Seriously...if someone got a hold of one of the minidisc recordings of my band's practice sessions and found it so intriguing that they made copys for their friends, or put it up on Napster, I'd have no problem with that at all. (Providing that it was properly credited as our work.)
Of course if you had studio and tour expenses to pay for and saw someone downloading your stuff off of Napster instead of putting that money back in your pocket you might have a different opinion. If music is what you do for a living, you should expect to be paid for it. That's the difference. Making love to your SO is not a career. Having pets is not a career. For some people their music is their career. If people stopped paying you for whatever it is you do during the day (you do work right?) wouldn't you get a little ticked?
Maybe you'd like to help with one of the existing systems?
Like:
Libcfg http://www.yelm.freeserve.co.uk/libcfg/
Actually I would. I'd not heard of this. Looks Cool. I'll build it tomorrow. Thanks for the pointer.
There are more. Part of the problem is that Linux software must be able to run/build on existing commercial Unix systems so the configuration management system must also be available on commercial systems with commercial applications, not just GPL'd applications.
If the config system is GPL'ed isn't that done already?
Linux doesn't even do a good job of fixing what's wrong with UNIX, let alone leading the way in anything. It's run by comittee and the people in the comittees like UNIX and will defend UNIX regardless of whether it's the best solution or not. Here we are in the year 2000 and our OS doesn't have a central, consistent, configuration database, for apps and system resources alike. They are just now getting a journaling filesystem. The security model of all or nothing is a joke. There isn't even mandatory file locking for crying out loud. This is not an OS that leads.
It's not that people dont want to fix this sort of thing, it's just that they'll never get the voice or support to do something like this. Go ahead. Mention the word 'registry' to a Linux zealot and see how it goes. You'll see what I mean. Anyone here remember how it went for Linus when he tried to allow some C++ inside of the kernel around 0.99pl13? It was a disaster. No one wanted to wait out development time for proper C++ code, they just wanted UNIX.
Dont get me wrong, I like Linux, and I use Linux, as I have for 7 years now. I wont stop using Linux. It just bothers me that there is no organized group of users who are actually trying to make it the perfect OS instead of the perfect UNIX.
-Rich
The Difference between MacOS X (NeXT) and Linux
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MacOS X DP3
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· Score: 5
Linux is great for what it is. Linux is a swiss army knife. It is most things to most people. There's nothing it wont do if you're willing to put forth the effort to use what's there. In itself that's a wonderful design philosophy. I've been using Linux for a long time and it amazes me what it can do when people put their minds to it. Gearheads love this sort of OS, and love to demonstrate it's ability to perform any function no matter how arcane or bizarre the procedure to get there is. The people who build Linux are pragmatists. Soured by years of lofty goals, but failed implementations, they work to make a system that solves all the problems, even if they have to compromise usability, simplicity, or advanced design. Efficiency is stressed at the system level. I've never encountered a general purpose computing task that could not be solved by Linux.
NeXT (and MacOS X I hope) on the other hand is more like a perfectly ergonomic, intuitivley simple yet surprisingly flexible single bladed knife. It doesn't have a corkscrew or scissors, But the handle grip doubles as a file and it is perfectly balanced along every axis. Ninjas use it for throwing, Butchers use it for cutting meat. Carpenters use it to score material and Master chefs use it to prepare dishes, but you wont be able to open a wine bottle, it wont loosen most phillips screws and you'll just make a mess if you try to open a can of peas or bottle of beer with it. It also wont fit in your pocket. However, if there was ever a knife that was a perfect balance of asthetics, utility, and well executed engineering, this is it. Again, a wonderful design philosophy. Programmers, bankers, artists, secretaries, they all have their fond memories of how great NeXT was. The people who built NeXT had only the highest standards in terms of design and executed them to the limits of technology, but no amount of good design can make an OS that is useful for everything, there's some things it just cant do. This is becasue efficiency is adddressed at the UI level. I've never used a system as elegant as NeXT.
It's no coincidence that alot of people who have used both try to make Linux look like NeXT and make NeXT as flexible as Linux.:-)
1) Annoying self-righteous semi-public figure decides to spearhead labeling initiative to "protect the children!"
2) Evil mega-retailer sees oportunity to maintain public image of "the family-friendly" store, refuses to carry any music bearing such labels.
3) Record executive scum say "Ah, crap. Wal-Mart sells a very large percentage of our product. We better convince "the talent" that they have to change the lyrics."
4) Many artists, not in a position to argue with their record company submit. A few refuse, and take the sales hit.
That's all capitalism though. They have the right to do whatever they want. The artist should have paid more attention to his or her contract (A huge problem in the music industry).
Making it easy for major retailers to censor music is simply a more roundabout way of doing it yourself.
