The ISPs are in a good position to help in such cases, and may very well be essential to law enforcement in other areas as well. The problem with such a ruling is that sometimes you need to put some stress on a company to get any positive response from them with regards to things like spam.
On the other hand, if prosecuting copyright violations becomes too difficult to be worth it maybe a better system will ensue?
While the iPos looks nice, and admittedly has the best interface of all the MP3 players (owing to the simple design Macintosh has become a master of), is it worth dropping a couple hundred on it?
I've heard of two design flaws now -- both of which they seem less than inclined to fix beyond a short period of ownership -- and have noticed that PDAs in a similar price range can do MP3, video, and even word processing. If it was reliable I'd buy one tomorrow, but are they yet?
This brings up a complaint I've got with the way the industry works nowadays.
As a programmer, I feel the continual march of progress in computing has been
hampered as of late because of a major misconception in some segments of the
software industry. Some would argue that the process of refinement by
iterative design, which is the subject of many texts in the field -- extreme
programming being the most recent -- demonstrates that applying the theory of
evolution to coding is the most effective model of program 'design'.
But this is erroneous. The problem is that while extremely negative traits
are usually stripped away in this model, negative traits that do not
(metaphorically) explicitly interfere with life up until reproduction often
remain. Additionally, traits that would be extremely beneficial that are not
explicitly necessary for survival fail to come to light. Our ability to think
and reason was not the product of evolution, argues a new and credible
scientific theory called intelligent design, but was deliberately chosen for
us. Perhaps this is a thought that should again be applied to the creation
of software.
It makes no sense to choose the option of continually hacking at a program
until it works as opposed to properly designing it from the start. One only
has to compare the security woes of Microsoft or Linux with the rock-solid
experience of OpenBSD for an example. It makes little sense from a business
perspective as well; it costs up to ten times as much to fix an error by the
time it hits the market as it would to catch it during the design.
Unfortunately, as much of this cost is borne by consumers and not the
companies designing buggy products, it's harder to make the case for proper
software engineering.
By all means, keep antagonizing the best online music provider with these
innovations. I don't know what endgame they're working towards, if any, but the
two possibilities I can think of are Apple making a foolproof DRM scheme and
cracking down on the freedoms they today permit or Apple deciding this market
just isn't worth it and pulling down the service entirely.
This reminds me of a historical anecdote. One of the many advancements made
under Lord Tokugawa's rule, which is arguably the point at which Japan began
to transform into the powerhouse of technological innovation we know and love
today, was the world's first sukaisukure ('skyscraper'). Built as the
southernmost endpoint of the Great Wall to commemorate its completion, the
sukaisukure could hardly compare to today's structures; however, given that
its architecture predated the use of steel in building design it stands as a
testament to Tokugawa's extraordinary vision.
Despite Tokugawa's status as a visionary, he could not contend with the
constant threat of an armed and discontented populace -- to secure his
reign, he confiscated the weapons of the lower classes and permitted only
those of samurai rank or higher to carry swords. Viewed as a tyrannical
measure that sowed some degree of discontent, this nevertheless permitted
Tokugawa's innovations to come to fruition and ultimately benefit society.
Apple is in a similar situation. They are at the bleeding edge of the
industry, particularly in relation to the music industry's philosophies, and
need desparately to prove that this model works. They can't afford to look
on these hacks with benevolence because they've got to work with the RIAA
and affiliated labels just to make the music available. Can't the people who
want their music in freer formats simply buy it on CD and convert it for their
own use -- thereby voting with their dollars for a better scheme -- rather
than creating software that threatens Apple's relationship with its business
partner and ultimately its customers via the policies it has to adopt in
reaction?
Bear in mind, using bits to exponentially increase cryptographic strength only works until you reach the Berenstein factor, which is a practical limit on the number of S-boxes that can be stacked in any particular corner of the cryptographic chamber. After a certain point, which varies according to the chamber ceiling, it is possible albiet less space efficient to take advantage of parallel stacking to some extent.
