Amen to the Apex AD600A! I picked on up last Christmas at K-Mart. The newer machines don't have the handy loopholes menu, but you can find patched ROM images that remove Macrovision or set the machine to whichever region you want. It takes a standard 4 Mbit EPROM. If you want, you can even burn two images (say, region code 0 and region code <whatever>) into an 8 Mbit part and dual-boot by putting a toggle switch on the upper address line.
I don't tend to watch disks from outside region 1 (except that I would like to see the BBC's excellent The Planets series, which hasn't been released for region 1), but I'm really glad to be able to disable Macrovision! Not that I'm into wholesale piracy, but (1) my main stereo system is out of video inputs, so I have to route the DVD player through the VCR's 'line in' jacks; and (2) it lets me copy the Disney (et al.) disks I've bought for the kids onto VHS and banish the little darlings to the basement to watch "Toy Story" for the aleph-nought time! Besides, I'd rather let the 3-year-old destroy the cheap VHS tape than the expensive DVD.
The obvious solution is to render the whole movie in real-time, right in the projector! "Just-In-Time Rendering". JITR. Hey, that's catchy, maybe I should patent it...
Yeah, Wired covered this whole story about 6 months ago. One solution was to bury the things underground, with just the top access area poking out. That way if they do break, at least nobody gets hit.
But wait! Bury enough of these things and we'll eventually have enough angular momentum to shift the Earth's axis! Think, man! This will kill us all!
Hey, maybe this is the reason Uranus is rolling around on its side...
Artifically limiting what people can do with free software is the first step in the slippery slope towards complex restrictive EULA hell.
The GPL itself is already the first step on that slope. No, it doesn't restrict what the end-user can do with GPL'd software. But it does restrict what another developer can do with it.
In my day job I develop embedded firmware. There are a few pieces of GPL'd code I'd like to include in my product. But, since the whole firmware image is linked as one monolithic executable, I can't without having to give away the source to the entire ball of wax! Obviously I can't do that, since the product also uses some non-free libraries whose license agreements specifically state that their souce code shall not be distributed.
I wouldn't mind providing the source to the GPL'd modules. I wouldn't even mind providing any modifications I made to those modules to get them to compile on my platform. But that's not good enough for the GPL. No, the GPL says, "You can only use our code if you buy into our philosophy of software distribution." Which, btw, is exactly the same as the non-free licenses which say, "You can only use our code if you buy into our philosophy that code shouldn't be redistributed." Only the GPL is much more restrictive than the commercial licenses. The non-free libraries don't try to encompass the rest of my product. I could ship source code to the entire product if I wished, minus the code for the proprietary libraries. Under the GPL, I have to provide source for my entire product. It doesn't just apply itself to the GPL'd code I imported, but to every last source file.
At least with the non-free libraries I can still choose whether or not my own code is free. If I include any GPL'd code I no longer have that choice. Tell me again how the GPL is non-restrictive?
Nintendo targets a younger audience, one that likes "cute" games and doesn't need a DVD player or internet access. With the lower price, the GameCube will also appeal to parents who are buying a system for their kids when the kids don't need to buy NFL 2K2 or Perfect Dark.
Which is exactly why I, as a parent, am planning to give my money to Nintendo this Christmas. My kids are right square in the middle of Nintendo's target demographic.
Also, as an adult gamer, I tend to prefer the Nintendo titles anyway. Mario has been good since the very first Super Mario Bros. hit the arcades. Nintendo's games are cutesy, sure. But a lot of them have a fair amount of depth to them, and for the most part they're just plain fun to play. I don't need a bazillion different titles of mediocre quality, just a few good ones.
At Duckon this weekend some friends and I intend to devise the definitive Pan Galactic Gargleblaster recipe. I haven't liked the looks of anything I've seen on the net so far. Since it's described as being "rather like having one's brains bashed in by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick", I think it's only fitting to start with Stolichnaya Limonnaya and Goldschlager and work from there.
