I'm an ASP programmer, and I've had to code lots of bilingual websites for the Canadian government (English and French). I've run the gamut of everything available-- session variables, per-session cookies, separate/EN and/FR directories, separate page-e.asp and page-f.asp pages, modifying the URLs to add a "?Lang=E" or "?Lang=F" to the end of them, detecting the "User-Accept-Lang" line in the HTTP request, etc.
Could you please explain in much greater detail, for the benefit of the ASP-programming minority of Slashdot readers, how this works? I need to know! This sounds incredibly useful. I'd moderate you up if I could. (No mod points.)
Well, why buy the book at all? Just go down to your local library, and borrow it for free! Read it, return it, and when you want to read it again, borrow it again! All for nothing! Libraries are also a good place to find books that have been out of print for a while, too.
With e-commerce sites like Amazon.com, FatBrain, and ThinkGeek, book-buying appears to have become rather "hip" lately. What if you buy the book and end up hating it, despite a good review? Returning it isn't always an option.
The only problem I can see with this is that, in order to insure brisk sales, some publishers may not allow libraries to stock new books until they've been on sale for a certain amount of time. Also, some libraries may have a really long process to go through before deciding to buy new books. I also find that my library is really bad about computer reference books. They're great, though, if you want to learn about Excel 4 for Windows 3.1.
But for general works of nonfiction like this, and fiction too, don't forget about your local library. If you hate Amazon, this is the best way to stick it to them!
Yeah, God forbid he'd want to keep people from stealing his work or anything like that.
Every content creator (musician, movie director, etc.) wants to keep people from stealing their work. Their work is how they feed themselves. Why else are so many musicians speaking out against Napster? It goes without saying that bootlegging The Phantom Menace "...[contributes] to the overall piracy problem that the MPAA is fighting daily and globally."
My point was that Lucas, or his press writer, must be thinking constantly, "People are pirating my work!! People are pirating my work!!" In response to fans' demand for Star Wars on DVD, he (or his press writer), lashes out, unprovoked, at his public.
DVD is really big right now. People are buying DVD players, because they want the best picture and sound, and because they want the most out of their home theatre systems. Lucas has incensed a lot of people because of the lack of Phantom Menace on DVD. Other movie studios don't have to "stop work on [other movies] in order to concentrate on [a] DVD release," so why does LucasFilm? And if he "would like to do something special with the DVD release," why doesn't he just release a plain DVD now, and a special version later (like he's used to doing anyway)?
I just hope that if sales of the VHS-only Phantom Menace are poor, Lucas doesn't say, "Oh...!! People were pirating it!"
I would like to think that Lucas don't relase the PM DVD because he wants to fight a holy war against the stupid DVD encryption/zoning fiasco. But I know his reasons are more economic than anything else.
Well, of course. In fact, I would think that, of all people, Lucas would like the DVD "regions" and encryption. Scratch that. He loves it.
I remember reading a news bulletin from LucasFilm about the delay of the DVD release. Apart from the usual party line about "Lucas [wanting] to do something special with the DVD release," the bulletin (which was also a press release, AFAIK) contained a large paragraph denouncing video bootlegging of Episode 1. Wow. Lucas really has copyright and control on the brain, doesn't he?
As long as we're talking about the movie in general, as well as the lack of a DVD release, I was wondering about the quality of the story in Episode 1.
George Lucas said in a interview with Wired magazine (in the May 1999 issue) that the story for parts 1 to 3 "[has] existed for 20 years." I assume he means "from about the time Episode 4 (Star Wars: A New Hope) was released."
But I have to doubt that. I get the idea he either made them up afterward, or that the stories for episodes before number 4 have existed since then, but only as a concept or in a largely undeveloped form. For example, "Before episode 4, we have a child version of Darth Vader, and R2-D2 and C3PO are created, and the Death Star is created, and all the regulars from Episodes 4 to 6 are born or shown in a younger form, and some cool and exciting stuff happens." I certainly don't think he had Jar Jar Binks in the back of his mind since 1977. Any reasonable person would go insane thinking about Jar Jar that long!! (Though one could argue that Lucas already is insane.) I don't think you could break into Lucas's mansion in, say, 1982, and find the complete scripts or even a rough draft of Episodes 1 to 3.
So, I think that he just made up Episode 1 very recently, probably as late as 1996 or '97. He was thinking:
"I need to explain where C3PO came from. I know!! Anakin built him!"
"I need some kind of a basis for this episode. I know!! A trade dispute!" "I need a lovable character the kids with like!! I know!!...etc."
As for the main topic of this discussion, Star Wars on DVD, I don't need to say anything; all the other Slashdot contributors have said it for me. I think anyone who owns a copy of the THX-remastered triology and then witnessed the release of the "special edition" versions of Episodes 4 to 6 on video knows how Lucas operates.
I have to think it's kind of stupid that he release that latter half of the Star Wars movies first. I mean, watching Episode 1, I had all sorts of foreknowledge. Why is Yoda so opposed to Qui Gonn training young Anakin? Never mind this nonsense about "fear leading to hate, etc." I know what the problem is. I honestly don't expect there to be very many (if any) surprises in Episodes 2 and 3, either.
Microsoft Is Going Down...Or Are They??
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Microsoft Loses
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I'm no expert on U.S. politics, but I have a feeling that the next federal election in the U.S. will greatly affect the outcome of the Microsoft antitrust suit.
Back in the late '70s and early '80s, the was an antitrust suit against IBM. When Reagan was elected, the suit was dropped.
Al Gore is one of the biggest backers of the Microsoft antitrust suit, and if he gets elected, Microsoft can only look forward to more punishment. But, I've heard that George W. Bush said he would never allow Microsoft to be broken up or severely punished if he got elected.
The next U.S. federal election will be in November 2000 -- only about seven months away. Microsoft has, apparently, been backing the Republicans by making all sorts of campaign contributions to them. I heard that George W. Bush's election campaign has (so far) cost 80 million dollars (U.S.), and that it was all funds from the private sector (not the government). I guess we know who one of his biggest contributors is, eh?
