It actually says right in the linked article that "When it comes to a rest, the ball stabilizes itself, then begins transmitting footage and sound," which makes it pretty clear it has some kind of self-orientating mechanism.
content providers will require you to have MS hardware and your only option will be to accept that or give up.
But you're forgetting one thing. We don't need content providers. They need us. They can't afford to have us "give up." Content providers have to weigh their greed and desire for control with the reality that consumers will ultimately only spend a fraction of their income on "content." If they overplay their hand and attempt to overburden us with crap, they are risking the backlash of apathy. Divx? DAT?? ATRAC??? DVD Audio????
Proprietary file format? (can't edit out commercials in Virtualdub)
Probably so, but I think AOL realizes that it will be impossible to completely prevent some determined pirate from editing out the commercials. Rather, they are relying on a principle that Apple uncovered -- that if you make things simple and reliable, most people would rather get a quick legitimate copy from a reliable source than an iffy bootleg which may be bad quality and may not even be what it purports to be. The average person will reason, why risk stiff criminal penalties for an illegal download when you can get it for free, or rather, just for watching a few commercials? (Surely we don't think it's coincidental that the carrot and the stick are being shown to us at the same time, do we?)
I agree with everything you said, but one of the best aspects of this from a slashdotter's POV is that it whittles away at the filesharing == evil stigma. I think this is a big plus for business, for users, and for the future of the internet. Hopefully it will accelerate broadband penetration as well.
* Companies can't "forbid" fraternization. What they can do is decide they will no longer employ you should you fraternize. You retain your Constitutional rights to sleep with the blonde in the next cubicle. But there is no Constitutional right to work for Company X.
* At-will Clauses are, generally speaking, legal. It is entirely possible for your employer to announce to out of the blue that your services will no longer be required. However, if you are a member of a protected class (disabled, minority, over 40, etc.) or you were fired for performing an act permissible as a matter of public policy (attending a political rally, filing a worker's comp claim), you may have grounds to challenge the termination. But every state has different laws in this respect. I suppose it's possible, even, that some courts have deemed anti-fraternization rules as against public policy.
This topic is just a stealth advertisement for the poster's crappy own "musichax" website. I'm not particularly opposed to someone trying to drum up some enthusiasm for their own project, whether it be a program or an interesting site, but for cripes' sake, show some honesty and integrity while doing so. Instead of just saying, "This opens up an interesting discussion" and trying to secretly lure us with one of your links, be up front about it and say, "I'm starting a new website with remixed midi tunes. What do you think of the legality or ethics of this?" Or put a disclaimer in, such as [NOTE: I am the webmaster of the site in question].
But as things stand, you're an ass for trying to slip one in on us, and Zonk should be beaten with a wet ethernet cable for not doing the slightest bit of investigation regarding the links you submitted.
I have some thoughts about your site but I won't elaborate since I don't think you should be rewarded for your sneaky behavior.
What it didn't have much of was mercs working together in an effective way
It's not that effective AI is hard to design. It's that it would render the game completely unbeatable and ultimately unplayable. Perhaps one company should build in a "full AI" mode into their game just so people could finally accept the fact that they are dumbing down the enemy for our benefit.
I still think alot of game systems get relegated to secondary TVs in other rooms
I agree that that is a rather typical situation, which is why Microsoft in particular is taking great pains to position the 360 as a digital media hub suitable for the family room. Whether they succeed or not is anybody's guess, but they are certainly targetting your demographic this time around.
1) Keep the alliance members in bed with one other, similar to the way that royal families throughout time have used marriage bonds to create extended relationships and maintain peace among kingdoms.
2) Dissuade Microsoft from exercising its "nuclear option" in a desperate measure to fend off the rise of Linux.
Wrong. This is about preventing BUSINESSES from allowing unapproved access to customer records. The law does not apply to non-commercial access points.
And I'm not condoning the proposed law, but consider this: The Port Authority of NY & NJ (owners of the WTC site) was recently found partially liable for the 1993 bombing, because they allowed unsecured access to the basement garage despite knowing the dangers. Even though they didn't cause or provoke the attack, they were still deemed predominantly liable for not exercising reasonable care in preventing it. Do you see the analogy? Simiarly, a law like this might help prevent otherwise careless businesses from getting sued for disclosing credit card info.
I know you were joking around but that raises a good selling point for this venture. Previously, authors and publishers got no revenue from the sale of used books. But an "Amazon Upgrade" would presumably entitle them to some revenue from the sale whether or not the book was new or used. Seems a good reason for them to support it.