The thing is, though, these retailers would be censoring this stuff anyhow. It's not like labeling magically caused Wal-Mart to shift it's position on anything, they just now have a scapegoat to blame when the censorship ocurrs. You're diverting attention from the real censors, the stores.
I'm not from the USA, so don't kill me if I'm wrong here: but isn't it against your constitution for the goverment to censor? If so, is it not an end run around the constitution to have government enforced labelling in the full knowledge that many private companies (e.g. Walmart) will censor the music with "bad" labels?
Yes, the government cannot censor anyone. The problem is labeling does not force anyone to go from point a to point b. It just provides an excuse. Walmart is going to censor the music anyway. They're not going to sell certain kinds of music whether there is a label or not, It's just their policy. The label just makes it easy for them to screen the content, otherwise one might slip through. Labeling doesn't force anyone to do anything, it just gives an excuse to people who are looking for one. It's the wrong fight to be fighting. Fight the actual censors (like Wal Mart) if you want to stop the censorship.
Due to the Tipper Gore's actions, tons of rap and other music has been pulled from chains such as Walmart and K-mart.
K-Mart and Wal-Mart a) are not record stores, b) Refuse to sell all kinds of things. You're talking about stores that sell shotguns but wont sell music. I cant buy porno at Wal-Mart either, is that censorship? Take it up with Wal-Mart and K-Mart. They're the ones who took stuff off the shelves, or refused to accept non disney versions of the music. One of the many reasons I dont shop at Wal-Mart.
She wrote a whole book about how proud she was of censoring this music, "Raising a PG Child in an X-Rated World" I believe the title was.
Did you read it? I didn't so I wont comment.
PMRC describes rap music as a "secondary form of child abuse"
Looks like her opinion to me. Doesn't have very much to do with censorship at all. Trying for an emotional appeal here?
See my page at http://censorware.org/pics/primer/ and then tell me whether PMRC is promoting labeling or censorship (there's no distinction between the two, really).
Labeling/rating whatever is basically stamping something so someone who wants to censor it can. It's not censorship. It enables censorship, but it is not censorship. In this country anyone is free to go buy music as long as someone is willing to sell it. Someone else does the censorship. It's sort of like how DeCSS isn't really copyright violation, someone else does the copyright violation, DeCSS is just a tool. Or kind of how napster is just a tool for downloading files. It takes someone who wants to steal music to make napster a mechanism for theft. In the same vein, Labeling is not censorship, it just gives people who want to be censors an excuse to use. Stealing DVD's CD's or censoring contnet are all equally illegal in this country. You can villify the PMRC if you want, but the arguments you use just may backfire on you.
If you want to fight censorship fight the morons who are censoring something, not the people who are just trying to warn the ignorant or protect their children. I respect your vigilance, but I find it misguided.
First of all, Tipper Gore started the PMRC, she wasn't just a member. She listened to a Prince tape her daughter had and was not happy about the song 'Darling Nikki' where Prince talks about masturbation as well as some other adult themes.
Secondly, I dont know if I would go as far as calling what the PMRC did as censorship. No record stores stopped selling 2 Live Crew or G'n'R (in fact they sold more) and no kid who wanted it badly enough was denied access to the record/tape/cd. It was just labeling. All she did was increase awareness of foul language in the music kids were buying in an attempt to make obvious to parents what was going on. Unfortunately I dont have the reference, but I recall reading that she is in fact opposed to censorship.
You have to understand the MPAA's POV though, If they dont control the way the media is distributed, they cant profit (enough) from their product and wont be able to make it anymore.
Personally I think that's crap, but that's going to be the position of someone in the movie industry. They are an industry, they want to get paid. Controlling the way content is distributed is the only way to maintain profitibility when content can be easily duplicated and distributed. (Again, their opinion, not mine)
IANAL, but as I see it, the argument is not whether DeCSS is speech or not. It's not whether the DMCA is unconstitutional or not. It's whether DeCSS is circumventing copy protection.
DeCSS is not really copy protection as anyone can still copy a DVD without the use of DeCSS. This wont be hard to prove in court for some good lawyers. DeCSS (in this case) is PLAY protection, designed to prevent you from playing a DVD, not from copying it.
The counter-argument to this, (as I see it) is that DeCSS can be used to obtain the video streams of a DVD, and then those streams can be republished, this is copyright infringement, and in this case CSS is being used as copy protection so DeCSS is defeating it. In this case CSS is being used as THEFT protection, and DeCSS is defeating the protection.
What needs to be made clear is that protecting against unlawful copying (illegal, but DeCSS has nothing to do with it), protecting against theft (illegal, CSS protects against theft so DeCSS defeats it) and protecting legal copying (fair use, a legal use of DeCSS), are three separate issues that need to be addressed. The DMCA is unequipped to address this as the same software used to secure fair use is the software used to conduct theft.