Assuming, of course, that our cocked-up room reservation is resolved...:-(
First of all, you're right. You imagine it would be an exciting and creative profession. The reality is that it's long hours and little glory, unless you're lucky enough to make that one-in-a-million big seller.
Okay, so you still want to do it... When I was programming for a Major Game Company (which cancelled every project I ever worked on, but I'm not bitter...) most of the resumes got tossed if you didn't already have a couple of games under your belt. That was stupid, but that's the way it went. Personally, I looked for someone with a strong math background. You'll need it. 3D graphics are all matrix or quaternion operations, and you'd better have a feel for it. Yes, you can get by with some cookbook operations and very little real knowledge. But your game will show it. Also, pretty much everything these days needs some sort of decent physics model. 3D graphics have been beaten to death, but today's computers are powerful enough to support really good collision detection/response routines. If only we had someone to program them... Good AI is a field that's also lacking. Winning a lot of single-player games relies on taking advantage of the stupidity of the AI. I'd love to see a game where the difficulty level actually made the opponents smarter rather than just giving them bigger guns.
Providing some sort of demo program with your resume gets you good bonus points. It doesn't even have to be pretty, just enough to show that you have some idea what you're talking about. BUT MAKE SURE IT WORKS! I immediately tossed one otherwise good resume because the demo program had a major memory leak, and consumed all physical RAM and about a gigabyte of swap within 15 minutes. Otherwise it would have been a good demo.
Play games. Play lots of games. Love games. Be one with the games. Game programming is a labor of love. Unless you're willing to eat, drink, and breathe games you won't stand a chance. Also be willing to give up your social life for 18 months at a stretch. Game development works in period of constant "crunch time". You will work nights and weekends. Frequently.
We trusted MS Before?! Did i blink and miss something?
Actually, yes I trust Microsoft. To a limited degree, anyway. I decided years ago that if I was going to play in MS's sandbox, I'd play by their rules. It was just too fscking hard to install Unix-like utilities, editors, and what-not, just to have the whole house of cards come tumbling down because something expects filename case sensitivity or bare LFs or some other niggling little detail.
I went through a period of trying to do things "the right way" -- Backing up old versions of software before installing new, stuff like that. And you know, that didn't work either. Because unless you get all the crap they put in the Windows directory and the registry, you're screwed when you try to back out a change anyway.
So, when in Microsoft, do as Bill Gates does. I'll let programs crap all over the Windows directory and registry. I'll take everything offered by Windows Update. It's the MS way. It's stupid, it's insane, it's plainly the wrong way to design an OS, but you gotta play by the OS's rules or you'll go insane. (I'd have the same problems trying to apply MS or Mac conventions to the Unix world. It just don't work that way.)
So, yeah. I've trusted MS far enough to install their OS on my machine, I may as well trust 'em to give me an ActiveX component now and then.
Also, I may be a dying breed, but I like pinball and I can't play the new pinball machines anywhere but at an arcade. There, at least, is a market (tiny as it is) that consoles can't usurp.
Um, I hate to be the one to tell you, but pinball isn't just dying. It's dead. Sega bailed out of the market. Capcom bailed out of the market. Even Bally/Williams has bailed out. The only company left making pins is Stern, and I've never actually seen a machine from them. (At least, not one made since they restarted the pinball division after Williams shut down.)
Yeah, it sucks. I was a programmer at Capcom Coin-Op (the pinball division) when the axe fell. I love pinball, but let's face it: From an operator's perspective it's a nightmare. The machines are expensive; they have a ton of moving parts which can break; they need constant maintenance (cleaning the playfield can be a bitch!); and they really only serve a niche market of hardcore fans.
Sigh. At least I have a Big Bang Bar in my basement to go play when I'm feeling depressed about the whole thing...
Palm's website doesn't tell me the most important thing -- Have they improved the screen resolution yet? Since there's no mention of it I assume not. If they've gone to a double-res screen (360x360, like the Sony Clie) as well as color I'll almost certainly buy it! If not, well... It looks nice, by my old Palm III continues to serve me well enough.
