Duncan Campbell is obviously a pseudonym used by the cartel of secret-agent-men who are REALLY running the world. They're just spreading disinformation through this 'Duncan Campbell' invention to distract us from the REAL story; That William Gates III is the evil overlord who dictates our every move, and is actually merely a pawn of the small grey aliens that live at the Martian poles and shoot down our helpless little landers.
I believe the problem with operations such as this are skin/component interface is very easily infected. Bacteria tends to get between the two surfaces, and then everything goes a bit gooey.
Of course, you could instead create a skin 'pocket' to slip the watch component into leaving just the face visible, but then what's the advantage to just keeping the watch in your pocket?
The REAL innovations in fields like this are going to be in truly interfacing the watch with our nervous-system (change watch display modes by just thinking about it, anyone? Tap into the bodies bio-electric power source to save having to change that pesky battery every couple of years?)
A couple of days ago the BBC reported in an article entitled Old computers lose history record how archaeological records are being lost due to exactly the issues raised in this story. The story reports that "[ironically, the] archaeological information held in magnetic format is decaying faster than it ever did in the ground".
So, it looks like we're going to have to start transferring all those old ZX81 game tapes (Timex 2000 for our U.S. cousins) to CD-ROM then. That should be good for another 25 years of '3D Monster Maze':-)
Just putting up a sign saying 'by entering here you waive your right to protection under the law' doesn't cut it I'm afraid. Try it yourself. Put a sign over your front door saying 'By entering here, you waive all rights to protection under the law' and then kill the next person that comes into your house.
You'll be the new 'best friend' of a 6'8" tall Troglodyte in your nearest jail before you know it.
Unless your waiver is backed up by specific federal or state exclusions, you're shit outta luck.
An old boss of mine used to say that if we HAD to work more than five hours overtime a week in order to get our work done, then HE was doing something wrong in his project planning. It's a philosophy that I wholeheartedly agree with.
There is always going to be a requirement in our industry (technology/software development) for workers to put in limited bursts of super-long hours in order to get past approaching deadlines or unexpected hurdles. However, the work return on hours diminishes rapidly if these periods of extended overtime last longer than a few weeks. In fact, I've personally witnessed long hours causing negative work. The levels of fatigue and stress cause a much higher incidence of careless mistakes and design mistakes, not to mention the decrease in motivation suffered by the workers. This ends up costing the project more than if the manager had just made sure that his or her workers were properly rested. Some project managers 'get' this, others don't. I've been fortunate to work for more project managers in the former group rather than the latter. I would be interested to hear others opinions.
Of course, as far as I have seen the 32 hour average working week is a complete fallacy. In every software engineering job I've held so far, the minimum required working week has been 40 hours. More often than not, I work 45 to 50 hour weeks, and I know that I'm neither the first into the office each day nor the last to leave.
As was mentioned in the BBC article, this almost certainly contravenes Human Rights laws. I expect the European Courts to battle this one vigorously (luckily for everyone currently living in the U.K.)
Quite honestly, I find it a complete disgrace that the government could push a bill that basically says 'you are guilty unless you prove otherwise'. I will DEFINITELY be writing to my M.P. about this, and I urge everyone else in the U.K. to do likewise.
We've all read the discussions of the various points made in the Judge's findings. We've all offered counter arguments to these points. A fair number of us have criticised the EFF lawyers for not defending against those points effectively.
Would it be possible for us to have a SlashDot question session with a lawyer who could speculate on these issues and provide feedback on our defense? Maybe something useful could come from it.
Well, the cat's out of the bag as far as MP3 ripping goes. We have the software, we have the CD-ROM drives, and there's nothing that the RIAA can do about it:-)
One way that they could stop us from using MP3 would be to make the sale of MP3 players illegal. That isn't going to happen because the precedent has already been set - software and hardware for MP3 playback is already legally being sold.
Could the RIAA place pressure on manufacturers to market SDMI only devices? Well, I'm sure they could try (and I'm sure that they ARE trying). Would the manufacturers go for it? My guess is no, for two reasons: The RIAA can't control or restrict the supply of music for MP3 format (we can rip our own MP3's after all), and there's going to be precious little marketplace demand for SDMI only players. It just doesn't make economic sense for the player manufacturers to go down this road.
Could they place pressure on the distributers to sell only SDMI players? Yes they could, and I'm pretty sure that they'll try this one in the near future. Of course, they'll have to offer the retailers 'incentives' to do this as they'll effectively be removing themselves from a segment of the marketplace. I would imagine that the 'incentive' would be along the lines of "we'll refuse to allow you to sell our CD's if you don't". I see some interesting legal battles looming on the horizon over this one.