Like I said, I don't know much about American politics (so please correct me if I have any facts wrong), and I don't know how much influence a president has on court decisions like this, but it should be interesting to see what happens in November. Microsoft is sure to appeal and do anything in their power to stall any kind of breakup or severe punishment until well past the next U.S. election, in case Bush makes it in.
This (supposedly) only works with pre-1989 Betas. Around 1989, Hollywood finally confronted Sony and forced them to make Beta vulnerable to Macrovision, just like VHS. Of course, by then, it was a little late, as Beta was irreversibly going down.
I'm on a mailing list called the Beta Informer, and there has been quite a lot of discussion about Betamax's apparent invulnerability to Macrovision.
Here's a quote from issue #129, in a submission by Dan Petitpas:
The reason Macrovision doesn't work with Beta is because of the way the system was designed.
All VCRs have automatic gain controls (AGC) circuits that modulate the video signal, boosting weak video signals and clamping down on too strong signals.
But Sony [the inventor of Betamax] put the AGC circuit on Beta's inputs, as was done with previously with audio recorders, where the signal is modulated before it is recorded.
JVC put the AGC circuits into VHS's outputs to compensate for poorly recorded tapes. Sony, because it tightly controlled the quality of the format between only three other manufacturers, expected Beta tapes to be recorded as well as possible and used the circuit to make that possible. JVC, with alliances with over 80 other manufacturers, took the philosophy that the quality of the recorded tapes would vary so much by manufacturer that it had better modulate the signal output.
Macrovision took advantage of this. In the sync signal it puts a big, white, pulsating "block." As the "block" overmodulates periodically (every 30 seconds or so), the AGC tries to clamp the signal down, causing the rest of the sync signal to weaken. As Macrovision found, the trick is to allow the sync signal to lessen to the point where a VHS recorder couldn't lock in on the sync, but a TV had enough of a sync signal to lock in on and boost using its own built in AGC.
This was why different TVs reacted different ways to the different tapes. Each AGC would handle the signal somewhat differently. Also, some tape distributors turned down the Macro signal so that their tapes would play better. Other manufacturers were more worried about piracy and turned up the Macro signal. A couple of studios didn't sign up with Macro at first, and put out Macro-free tapes for a while.
[Some pre-1985 TVs would show a distorted picture when used to view a Macrovision-protected videotape.]
Beta decks worked the same way TVs did and basically helped fixed what it saw as a weak sync signal, which allowed you to make Beta copies of VHS Macro tapes.
For a while, most studios did not put Macro on Beta copies, but when they started using the same video tape master for both VHS and Beta copies, Beta tapes were sold with Macro on them. This caused more annoyance for Beta users than anything else. I have a copy of the darkly lighted film Aliens where the damned "flashing" of the sync signal is quite apparent because it turns black areas at the top of the screen to turn grayish when it does its "thing."
You could make VHS copies of Beta Macro movies with no problem because of where the ACG control was wired in, but I think you could make Beta copies of Beta pre-recorded movies because the sync signal was stronger to begin with and Sony may have had its AGC set not to be fooled by this.
From another contributor:
Macrovision uses a different format, I believe, and I've heard of some later Betas being affected by it as well.
From Mr. Petitpas:
I have heard this -- that Sony was sort of forced to wire in an AGC circuit to the outputs so Macro would function as it did with VHS.
Anyway, I've heard a lot of people talk about making perfect copies of DVDs and copy-protected VHS tapes on their Betamaxes. I tried that a few times with my SL-100 SuperBetamax (made in 1986), but I still got a mild lightening and darkening of the picture.
I still don't fully understand the relationship between Macrovision and Beta decks. If the AGC on Betas is wired to the inputs, wouldn't that cause the Beta deck to produce screwed-up recordings of copy-protected tapes? It would be clamping down the stronger video signal.
What I do know is that Macrovision (on videotapes) mainfests itself as a really bright white line just above the picture (in the out-of-band area) on your TV, and most VCR's AGCs take this into account when determining the picture's brightness (which is why videotape copies have that "flashing" effect). Also, if you're ever watching a commercial video and the screen appears bright or distorted at the top of the picture, that's Macrovision at work. The brightness at the top of the picture is especially noticeable at the beginning of the video, during the black screens between the trailers and the antipiracy notice.
Sorry... I forgot to mention that the comparisons of tape speeds in my previous post applied only to NTSC VHS and Beta machines.
PAL and SECAM Beta VCRs have only one tape speed that offers 3 hours and 15 minutes on an L-750. PAL and SECAM VHS machines have three tape speeds which offer, on a T-180 (the PAL/SECAM version of the NTSC T-120), 3 hours, 4.5 hours and 6 hours of recording time (correct me if I'm wrong, PAL/SECAM users). So, the same problems of recording time that existed in North America existed in Europe and Australia, too, and were somewhat worse.
Betamax died because, when it and VHS first started competing in the late '70s, blank videotapes were very expensive, and the first Beta tapes (L-500) were only one hour long while the first VHS tapes (T-120) were two hours long. One hour just wasn't long enough for movies or many TV recording applications. Both formats had only one tape speed when they started, but even when the 2:1 (LP on VHS and BII on Beta) and 3:1 (EP and BIII) speeds were introduced, VHS still had longer recording times (6 hours on a T-120 vs. 4.5 hours for Beta on an L-750 -- simple mathematics). Maybe it would have been smarter if Beta's slowest tape speed offered 4:1 compression instead of 3:1, as then it would have equalled VHS's recording time.
It's a very common myth that "Sony did not license Beta." Beta was as much open standard as was VHS. It's just that it didn't have as many licensees as VHS, and Sony was always the dominant maker of Beta machines. Third-party makers of Betamax VCRs included: Sanyo (remember the "Betacords"?), NEC, Zenith, Toshiba, Marantz, Sears, Pioneer, Realistic, and Aiwa. Of all the Betas sold, 76% were by Sony. Sanyo was the next most popular with 11%.
A better analysis of the home videotape format wars can be found here.
A short history of the Beta format and a list of the licensees and most popular models can be found here.
Here is a link to download "The Right to Read" by Richard M. Stallman that I mentioned in my previous post. It's a short story, only about 23kB.
All three versions have a really long copyright notice and licence agreement at the beginning. Just scroll down past that to get to the story. Each of these is the same text, but in a different format or language. There is only one part to the story.