I've been happy with StayOffHack, from http://www.rgps.com/. I've used it on both my Palm III and my Symbol SPT-1740. I ass/u/me it works okay on the Vx as well.
The Sony puts up a good fight, but 11 hours is peanuts for people outsourcing major parts of their brain (like me).
Depends on how they measure that 11 hours. Is it 11 hours of continuous usage, or 11 hours of standby? (Or, god help us, 11 hours of "typical use"?)
I've been using Runtime to track my Palm III's battery usage. It says that I've been pretty consistently changing my batteries once a month. Within each 30 day span I've gotten a pretty consistent 14-15 hours of use. (The rest of the time the Palm is "off".) Anyway, if the quoted 11 hours is "11 hours of solid usage", that's not far from what I get right now. I'd gladly trade a third of my battery life for a high-res color screen!
Debunking quackery is a valid and valuable scientific service.
Yup, science needs people to disprove theories, too. Otherwise any crank who proposes anything new (cold fusion, anyone?) would be accepted without question.
The problem is that the advocates of theraputic touch have no science.
And here's where the problem lies. Most of them (that I've met, anyway; and my wife is a believer in many "alternative" medical practices so I've met quite a few) seem to truly believe that they're helping people. I haven't found many whom I'd accuse of being outright charlatans. Unfortunately, what they have is a faith-based system. You can't debunk it by presenting scientific evidence. I've tried, and been told, "You don't think science knows everything, do you? Can't there be things outside the realm of scientific knowledge?" At this point I just have to throw up my hands and concede the discussion. There's no way to convince someone that what they believe is wrong, if part of that belief system says that logic and tangible evidence aren't necessarily valid.
On the other hand, quackery can have its uses. My wife was being treated for depression and was unhappy with traditional psychiatric care. She went to a chiropractor of the most heinous sort (IMHO) who did everything from adjusting her aura to prescribing medicines that were really just solutions so dilute there probably wasn't more than a molecule or two of the active ingredient. (They call this "potentizing" the medicine, and claim that the water retains the "energy resonance" of the substance.) Anyway, the point is that my wife believed this crap would work, and actually felt better! Thank you, Mr. Placebo Effect!
Yes, that's the point of the whole "CDDB screwed its contributors", and why FreeDB is the CD database of choice.
However, CDDB vs. FreeDB is not the point of the original article. To <blockquote> the unnamed contributor:
"I'll admit that
when Gracenote took over the CDDB compact-disc database, I wasn't too annoyed. Now I am. Napster has just signed an agreement with them to use Gracenote's services, and by extension the community-built CDDB databases, to implement its copyright blocking."
Emphasis mine. This person isn't terribly annoyed that CDDB renigged on their implied agreement with its contributors. He's annoyed because Napster and RIAA are using that freely-contributed information to implement copyright blocking. If Napster had announced it was was using a free-as-in-freedom database such as FreeDB instead, would he feel any better? They'd still be using freely-contributed information to implement copyright blocking. Why is it different whether or not that information is in a truly free database, or a database that had been free and suddenly changed its terms? Would things be different if Napster had signed on with CDDB before they claimed the database as proprietary? Why?
Sorry, the premise of this article is just plain hypocritical. It has absolutely nothing to do with CDDB "stealing" freely-contributed information. The problem is that Napster/RIAA is using that information. It's not a question of the database being wrongfully appropriated. The author even said he "wasn't too annoyed" about that. He's just another crybaby complaining that "Da Man" is taking away his source of pirated music.
http://freedb.org/. We're rebuilding it, we're rebuilding it better, and cddb can stew in its immoral juices.
And if Napster, the RIAA, or Her Majesty's Secret Service wanted to harvest track names from FreeDB for their own purposes, how would FreeDB stop them? How would FreeDB even know the Bad Guys were even in there?