-Rich
Re:Why not just use the Crusoe as a G4?
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Darwin on Crusoe?
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· Score: 3
The thing is, nothing needs to be "ported"
Darwin exists for x86 (in some form or another) and always has. All of that code was x86 back when it was Openstep, (and 68k when it was NEXTSTEP). Rhapsody Developer was on x86, and the early versions of Darwin (cant speak of recent ones as I have waning interest) also included x86 source trees. I never had much luck building the first release of Darwin on Openstep 4.2, but I dont doubt it was possible for the truly motivated. Apple could already have code running on Crusoe if they wanted since it's likely they still have some of that expertise around.
As to the notion of using legos for colleges admissions, I can only cringe at the value a college education received in the United States will have fifteen or twenty years from now. All of the arrogant posturing by Europeans with respect to the American system of Higher Education will become appallingly accurate if this silliness continues.
I'm all for alternative testing to get into college, but it's only a step in the process. Jusrt getting disadvantaged students into college does not guarantee their success. Traditional curricula also need to be adjusted.
That being said, Allowing someone college adminission based solely on Lego-related skills is absurd. But using a Lego test as a component of a well designed non-biased test sounds like a great idea to me. From the article: The Lego test is one of a dozen workshop activities over three hours in which pencil and paper are thrown out. Other activities include public speaking, conflict-resolution drills and personal interviews performed under the watchful eye of high school principals, teachers, counselors and college admissions deans who evaluate the college hopefuls.
It's obvious to me (and most people here on/.) that the intention for DeCSS was to have a decoder to allow fair use of one's own DVD's. As you (and others) have stated there exists machinery to copy DVD's regardless of whether DeCSS is used or not. Of course here in the USA the Digital Millenium Copyright act says that anyone who writes a program to defeat "copy protection" is violating the copyright outright. How does this USA law affect your legal battle?
Tubes are better than transistors in certain applications just becasue they DONT work right. They color the sound in a way that is appealing to audiophiles. It has nothing to do with clairty it has to do with a listening experience. Tubes apply sort of a dynamic eq to playback as their electrical properties muddle with the sound. Alot of it is foolishness on the part of gearheads, but a fair amount of it is actual fact, that tubes are percieved to sound better. Remember this is all perception, it's not black and white.
About digital versus analog, find someone with a good quality audio card and record something at 22khz, 44khz, and 48khz. Now do the same accross 16 20 and 24 bits. If you're using good listening and recording equipment, you WILL hear the difference. That doesn't mean it wont sound better than certain analog gear, but it does mean that in theory analog has the ability to do better. Until I sit in a recording studio and hear state of the art digital vs state of the art analog of the same event recorded at the same time, I'll have to side with analog.
The other thing at work here is that people take tapes and make them digital and then whine about digital's quality. That doesnt make much sense as the media is PART of the recording. The limitations and strengths of analog are part of an analog recording, running that through a/d converters to change the forrmat is going to be lossy. Similarly taking a digital recoridng and transcribing it to analog is probably lossy as well.
As for mp3, yeah the quality is bad. Any self-respecting audiophile would never archive to mp3 given analog as an option. Of course most people dont have recording studio quality analog gear and the leap of clarity of a digital reproduction of the master tapes is tremendous when compared with consumer analog devices.
Back then the gameplay had to be addicting or the game had no chance at all. You cant hide behind 3d graphics or cinematic sequences when you only have a few K to program in.
That being said, there were PLENTY of rip-offs back then too. How many pole position ripoffs or pac-man-guy-moves-thru-maze-running-from-enemy-the n-getting-powerup-to-defeat-enemy games were there? There were a stack of other worthless Space Invaders type ripoffs. While Super Mario brothers was a classic, there have really only been a short list of Mario successes among the painfullyl ong list of Mario games for all the nintendo platforms. There are always games that set the standard and games that follow. Looking back on 20 years of gaming allows your short list to only include the winners.
20 Years from now the kids today will look back on Gran Turismo and Quake (both excellent games IMHO) as reverently as we look back on Pole Position and Pac-Man.
While I agree it's a double edged sword, Be is doing this for one reason only, to acheive developer critical mass. I've run Be before (not currently) and the reason I'm not running it curently is there are no interesting apps. Personally I think that Be is the coolest media system I've ever seen. Even their simple utilities are astounding. (Playing 6 mp3's simultaneously at different speeds, some backwards using a SB 16 is some pretty cool stuff, not to mention their video stuff) But the high quality apps are not (or were not the last time i checked) there. Anyone who does media would gladly pay for a 'professional' Be if they were able to get their apps for it. To get the apps for it you need to get it in people's hands. Making it gratis will get it into people's hands. Then the developers will port the apps, then the people who need the apps wil switch the OS. Charging for upgraded capacity or more driver support, etc, will start to bring in the revenue.