I seriously doubt we will ever live in a "copyright nation" as described in the story, but I believe the closed operation of these "e-books," combined with mass-media provider paranoia (look at the music and movie industries) does give us the potential...
So, who's up for reverse-engineering the various eBook file-formats? I'd like it much better if I could print the file out or manipulate it as I please and know that no one is tracking what I'm doing with it.
I wonder... Has the PDF file format been reverse-engineered by anyone? What about any of these "eBook" file formats (GlassBook Reader, Rocket eBook)? I once looked inside a PDF file with a binary file editor, but all I saw was a bunch of numbers and weird stuff. A bit like a PostScript file, but deliberately obfuscated.
I really dislike the idea of only being able to read the "book" on a "licensed" machine. Read the message on SoftLock's website-- "Enter the email address of the computer where you plan to read the story." I'm not sure how they're authenticating, but I don't like it.
Something else to try: get the PDF version, then, for each page, copy and paste the text from the book into a text editor, and save in your format of choice. This may or may not be possible, as Acrobat does have the ability to stop you from copying and pasting.
I realize this could be construed as encourging copyright infringement, but read Richard Stallman's "The Right to Read" at Project Gutenberg before you flame me.
P.S. If the link for SoftLock didn't work, try this one. Sorry, I can't get a direct link to "The Right to Read"; Project Gutenberg seems incredibly slow at the moment.
Not Off-Topic: Pronunciation of "Pi"
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Happy Pi Day!
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In most other languages, like French, and probably Greek, itself, where "pi" comes from, "pi" is pronouced like "pee."
The value of e is approximately 2.71828182846. The problem is that the first two digits after the decimal point are "7" and "1". February 71?? I suppose you could use Feb. 7th and use only the first digits after the decimal.
Another problem is that e is not as well known as pi.
P.S. Remember how the Commodore 8-bit computers (PET, VIC20, C-64, etc.) had the pi symbol right on their keyboard (shift+ uparrow), and you could use it in your BASIC programs? With today's computers and languages, you must define pi yourself, and you can't type it without a special font.
In the documentation on Corel's Linux website, they mention that "UDMA66 support" will not be available until the "2.4 kernel."
Does anyone know if this means Linux 2.4 will be the first version with built-in support for Ultra DMA66 hard drives and (hopefully) up to four IDE buses like on the ABIT BE-6/BP-6/BX-6 motherboards?
The personal computer will always be more than just a piece of electronics, because it is a tool designed for you, and only for you. The PC is a statement of integrity and freedom. It serves your agenda, when you want it to, and, with a little knowledge, in whatever way you want it to.
Not necessarily. Think of UCITA. Think of Windows 98 submitting registration information to Microsoft without your permission when you install.
If I remember correctly, the book mentions the helicopter people as coming from 'Zealand' which is somewhere in Denmark...
No, it really was New Zealand.
The way the kids first find out about the "Sealanders" is from Petra, who is incredibly powerful at broadcasting "thought-shapes" and incredibly sensitive to receiving them. At one point in the book, Petra tells Rosalind about the "other," "far-away" voices. When Rosalind asks Petra where they are coming from, Petra points to the south-west. On a globe, going from eastern Canada to New Zealand is definitely heading south-west. Later in the book, the "Sealand" woman marvels at how Petra can throw a thought "halfway round the world."
As for the long helicopter journey, the book does take place in the future, probably around the year 2200 or 2300, so perhaps better fuel efficiency or a better type of fuel was available. According to the "Sealand" woman, New Zealand was largely untouched by "Tribulation," and did not receive the incredible technological and societal setbacks Labrador did.
2200 to 2300 is a plausible range of years because the book was written in the 1950s, when the threat of a nuclear war was real, and Mr. Wyndham probably assumed it would happen in the late 20th century or early 21st. Assume the war took place around 2000. David Strorm, the narrator, mentions that he doesn't know "how many generations" had passed since Tribulation (the war). His mention of the history (or lack thereof) of Nicholson's Repentances also backs this up.
Anyway, did anyone notice this: the story is set in Labrador, the mainland part of Newfoundland, in the far east of Canada. There's something in the story for Americans, too, but it's pretty bad... (Then again, in the story, Labrador is full of right-wing fundamentalists and mutated extremists, so that's pretty bad, too.)
This is a little off-topic, but the crazy Québec separatists are trying to claim some of Labrador's land simply by altering the border between Québec and Newfoundland on their maps. The premier of Newfoundland wants to change his province's official name to "Newfoundland and Labrador" but the separtist premier of Québec is warning him that it would anger Quebeckers. (Sigh...) Those separatists are all children, aren't they? (A premier is the head of a province, like in the U.S. a governor is the head of a state.)
You know, that actually wasn't off-topic. The separatists are a lot like Joseph Strorm and company. They don't consider you laine pure (pure wool; a real Quebecker) unless you have lived there for several generations and are purely French. They certainly like to alienate all English people in Québec, a bit like the treatment of the mutants in the story (without being banished, though English people have been moving out of Québec in droves).
It's a shame the Badlands in the story are where they are, instead of directly to the west of Labrador!!
Yeah, I read that one too, in grade12 English. I guess these are favourites of the English departments, eh?
About Fifth Business: I think "Percy Boyd Staunton" is silly name ("Percy"? Er, sorry if your real name is "Percy"...!), but changing it to "Boy Staunton"?? Who in their right mind would change their name to "Boy"?!? At least "Dunstable" to "Dunstan" made sense. Now, about our friend Dunstan's fixation with saints...
I never paid much attention in grade12 English, so I don't remember much of the actual story (and what I do remember would be spoilers). But I do remember that you've got to be careful where you aim your snowball when you throw it! (That one must have had an ice core.)
After reading this book, anytime I or my brother see a strange looking animal or plant, we say to one another, "It's a deviation!!" (Or an "offence" or a "blasphemy," etc.)
I read this book in grade10 English. Grade10 English was my favourite of all the English courses I took in high school, largely because of this novel, and the other one we read, Animal Farm. It's possible though, that these may have, um, influenced me and created a few of my left-wing views, or at least my reaction to fundamentalism. David Strorm's dad is a raging fundamentalist, and...wait... That would be a spoiler.