My take on this: let them commit technical suicide if that is what they want.
The problem is that this is American economic suicide. If the industries make it completely impossible to bootleg their product then what will happen is people in less wealthy parts of the world will start to pass around Bollywood or Korean films, Japanese or Russian pop. And the days of American cultural hegemony will come to an end.
How do you prove a given fossil is not half-way mutated?
More to the point, anyone who thinks that evolution predicts "half-way mutated species" doesn't understand the claims of the theory. There are no mutated species, just mutated genes. Once a gene persists in a population, it's no longer a mutation, but a variant. And, species do vary, yes? This is clear. The mechanism by which they have come to vary is evolution, according to science. Or, if it is "Intelligent Design," fine, but that is not science, it is magic by definition.
What's to stop some would-be terrorist from simply encrypting his communications? He and his cohorts could probably use a one time pad so that even if older transmissions were tapped and the alleged terrorist captured, he'd be unable to disclose the old passwords to decode his old conversations.
Further, I imagine that it's possible to multiplex your voice signal with some other innocuous sound-transmission so that it would be impossible to tell if you were on actually on the line or not. Would-be wiretappers would hear nothing but slightly distorted Liza Minelli showtunes. Or am I wrong?
Your comment ignores the "streaming" aspect of streaming media. In fact, the top speed of FIOS (30 Mbps) and the transfer rate of HD-DVD (36.55 Mbps) are not that far off, so it's quite conceivable in the near future that one could stream HD films at real time. Especially since its already being done with set-top boxes and on-demand services. I think Gates has correctly deduced that in the not-too-distant future, if huge catalogs of movies are available "on demand," it will greatly diminish the need for the average person to acquire and store discs in their homes. And he is also betting that, when that time comes, IF someone for some reason wants/needs a full copy of a movie, they'll still want the capability to upload it onto their central server so it is accessible to all their appliances. I think he'll be eventually right about that too. Of course, eventually is a long time in the information business, so things might not necessarily work out in Microsoft's favor. But that may not concern him -- I think at this point in his life, having achieved unimaginable wealth, Gates is more concerned with being seen historically as a great visionary than he is about whether he can tack on more billions to his portfolio.
"Why did Yahoo! remove the ability for users under 18 to access Yahoo! Chat and remove the "Teen" category in Yahoo! Chat? We are removing the Teen category and making Yahoo! Chat available to users 18 or older in order to improve the user experience and compliance with our Terms of Service."
My reading of this is that Yahoo! accounts set up by minors will not (at this time) be able to access Yahoo! Chat at all. Keep in mind that Yahoo! has a great many more properties than their Chat so minors will still have access to other areas. However, a minor can still use their parent's account (which seems to be allowed according to the rules) or conceivably lie about their age (which would certainly constitute a breach of contract). Either might absolve Yahoo! of liability, which is certainly all they're concerned about.
... when I got to the part about Creative not using Dolby Digital Live because it's not DRM'ed enough. These guys were taking DRM seriously even before Microsoft made it a priority. Doesn't that make them Officially Evil?
Frankly, I don't see that this is so horrible, compared with most of the crap that RIAA pulls. Firstly, one think to note is that Google Video Beta, as it now operates, does not show ads, so that means the RIAA would be asking for nothing. But assuming they do show ads, and they do get a cut, so what? Google Video isn't just text like normal Google, it actually shows a frame of the video. If you were the director, wouldn't you want to be paid for someone showing a clip of your work? And isn't it preferable that the money comes out of advertising revenue as opposed to out of the pocket of the consumer? Isn't the RIAA actually doing the right thing for a change, adapting to the new paradigm instead of clinging onto the old ways of business (which in their case would be a blanket "linking to our videos is a violation of our 'IP' and we'll sue you.")
Perhaps one day, pre-recorded music will be totally "free" and totally supported by ad revenue. Maybe I'm missing something, but that strikes me as not such a bad thing.
True, but to the average urban tiny-apartment-dwelling Japanese person, a game-hunting or large protective dog is impractical or impossible. So for that group of people, to whom a dog (if allowed) would likely be small and only good for companionship and/or to annoy the neighbors, an AIBO might be a reasonable substitute.
Slashdot Mirror
It actually says right in the linked article that "When it comes to a rest, the ball stabilizes itself, then begins transmitting footage and sound," which makes it pretty clear it has some kind of self-orientating mechanism.
content providers will require you to have MS hardware and your only option will be to accept that or give up.
