outside there's an inn with the sign of St. George and the Dragon. Now suppose I went about telling everybody that this was only a corruption of King George and the Dragoon. Scores of people would believe it, without any inquiry, from a vague feeling that it's probable because it's prosaic. It turns something romantic and legendary into something recent and ordinary. And that somehow makes it sound rational, though it is unsupported by reason. Of course some people would have the sense to remember having seen St. George in old Italian pictures and French romances, but a good many wouldn't think about it at all. They would just swallow the skepticism because it was skepticism. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority."
How ironic that Andrew Burt should do this.
Andrew Burt was responsible for the first real unfettered access I had to USENET, back in the days when my telnet access was through a CP/CMS machine, and so telnet into Nyx.net (back when it was still known as nyx.cs.du.edu) was all cluttered with ANSI codes and improper scrolling yet still readable. aburt's Nyx site was where I went to read the anime newsgroup rec.arts.anime that a friend had told me about, and where I was inducted into online writing circles where we wrote our tales and shared our stories freely on the Internet. Though defunct now, alt.pub.dragons-inn and alt.pub.havens-rest were really jumping back in the day.
And Burt was also a more direct champion of writing circles, in his work with Critters. According to the article, he believed that espousing some of the principles of the Open Source movement in writing would lead to more and better writers.
And now look what he's doing. What a shame that it should come to this.
Right, it's basically just a CYA stating, "If you post something intended to be viewed by the public, then we reserve the non-exclusive right to show that something to the public."
It's just a big tempest in a teapot stirred up by people who having nothing better to do with their time than look for something else "evil" that Google has done, and will naturally put that spin on anything they find. A bit pathetic, really. Google does more than enough bad stuff already that there's no need to manufacture more, and crying wolf too often detracts from the seriousness of the real bad stuff when it is pointed out.
Thing is, that if statement is false. As one of the other commenters put it more eloquently than I, the fellow's just claiming it's a "rootkit" to bring in traffic. There's no evidence it demonstrates any rootkitlike behavior, other than being detected by a detector that also detects rootkits.
If you RTFA, or specifically its comments, you find that it's not technically a rootkit that it installs, it's just a registry directory that contains a * and so a rootkit detector tags it. It's just a very hard to remove registry directory, and not necessarily an actual rootkit qua rootkit.
The funny thing is, it's actually the other way around. The first Super Sentai (the live-action rubber-suit series that has provided the grist for all the Power Rangers incarnations) predates GoLions (the Japanese name for the Voltron lion series) cartoon by several years. If anything, it's GoLions that was the "ripoff" (if you can call "Hey, let's use the sentai formula in animation instead of live action) of Sentai. (So was Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets, for that matter.)
Well, now I know what one of Cringely's next few columns will be about...
Interestingly enough, the quote you used sort of emphasizes the original point of the article. Lincoln was able to overcome his unpleasant voice with the aid of his body language. But how well would Lincoln do over a telephone?
(This also brings up that televised debate Nixon was in, where everyone who listened to it on the radio thought Nixon won, but everyone who watched it on TV and saw Nixon's shifty body language thought he lost.)
The funny thing about this question is that Abraham Lincoln's voice in real life was anything but the deep, resonant tone that he is usually given in the movies.
"Lincoln's voice was, when he first began speaking, shrill, squeaking, piping, unpleasant[...]" --William H. Herndon letter, July 19, 1887
And companies don't have to file lawsuits to make life difficult for people using the service; if it's against their policies (and it usually is) to exchange virtual currency for external considerations, they'll happily boot players from the game if they find out they're doing it.
I'd like to know how/whether this company will work with the companies that run the games to keep this from happening.
...that really bites. Where will we get our schadenfreude after the SCO thing has been laughed out of court?
Although I have nothing to do with the torrent myself, I should note for the benefit of those who are finding starcraft2.com to be sluggishly slashdotted, all the "good stuff" from the site is available via BitTorrent.
Enjoy.
Sure, they'll lose money on each one--but they'll make it up in volume!
Never get into a space war in Asia?
Already been done.
But it was my first post. :)
I see they're finally getting around to using that formula Scotty provided.
If I understand the article right, SET looks at individual files within a particular download. DHT just looks at the whole download.
For instance, if I'm uploading my "Songs I Like to Dance To" mp3 mix, and someone else is uploading an "All-Time Greatest Dance Hits" CD rip, and there are a couple of songs both uploads have in common, SET would enable someone downloading my MP3 mix to treat the CD rip as a partial seed (and vice versa), and pull down the songs held in common from either one.
Whereas DHT would simply enable people to pull down my mix from other people uploading the mix, or the CD rip from other people uploading the CD rip, even if the tracker was down. (If I understand what DHT does correctly. Which it is possible I don't.)
...and neither are more people on Slashdot. And even those who are would probably disclaim that they can't provide you with legal advice.
Talk to your lawyer. You should have talked to them before you even sent that letter.
Asking about the problem on Slashdot is a great way to throw a pity party, but a poor way to get sound legal advice.
The asinine thing about the whole debate is that you will not find the word "cause" or "causes" anywhere in the article. Flint never says it. He says that DRM "fuels" piracy--that is, that it makes piracy more attractive--not that it "causes" it. In fact, he says that there are people who will pirate no matter what you do.
"Given all that, who is going to bother to steal a Baen title? [...] Some, sure. There are always a few fruitcakes here and there."
The headline is wrong. The submitter oversimplified it into error. TFA does not claim that DRM "causes" piracy. What it says is that, because of the conditions of scarcity, expense, and nuisance that DRM creates, "far from being an impediment to so-called 'online piracy,' it's DRM itself that keeps fueling it and driving it forward." It doesn't cause it, but it does promote it.