As with cryptographic cracking, it comes down to the speed and capability of the hardware above all else. Sometimes algorithms can be tweaked (as by adding bits to the key) but it's important not to focus on any particular attribute or assume a characteristic of one cryptographic function holds true for all of them, or even across the same class (such as block ciphers).
I tried listening to songs off of mp3.com back in the day. Most were absolutely dreadful, but some of the ones that showed promise were unlistenable simply because they were encoded with MP3 (a lossy codec).
The thought that the archive was not entirely lost is a nice one, but it sounds like they only saved the music in MP3 form. Is there any place like mp3.com was but with FLAC/SHN encoded files so that I can hear the music the way it was written?
At least one of the ideas struck me as being intriguing (using the iTunes database as a source for determining if a song might be controlled by the RIAA) but some of the others would be problematic.
Having a P2P service pulling album covers and other metadata from Apple's pay service is as likely to be considered stealing as pulling copyrighted music without paying for it. Even checking their database from a non-iTunes application may raise hackles. It's a cute hack, but why risk upsetting Apple when they're already providing the fairest online music store to date?
That's a good point. I don't know why people have a problem with people receiving calls on cellphones when they're in restaurants, for example -- it's a public place, and there are all sorts of other potential irritants (screaming kids, cigarette smoke, someone yammering about the colonoscopy they had that morning) that there's simply no point in singling out the one irritant that could save a life in an emergency.
Besides, it is illegal to deliberately block radio transmissions as you point out. Jamming them with a signal is a pretty overt challenge. People need to relax.
Despite the unfortunate price/performance ratio of their hardware (as compared to PC equipment), the operating environment is quite conducive to programming. Add to that the general reliability of its operating system and programs as well as the general feeling of superiority that once accompanied Linux use and you've got a winner.
The only thing I can't understand is why iTunes and QuickTime seem so inferior on Windows. If that's a byproduct of crossplatform programming, I don't know that I'd be that eager to switch (no matter how nice the development environment is, it's the final product that counts.) But other than that, I think they're on to something.
Time for something new?
on
Real Problems
·
· Score: 0, Troll
Real has simply grown past the point of obsolence. I see it happening with many products -- my virus scanner/firewall combination, for example, has the idea that it knows better than I do about what settings I should be making in its configuration, and has taken to advertising newer versions relentlessly.
I used to think that the larger companies like this pave the way for the smaller companies in the software industry -- driving innovation through their own stagnation, perhaps. Similarly, I used to think chopsticks originated in Asia, at least until someone
made me aware of their creation as an enticing gimmick by immigrant restaurant
owners in American mining communities in the 1800s and subsequent exportation
to the Far East as a unique dining tool. Opened my eyes to the potential of
reexamining the current to design the future; especially so after I factored
in the sizable lumber export market that has become necessary to meet such
demand.
The point is, it's simply impossible to spot where the next trend or emerging
market will be, but the potential for wealth creation by expanding the
marketplace is great. The end-user must decide who the winners will be by their choices, and there's still room for the small players to win by simply not bugging the living hell out of their customers.
Anybody that can give an answer about the cryptographic algorithms one should use that quickly without reflecting on the different strengths and weaknesses inherent worries me a bit. Sure, most of the focus should be on making access simpler and easier in practical situations, but who's to say offhand that Triple-DES or AES are better than Blowfish or plain DES?
Nor would I applaud Automatic Update as a triumph for the end-user -- it delivers more than security fixes and can affect the stability of a machine. But the point about firewalls only being as good as the policy on employee laptops is a good one.
They can innovate a new system for less money than Google would cost them (although the brand might be worth it). Additionally, trying to buy out the most popular search engine could invite more scrutiny from the people who want them broken up than they would receive by creating their own.
In my opinion, Microsoft has historically done poorly in anticipating and addressing new trends in computing especially with regards to the information superhighway. They were slow to make their system interoperate with the Internet, slow to recognize the value of providing the Internet as a service to home users, and slow to embrace the Internet as a medium for exchanging content such as movies and music.