The only thing that is wrong about it is that you have to distribute the source changes only if you distribute the object code, which is a pretty fine grain point for those not versed in the idiosyncrasies of the GPL. Calm down.
-Rich
AOL Time Warner not a monopoly.
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AOL Nation
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Hold on a second here. Comparing AOL to MS is not really fair to AOL. I dont like AOL personally, but AOL has succeeded on the strenght of it's product and the strength of it's marketing and brand name. The reason AOL is number one is because they have never stopped giving free CD's away, they have never stopped improving the software to give people what they (seemingly) want, they have never stopped making their service easier or flashier. They sell their product for what it is, and people buy it for what it is. People are not forced to use AOL, they choose to use AOL. Any person with half a brain and a newspaper can find more economical (if not harder to use) Internet service for a fraction of what AOL charges without losing one bit of functionality or interoperability with the people who are on AOL. AOL has played about as fair as any mega-corp is going to play the game.
As for Time Warner, There are loads of other HUGE media organizations in this world that behave much more foolishly. Let's talk about Disney and censorship. Let's talk about Sony and closed standards.
As for broadcasters/cable/sattelite services, Time Warner is hardly the only one out there. In fact where I used to live Time Warner sold to AT&T. There's PLENTY of other competion out there in the form of cable and sattelite companies. Not to mention FOX/ABC/NBC/CBS.
Yes AOL Time Warner will be huge, they might also be evil, but they're not a monopoly.
Until AOLScapeWarnerSoftCorp decides that it's not in their best interests. Someone above already mentioned limiting streaming video access from non-affiliated partners; plain HTML access could be next--easily.
I'm not an expert on AOL since I've only used it a couple of times at my parents' house in the last month.
But didn't they try this already? AOL did not always allow access to the internet. Users complained. AOL changed their mind, and left compuserve and prodigy in the dust. Whether they are free or not, people want to think they are. History has proven time and time again that the little guy has the power to beat goliath if he offers something people want.
Everytime some mega-corp that has some business on the internet merges with some other mega-corp that has some business on the internet everyone has a coniption fit about how the internet is being too commercialized and how big brother is going to ram it's content down every joe person's throat.
Well duh, of course they are.
But how is that any different than it was last year? Or the year before? Or the year before? This is been going on for about 5 years and honestly it has yet to change MY internet experince. I still dont use AOL. I still am bombarded with ads and get spam (since about 95 at least). My connection is still too slow. There's still just as much crap as there is good content.
Dont forget, the audience is what dictates the content. If you want to see something, you'll figure out a way to find it and someone will figure out a way to bring it to you. This isn't TV. It does not cost millions of dollars for a transmitter and FCC license. Any slob can set up a web site, as long as people read, it will stay.
Honestly, it doesn't look that different than yesterday from where I'm sitting. Yes the internet is different than it was when I started in the early 90's. But then again I could not buy CD's or books, or computer parts, or musical instruments on the internet back then either.
This isn't so much a problem with teachers but with a lot of adults as well. My parents for example. They are afraid of computers. They both come from blue collar backgrounds where computers are something that steal your job, not a tool to increase your productivity. They go through the day blaming computers for why things dont work like they used to. A computer to them is something that sits at an insurance company or bank. It's evil. It's heartless.
Of course this isn't true (My father is figuring it out qucker than my mom now that they own a computer). My mom's biggest complaint is that she thinks the computer makes her feel stupid, it's absurd to us, but it's how she feels.
Worse yet schools dont exactly have quick turnaround. In high school I had the same english teacher as my father did. Same coach in PE. Same Economics teacher. Same Spanish teacher. The dean of students was my mom's history teacher. There were many more teachers that taught my parents that were still there, but I didn't have.
Eventaully these people will retire and the next generation of teachers will come in, more saavy in the ways of technology. Hopefully by the time I have kids:-)
I cant put into words how exciting it was to first learn how to print my name on the screen or write a program to ask the user his or her name. Or to draw a low res picture of a house or a rocket. This was earth shaking stuff to a 9 year old in 1982. Thanks Woz.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously...if someone got a hold of one of the minidisc recordings of my band's practice sessions and found it so intriguing that they made copys for their friends, or put it up on Napster, I'd have no problem with that at all. (Providing that it was properly credited as our work.)
