I'm not very familiar with US law, but I heard there was a law that the Scientologists (almost?) ran afoul of intended to be used against people who regularly use lawsuits for bullying.
Since his method of attack is essentially "Pay me $5000 now, else guilty or not, I'll drag you through years of court battles which will cost you $100k", can something be made of how this seems to be simple extortion, or is this form of extortion simply the way the US legal system is normally used?
Isn't the issue of protecting personal data the same issue as protecting copyrighted data?
I don't think so. The only similarity between the two seems to be that they are both "data". There is a HUGE difference between (for example) a work of fiction designed and intended for publication, and (for example) medical records, SSN, whatever, which has the express purpose of granting real world authorisations, powers of action, etc. to a select few.
If you mean it's the same issue in terms of the technology involved, then yes - data is just data, as the RIAA is finding out. If you mean the same issue in terms of ethics involved and possible solutions, then I completely disagree.
I'm against a company disseminating my personal information when I explicitly prohibit them from doing so. However, all this talk of Big Brother and Joseph K. is a little too heavy on the melodrama and scare tactics.
I disagree - the only difference between the Kafka nightmare and, for example, some (innocent) people's credit rating agency nightmare is that the final execution that takes place is to your hopes of ever owning a home or car, or whatever. The actual story is the same - and it's real. So I don't think it's melodramatic - the stakes might not be execution, but they are still high.
The Kafka story seems a fairly accurate depiction of what actually happens to day. It's hardly something "not even on the horizon" - it's already here. The crucial point is that it only affect a small minority of people. (Not everyone in "The Trial" society will be executed), it's about the powerlessness when things do go wrong, and that exists here and now, and is not FUD.
Although I generally agree with you, I have to say that I laughed out loud at 'The programs are utterly immense, yet need an interface free of ad-hoc additions' when talking about Max. That's Max the poly-modeller, Max the broken-bezier-patch-modeller and Max the NURBS modeller.
For the record, I didn't mean to suggest that Max is entirely successful along those lines, allthough I was thinking of Max from a different point of view - 3DS R4 was getting to the point where the only way to introduce the new features made possible by the new technology was going to be seriously ad-hoc. 3DS Max re-did the interface from the ground up to incorporate those things consistantly. Regardless of how successful it was, it was far more successful than trying to patch the features into 3DS R4 would have been. That was years ago, and while I haven't used a recent version of Max, it wouldn't surprise me if 3DS Max is now where 3ds R4 was (ie the interface is starting to break down under the weight of features that could not have been anticipated, and so could greatly benefit from an interface overhaul). I don't know if that's the case or not, but it sounds like at least you would describe it along those lines:-)
I've been out of the high-end 3d loop for a while:-)
For me anyway, this is a pretty big problem - these packages can take years to truly master (partly due to their complexity) so you don't want to throw half of that investment away by throwing out the UI every year, but the UI breaks down pretty quickly due to the speed of innovation, so it's a choice between two evils. If only another way could be found. Direct neural connection or something:-)
Ok, I admit from the start that it's unfair to compare this to the likes of 3ds (though it's hard for me not too, as I haven't done much work with lower-end stuff), but at first glance, this doesn't look like it will be useful for much for a long time (other than really basic stuff, like simple web animations etc). And I suspect it might even look worse at second glance.
Gimp, while not photoshop, is still at a level where it offers a viable alternative (for a fair amount of uses) to one of the leading packages. Even mid-range 3d apps dwarf photoshop in complexity (and usually price), so it's no surprise that this (great) start in that direction has a long way to go, but I don't think this thing can be called the Gimp of 3d - it just doesn't offer a serious alternative, and doesn't look like it will for a very long time (if ever).
But for a very long time now, I've been of the view that open source simply cannot produce a 3ds MAX or SoftImage, or whatever (or at least not with the current methods of production). The programs are utterly immense, yet need an interface free of ad-hoc additions and localised revisions to be a fast production tool, not to mention there being so few people in the world (virtually none:-) with the expertise to make a non-raytracing renderer that produces raytracer-quality (or better) results at a fraction of the render time.
Compounding that is that the 3d apps evolve much faster than the like of photoshop (which already seems to evolve faster than Gimp, (but I haven't compared the latest versions, I might be wrong)), so the successful open-source model of gradual accumulated improvements - great for a word processor - just won't work.