However, they also absolutely cleaned up once they caught on. MSN, in conjunction with their WebTV service, has grown to become a leading contender. Internet Explorer is the best and most compatible web browser. And Media Player is poised to potentially overrun Apple's iTunes as a means of offering not only music but movies on demand.
I wouldn't view this as a goof. They observe the people on the cutting-edge and provide better services while avoiding the pitfalls the early-adopters fall into. Linux users would do well to take notice and avoid resting on their laurels, because Windows seems to be getting better faster than X-Windows. If Microsoft doesn't make a success out of their search engine venture, I'll be shocked.
I think there is another subtle problem, and one that has occurred to me after seeing how our legislators have reacted to the situation regarding Janet Jackson; a.xxx domain will become a bin that the government will want to sweep everything that could be considered remotely offensive into.
But could this mean, for example, that a website such as this which is providing a forum to the public will have to more vigorously scrub the content of its users in order to remain visible or within the law? I fear that this wave of neopuritanism in the U.S. would wield a domain such as.xxx as a club against websites that are not deliberately providing prurient content yet manage to provide offense (much like a radio show that accepts calls from listeners and is forced to block their obscenity or face steep fines.)
Far better to determine a system like the ICRA to leave it up to the viewer, as you say. We've got mandated V-chips in our television sets that permit the set owner to restrict programming to a particular standard which is apparently broadcast with the TV signal, but the broadcasters still censor their content. A.xxx domain will not satisfy the vocal minority that has been responsible for pushing censorship in movies, music, or radio because they are not content to control what they consume, but what we all consume.
Can't they do something like this with FLAC encoded music?
The quality of Ogg and MP3 is pretty good (certainly better than radio) but I want to be able to build an online music collection that is comparable in quality to my offline one; i.e., one that does not suffer from the high-end noise that the lossy formats have.
While AOL could make a good acquisition (and one wonders how a IE and Mozilla merge would end up) it's a lot to chew. Microsoft already functions like a group of individual companies, with each faction at best peripherally aware of the others, but the concept of adding AOL to their empire is a bit staggering not only from the consumer perspective but from the logistical as well.
I don't know what the profitability forecast is like for AOL, but surely Microsoft would do better to play up MSN than to sink the money into a competitor that is already losing ground to cable and telecom companies.
The general consensus is that bandwidth is infinitely expandable.
The problem is the transformation of most nodes of the Internet from peers to clients. That's what's going on with broadband; they lure you to the service with speed and reliability then after you're in they let you know you can't run any services and they're putting a mandatory (and poorly-run) spam filter on your incoming mail.
You're no longer part of the network. You're only a consumer and spectator. Spam is bad but RBLs like SPEWS and the admins that force them on their users can be worse. There used to be a time when you could hook into the Internet and go pretty much anywhere you wanted to go; today everybody wants to lock you down and force you to pay for things you once enjoyed for nothing or move to a different server because of some political battle over spam. When people like John Gilmore get screwed for running a mailserver, or a website like Something Awful has its business operations hampered, I can see the writing on the wall.
We need to get back to the days of having Internet access being a utility, much like electricity or water, where one could hook in and use it any way one will. The looming threat is control, lockdown, and homogenization that promises to render this medium as stale as commercial radio.
Although you might be kidding (since/. has an established base of well-tweaked high quality/high performance Perl code), not only is PHP and in particular PHP5 is an excellent choice for prototyping because of the integration between display and function, but it's probably the right choice most of the time for people who are seeking to integrate databases with web functionality without delving into high-priced solutions.
/. is in a special situation due to the amount of traffic it receives, and the amount of effort that has gone into making Slash the powerhouse that it is has no doubt driven projects like perl_mod to increase the efficiency on the webserver side. While PHP would only improve on the appearance and capability to add user functionality, there would be issues with stability.