Another way that they could stop us from using MP3 would be to limit music distribution to only their specified music format. I don't think this is going to happen, because it would require them to kill off the CD market - the MP3 marketplace just isn't big enough for them to be able to justify replacing the entire music distribution mechanism. Even if they DID replace the music distribution mechanism with the new 'SDMI' only version, it wouldn't be too long before someone produced a nice little software package that would convert the SDMI music files into MP3, wav, or whatever other format you wanted. Encryption just doesn't hold up for very long these days, as the DVD consortium recently found out.
The only way that the RIAA would have a hope of replacing MP3 with SDMI is by providing such added value in the new file format that people voluntarily choose to use it. That clearly hasn't happened.
So, what's the upshot of all this? That SDMI is a doomed technology. The RIAA just hasn't realised that it's fighting a battle that it can't win yet.
Well, the cat's out of the bag as far as MP3 ripping goes. We have the software, we have the CD-ROM drives, and there's nothing that the RIAA can do about it:-)
One way that they could stop us from using MP3 would be to make the sale of MP3 players illegal. That isn't going to happen because the precedent has already been set - software and hardware for MP3 playback is already legally being sold.
Could the RIAA place pressure on manufacturers to market SDMI only devices? Well, I'm sure they could try (and I'm sure that they ARE trying). Would the manufacturers go for it? My guess is no, for two reasons: The RIAA can't control or restrict the supply of music for MP3 format (we can rip our own MP3's after all), and there's going to be precious little marketplace demand for SDMI only players. It just doesn't make economic sense for the player manufacturers to go down this road.
Another way that they could stop us from using MP3 would be to limit music distribution to only their specified music format. I don't think this is going to happen, because it would require them to kill off the CD market - the MP3 marketplace just isn't big enough for them to be able to justify replacing the entire music distribution mechanism.
Even if they DID replace the music distribution mechanism with the new 'SDMI' only version, it wouldn't be too long before someone produced a nice little software package that would convert the SDMI music files into MP3, wav, or whatever other format you wanted. Encryption just doesn't hold up for very long these days, as the DVD consortium recently found out.
The only way that the RIAA would have a hope of replacing MP3 with SDMI is by providing such added value in the new file format that people voluntarily choose to use it. That clearly hasn't happened.
So, what's the upshot of all this? That SDMI is a doomed technology. The RIAA just hasn't realised that it's fighting a battle that it can't win yet.
Have to agree with you there. It's been a long time since a SlashDot article has made me think so carefully about practical, ethical and philosophical arguments. Well done one and all!
I do hope that the transmission mechanism doesn't rely on radio waves. If every one of those nano-bots had to rely on a low-power radio transmitter to send their data to the receiving machine then then energy release come scanning time would vaporise your head, the scanning machine, and quite possible a large part of the surrounding scenery!
There may be no practical loss for everyone else in the world, but I'm not sure that the computer clone would feel the same way. Wouldn't copies inherit all of the traits of the original, including the drive for self-preservation?
I'm going to have to live 'til at least 80 years old to achieve immortality? Why did nobody tell me this before I got hooked on caffeine and junk food?????
Well, I guess that this means that the martians have finally found usable parts of the X-Band transmitter/receiver and a sizeable chunk of solar panel. Let's hope they don't pick up too many broadcasts from us - after all, if I ended up listening to Britney Spears for more than about five seconds I'D end up launching the Martian War Machines!
Most DVD's nowadays have Anamorphic picture transfers on them which are designed to fit onto the 16:9 ration widescreen televisions. Having seen DVD movies on this format, I can say that it looks pretty darned nice. Not as nice as HDTV, but pretty darned nice all the same...
It's not so much the watching that is illegal as the re-broadcasting. The basic tenet is that "hey, we're happy for you to view our signal but we still own the content, OK. No handing it out to people without asking us first!"
I guess this is at least in part to maintain control over the advertising revenues from their programming. If anyone could re-broadcast programs as they see fit, then what would stop the re-broadcasters from removing the adverts, or replacing them with ones of their own.
Slashdot Mirror
Duncan Campbell is obviously a pseudonym used by the cartel of secret-agent-men who are REALLY running the world. They're just spreading disinformation through this 'Duncan Campbell' invention to distract us from the REAL story; That William Gates III is the evil overlord who dictates our every move, and is actually merely a pawn of the small grey aliens that live at the Martian poles and shoot down our helpless little landers.
Enough of this. I'm going back to my bong now...
--
I believe the problem with operations such as this are skin/component interface is very easily infected. Bacteria tends to get between the two surfaces, and then everything goes a bit gooey.
Of course, you could instead create a skin 'pocket' to slip the watch component into leaving just the face visible, but then what's the advantage to just keeping the watch in your pocket?