But you're forgetting one thing. We don't need content providers. They need us. They can't afford to have us "give up." Content providers have to weigh their greed and desire for control with the reality that consumers will ultimately only spend a fraction of their income on "content." If they overplay their hand and attempt to overburden us with crap, they are risking the backlash of apathy. Divx? DAT?? ATRAC??? DVD Audio????
Proprietary file format? (can't edit out commercials in Virtualdub)
Probably so, but I think AOL realizes that it will be impossible to completely prevent some determined pirate from editing out the commercials. Rather, they are relying on a principle that Apple uncovered -- that if you make things simple and reliable, most people would rather get a quick legitimate copy from a reliable source than an iffy bootleg which may be bad quality and may not even be what it purports to be. The average person will reason, why risk stiff criminal penalties for an illegal download when you can get it for free, or rather, just for watching a few commercials? (Surely we don't think it's coincidental that the carrot and the stick are being shown to us at the same time, do we?)
I agree with everything you said, but one of the best aspects of this from a slashdotter's POV is that it whittles away at the filesharing == evil stigma. I think this is a big plus for business, for users, and for the future of the internet. Hopefully it will accelerate broadband penetration as well.
Guess what, Activa? Now hundreds of thousands of people who knew nothing about this woman's website are reading what she has to say. Good move!
Regarding your points
* Companies can't "forbid" fraternization. What they can do is decide they will no longer employ you should you fraternize. You retain your Constitutional rights to sleep with the blonde in the next cubicle. But there is no Constitutional right to work for Company X.
* At-will Clauses are, generally speaking, legal. It is entirely possible for your employer to announce to out of the blue that your services will no longer be required. However, if you are a member of a protected class (disabled, minority, over 40, etc.) or you were fired for performing an act permissible as a matter of public policy (attending a political rally, filing a worker's comp claim), you may have grounds to challenge the termination. But every state has different laws in this respect. I suppose it's possible, even, that some courts have deemed anti-fraternization rules as against public policy.
This topic is just a stealth advertisement for the poster's crappy own "musichax" website. I'm not particularly opposed to someone trying to drum up some enthusiasm for their own project, whether it be a program or an interesting site, but for cripes' sake, show some honesty and integrity while doing so. Instead of just saying, "This opens up an interesting discussion" and trying to secretly lure us with one of your links, be up front about it and say, "I'm starting a new website with remixed midi tunes. What do you think of the legality or ethics of this?" Or put a disclaimer in, such as [NOTE: I am the webmaster of the site in question].
But as things stand, you're an ass for trying to slip one in on us, and Zonk should be beaten with a wet ethernet cable for not doing the slightest bit of investigation regarding the links you submitted.
I have some thoughts about your site but I won't elaborate since I don't think you should be rewarded for your sneaky behavior.
What it didn't have much of was mercs working together in an effective way
It's not that effective AI is hard to design. It's that it would render the game completely unbeatable and ultimately unplayable. Perhaps one company should build in a "full AI" mode into their game just so people could finally accept the fact that they are dumbing down the enemy for our benefit.
I still think alot of game systems get relegated to secondary TVs in other rooms
I agree that that is a rather typical situation, which is why Microsoft in particular is taking great pains to position the 360 as a digital media hub suitable for the family room. Whether they succeed or not is anybody's guess, but they are certainly targetting your demographic this time around.
^ True, but this may accomplish two things:
1) Keep the alliance members in bed with one other, similar to the way that royal families throughout time have used marriage bonds to create extended relationships and maintain peace among kingdoms.
2) Dissuade Microsoft from exercising its "nuclear option" in a desperate measure to fend off the rise of Linux.
Wrong. This is about preventing BUSINESSES from allowing unapproved access to customer records. The law does not apply to non-commercial access points.
And I'm not condoning the proposed law, but consider this: The Port Authority of NY & NJ (owners of the WTC site) was recently found partially liable for the 1993 bombing, because they allowed unsecured access to the basement garage despite knowing the dangers. Even though they didn't cause or provoke the attack, they were still deemed predominantly liable for not exercising reasonable care in preventing it. Do you see the analogy? Simiarly, a law like this might help prevent otherwise careless businesses from getting sued for disclosing credit card info.
I know you were joking around but that raises a good selling point for this venture. Previously, authors and publishers got no revenue from the sale of used books. But an "Amazon Upgrade" would presumably entitle them to some revenue from the sale whether or not the book was new or used. Seems a good reason for them to support it.
My take on this: let them commit technical suicide if that is what they want.
The problem is that this is American economic suicide. If the industries make it completely impossible to bootleg their product then what will happen is people in less wealthy parts of the world will start to pass around Bollywood or Korean films, Japanese or Russian pop. And the days of American cultural hegemony will come to an end.