A test run of our PHP setup on PHP5 RC1 seems to be more responsive and crisp than it was on PHP4. I've also heard the syntax is being improved in some areas, which would be quite the boon (our site looking somewhat spaghettish as it is.)
Didn't have to jump through any hoops that weren't explicitly mentioned to get it installed, and haven't noticed any problems so far. Hopefully this is a sign that the official PHP5 is soon to arrive.
Mars is much more prone to sky-mirages, or phantomes miragi, because of the unique combination of an almost complete lack of humidity coupled with the ratio of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It's an event similar to what we experience with the northern lights, which is a slower version of the phenomenon that can be seen in the Northern hemisphere during the start of Spring.
It's hypothetically possible that such an event could create false imagery on the Rover, which is hardly high-res photography to begin with and then sent back to us over a noisy channel (space).
I get the feeling that anyone who grew up playing early video games gets a real sense of disgust at seeing the level of depravity present in today's titles. Compared to games like Adventure or Pitfall today's electronic entertainment is a veritable pornography of violence, where vile acts are rendered in detail to a young audience.
Blasting invaders from space is one thing; a game that lets you steal a car and run over the owner or murder prostitutes is over the line. It increases the allure of immoral behavior and blurs the line between right and wrong to an unacceptable degree in a society that is already plagued with people who cannot accept responsibility for themselves.
If the guy's anything like me, he's got a serious problem with the proposition that all software must be Free.
Where is this whole thing taking us?
The average programmer used to be able to command a decent salary and respect. The self-starter could design shareware, either as an end in itself or as a means to build something larger (id, Epic). Many people have gone to school to learn a very specific skillset with the intention that with that paper and continuing self-study they'd have a career.
Then enter individuals like Stallman who believe and openly advocate that we forsake these careers -- that closed source is evil and that we can make a living on selling manuals, offering services, or barring that, bussing tables at a local restaurant. This is a very convenient position for someone to take who can make a career out of public speaking and fundraising, or for those who are and always plan to be computer techs or support desk operators, but it effectively tells everybody who has invested in and plan on a career in software design to shove it.
Perhaps my view is outdated, but anybody involved in programming must take a look at where this is taking us. Outsourcing is already working us over, and businesses are quite happy with the Free Software/Open Source option because it means the great majority of us don't have to be paid or can be paid to hack on a feature here and there. If this is all four to eight years of education is going to buy you, you might as well major in English.
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand, if prosecuting copyright violations becomes too difficult to be worth it maybe a better system will ensue?
I've heard of two design flaws now -- both of which they seem less than inclined to fix beyond a short period of ownership -- and have noticed that PDAs in a similar price range can do MP3, video, and even word processing. If it was reliable I'd buy one tomorrow, but are they yet?
As a programmer, I feel the continual march of progress in computing has been hampered as of late because of a major misconception in some segments of the software industry. Some would argue that the process of refinement by iterative design, which is the subject of many texts in the field -- extreme programming being the most recent -- demonstrates that applying the theory of evolution to coding is the most effective model of program 'design'.
But this is erroneous. The problem is that while extremely negative traits are usually stripped away in this model, negative traits that do not (metaphorically) explicitly interfere with life up until reproduction often remain. Additionally, traits that would be extremely beneficial that are not explicitly necessary for survival fail to come to light. Our ability to think and reason was not the product of evolution, argues a new and credible scientific theory called intelligent design, but was deliberately chosen for us. Perhaps this is a thought that should again be applied to the creation of software.
It makes no sense to choose the option of continually hacking at a program until it works as opposed to properly designing it from the start. One only has to compare the security woes of Microsoft or Linux with the rock-solid experience of OpenBSD for an example. It makes little sense from a business perspective as well; it costs up to ten times as much to fix an error by the time it hits the market as it would to catch it during the design. Unfortunately, as much of this cost is borne by consumers and not the companies designing buggy products, it's harder to make the case for proper software engineering.