The REAL innovations in fields like this are going to be in truly interfacing the watch with our nervous-system (change watch display modes by just thinking about it, anyone? Tap into the bodies bio-electric power source to save having to change that pesky battery every couple of years?)
--
A couple of days ago the BBC reported in an article entitled Old computers lose history record how archaeological records are being lost due to exactly the issues raised in this story. The story reports that "[ironically, the] archaeological information held in magnetic format is decaying faster than it ever did in the ground".
:-)
So, it looks like we're going to have to start transferring all those old ZX81 game tapes (Timex 2000 for our U.S. cousins) to CD-ROM then. That should be good for another 25 years of '3D Monster Maze'
--
Just putting up a sign saying 'by entering here you waive your right to protection under the law' doesn't cut it I'm afraid. Try it yourself. Put a sign over your front door saying 'By entering here, you waive all rights to protection under the law' and then kill the next person that comes into your house.
You'll be the new 'best friend' of a 6'8" tall Troglodyte in your nearest jail before you know it.
Unless your waiver is backed up by specific federal or state exclusions, you're shit outta luck.
--
Mainly because, due to budget cuts, NASA couldn't afford the roaming charges from Mars.
--
An old boss of mine used to say that if we HAD to work more than five hours overtime a week in order to get our work done, then HE was doing something wrong in his project planning. It's a philosophy that I wholeheartedly agree with.
There is always going to be a requirement in our industry (technology/software development) for workers to put in limited bursts of super-long hours in order to get past approaching deadlines or unexpected hurdles. However, the work return on hours diminishes rapidly if these periods of extended overtime last longer than a few weeks. In fact, I've personally witnessed long hours causing negative work. The levels of fatigue and stress cause a much higher incidence of careless mistakes and design mistakes, not to mention the decrease in motivation suffered by the workers. This ends up costing the project more than if the manager had just made sure that his or her workers were properly rested. Some project managers 'get' this, others don't. I've been fortunate to work for more project managers in the former group rather than the latter. I would be interested to hear others opinions.
Of course, as far as I have seen the 32 hour average working week is a complete fallacy. In every software engineering job I've held so far, the minimum required working week has been 40 hours. More often than not, I work 45 to 50 hour weeks, and I know that I'm neither the first into the office each day nor the last to leave.
--
I would DEARLY love a SlashDot interview with Jack Valenti. What do you think Rob/Jeff? Do you think you could swing it?
--
As was mentioned in the BBC article, this almost certainly contravenes Human Rights laws. I expect the European Courts to battle this one vigorously (luckily for everyone currently living in the U.K.)
Quite honestly, I find it a complete disgrace that the government could push a bill that basically says 'you are guilty unless you prove otherwise'. I will DEFINITELY be writing to my M.P. about this, and I urge everyone else in the U.K. to do likewise.
We live in a democracy folks. Use it!
--
Here's an alternative English language link to the Mambo-X MP3 player.
--
We've all read the discussions of the various points made in the Judge's findings. We've all offered counter arguments to these points. A fair number of us have criticised the EFF lawyers for not defending against those points effectively.
Would it be possible for us to have a SlashDot question session with a lawyer who could speculate on these issues and provide feedback on our defense? Maybe something useful could come from it.
Rob/Hemos, what do you think?
--
Actually, come to think of it I don't think that WinAmp has the SDMI format implemented. Perhaps Justin should add it...
;-)
--
Or being given away. Thanks Justin! :)
:-)
A very good point. Justin Frankel has helped to radically change an industry that hadn't changed for decades previous...
Not many people can say that
For the uninitiated, Justin Frankel produced and designed the WinAmp MP3 player.
--
Well, the cat's out of the bag as far as MP3 ripping goes. We have the software, we have the CD-ROM drives, and there's nothing that the RIAA can do about it :-)
One way that they could stop us from using MP3 would be to make the sale of MP3 players illegal. That isn't going to happen because the precedent has already been set - software and hardware for MP3 playback is already legally being sold.
Could the RIAA place pressure on manufacturers to market SDMI only devices? Well, I'm sure they could try (and I'm sure that they ARE trying). Would the manufacturers go for it? My guess is no, for two reasons: The RIAA can't control or restrict the supply of music for MP3 format (we can rip our own MP3's after all), and there's going to be precious little marketplace demand for SDMI only players. It just doesn't make economic sense for the player manufacturers to go down this road.
Could they place pressure on the distributers to sell only SDMI players? Yes they could, and I'm pretty sure that they'll try this one in the near future. Of course, they'll have to offer the retailers 'incentives' to do this as they'll effectively be removing themselves from a segment of the marketplace. I would imagine that the 'incentive' would be along the lines of "we'll refuse to allow you to sell our CD's if you don't". I see some interesting legal battles looming on the horizon over this one.