Of course if you had studio and tour expenses to pay for and saw someone downloading your stuff off of Napster instead of putting that money back in your pocket you might have a different opinion. If music is what you do for a living, you should expect to be paid for it. That's the difference. Making love to your SO is not a career. Having pets is not a career. For some people their music is their career. If people stopped paying you for whatever it is you do during the day (you do work right?) wouldn't you get a little ticked?
-Rich
GNU/I GNU/just GNU/Dont GNU/see GNU/what GNU/everyone's GNU/problem GNU/is GNU/with GNU/RMS. GNU/Maybe GNU/I'm GNU/just GNU/biased.
-GNU/Rich
Maybe you'd like to help with one of the existing systems?
Like:
Libcfg
http://www.yelm.freeserve.co.uk/libcfg/
Actually I would. I'd not heard of this. Looks Cool. I'll build it tomorrow. Thanks for the pointer.
There are more. Part of the problem is that Linux software must be able to run/build on existing commercial Unix
systems so the configuration management system must also be available on commercial systems with commercial
applications, not just GPL'd applications.
If the config system is GPL'ed isn't that done already?
-Rich
Linux doesn't even do a good job of fixing what's wrong with UNIX, let alone leading the way in anything. It's run by comittee and the people in the comittees like UNIX and will defend UNIX regardless of whether it's the best solution or not. Here we are in the year 2000 and our OS doesn't have a central, consistent, configuration database, for apps and system resources alike. They are just now getting a journaling filesystem. The security model of all or nothing is a joke. There isn't even mandatory file locking for crying out loud. This is not an OS that leads.
It's not that people dont want to fix this sort of thing, it's just that they'll never get the voice or support to do something like this. Go ahead. Mention the word 'registry' to a Linux zealot and see how it goes. You'll see what I mean. Anyone here remember how it went for Linus when he tried to allow some C++ inside of the kernel around 0.99pl13? It was a disaster. No one wanted to wait out development time for proper C++ code, they just wanted UNIX.
Dont get me wrong, I like Linux, and I use Linux, as I have for 7 years now. I wont stop using Linux. It just bothers me that there is no organized group of users who are actually trying to make it the perfect OS instead of the perfect UNIX.
-Rich
Linux is great for what it is. Linux is a swiss army knife. It is most things to most people. There's nothing it wont do if you're willing to put forth the effort to use what's there. In itself that's a wonderful design philosophy. I've been using Linux for a long time and it amazes me what it can do when people put their minds to it. Gearheads love this sort of OS, and love to demonstrate it's ability to perform any function no matter how arcane or bizarre the procedure to get there is. The people who build Linux are pragmatists. Soured by years of lofty goals, but failed implementations, they work to make a system that solves all the problems, even if they have to compromise usability, simplicity, or advanced design. Efficiency is stressed at the system level. I've never encountered a general purpose computing task that could not be solved by Linux.
:-)
NeXT (and MacOS X I hope) on the other hand is more like a perfectly ergonomic, intuitivley simple yet surprisingly flexible single bladed knife. It doesn't have a corkscrew or scissors, But the handle grip doubles as a file and it is perfectly balanced along every axis. Ninjas use it for throwing, Butchers use it for cutting meat. Carpenters use it to score material and Master chefs use it to prepare dishes, but you wont be able to open a wine bottle, it wont loosen most phillips screws and you'll just make a mess if you try to open a can of peas or bottle of beer with it. It also wont fit in your pocket. However, if there was ever a knife that was a perfect balance of asthetics, utility, and well executed engineering, this is it. Again, a wonderful design philosophy. Programmers, bankers, artists, secretaries, they all have their fond memories of how great NeXT was. The people who built NeXT had only the highest standards in terms of design and executed them to the limits of technology, but no amount of good design can make an OS that is useful for everything, there's some things it just cant do. This is becasue efficiency is adddressed at the UI level. I've never used a system as elegant as NeXT.
It's no coincidence that alot of people who have used both try to make Linux look like NeXT and make NeXT as flexible as Linux.
-Rich
1) Annoying self-righteous semi-public figure decides to spearhead labeling initiative to "protect the children!"
2) Evil mega-retailer sees oportunity to maintain public image of "the family-friendly" store, refuses to carry any music bearing such labels.
3) Record executive scum say "Ah, crap. Wal-Mart sells a very large percentage of our product. We better convince "the talent" that they have to change the lyrics."
4) Many artists, not in a position to argue with their record company submit. A few refuse, and take the sales hit.
That's all capitalism though. They have the right to do whatever they want. The artist should have paid more attention to his or her contract (A huge problem in the music industry).
Making it easy for major retailers to censor music is simply a more roundabout way of doing it yourself.