I also wish I could communicate in "thought-shapes," too. For example, if I was taking a test in school, I and several other telepaths could send and receive thought-shapes throughout the test and..."help each other out."
Great book. I'd like to say more, but I'd probably spoil it for those that haven't read it... I will say this, though... It's a great book, except for this one line: "They've broken Katherine!" Umm...sure.
Here on my desk, connected to my computer, I have an excellent monitor. The picture is huge, but not so big that I have to push it to the back of my desk; it handles high resolutions; and it protects itself against refresh rates it can't handle (if you try to use a resolution/refresh-rate combination it can't handle, instead of displaying a screwed-up picture and possibly damaging itself, it just blacks out the picture). It's also touch-sensitive, though I prefer a mouse, so I don't use that feature.
This monitor must have cost well over a thousand dollars, and it is worth every penny. My company must have had it several years now, as well.
If the MPAA decides to become even more paranoid and adopt this "encryption," my excellent and very expensive monitor will become obsolete.
Of course, I don't watch DVDs at work. I don't even have a DVD drive in my office computer. But I'm sure there are plently of home users who do watch DVDs and have purchased big monitors specifically for that purpose.
The monitor is one of the most expensive parts of a home computer system, sometimes comprising as much as 30% or more of the price. Are we supposed to buy "new" monitors" Well... Probably not, because we have "old" video cards and "old" DVD decoding hardware and software. But will they become greedy enough to make us upgrade?
Now, an engineering team and large company add cost to your components to implement on-the-fly encryption of your video signal. Does this help solve the problems you originally bought your machine for?
Hell, no! This is a solution looking for a problem. I'm sure it's possible to take the output from the pins on a video cable and transform and massage it into a usable NTSC, PAL, or SECAM signal you could tape with a VCR. You could also find a way to route this signal into another computer via a video-capture card. But is this a rampant problem for the movie industry? No! Could this be a problem in the forseeable future? No! Downloading of 1GB movies over ubiquitous broadband lines, yes, but this? No!
The only way they can make it work is by convicing the public that they can get better picture quality or a better viewing experience with this technology. But, to the public, it will be just a more expensive version of technology that already exists with no benefit for the consumer.
This is a very bad idea, indeed. I hope the movie and computer industries see the problem. If people have to buy new, expensive, monitors just so they can watch these damned copy-protected movies and these new expensive, monitors might not have all the features of their old, expensive monitors (that still work perfectly), and might not be of the same quality as their old, expensive monitors that they paid so much money for, then this venture will surely die.
I certainly don't condone what this guy did, but I'm appalled at the results -- the authorities denouncing it as a "hack" and "cybervandalism" are taking the usual attitude I've seen. To quote another Slashdot reader, "Someone says to the emperor, 'Sir, you have no clothes,' and boy is the emperor pissed!"
Do any of you remember the Hotmail "hack" from summer 1999? You could read other people's mail, simply by knowing their Hotmail email address -- no password required! Similarly, this guy was able to impersonate the president without any password.
If you (1) implement the best security you have and you do your homework and lock down your servers, and your system still gets cracked, well, you did the best you could. But if you (2) make no effort to implement security, or just leave all the default accounts and passwords on the server, and you get cracked, you'll get no sympathy from me, or anyone else.
Don't get me wrong. This guy shouldn't have done what he did, but CNN has no right to call it a "hack" or "cybervandalism" if they made no effort to prevent it.
I really hate it when case (2) occurs, and the "victims" start screaming bloody murder. Honestly, I'll bet the sysadmin of that IRC server leaves his front door unlocked a lot.
NOTE: There are many of you that see emulation and pure software piracy, and you have a right to feel that way. But please read all of this post before you moderate me into the ground.
Does anyone know how the CPS2 Emulation project is coming along? I can play Capcom System 1 games (up to Street Fighter 2: Turbo Champion Edition) on my PC using Callus and MAME, but everything from Super Street Fighter 2 onward (including this game, Marvel vs. Capcom 2) cannot yet be emulated. I walk into an arcade, look at Puzzle Fighter 2, Marvel vs. Capcom, and Street Fighter Alpha 3, and I just sigh.
Now, maybe I'm a cheap pirate bastard because I'm not buying the games. But it would be a waste of money for me. I don't own a PlayStation, Dreamcast, or Nintendo64. And why should I? My PC is just as good, and it can "grow with me" -- I can upgrade it as time goes by, and still play most of my old games. But a game console becomes obsolete and unsupported after only four years (or less). Furthermore, the only thing you can do with a game console is play games. While some of the modern consoles can browse the Internet and play MP3s, they will never approach the versatility of a computer. On my PC, I can program, use word processors, spreadsheets, databases, tweak my system for better performance, customize it, etc. How much of that can you do with a game system?
Why doesn't Capcom release these games for the PC? The PC clearly has the processing and graphics horsepower needed. Look at the PentiumIII, the AMD Athlon, and the various 3D cards.
It's good to see that some games are being ported (like Final Fantasy 7 and 8), but I'm afraid the games I really want to play will only ever be on the game consoles.
Worse yet, you need to own all the current game consoles to enjoy all of your favourite games. If you own a PlayStation, you can't play Super Smash Bros. or Mario Party. If you own a Nintendo64, you can't play Final Fantasy 7. I find it strange that a world that couldn't tolerate two video formats (VHS and Beta) is perfectly happy with multiple game console platforms with incredible incompatibilities, mostly deliberate.
Does anyone know what the matter with the game industry is? Why do I have to buy what will soon be a $300 doorstop to play Crazy Taxi? Why can't I play it on my PC? Could it be that some game makers, like Capcom, are "in the pocket" of Nintendo or Sony? (i.e. Nintendo or Sony are paying them?)
When I was living in Bloomington, [Indiana] and shopping for a new car, I found that I could get a much better deal by going to a dealer in Louisville [, Kentucky]. Suppose the auto manufacturer wanted to force me to buy from the more expensive dealer by forcing me to sign a "licence agreement" when I bought the car in Kentucky saying that I would not operate the car in Indiana. Should the manufacturer be allowed to impose this restriction?