How do you prove a given fossil is not half-way mutated?
More to the point, anyone who thinks that evolution predicts "half-way mutated species" doesn't understand the claims of the theory. There are no mutated species, just mutated genes. Once a gene persists in a population, it's no longer a mutation, but a variant. And, species do vary, yes? This is clear. The mechanism by which they have come to vary is evolution, according to science. Or, if it is "Intelligent Design," fine, but that is not science, it is magic by definition.
TFA:
The computer was quarantined to prevent it from actually sending the messages
But...whatever...
it's is *always* it is (no exceptions).
Negatory on that too, old chum.
A. What's wrong with your cat?
B. What do you mean?
A. It's got a bump on its tongue.
There's your exception.
Thank you. That was very informative (and I'd urge people to mod it up).
What's to stop some would-be terrorist from simply encrypting his communications? He and his cohorts could probably use a one time pad so that even if older transmissions were tapped and the alleged terrorist captured, he'd be unable to disclose the old passwords to decode his old conversations.
Further, I imagine that it's possible to multiplex your voice signal with some other innocuous sound-transmission so that it would be impossible to tell if you were on actually on the line or not. Would-be wiretappers would hear nothing but slightly distorted Liza Minelli showtunes. Or am I wrong?
I think you mean:
:P
RMB¥ RMB¥ RMB¥
Your comment ignores the "streaming" aspect of streaming media. In fact, the top speed of FIOS (30 Mbps) and the transfer rate of HD-DVD (36.55 Mbps) are not that far off, so it's quite conceivable in the near future that one could stream HD films at real time. Especially since its already being done with set-top boxes and on-demand services. I think Gates has correctly deduced that in the not-too-distant future, if huge catalogs of movies are available "on demand," it will greatly diminish the need for the average person to acquire and store discs in their homes. And he is also betting that, when that time comes, IF someone for some reason wants/needs a full copy of a movie, they'll still want the capability to upload it onto their central server so it is accessible to all their appliances. I think he'll be eventually right about that too. Of course, eventually is a long time in the information business, so things might not necessarily work out in Microsoft's favor. But that may not concern him -- I think at this point in his life, having achieved unimaginable wealth, Gates is more concerned with being seen historically as a great visionary than he is about whether he can tack on more billions to his portfolio.
See here: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/chat/chat-15.html
"Why did Yahoo! remove the ability for users under 18 to access Yahoo! Chat and remove the "Teen" category in Yahoo! Chat? We are removing the Teen category and making Yahoo! Chat available to users 18 or older in order to improve the user experience and compliance with our Terms of Service."
My reading of this is that Yahoo! accounts set up by minors will not (at this time) be able to access Yahoo! Chat at all. Keep in mind that Yahoo! has a great many more properties than their Chat so minors will still have access to other areas. However, a minor can still use their parent's account (which seems to be allowed according to the rules) or conceivably lie about their age (which would certainly constitute a breach of contract). Either might absolve Yahoo! of liability, which is certainly all they're concerned about.
... when I got to the part about Creative not using Dolby Digital Live because it's not DRM'ed enough. These guys were taking DRM seriously even before Microsoft made it a priority. Doesn't that make them Officially Evil?
Try a reverse lookup on the IP
Are you nuts? If everybody did that, we might 66.35.250.150-dot slashdot!!!
Frankly, I don't see that this is so horrible, compared with most of the crap that RIAA pulls. Firstly, one think to note is that Google Video Beta, as it now operates, does not show ads, so that means the RIAA would be asking for nothing. But assuming they do show ads, and they do get a cut, so what? Google Video isn't just text like normal Google, it actually shows a frame of the video. If you were the director, wouldn't you want to be paid for someone showing a clip of your work? And isn't it preferable that the money comes out of advertising revenue as opposed to out of the pocket of the consumer? Isn't the RIAA actually doing the right thing for a change, adapting to the new paradigm instead of clinging onto the old ways of business (which in their case would be a blanket "linking to our videos is a violation of our 'IP' and we'll sue you.")
Perhaps one day, pre-recorded music will be totally "free" and totally supported by ad revenue. Maybe I'm missing something, but that strikes me as not such a bad thing.
True, but to the average urban tiny-apartment-dwelling Japanese person, a game-hunting or large protective dog is impractical or impossible. So for that group of people, to whom a dog (if allowed) would likely be small and only good for companionship and/or to annoy the neighbors, an AIBO might be a reasonable substitute.