The thing is, though, these retailers would be censoring this stuff anyhow. It's not like labeling magically caused Wal-Mart to shift it's position on anything, they just now have a scapegoat to blame when the censorship ocurrs. You're diverting attention from the real censors, the stores.
-Rich
I'm not from the USA, so don't kill me if I'm wrong here: but isn't it against your constitution for the goverment to censor? If so,
is it not an end run around the constitution to have government enforced labelling in the full knowledge that many private
companies (e.g. Walmart) will censor the music with "bad" labels?
Yes, the government cannot censor anyone. The problem is labeling does not force anyone to go from point a to point b. It just provides an excuse. Walmart is going to censor the music anyway. They're not going to sell certain kinds of music whether there is a label or not, It's just their policy. The label just makes it easy for them to screen the content, otherwise one might slip through. Labeling doesn't force anyone to do anything, it just gives an excuse to people who are looking for one. It's the wrong fight to be fighting. Fight the actual censors (like Wal Mart) if you want to stop the censorship.
-Rich
Due to the Tipper Gore's actions, tons of rap and other music has been
pulled from chains such as Walmart and K-mart.
K-Mart and Wal-Mart a) are not record stores, b) Refuse to sell all kinds of things. You're talking about stores that sell shotguns but wont sell music. I cant buy porno at Wal-Mart either, is that censorship? Take it up with Wal-Mart and K-Mart. They're the ones who took stuff off the shelves, or refused to accept non disney versions of the music. One of the many reasons I dont shop at Wal-Mart.
She wrote a whole book about how proud she was of censoring this music,
"Raising a PG Child in an X-Rated World" I believe the title was.
Did you read it? I didn't so I wont comment.
PMRC describes rap music as a "secondary form of child abuse"
Looks like her opinion to me. Doesn't have very much to do with censorship at all. Trying for an emotional appeal here?
See my page at http://censorware.org/pics/primer/ and then tell me whether PMRC is promoting labeling or censorship (there's no
distinction between the two, really).
Labeling/rating whatever is basically stamping something so someone who wants to censor it can. It's not censorship. It enables censorship, but it is not censorship. In this country anyone is free to go buy music as long as someone is willing to sell it. Someone else does the censorship. It's sort of like how DeCSS isn't really copyright violation, someone else does the copyright violation, DeCSS is just a tool. Or kind of how napster is just a tool for downloading files. It takes someone who wants to steal music to make napster a mechanism for theft. In the same vein, Labeling is not censorship, it just gives people who want to be censors an excuse to use. Stealing DVD's CD's or censoring contnet are all equally illegal in this country. You can villify the PMRC if you want, but the arguments you use just may backfire on you.
If you want to fight censorship fight the morons who are censoring something, not the people who are just trying to warn the ignorant or protect their children. I respect your vigilance, but I find it misguided.
-Rich
First of all, Tipper Gore started the PMRC, she wasn't just a member. She listened to a Prince tape her daughter had and was not happy about the song 'Darling Nikki' where Prince talks about masturbation as well as some other adult themes.
Secondly, I dont know if I would go as far as calling what the PMRC did as censorship. No record stores stopped selling 2 Live Crew or G'n'R (in fact they sold more) and no kid who wanted it badly enough was denied access to the record/tape/cd. It was just labeling. All she did was increase awareness of foul language in the music kids were buying in an attempt to make obvious to parents what was going on. Unfortunately I dont have the reference, but I recall reading that she is in fact opposed to censorship.
-Rich
You have to understand the MPAA's POV though, If they dont control the way the media is distributed, they cant profit (enough) from their product and wont be able to make it anymore.
Personally I think that's crap, but that's going to be the position of someone in the movie industry. They are an industry, they want to get paid. Controlling the way content is distributed is the only way to maintain profitibility when content can be easily duplicated and distributed. (Again, their opinion, not mine)
-Rich
IANAL, but as I see it, the argument is not whether DeCSS is speech or not. It's not whether the DMCA is unconstitutional or not. It's whether DeCSS is circumventing copy protection.
DeCSS is not really copy protection as anyone can still copy a DVD without the use of DeCSS. This wont be hard to prove in court for some good lawyers. DeCSS (in this case) is PLAY protection, designed to prevent you from playing a DVD, not from copying it.
The counter-argument to this, (as I see it) is that DeCSS can be used to obtain the video streams of a DVD, and then those streams can be republished, this is copyright infringement, and in this case CSS is being used as copy protection so DeCSS is defeating it. In this case CSS is being used as THEFT protection, and DeCSS is defeating the protection.
What needs to be made clear is that protecting against unlawful copying (illegal, but DeCSS has nothing to do with it), protecting against theft (illegal, CSS protects against theft so DeCSS defeats it) and protecting legal copying (fair use, a legal use of DeCSS), are three separate issues that need to be addressed. The DMCA is unequipped to address this as the same software used to secure fair use is the software used to conduct theft.