No.
If so, from whence do you believe they derive the right to tell me where I can or cannot drive a car that I have legally purchased? If not, then how is this situation different from the DVD [zone restriction] situation you have described?... [There was a] time was when people protested laws that were unjust...What has happened to us? Have we forgotten that the power of those laws derives from our consent?
Excellent point. I think the reasons for our apathy today are that Western society, as a whole, is getting lazier, and those of us who would take action are afraid to because:
we feel that our protests would fall on deaf ears-- the people we would be protesting to wouldn't care.
we're afraid of what others (especially those who would disagree with our protest) wuold think of us.
(this is stretching it a little) if those who imposed the restriction or law find out about us and who we are, they might put "pressure" on us.
On point #3, consider this: the Slashdot community is opposed to the implementation of DVD security because it means only those whom the DVD licensing body has officially sanctioned can make DVD players of any kind. So, when DeCSS comes out, which allows Linux DVD players to be written, we love it! But the DVD CCA has listed Slashdot as one of its "John Does" because there are numerous links to DeCSS here. Didn't they drag poor Rob Malda into court on very short notice, too?
With lawsuits and litigation flying around freely today, there a lot more reasons not to stick your neck out.
A lot of us probably fall into category #1, too. As kids, we were probably frequently told to count our blessings and shut up.
Slashdot Mirror
It's that simple?!?
I'm an ASP programmer, and I've had to code lots of bilingual websites for the Canadian government (English and French). I've run the gamut of everything available-- session variables, per-session cookies, separate /EN and /FR directories, separate page-e.asp and page-f.asp pages, modifying the URLs to add a "?Lang=E" or "?Lang=F" to the end of them, detecting the "User-Accept-Lang" line in the HTTP request, etc.
Could you please explain in much greater detail, for the benefit of the ASP-programming minority of Slashdot readers, how this works? I need to know! This sounds incredibly useful. I'd moderate you up if I could. (No mod points.)
Well, why buy the book at all? Just go down to your local library, and borrow it for free! Read it, return it, and when you want to read it again, borrow it again! All for nothing! Libraries are also a good place to find books that have been out of print for a while, too.
With e-commerce sites like Amazon.com, FatBrain, and ThinkGeek, book-buying appears to have become rather "hip" lately. What if you buy the book and end up hating it, despite a good review? Returning it isn't always an option.
The only problem I can see with this is that, in order to insure brisk sales, some publishers may not allow libraries to stock new books until they've been on sale for a certain amount of time. Also, some libraries may have a really long process to go through before deciding to buy new books. I also find that my library is really bad about computer reference books. They're great, though, if you want to learn about Excel 4 for Windows 3.1.
But for general works of nonfiction like this, and fiction too, don't forget about your local library. If you hate Amazon, this is the best way to stick it to them!
Yeah, God forbid he'd want to keep people from stealing his work or anything like that.
Every content creator (musician, movie director, etc.) wants to keep people from stealing their work. Their work is how they feed themselves. Why else are so many musicians speaking out against Napster? It goes without saying that bootlegging The Phantom Menace "...[contributes] to the overall piracy problem that the MPAA is fighting daily and globally."
My point was that Lucas, or his press writer, must be thinking constantly, "People are pirating my work!! People are pirating my work!!" In response to fans' demand for Star Wars on DVD, he (or his press writer), lashes out, unprovoked, at his public.
DVD is really big right now. People are buying DVD players, because they want the best picture and sound, and because they want the most out of their home theatre systems. Lucas has incensed a lot of people because of the lack of Phantom Menace on DVD. Other movie studios don't have to "stop work on [other movies] in order to concentrate on [a] DVD release," so why does LucasFilm? And if he "would like to do something special with the DVD release," why doesn't he just release a plain DVD now, and a special version later (like he's used to doing anyway)?
I just hope that if sales of the VHS-only Phantom Menace are poor, Lucas doesn't say, "Oh...!! People were pirating it!"
But I think he will anyway.
I would like to think that Lucas don't relase the PM DVD because he wants to fight a holy war against the stupid DVD encryption/zoning fiasco. But I know his reasons are more economic than anything else.
Well, of course. In fact, I would think that, of all people, Lucas would like the DVD "regions" and encryption. Scratch that. He loves it.
I remember reading a news bulletin from LucasFilm about the delay of the DVD release. Apart from the usual party line about "Lucas [wanting] to do something special with the DVD release," the bulletin (which was also a press release, AFAIK) contained a large paragraph denouncing video bootlegging of Episode 1. Wow. Lucas really has copyright and control on the brain, doesn't he?
As long as we're talking about the movie in general, as well as the lack of a DVD release, I was wondering about the quality of the story in Episode 1.
George Lucas said in a interview with Wired magazine (in the May 1999 issue) that the story for parts 1 to 3 "[has] existed for 20 years." I assume he means "from about the time Episode 4 (Star Wars: A New Hope) was released."
But I have to doubt that. I get the idea he either made them up afterward, or that the stories for episodes before number 4 have existed since then, but only as a concept or in a largely undeveloped form. For example, "Before episode 4, we have a child version of Darth Vader, and R2-D2 and C3PO are created, and the Death Star is created, and all the regulars from Episodes 4 to 6 are born or shown in a younger form, and some cool and exciting stuff happens." I certainly don't think he had Jar Jar Binks in the back of his mind since 1977. Any reasonable person would go insane thinking about Jar Jar that long!! (Though one could argue that Lucas already is insane.) I don't think you could break into Lucas's mansion in, say, 1982, and find the complete scripts or even a rough draft of Episodes 1 to 3.
So, I think that he just made up Episode 1 very recently, probably as late as 1996 or '97. He was thinking:
As for the main topic of this discussion, Star Wars on DVD, I don't need to say anything; all the other Slashdot contributors have said it for me. I think anyone who owns a copy of the THX-remastered triology and then witnessed the release of the "special edition" versions of Episodes 4 to 6 on video knows how Lucas operates.
I have to think it's kind of stupid that he release that latter half of the Star Wars movies first. I mean, watching Episode 1, I had all sorts of foreknowledge. Why is Yoda so opposed to Qui Gonn training young Anakin? Never mind this nonsense about "fear leading to hate, etc." I know what the problem is. I honestly don't expect there to be very many (if any) surprises in Episodes 2 and 3, either.