If you can't answer these questions, what makes FreeDB superior to CDDB in this situation? Is it any more moral for FreeDB to say, "Well, the RIAA is using our database, but at least we're doing it out of the goodness of our hearts and not charging them for the privilege."?
Let's say you do find a way to detect and block the "unauthorized" uses. Now your information is no longer free (as in 'freedom'); it's restricted to those who agree with your licensing terms. How then can FreeDB claim to be any better than CDDB?
Too bad I don't have moderator points today. Can I moderate an entire article as "Flamebait"?
Look people, I know there are a lot of GNU zealots here that buy into the party line, "Information wants to be free!" So the CDDB database gets used by the Bad Guys. So what? That's the price you pay for freely exchanging information -- Someone else is free to use it against you!
Okay, so CDDB is no longer "free" in the GNU sense. That's beside the point. Do you think they're so naïve that they're not also using FreeDB as well? The only reason you know about the Napster/CDDB deal is that they had to sign a license to use the database and someone thought it would be good PR to announce it publicly. I'll betcha a dollar, though, that they also have their hooks into FreeDB and any other GPL'd free-as-in-liberty databases out there.
Freedom is a double-edged sword. You can't grab the moral high ground waving the "Information is Free!" flag, then complain when people use it for the "wrong purposes". That ain't freedom. It's a license agreement.
The question is still, "Why?" If you have a huge pile of old hardware (and who doesn't?) that you want to use as a server farm, why bother individually sculpting each one of them to fit dinky half-of-1U form factor? Odds are that half the motherboards are too big for it, anyway. Wouldn't you be better off just using the cases you have (or if you don't have cases, just power supplies and bare boards) instead of trying to make all these little bonsai computers?
Let me be the first to ask... Why? Why would anyone really want to build enough of these to make it worthwhile? I mean, it's a neat hack and is worth something just for that. But beyond the hack value, who's really going to spend time to make 84 of these things to fill a 42U rack?
And I really have a problem with the phrases "reliable" and "built from salvaged parts" used in the same sentence. Okay, reliable enough for a home system, sure. I have plenty of my own Frankenstein machines. But would you really trust your business to something salvaged and hacked together like this?
Though I suppose it would make a nifty SETI@Home frame...
This would be a good time to mention the Interfaces Keyboard from Cramer. It's a split keyboard, each half attaching to the arms of your chair and having six degrees of freedom. I've been using one for over a year. Sweet! My wrist and, surprisingly, back problems have decreased by an order of magnitude.
I only have two complaints -- One, the integrated trackpad sucks rocks. It's as good as any other trackpad I've ever used, but I think they all suck rocks. I ignore it and still use my ancient Mouse Systems optical rodent. The other is that the function keys and obscure punctuation keys are a far reach. I have to move my whole arm to get to F12, and I find myself hittting backslash instead of backspace if my arms are a little out of position.
The other complaint is price. It ain't cheap! But I got my company to shell out for it, so I can't complain too much...
A great side-benefit is that the IS people refuse to touch my computer now, since they don't grok my keyboard. This is a Good Thing!:-)
They might well end up having to have mcdonalds.co.fi or such like. As well as having to fulfil criteria such as having an appropriate commercial presence.
That's cool. Each country partitions its own space as it sees fit.
Problems come when a country, such as Canada or Ireland, changes policy after a period of time. Cahnging what had been a structured naming system into a free for all.
That's between the country's government and the companies registered there. Think of domain names as being a neat new source of tax revenue for the country. Yeah, I know, that thought kind of makes my blood curdle too, but it really would work for the best.
Another good point for having all sites be under a ccTLD, with only one international TLD:.int.
Amen, brother, AMEN! If every little pissant government on the planet is going to muck with the system, give each country its own sandbox to soil as it sees fit. I'd even argue against the.int TLD unless some enforcable provision is enacted for resolving international disputes over it.