Another way that they could stop us from using MP3 would be to limit music distribution to only their specified music format. I don't think this is going to happen, because it would require them to kill off the CD market - the MP3 marketplace just isn't big enough for them to be able to justify replacing the entire music distribution mechanism. Even if they DID replace the music distribution mechanism with the new 'SDMI' only version, it wouldn't be too long before someone produced a nice little software package that would convert the SDMI music files into MP3, wav, or whatever other format you wanted. Encryption just doesn't hold up for very long these days, as the DVD consortium recently found out.
The only way that the RIAA would have a hope of replacing MP3 with SDMI is by providing such added value in the new file format that people voluntarily choose to use it. That clearly hasn't happened.
So, what's the upshot of all this? That SDMI is a doomed technology. The RIAA just hasn't realised that it's fighting a battle that it can't win yet.
--
Well, the cat's out of the bag as far as MP3 ripping goes. We have the software, we have the CD-ROM drives, and there's nothing that the RIAA can do about it :-)
One way that they could stop us from using MP3 would be to make the sale of MP3 players illegal. That isn't going to happen because the precedent has already been set - software and hardware for MP3 playback is already legally being sold.
Could the RIAA place pressure on manufacturers to market SDMI only devices? Well, I'm sure they could try (and I'm sure that they ARE trying). Would the manufacturers go for it? My guess is no, for two reasons: The RIAA can't control or restrict the supply of music for MP3 format (we can rip our own MP3's after all), and there's going to be precious little marketplace demand for SDMI only players. It just doesn't make economic sense for the player manufacturers to go down this road.
Another way that they could stop us from using MP3 would be to limit music distribution to only their specified music format. I don't think this is going to happen, because it would require them to kill off the CD market - the MP3 marketplace just isn't big enough for them to be able to justify replacing the entire music distribution mechanism.
Even if they DID replace the music distribution mechanism with the new 'SDMI' only version, it wouldn't be too long before someone produced a nice little software package that would convert the SDMI music files into MP3, wav, or whatever other format you wanted. Encryption just doesn't hold up for very long these days, as the DVD consortium recently found out.
The only way that the RIAA would have a hope of replacing MP3 with SDMI is by providing such added value in the new file format that people voluntarily choose to use it. That clearly hasn't happened.
So, what's the upshot of all this? That SDMI is a doomed technology. The RIAA just hasn't realised that it's fighting a battle that it can't win yet.
--
I know. It was meant as a joke, hence the ';-)'.
:-) (at least to me, but then again I'm weird that way)
The idea of somebodies head exploding is far funnier than a practical solution
--
Have to agree with you there. It's been a long time since a SlashDot article has made me think so carefully about practical, ethical and philosophical arguments. Well done one and all!
--
I do hope that the transmission mechanism doesn't rely on radio waves. If every one of those nano-bots had to rely on a low-power radio transmitter to send their data to the receiving machine then then energy release come scanning time would vaporise your head, the scanning machine, and quite possible a large part of the surrounding scenery!
;-)
--
There may be no practical loss for everyone else in the world, but I'm not sure that the computer clone would feel the same way. Wouldn't copies inherit all of the traits of the original, including the drive for self-preservation?
--
Of course not.
Anyone with that level of knowledge and expertise would be running vi.
;-)
--
I'm going to have to live 'til at least 80 years old to achieve immortality? Why did nobody tell me this before I got hooked on caffeine and junk food?????
--
Well, I guess that this means that the martians have finally found usable parts of the X-Band transmitter/receiver and a sizeable chunk of solar panel. Let's hope they don't pick up too many broadcasts from us - after all, if I ended up listening to Britney Spears for more than about five seconds I'D end up launching the Martian War Machines!
--
I think that they're playing the 'who can get the lowest karma score' game. Let children near computers and look what happens....
*Sigh*
--
Most DVD's nowadays have Anamorphic picture transfers on them which are designed to fit onto the 16:9 ration widescreen televisions. Having seen DVD movies on this format, I can say that it looks pretty darned nice. Not as nice as HDTV, but pretty darned nice all the same...
--
Wow. A voice of sanity! What are you doing on SlashDot?
:-)
P.S. Moderators - this is a joke. Not a flame, not a troll, but a joke. I'll say it again, only slowly this time.... j....o....k....e....
--
It's not so much the watching that is illegal as the re-broadcasting. The basic tenet is that "hey, we're happy for you to view our signal but we still own the content, OK. No handing it out to people without asking us first!"
I guess this is at least in part to maintain control over the advertising revenues from their programming. If anyone could re-broadcast programs as they see fit, then what would stop the re-broadcasters from removing the adverts, or replacing them with ones of their own.
It all comes down to money and control, as usual.
--