I'm no expert on U.S. politics, but I have a feeling that the next federal election in the U.S. will greatly affect the outcome of the Microsoft antitrust suit.
Back in the late '70s and early '80s, the was an antitrust suit against IBM. When Reagan was elected, the suit was dropped.
Al Gore is one of the biggest backers of the Microsoft antitrust suit, and if he gets elected, Microsoft can only look forward to more punishment. But, I've heard that George W. Bush said he would never allow Microsoft to be broken up or severely punished if he got elected.
The next U.S. federal election will be in November 2000 -- only about seven months away. Microsoft has, apparently, been backing the Republicans by making all sorts of campaign contributions to them. I heard that George W. Bush's election campaign has (so far) cost 80 million dollars (U.S.), and that it was all funds from the private sector (not the government). I guess we know who one of his biggest contributors is, eh?
Like I said, I don't know much about American politics (so please correct me if I have any facts wrong), and I don't know how much influence a president has on court decisions like this, but it should be interesting to see what happens in November. Microsoft is sure to appeal and do anything in their power to stall any kind of breakup or severe punishment until well past the next U.S. election, in case Bush makes it in.
This (supposedly) only works with pre-1989 Betas. Around 1989, Hollywood finally confronted Sony and forced them to make Beta vulnerable to Macrovision, just like VHS. Of course, by then, it was a little late, as Beta was irreversibly going down.
I'm on a mailing list called the Beta Informer , and there has been quite a lot of discussion about Betamax's apparent invulnerability to Macrovision.
Here's a quote from issue #129, in a submission by Dan Petitpas:
[Some pre-1985 TVs would show a distorted picture when used to view a Macrovision-protected videotape.]
From another contributor:
From Mr. Petitpas:
Anyway, I've heard a lot of people talk about making perfect copies of DVDs and copy-protected VHS tapes on their Betamaxes. I tried that a few times with my SL-100 SuperBetamax (made in 1986), but I still got a mild lightening and darkening of the picture.
I still don't fully understand the relationship between Macrovision and Beta decks. If the AGC on Betas is wired to the inputs, wouldn't that cause the Beta deck to produce screwed-up recordings of copy-protected tapes? It would be clamping down the stronger video signal.
What I do know is that Macrovision (on videotapes) mainfests itself as a really bright white line just above the picture (in the out-of-band area) on your TV, and most VCR's AGCs take this into account when determining the picture's brightness (which is why videotape copies have that "flashing" effect). Also, if you're ever watching a commercial video and the screen appears bright or distorted at the top of the picture, that's Macrovision at work. The brightness at the top of the picture is especially noticeable at the beginning of the video, during the black screens between the trailers and the antipiracy notice.
Sorry... I forgot to mention that the comparisons of tape speeds in my previous post applied only to NTSC VHS and Beta machines.
PAL and SECAM Beta VCRs have only one tape speed that offers 3 hours and 15 minutes on an L-750. PAL and SECAM VHS machines have three tape speeds which offer, on a T-180 (the PAL/SECAM version of the NTSC T-120), 3 hours, 4.5 hours and 6 hours of recording time (correct me if I'm wrong, PAL/SECAM users). So, the same problems of recording time that existed in North America existed in Europe and Australia, too, and were somewhat worse.
Betamax died because, when it and VHS first started competing in the late '70s, blank videotapes were very expensive, and the first Beta tapes (L-500) were only one hour long while the first VHS tapes (T-120) were two hours long. One hour just wasn't long enough for movies or many TV recording applications. Both formats had only one tape speed when they started, but even when the 2:1 (LP on VHS and BII on Beta) and 3:1 (EP and BIII) speeds were introduced, VHS still had longer recording times (6 hours on a T-120 vs. 4.5 hours for Beta on an L-750 -- simple mathematics). Maybe it would have been smarter if Beta's slowest tape speed offered 4:1 compression instead of 3:1, as then it would have equalled VHS's recording time.
It's a very common myth that "Sony did not license Beta." Beta was as much open standard as was VHS. It's just that it didn't have as many licensees as VHS, and Sony was always the dominant maker of Beta machines. Third-party makers of Betamax VCRs included: Sanyo (remember the "Betacords"?), NEC, Zenith, Toshiba, Marantz, Sears, Pioneer, Realistic, and Aiwa. Of all the Betas sold, 76% were by Sony. Sanyo was the next most popular with 11%.
A better analysis of the home videotape format wars can be found here.
A short history of the Beta format and a list of the licensees and most popular models can be found here.
Here is a link to download "The Right to Read" by Richard M. Stallman that I mentioned in my previous post. It's a short story, only about 23kB.
All three versions have a really long copyright notice and licence agreement at the beginning. Just scroll down past that to get to the story. Each of these is the same text, but in a different format or language. There is only one part to the story.
I seriously doubt we will ever live in a "copyright nation" as described in the story, but I believe the closed operation of these "e-books," combined with mass-media provider paranoia (look at the music and movie industries) does give us the potential...
So, who's up for reverse-engineering the various eBook file-formats? I'd like it much better if I could print the file out or manipulate it as I please and know that no one is tracking what I'm doing with it.
I wonder... Has the PDF file format been reverse-engineered by anyone? What about any of these "eBook" file formats (GlassBook Reader, Rocket eBook)? I once looked inside a PDF file with a binary file editor, but all I saw was a bunch of numbers and weird stuff. A bit like a PostScript file, but deliberately obfuscated.
I really dislike the idea of only being able to read the "book" on a "licensed" machine. Read the message on SoftLock's website-- "Enter the email address of the computer where you plan to read the story." I'm not sure how they're authenticating, but I don't like it.
Something else to try: get the PDF version, then, for each page, copy and paste the text from the book into a text editor, and save in your format of choice. This may or may not be possible, as Acrobat does have the ability to stop you from copying and pasting.
I realize this could be construed as encourging copyright infringement, but read Richard Stallman's "The Right to Read" at Project Gutenberg before you flame me.