So what if huge companies have to register a separate address in each country that they want an ePresence in? Let 'em register mcdonalds.fi, mcdonalds.ch, and mcdonalds.us. And if someone else beats 'em to mcdonalds.uz let 'em fight it out in the Uzbekistan courts.
Of course, if a little island nation somewhere wants to sell their TLD for some extra capital, that's fine and dandy. Its their domain, they can administer it as they see fit. Long live Tuvalu!
Slashdot Mirror
Amen to the Apex AD600A! I picked on up last Christmas at K-Mart. The newer machines don't have the handy loopholes menu, but you can find patched ROM images that remove Macrovision or set the machine to whichever region you want. It takes a standard 4 Mbit EPROM. If you want, you can even burn two images (say, region code 0 and region code <whatever>) into an 8 Mbit part and dual-boot by putting a toggle switch on the upper address line.
I don't tend to watch disks from outside region 1 (except that I would like to see the BBC's excellent The Planets series, which hasn't been released for region 1), but I'm really glad to be able to disable Macrovision! Not that I'm into wholesale piracy, but (1) my main stereo system is out of video inputs, so I have to route the DVD player through the VCR's 'line in' jacks; and (2) it lets me copy the Disney (et al.) disks I've bought for the kids onto VHS and banish the little darlings to the basement to watch "Toy Story" for the aleph-nought time! Besides, I'd rather let the 3-year-old destroy the cheap VHS tape than the expensive DVD.
Chelloveck
The obvious solution is to render the whole movie in real-time, right in the projector! "Just-In-Time Rendering". JITR. Hey, that's catchy, maybe I should patent it...
Chelloveck
But wait! Bury enough of these things and we'll eventually have enough angular momentum to shift the Earth's axis! Think, man! This will kill us all!
Hey, maybe this is the reason Uranus is rolling around on its side...
Chelloveck
The GPL itself is already the first step on that slope. No, it doesn't restrict what the end-user can do with GPL'd software. But it does restrict what another developer can do with it.
In my day job I develop embedded firmware. There are a few pieces of GPL'd code I'd like to include in my product. But, since the whole firmware image is linked as one monolithic executable, I can't without having to give away the source to the entire ball of wax! Obviously I can't do that, since the product also uses some non-free libraries whose license agreements specifically state that their souce code shall not be distributed.
I wouldn't mind providing the source to the GPL'd modules. I wouldn't even mind providing any modifications I made to those modules to get them to compile on my platform. But that's not good enough for the GPL. No, the GPL says, "You can only use our code if you buy into our philosophy of software distribution." Which, btw, is exactly the same as the non-free licenses which say, "You can only use our code if you buy into our philosophy that code shouldn't be redistributed." Only the GPL is much more restrictive than the commercial licenses. The non-free libraries don't try to encompass the rest of my product. I could ship source code to the entire product if I wished, minus the code for the proprietary libraries. Under the GPL, I have to provide source for my entire product. It doesn't just apply itself to the GPL'd code I imported, but to every last source file.
At least with the non-free libraries I can still choose whether or not my own code is free. If I include any GPL'd code I no longer have that choice. Tell me again how the GPL is non-restrictive?
Chelloveck
Which is exactly why I, as a parent, am planning to give my money to Nintendo this Christmas. My kids are right square in the middle of Nintendo's target demographic.
Also, as an adult gamer, I tend to prefer the Nintendo titles anyway. Mario has been good since the very first Super Mario Bros. hit the arcades. Nintendo's games are cutesy, sure. But a lot of them have a fair amount of depth to them, and for the most part they're just plain fun to play. I don't need a bazillion different titles of mediocre quality, just a few good ones.
Chelloveck
At Duckon this weekend some friends and I intend to devise the definitive Pan Galactic Gargleblaster recipe. I haven't liked the looks of anything I've seen on the net so far. Since it's described as being "rather like having one's brains bashed in by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick", I think it's only fitting to start with Stolichnaya Limonnaya and Goldschlager and work from there.