This reminds me of a historical anecdote. One of the many advancements made under Lord Tokugawa's rule, which is arguably the point at which Japan began to transform into the powerhouse of technological innovation we know and love today, was the world's first sukaisukure ('skyscraper'). Built as the southernmost endpoint of the Great Wall to commemorate its completion, the sukaisukure could hardly compare to today's structures; however, given that its architecture predated the use of steel in building design it stands as a testament to Tokugawa's extraordinary vision.
Despite Tokugawa's status as a visionary, he could not contend with the constant threat of an armed and discontented populace -- to secure his reign, he confiscated the weapons of the lower classes and permitted only those of samurai rank or higher to carry swords. Viewed as a tyrannical measure that sowed some degree of discontent, this nevertheless permitted Tokugawa's innovations to come to fruition and ultimately benefit society.
Apple is in a similar situation. They are at the bleeding edge of the industry, particularly in relation to the music industry's philosophies, and need desparately to prove that this model works. They can't afford to look on these hacks with benevolence because they've got to work with the RIAA and affiliated labels just to make the music available. Can't the people who want their music in freer formats simply buy it on CD and convert it for their own use -- thereby voting with their dollars for a better scheme -- rather than creating software that threatens Apple's relationship with its business partner and ultimately its customers via the policies it has to adopt in reaction?
As with cryptographic cracking, it comes down to the speed and capability of the hardware above all else. Sometimes algorithms can be tweaked (as by adding bits to the key) but it's important not to focus on any particular attribute or assume a characteristic of one cryptographic function holds true for all of them, or even across the same class (such as block ciphers).
What does this tell us? That if you throw enough machines and/or money at a solvable cryptographic challenge you'll solve it?
The thought that the archive was not entirely lost is a nice one, but it sounds like they only saved the music in MP3 form. Is there any place like mp3.com was but with FLAC/SHN encoded files so that I can hear the music the way it was written?
Having a P2P service pulling album covers and other metadata from Apple's pay service is as likely to be considered stealing as pulling copyrighted music without paying for it. Even checking their database from a non-iTunes application may raise hackles. It's a cute hack, but why risk upsetting Apple when they're already providing the fairest online music store to date?
This only weakens the concept of intellectual property. Why invent if you're just going to have to fight legal battles for the length of your patent?
Big difference. People used to spread stuff under Windows by faking different extensions too.
Besides, it is illegal to deliberately block radio transmissions as you point out. Jamming them with a signal is a pretty overt challenge. People need to relax.
The only thing I can't understand is why iTunes and QuickTime seem so inferior on Windows. If that's a byproduct of crossplatform programming, I don't know that I'd be that eager to switch (no matter how nice the development environment is, it's the final product that counts.) But other than that, I think they're on to something.
I used to think that the larger companies like this pave the way for the smaller companies in the software industry -- driving innovation through their own stagnation, perhaps. Similarly, I used to think chopsticks originated in Asia, at least until someone made me aware of their creation as an enticing gimmick by immigrant restaurant owners in American mining communities in the 1800s and subsequent exportation to the Far East as a unique dining tool. Opened my eyes to the potential of reexamining the current to design the future; especially so after I factored in the sizable lumber export market that has become necessary to meet such demand.
The point is, it's simply impossible to spot where the next trend or emerging market will be, but the potential for wealth creation by expanding the marketplace is great. The end-user must decide who the winners will be by their choices, and there's still room for the small players to win by simply not bugging the living hell out of their customers.
Nor would I applaud Automatic Update as a triumph for the end-user -- it delivers more than security fixes and can affect the stability of a machine. But the point about firewalls only being as good as the policy on employee laptops is a good one.
They can innovate a new system for less money than Google would cost them (although the brand might be worth it). Additionally, trying to buy out the most popular search engine could invite more scrutiny from the people who want them broken up than they would receive by creating their own.
However, they also absolutely cleaned up once they caught on. MSN, in conjunction with their WebTV service, has grown to become a leading contender. Internet Explorer is the best and most compatible web browser. And Media Player is poised to potentially overrun Apple's iTunes as a means of offering not only music but movies on demand.