-Rich
The thing is, nothing needs to be "ported"
Darwin exists for x86 (in some form or another) and always has. All of that code was x86 back when it was Openstep, (and 68k when it was NEXTSTEP). Rhapsody Developer was on x86, and the early versions of Darwin (cant speak of recent ones as I have waning interest) also included x86 source trees. I never had much luck building the first release of Darwin on Openstep 4.2, but I dont doubt it was possible for the truly motivated. Apple could already have code running on Crusoe if they wanted since it's likely they still have some of that expertise around.
-Rich
As to the notion of using legos for colleges admissions, I can only cringe at the value a college education received in the United
States will have fifteen or twenty years from now. All of the arrogant posturing by Europeans with respect to the American system
of Higher Education will become appallingly accurate if this silliness continues.
I'm all for alternative testing to get into college, but it's only a step in the process. Jusrt getting disadvantaged students into college does not guarantee their success. Traditional curricula also need to be adjusted.
That being said, Allowing someone college adminission based solely on Lego-related skills is absurd. But using a Lego test as a component of a well designed non-biased test sounds like a great idea to me. From the article:
The Lego test is one of a dozen workshop activities over three hours in which pencil and
paper are thrown out. Other activities include public speaking, conflict-resolution drills and
personal interviews performed under the watchful eye of high school principals, teachers,
counselors and college admissions deans who evaluate the college hopefuls.
That sounds like a great idea to me.
-Rich
It's obvious to me (and most people here on /.) that the intention for DeCSS was to have a decoder to allow fair use of one's own DVD's. As you (and others) have stated there exists machinery to copy DVD's regardless of whether DeCSS is used or not. Of course here in the USA the Digital Millenium Copyright act says that anyone who writes a program to defeat "copy protection" is violating the copyright outright. How does this USA law affect your legal battle?
Well, actually....
Tubes are better than transistors in certain applications just becasue they DONT work right. They color the sound in a way that is appealing to audiophiles. It has nothing to do with clairty it has to do with a listening experience. Tubes apply sort of a dynamic eq to playback as their electrical properties muddle with the sound. Alot of it is foolishness on the part of gearheads, but a fair amount of it is actual fact, that tubes are percieved to sound better. Remember this is all perception, it's not black and white.
About digital versus analog, find someone with a good quality audio card and record something at 22khz, 44khz, and 48khz. Now do the same accross 16 20 and 24 bits. If you're using good listening and recording equipment, you WILL hear the difference. That doesn't mean it wont sound better than certain analog gear, but it does mean that in theory analog has the ability to do better. Until I sit in a recording studio and hear state of the art digital vs state of the art analog of the same event recorded at the same time, I'll have to side with analog.
The other thing at work here is that people take tapes and make them digital and then whine about digital's quality. That doesnt make much sense as the media is PART of the recording. The limitations and strengths of analog are part of an analog recording, running that through a/d converters to change the forrmat is going to be lossy. Similarly taking a digital recoridng and transcribing it to analog is probably lossy as well.
As for mp3, yeah the quality is bad. Any self-respecting audiophile would never archive to mp3 given analog as an option. Of course most people dont have recording studio quality analog gear and the leap of clarity of a digital reproduction of the master tapes is tremendous when compared with consumer analog devices.
-Rich
Back then the gameplay had to be addicting or the game had no chance at all. You cant hide behind 3d graphics or cinematic sequences when you only have a few K to program in.
e n-getting-powerup-to-defeat-enemy games were there? There were a stack of other worthless Space Invaders type ripoffs. While Super Mario brothers was a classic, there have really only been a short list of Mario successes among the painfullyl ong list of Mario games for all the nintendo platforms. There are always games that set the standard and games that follow. Looking back on 20 years of gaming allows your short list to only include the winners.
That being said, there were PLENTY of rip-offs back then too. How many pole position ripoffs or pac-man-guy-moves-thru-maze-running-from-enemy-th
20 Years from now the kids today will look back on Gran Turismo and Quake (both excellent games IMHO) as reverently as we look back on Pole Position and Pac-Man.
-Rich
While I agree it's a double edged sword, Be is doing this for one reason only, to acheive developer critical mass. I've run Be before (not currently) and the reason I'm not running it curently is there are no interesting apps. Personally I think that Be is the coolest media system I've ever seen. Even their simple utilities are astounding. (Playing 6 mp3's simultaneously at different speeds, some backwards using a SB 16 is some pretty cool stuff, not to mention their video stuff) But the high quality apps are not (or were not the last time i checked) there. Anyone who does media would gladly pay for a 'professional' Be if they were able to get their apps for it. To get the apps for it you need to get it in people's hands. Making it gratis will get it into people's hands. Then the developers will port the apps, then the people who need the apps wil switch the OS. Charging for upgraded capacity or more driver support, etc, will start to bring in the revenue.