Assuming, of course, that our cocked-up room reservation is resolved... :-(
Chelloveck
First of all, you're right. You imagine it would be an exciting and creative profession. The reality is that it's long hours and little glory, unless you're lucky enough to make that one-in-a-million big seller.
Okay, so you still want to do it... When I was programming for a Major Game Company (which cancelled every project I ever worked on, but I'm not bitter...) most of the resumes got tossed if you didn't already have a couple of games under your belt. That was stupid , but that's the way it went. Personally, I looked for someone with a strong math background. You'll need it. 3D graphics are all matrix or quaternion operations, and you'd better have a feel for it. Yes, you can get by with some cookbook operations and very little real knowledge. But your game will show it. Also, pretty much everything these days needs some sort of decent physics model. 3D graphics have been beaten to death, but today's computers are powerful enough to support really good collision detection/response routines. If only we had someone to program them... Good AI is a field that's also lacking. Winning a lot of single-player games relies on taking advantage of the stupidity of the AI. I'd love to see a game where the difficulty level actually made the opponents smarter rather than just giving them bigger guns.
Providing some sort of demo program with your resume gets you good bonus points. It doesn't even have to be pretty, just enough to show that you have some idea what you're talking about. BUT MAKE SURE IT WORKS! I immediately tossed one otherwise good resume because the demo program had a major memory leak, and consumed all physical RAM and about a gigabyte of swap within 15 minutes. Otherwise it would have been a good demo.
Play games. Play lots of games. Love games. Be one with the games. Game programming is a labor of love. Unless you're willing to eat, drink, and breathe games you won't stand a chance. Also be willing to give up your social life for 18 months at a stretch. Game development works in period of constant "crunch time". You will work nights and weekends. Frequently.
Chelloveck
You are correct, sir! I didn't actually partake of any at this year's Minicon, I'm told it was present in limited quantities.
Chelloveck
Actually, yes I trust Microsoft. To a limited degree, anyway. I decided years ago that if I was going to play in MS's sandbox, I'd play by their rules. It was just too fscking hard to install Unix-like utilities, editors, and what-not, just to have the whole house of cards come tumbling down because something expects filename case sensitivity or bare LFs or some other niggling little detail.
I went through a period of trying to do things "the right way" -- Backing up old versions of software before installing new, stuff like that. And you know, that didn't work either. Because unless you get all the crap they put in the Windows directory and the registry, you're screwed when you try to back out a change anyway.
So, when in Microsoft, do as Bill Gates does. I'll let programs crap all over the Windows directory and registry. I'll take everything offered by Windows Update. It's the MS way. It's stupid, it's insane, it's plainly the wrong way to design an OS, but you gotta play by the OS's rules or you'll go insane. (I'd have the same problems trying to apply MS or Mac conventions to the Unix world. It just don't work that way.)
So, yeah. I've trusted MS far enough to install their OS on my machine, I may as well trust 'em to give me an ActiveX component now and then.
But never, ever, ever install the Comet Cursor!
Chelloveck
Um, I hate to be the one to tell you, but pinball isn't just dying. It's dead. Sega bailed out of the market. Capcom bailed out of the market. Even Bally/Williams has bailed out. The only company left making pins is Stern, and I've never actually seen a machine from them. (At least, not one made since they restarted the pinball division after Williams shut down.)
Yeah, it sucks. I was a programmer at Capcom Coin-Op (the pinball division) when the axe fell. I love pinball, but let's face it: From an operator's perspective it's a nightmare. The machines are expensive; they have a ton of moving parts which can break; they need constant maintenance (cleaning the playfield can be a bitch!); and they really only serve a niche market of hardcore fans.
Sigh. At least I have a Big Bang Bar in my basement to go play when I'm feeling depressed about the whole thing...
Chelloveck
Palm's website doesn't tell me the most important thing -- Have they improved the screen resolution yet? Since there's no mention of it I assume not. If they've gone to a double-res screen (360x360, like the Sony Clie) as well as color I'll almost certainly buy it! If not, well... It looks nice, by my old Palm III continues to serve me well enough.