P.S. If the link for SoftLock didn't work, try this one. Sorry, I can't get a direct link to "The Right to Read"; Project Gutenberg seems incredibly slow at the moment.
In most other languages, like French, and probably Greek, itself, where "pi" comes from, "pi" is pronouced like "pee."
So, I think I might have to "pi" soon, too!
The value of e is approximately 2.71828182846. The problem is that the first two digits after the decimal point are "7" and "1". February 71?? I suppose you could use Feb. 7th and use only the first digits after the decimal.
Another problem is that e is not as well known as pi.
P.S. Remember how the Commodore 8-bit computers (PET, VIC20, C-64, etc.) had the pi symbol right on their keyboard (shift+ uparrow), and you could use it in your BASIC programs? With today's computers and languages, you must define pi yourself, and you can't type it without a special font.
In the documentation on Corel's Linux website, they mention that "UDMA66 support" will not be available until the "2.4 kernel."
Does anyone know if this means Linux 2.4 will be the first version with built-in support for Ultra DMA66 hard drives and (hopefully) up to four IDE buses like on the ABIT BE-6/BP-6/BX-6 motherboards?
The personal computer will always be more than just a piece of electronics, because it is a tool designed for you, and only for you. The PC is a statement of integrity and freedom. It serves your agenda, when you want it to, and, with a little knowledge, in whatever way you want it to.
Not necessarily. Think of UCITA. Think of Windows 98 submitting registration information to Microsoft without your permission when you install.
Warning: Spoilers
If I remember correctly, the book mentions the helicopter people as coming from 'Zealand' which is somewhere in Denmark...
No, it really was New Zealand.
The way the kids first find out about the "Sealanders" is from Petra, who is incredibly powerful at broadcasting "thought-shapes" and incredibly sensitive to receiving them. At one point in the book, Petra tells Rosalind about the "other," "far-away" voices. When Rosalind asks Petra where they are coming from, Petra points to the south-west. On a globe, going from eastern Canada to New Zealand is definitely heading south-west. Later in the book, the "Sealand" woman marvels at how Petra can throw a thought "halfway round the world."
As for the long helicopter journey, the book does take place in the future, probably around the year 2200 or 2300, so perhaps better fuel efficiency or a better type of fuel was available. According to the "Sealand" woman, New Zealand was largely untouched by "Tribulation," and did not receive the incredible technological and societal setbacks Labrador did.
2200 to 2300 is a plausible range of years because the book was written in the 1950s, when the threat of a nuclear war was real, and Mr. Wyndham probably assumed it would happen in the late 20th century or early 21st. Assume the war took place around 2000. David Strorm, the narrator, mentions that he doesn't know "how many generations" had passed since Tribulation (the war). His mention of the history (or lack thereof) of Nicholson's Repentances also backs this up.
Really? I was sure he was British.
Anyway, did anyone notice this: the story is set in Labrador, the mainland part of Newfoundland, in the far east of Canada. There's something in the story for Americans, too, but it's pretty bad... (Then again, in the story, Labrador is full of right-wing fundamentalists and mutated extremists, so that's pretty bad, too.)
This is a little off-topic, but the crazy Québec separatists are trying to claim some of Labrador's land simply by altering the border between Québec and Newfoundland on their maps. The premier of Newfoundland wants to change his province's official name to "Newfoundland and Labrador" but the separtist premier of Québec is warning him that it would anger Quebeckers. (Sigh...) Those separatists are all children, aren't they? (A premier is the head of a province, like in the U.S. a governor is the head of a state.)
You know, that actually wasn't off-topic. The separatists are a lot like Joseph Strorm and company. They don't consider you laine pure (pure wool; a real Quebecker) unless you have lived there for several generations and are purely French. They certainly like to alienate all English people in Québec, a bit like the treatment of the mutants in the story (without being banished, though English people have been moving out of Québec in droves).
It's a shame the Badlands in the story are where they are, instead of directly to the west of Labrador!!
Yeah, I read that one too, in grade12 English. I guess these are favourites of the English departments, eh?
About Fifth Business: I think "Percy Boyd Staunton" is silly name ("Percy"? Er, sorry if your real name is "Percy"...!), but changing it to "Boy Staunton"?? Who in their right mind would change their name to "Boy"?!? At least "Dunstable" to "Dunstan" made sense. Now, about our friend Dunstan's fixation with saints...
I never paid much attention in grade12 English, so I don't remember much of the actual story (and what I do remember would be spoilers). But I do remember that you've got to be careful where you aim your snowball when you throw it! (That one must have had an ice core.)
After reading this book, anytime I or my brother see a strange looking animal or plant, we say to one another, "It's a deviation!!" (Or an "offence" or a "blasphemy," etc.)
I read this book in grade10 English. Grade10 English was my favourite of all the English courses I took in high school, largely because of this novel, and the other one we read, Animal Farm. It's possible though, that these may have, um, influenced me and created a few of my left-wing views, or at least my reaction to fundamentalism. David Strorm's dad is a raging fundamentalist, and...wait... That would be a spoiler.
I also wish I could communicate in "thought-shapes," too. For example, if I was taking a test in school, I and several other telepaths could send and receive thought-shapes throughout the test and..."help each other out."
Great book. I'd like to say more, but I'd probably spoil it for those that haven't read it... I will say this, though... It's a great book, except for this one line: "They've broken Katherine!" Umm...sure.
Here on my desk, connected to my computer, I have an excellent monitor. The picture is huge, but not so big that I have to push it to the back of my desk; it handles high resolutions; and it protects itself against refresh rates it can't handle (if you try to use a resolution/refresh-rate combination it can't handle, instead of displaying a screwed-up picture and possibly damaging itself, it just blacks out the picture). It's also touch-sensitive, though I prefer a mouse, so I don't use that feature.
This monitor must have cost well over a thousand dollars, and it is worth every penny. My company must have had it several years now, as well.
If the MPAA decides to become even more paranoid and adopt this "encryption," my excellent and very expensive monitor will become obsolete.
Of course, I don't watch DVDs at work. I don't even have a DVD drive in my office computer. But I'm sure there are plently of home users who do watch DVDs and have purchased big monitors specifically for that purpose.