-Rich
The only thing that is wrong about it is that you have to distribute the source changes only if you distribute the object code, which is a pretty fine grain point for those not versed in the idiosyncrasies of the GPL. Calm down.
-Rich
Hold on a second here. Comparing AOL to MS is not really fair to AOL. I dont like AOL personally, but AOL has succeeded on the strenght of it's product and the strength of it's marketing and brand name. The reason AOL is number one is because they have never stopped giving free CD's away, they have never stopped improving the software to give people what they (seemingly) want, they have never stopped making their service easier or flashier. They sell their product for what it is, and people buy it for what it is. People are not forced to use AOL, they choose to use AOL. Any person with half a brain and a newspaper can find more economical (if not harder to use) Internet service for a fraction of what AOL charges without losing one bit of functionality or interoperability with the people who are on AOL. AOL has played about as fair as any mega-corp is going to play the game.
As for Time Warner, There are loads of other HUGE media organizations in this world that behave much more foolishly. Let's talk about Disney and censorship. Let's talk about Sony and closed standards.
As for broadcasters/cable/sattelite services, Time Warner is hardly the only one out there. In fact where I used to live Time Warner sold to AT&T. There's PLENTY of other competion out there in the form of cable and sattelite companies. Not to mention FOX/ABC/NBC/CBS.
Yes AOL Time Warner will be huge, they might also be evil, but they're not a monopoly.
-Rich
Until AOLScapeWarnerSoftCorp decides that it's not in their best interests. Someone above already mentioned limiting streaming video access from non-affiliated partners; plain HTML access could be next--easily.
I'm not an expert on AOL since I've only used it a couple of times at my parents' house in the last month.
But didn't they try this already? AOL did not always allow access to the internet. Users complained. AOL changed their mind, and left compuserve and prodigy in the dust. Whether they are free or not, people want to think they are. History has proven time and time again that the little guy has the power to beat goliath if he offers something people want.
-Rich
Here we go again...
Everytime some mega-corp that has some business on the internet merges with some other mega-corp that has some business on the internet everyone has a coniption fit about how the internet is being too commercialized and how big brother is going to ram it's content down every joe person's throat.
Well duh, of course they are.
But how is that any different than it was last year? Or the year before? Or the year before? This is been going on for about 5 years and honestly it has yet to change MY internet experince. I still dont use AOL. I still am bombarded with ads and get spam (since about 95 at least). My connection is still too slow. There's still just as much crap as there is good content.
Dont forget, the audience is what dictates the content. If you want to see something, you'll figure out a way to find it and someone will figure out a way to bring it to you. This isn't TV. It does not cost millions of dollars for a transmitter and FCC license. Any slob can set up a web site, as long as people read, it will stay.
Honestly, it doesn't look that different than yesterday from where I'm sitting. Yes the internet is different than it was when I started in the early 90's. But then again I could not buy CD's or books, or computer parts, or musical instruments on the internet back then either.
-Rich
This isn't so much a problem with teachers but with a lot of adults as well. My parents for example. They are afraid of computers. They both come from blue collar backgrounds where computers are something that steal your job, not a tool to increase your productivity. They go through the day blaming computers for why things dont work like they used to. A computer to them is something that sits at an insurance company or bank. It's evil. It's heartless.
:-)
Of course this isn't true (My father is figuring it out qucker than my mom now that they own a computer). My mom's biggest complaint is that she thinks the computer makes her feel stupid, it's absurd to us, but it's how she feels.
Worse yet schools dont exactly have quick turnaround. In high school I had the same english teacher as my father did. Same coach in PE. Same Economics teacher. Same Spanish teacher. The dean of students was my mom's history teacher. There were many more teachers that taught my parents that were still there, but I didn't have.
Eventaully these people will retire and the next generation of teachers will come in, more saavy in the ways of technology. Hopefully by the time I have kids
-Rich
*raises hand*
I cant put into words how exciting it was to first learn how to print my name on the screen or write a program to ask the user his or her name. Or to draw a low res picture of a house or a rocket. This was earth shaking stuff to a 9 year old in 1982. Thanks Woz.
-Rich
Mark Williams Company made a version of Unix, Coherent I believe.
Steve Jackson Ganes is the company that made the RPG that came under scrutiny in The Hacker Crackdown. See EFF for more info on that case.
-Rich
And more importantly, (IMHO) If we have legally purchased media containing this contnet is it within our rights to re-produce it for archive purposes?
-Rich