I wouldn't view this as a goof. They observe the people on the cutting-edge and provide better services while avoiding the pitfalls the early-adopters fall into. Linux users would do well to take notice and avoid resting on their laurels, because Windows seems to be getting better faster than X-Windows. If Microsoft doesn't make a success out of their search engine venture, I'll be shocked.
But could this mean, for example, that a website such as this which is providing a forum to the public will have to more vigorously scrub the content of its users in order to remain visible or within the law? I fear that this wave of neopuritanism in the U.S. would wield a domain such as .xxx as a club against websites that are not deliberately providing prurient content yet manage to provide offense (much like a radio show that accepts calls from listeners and is forced to block their obscenity or face steep fines.)
Far better to determine a system like the ICRA to leave it up to the viewer, as you say. We've got mandated V-chips in our television sets that permit the set owner to restrict programming to a particular standard which is apparently broadcast with the TV signal, but the broadcasters still censor their content. A .xxx domain will not satisfy the vocal minority that has been responsible for pushing censorship in movies, music, or radio because they are not content to control what they consume, but what we all consume.
The quality of Ogg and MP3 is pretty good (certainly better than radio) but I want to be able to build an online music collection that is comparable in quality to my offline one; i.e., one that does not suffer from the high-end noise that the lossy formats have.
Otherwise, I might as well go back to vinyl.
I don't know what the profitability forecast is like for AOL, but surely Microsoft would do better to play up MSN than to sink the money into a competitor that is already losing ground to cable and telecom companies.
The problem is the transformation of most nodes of the Internet from peers to clients. That's what's going on with broadband; they lure you to the service with speed and reliability then after you're in they let you know you can't run any services and they're putting a mandatory (and poorly-run) spam filter on your incoming mail.
You're no longer part of the network. You're only a consumer and spectator. Spam is bad but RBLs like SPEWS and the admins that force them on their users can be worse. There used to be a time when you could hook into the Internet and go pretty much anywhere you wanted to go; today everybody wants to lock you down and force you to pay for things you once enjoyed for nothing or move to a different server because of some political battle over spam. When people like John Gilmore get screwed for running a mailserver, or a website like Something Awful has its business operations hampered, I can see the writing on the wall.
We need to get back to the days of having Internet access being a utility, much like electricity or water, where one could hook in and use it any way one will. The looming threat is control, lockdown, and homogenization that promises to render this medium as stale as commercial radio.
Didn't have to jump through any hoops that weren't explicitly mentioned to get it installed, and haven't noticed any problems so far. Hopefully this is a sign that the official PHP5 is soon to arrive.
It's hypothetically possible that such an event could create false imagery on the Rover, which is hardly high-res photography to begin with and then sent back to us over a noisy channel (space).
Blasting invaders from space is one thing; a game that lets you steal a car and run over the owner or murder prostitutes is over the line. It increases the allure of immoral behavior and blurs the line between right and wrong to an unacceptable degree in a society that is already plagued with people who cannot accept responsibility for themselves.
Where is this whole thing taking us?
The average programmer used to be able to command a decent salary and respect. The self-starter could design shareware, either as an end in itself or as a means to build something larger (id, Epic). Many people have gone to school to learn a very specific skillset with the intention that with that paper and continuing self-study they'd have a career.
Then enter individuals like Stallman who believe and openly advocate that we forsake these careers -- that closed source is evil and that we can make a living on selling manuals, offering services, or barring that, bussing tables at a local restaurant. This is a very convenient position for someone to take who can make a career out of public speaking and fundraising, or for those who are and always plan to be computer techs or support desk operators, but it effectively tells everybody who has invested in and plan on a career in software design to shove it.
Perhaps my view is outdated, but anybody involved in programming must take a look at where this is taking us. Outsourcing is already working us over, and businesses are quite happy with the Free Software/Open Source option because it means the great majority of us don't have to be paid or can be paid to hack on a feature here and there. If this is all four to eight years of education is going to buy you, you might as well major in English.