Chelloveck
I've been happy with StayOffHack, from http://www.rgps.com/. I've used it on both my Palm III and my Symbol SPT-1740. I ass/u/me it works okay on the Vx as well.
Chelloveck
Depends on how they measure that 11 hours. Is it 11 hours of continuous usage, or 11 hours of standby? (Or, god help us, 11 hours of "typical use"?)
I've been using Runtime to track my Palm III's battery usage. It says that I've been pretty consistently changing my batteries once a month. Within each 30 day span I've gotten a pretty consistent 14-15 hours of use. (The rest of the time the Palm is "off".) Anyway, if the quoted 11 hours is "11 hours of solid usage", that's not far from what I get right now. I'd gladly trade a third of my battery life for a high-res color screen!
Chelloveck
Yup, science needs people to disprove theories, too. Otherwise any crank who proposes anything new (cold fusion, anyone?) would be accepted without question.
And here's where the problem lies. Most of them (that I've met, anyway; and my wife is a believer in many "alternative" medical practices so I've met quite a few) seem to truly believe that they're helping people. I haven't found many whom I'd accuse of being outright charlatans. Unfortunately, what they have is a faith-based system. You can't debunk it by presenting scientific evidence. I've tried, and been told, "You don't think science knows everything, do you? Can't there be things outside the realm of scientific knowledge?" At this point I just have to throw up my hands and concede the discussion. There's no way to convince someone that what they believe is wrong, if part of that belief system says that logic and tangible evidence aren't necessarily valid.
On the other hand, quackery can have its uses. My wife was being treated for depression and was unhappy with traditional psychiatric care. She went to a chiropractor of the most heinous sort (IMHO) who did everything from adjusting her aura to prescribing medicines that were really just solutions so dilute there probably wasn't more than a molecule or two of the active ingredient. (They call this "potentizing" the medicine, and claim that the water retains the "energy resonance" of the substance.) Anyway, the point is that my wife believed this crap would work, and actually felt better! Thank you, Mr. Placebo Effect!
Chelloveck
Yes, that's the point of the whole "CDDB screwed its contributors", and why FreeDB is the CD database of choice.
However, CDDB vs. FreeDB is not the point of the original article. To <blockquote> the unnamed contributor:
Emphasis mine. This person isn't terribly annoyed that CDDB renigged on their implied agreement with its contributors. He's annoyed because Napster and RIAA are using that freely-contributed information to implement copyright blocking. If Napster had announced it was was using a free-as-in-freedom database such as FreeDB instead, would he feel any better? They'd still be using freely-contributed information to implement copyright blocking. Why is it different whether or not that information is in a truly free database, or a database that had been free and suddenly changed its terms? Would things be different if Napster had signed on with CDDB before they claimed the database as proprietary? Why?
Sorry, the premise of this article is just plain hypocritical. It has absolutely nothing to do with CDDB "stealing" freely-contributed information. The problem is that Napster/RIAA is using that information. It's not a question of the database being wrongfully appropriated. The author even said he "wasn't too annoyed" about that. He's just another crybaby complaining that "Da Man" is taking away his source of pirated music.
Chelloveck
And if Napster, the RIAA, or Her Majesty's Secret Service wanted to harvest track names from FreeDB for their own purposes, how would FreeDB stop them? How would FreeDB even know the Bad Guys were even in there?
If you can't answer these questions, what makes FreeDB superior to CDDB in this situation? Is it any more moral for FreeDB to say, "Well, the RIAA is using our database, but at least we're doing it out of the goodness of our hearts and not charging them for the privilege."?
Let's say you do find a way to detect and block the "unauthorized" uses. Now your information is no longer free (as in 'freedom'); it's restricted to those who agree with your licensing terms. How then can FreeDB claim to be any better than CDDB?