The monitor is one of the most expensive parts of a home computer system, sometimes comprising as much as 30% or more of the price. Are we supposed to buy "new" monitors" Well... Probably not, because we have "old" video cards and "old" DVD decoding hardware and software. But will they become greedy enough to make us upgrade?
Now, an engineering team and large company add cost to your components to implement on-the-fly encryption of your video signal. Does this help solve the problems you originally bought your machine for?
Hell, no! This is a solution looking for a problem. I'm sure it's possible to take the output from the pins on a video cable and transform and massage it into a usable NTSC, PAL, or SECAM signal you could tape with a VCR. You could also find a way to route this signal into another computer via a video-capture card. But is this a rampant problem for the movie industry? No! Could this be a problem in the forseeable future? No! Downloading of 1GB movies over ubiquitous broadband lines, yes, but this? No!
The only way they can make it work is by convicing the public that they can get better picture quality or a better viewing experience with this technology. But, to the public, it will be just a more expensive version of technology that already exists with no benefit for the consumer.
This is a very bad idea, indeed. I hope the movie and computer industries see the problem. If people have to buy new, expensive, monitors just so they can watch these damned copy-protected movies and these new expensive, monitors might not have all the features of their old, expensive monitors (that still work perfectly), and might not be of the same quality as their old, expensive monitors that they paid so much money for, then this venture will surely die.
I certainly don't condone what this guy did, but I'm appalled at the results -- the authorities denouncing it as a "hack" and "cybervandalism" are taking the usual attitude I've seen. To quote another Slashdot reader, "Someone says to the emperor, 'Sir, you have no clothes,' and boy is the emperor pissed!"
Do any of you remember the Hotmail "hack" from summer 1999? You could read other people's mail, simply by knowing their Hotmail email address -- no password required! Similarly, this guy was able to impersonate the president without any password.
If you (1) implement the best security you have and you do your homework and lock down your servers, and your system still gets cracked, well, you did the best you could. But if you (2) make no effort to implement security, or just leave all the default accounts and passwords on the server, and you get cracked, you'll get no sympathy from me, or anyone else.
Don't get me wrong. This guy shouldn't have done what he did, but CNN has no right to call it a "hack" or "cybervandalism" if they made no effort to prevent it.
I really hate it when case (2) occurs, and the "victims" start screaming bloody murder. Honestly, I'll bet the sysadmin of that IRC server leaves his front door unlocked a lot.
NOTE: There are many of you that see emulation and pure software piracy, and you have a right to feel that way. But please read all of this post before you moderate me into the ground.
Does anyone know how the CPS2 Emulation project is coming along? I can play Capcom System 1 games (up to Street Fighter 2: Turbo Champion Edition) on my PC using Callus and MAME, but everything from Super Street Fighter 2 onward (including this game, Marvel vs. Capcom 2) cannot yet be emulated. I walk into an arcade, look at Puzzle Fighter 2, Marvel vs. Capcom, and Street Fighter Alpha 3, and I just sigh.
Now, maybe I'm a cheap pirate bastard because I'm not buying the games. But it would be a waste of money for me. I don't own a PlayStation, Dreamcast, or Nintendo64. And why should I? My PC is just as good, and it can "grow with me" -- I can upgrade it as time goes by, and still play most of my old games. But a game console becomes obsolete and unsupported after only four years (or less). Furthermore, the only thing you can do with a game console is play games. While some of the modern consoles can browse the Internet and play MP3s, they will never approach the versatility of a computer. On my PC, I can program, use word processors, spreadsheets, databases, tweak my system for better performance, customize it, etc. How much of that can you do with a game system?
Why doesn't Capcom release these games for the PC? The PC clearly has the processing and graphics horsepower needed. Look at the PentiumIII, the AMD Athlon, and the various 3D cards.
It's good to see that some games are being ported (like Final Fantasy 7 and 8), but I'm afraid the games I really want to play will only ever be on the game consoles.
Worse yet, you need to own all the current game consoles to enjoy all of your favourite games. If you own a PlayStation, you can't play Super Smash Bros. or Mario Party. If you own a Nintendo64, you can't play Final Fantasy 7. I find it strange that a world that couldn't tolerate two video formats (VHS and Beta) is perfectly happy with multiple game console platforms with incredible incompatibilities, mostly deliberate.
Does anyone know what the matter with the game industry is? Why do I have to buy what will soon be a $300 doorstop to play Crazy Taxi? Why can't I play it on my PC? Could it be that some game makers, like Capcom, are "in the pocket" of Nintendo or Sony? (i.e. Nintendo or Sony are paying them?)
When I was living in Bloomington, [Indiana] and shopping for a new car, I found that I could get a much better deal by going to a dealer in Louisville [, Kentucky]. Suppose the auto manufacturer wanted to force me to buy from the more expensive dealer by forcing me to sign a "licence agreement" when I bought the car in Kentucky saying that I would not operate the car in Indiana. Should the manufacturer be allowed to impose this restriction?
No.
If so, from whence do you believe they derive the right to tell me where I can or cannot drive a car that I have legally purchased? If not, then how is this situation different from the DVD [zone restriction] situation you have described? ... [There was a] time was when people protested laws that were unjust...What has happened to us? Have we forgotten that the power of those laws derives from our consent?
Excellent point. I think the reasons for our apathy today are that Western society, as a whole, is getting lazier, and those of us who would take action are afraid to because:
- we feel that our protests would fall on deaf ears-- the people we would be protesting to wouldn't care.
- we're afraid of what others (especially those who would disagree with our protest) wuold think of us.
- (this is stretching it a little) if those who imposed the restriction or law find out about us and who we are, they might put "pressure" on us.
On point #3, consider this: the Slashdot community is opposed to the implementation of DVD security because it means only those whom the DVD licensing body has officially sanctioned can make DVD players of any kind. So, when DeCSS comes out, which allows Linux DVD players to be written, we love it! But the DVD CCA has listed Slashdot as one of its "John Does" because there are numerous links to DeCSS here. Didn't they drag poor Rob Malda into court on very short notice, too?With lawsuits and litigation flying around freely today, there a lot more reasons not to stick your neck out.
A lot of us probably fall into category #1, too. As kids, we were probably frequently told to count our blessings and shut up.