Chelloveck
Too bad I don't have moderator points today. Can I moderate an entire article as "Flamebait"?
Look people, I know there are a lot of GNU zealots here that buy into the party line, "Information wants to be free!" So the CDDB database gets used by the Bad Guys. So what? That's the price you pay for freely exchanging information -- Someone else is free to use it against you!
Okay, so CDDB is no longer "free" in the GNU sense. That's beside the point. Do you think they're so naïve that they're not also using FreeDB as well? The only reason you know about the Napster/CDDB deal is that they had to sign a license to use the database and someone thought it would be good PR to announce it publicly. I'll betcha a dollar, though, that they also have their hooks into FreeDB and any other GPL'd free-as-in-liberty databases out there.
Freedom is a double-edged sword. You can't grab the moral high ground waving the "Information is Free!" flag, then complain when people use it for the "wrong purposes". That ain't freedom. It's a license agreement.
Chelloveck
The question is still, "Why?" If you have a huge pile of old hardware (and who doesn't?) that you want to use as a server farm, why bother individually sculpting each one of them to fit dinky half-of-1U form factor? Odds are that half the motherboards are too big for it, anyway. Wouldn't you be better off just using the cases you have (or if you don't have cases, just power supplies and bare boards) instead of trying to make all these little bonsai computers?
Chelloveck
Let me be the first to ask... Why? Why would anyone really want to build enough of these to make it worthwhile? I mean, it's a neat hack and is worth something just for that. But beyond the hack value, who's really going to spend time to make 84 of these things to fill a 42U rack?
And I really have a problem with the phrases "reliable" and "built from salvaged parts" used in the same sentence. Okay, reliable enough for a home system, sure. I have plenty of my own Frankenstein machines. But would you really trust your business to something salvaged and hacked together like this?
Though I suppose it would make a nifty SETI@Home frame...
Chelloveck
"Hello. This is the Emergency Commanding Hologram. Please state the nature of your tactical emergency."
Chelloveck
Oh, nuts! And I'm literally in the middle of a 2.4.0 install right now!
Chelloveck
More likely some top brass just found a copy of Total Annihilation on Best Buy's $9.99 shelf...
Chelloveck
This would be a good time to mention the Interfaces Keyboard from Cramer. It's a split keyboard, each half attaching to the arms of your chair and having six degrees of freedom. I've been using one for over a year. Sweet! My wrist and, surprisingly, back problems have decreased by an order of magnitude.
I only have two complaints -- One, the integrated trackpad sucks rocks. It's as good as any other trackpad I've ever used, but I think they all suck rocks. I ignore it and still use my ancient Mouse Systems optical rodent. The other is that the function keys and obscure punctuation keys are a far reach. I have to move my whole arm to get to F12, and I find myself hittting backslash instead of backspace if my arms are a little out of position.
The other complaint is price. It ain't cheap! But I got my company to shell out for it, so I can't complain too much...
A great side-benefit is that the IS people refuse to touch my computer now, since they don't grok my keyboard. This is a Good Thing! :-)
Chelloveck
That's cool. Each country partitions its own space as it sees fit.
That's between the country's government and the companies registered there. Think of domain names as being a neat new source of tax revenue for the country. Yeah, I know, that thought kind of makes my blood curdle too, but it really would work for the best.
Chelloveck
Amen, brother, AMEN! If every little pissant government on the planet is going to muck with the system, give each country its own sandbox to soil as it sees fit. I'd even argue against the .int TLD unless some enforcable provision is enacted for resolving international disputes over it.
So what if huge companies have to register a separate address in each country that they want an ePresence in? Let 'em register mcdonalds.fi, mcdonalds.ch, and mcdonalds.us. And if someone else beats 'em to mcdonalds.uz let 'em fight it out in the Uzbekistan courts.
Of course, if a little island nation somewhere wants to sell their TLD for some extra capital, that's fine and dandy. Its their domain, they can administer it as they see fit. Long live Tuvalu!
Chelloveck