Such a project would have to be so full on that it would have to be full time for a lot of people for a very long time. I can envisage some business models which could allow this, but I'm not going to hold my breath. (Besides, holding no hope can allow for nice surprises:-)
Hmmm. I realise this entire post sounds like a petulant bashing of what is a praiseworthy and excellent piece of work, but I have this sinking feeling that the next thing we know, people will be touting this as almost up there with production-level apps - as viable an alternative as Gimp to photoshop, and I just don't want to see that happen. I can so imagine some rabid zealot defending open-source along these lines and thus teaching people who are unfamiliar with open source that o/source is a "viable alternative" in the same sense that amputation is a viable alternative to antibiotics.
I'm curious how libertarians feel about it, as many propose abolishing community/govt healthcare in favour of private insurance, however the logical conclusion of deregulation of private health insurance would be genetically uninsurable people - people who are unable to purchase insurance at all, and thus are denied healthcare for no fault of their own, for no disease they have or are guarenteed to get.
I know some libertarians support culling the genetically weak, but I prefer to think that they don't speak for libertarianism so much as their own bigotry. (Such a person might claim that anyone who is uninsurable can pay for their own healthcare, and if don't earn enough money to do so, their contribution to society is obviously insufficient to justify their continued existance.)
But I have difficulty thinking of a highly deregulated free-market solution that does not entail this (though many such solutions appear to be more agreeable on the surface or In Theory).
The quandry - insurers sell the spreading of risk. Profit-motivated companies can enhance profits by diminishing the risk, while still maintaining the appearance of spreading it. Because they can then offer lower premiums at the expense of the people they reject, market success (consumer popularity) as well as profit margins are improved.
Or to put it in free market terms, those with insurance are being heavily subsidised by the costs to those denied it, by isolating rather than spreading the risk. No "everyone welcome" insurer could compete, dispite (and because of) the underclass market who can't buy insurance anywhere else.
Do libertarians feel that insurance should be regulated for the common good, or is there a belief that the free market can somehow make it work, or is there some other opinion? (hopefully not those almost eugenic views)
My suspicion is that I'll probably think the libertarian view on this matter is insane, but I'm hoping for a nice surprise:-)
The reason men pay more for insurance is because men tend to be unsafe drivers.
False. The reason is that men are far more likely to be in an accident. If you look at the statistics involved, (those for my country anyway)
1) Men are twice as likely to be in an accident as women.
2) Men drive, per year, 4-5 times the kilometres than women. (Somewhat fewer women in the workforce)
Conclusion: Men tend to be twice as safe at driving as women tend to be, per kilometre driven. Men are still, however, at a much higher risk of accident because they tend to have to spend far more time on the road, commuting, etc.
Which means that if you're a women who drives to work, you're fooling yourself if you think statistics suggest you're safer.
Note that depending on the conditions where you live, even if only slightly more men than women are in the workforce, it can translate into a noticable gender-difference of average kilometres travelled.
(I assume that other insurers questions also narrow down who is likely to spend little or lots of time on the road.)
Note also that my stats are at least 2 years out of date, possibly more.
I'm not sure that driving miles rather than kilometres helps, either:-)
They can't be the smallest untethered autonomous robots ever created because I've created at least one that is smaller, and one that might be smaller (about the same size).
Sure, my smallest robot might be pretty boring and simple compared to these things (and operating with vastly reduced efficiency because I still haven't got around to putting the coaster wheel on...), but it's probably almost half the size - and since it's solar powered, it is genuinely autonomous (I don't think a battery powered robot can be said to be fully autonomous unless it is capable of recharging or replacing its own batteries).
So Nyah to Sandia - your robots might be much better, but mine are still smaller:-)
Yes, there is hope along these lines (and it's a lovely example:-), but off the top of my head, I can't think of any electronics manufacturers (even the smaller fish) that don't make money from production gear. Not that I'm an expert in the field. Hopefully someone who knows of more companies would be able to name some.
The problem is that it's the smaller companies that would benefit from "selling the rope", but by the same token, those companies aren't big enough to stand up to the threat of lawsuits.
Will all the hardware and media being locked up to deny people the ability to exercise rights such time shifting, fair use, etc, in favour of having to pay for these conveniences, what the world needs is an organisation, perhaps a bit like the EFF, dedicated to legally reverse-engineering media cripples (such as CSS) and publishing easy-to-follow instructions online, such that Joe Average on the street can time-shift HDTV if he desires, or Joe Geek on his computer can play DVDs on linux with an open-source and uncrippled player, or Joe Apple can download a movie trailer that was officially posted online and write it to DVD with his new apple computer.
I'd donate, and so perhaps donations could provide a cash and fame incentive for hackers to reverse engineer these attempts at bypassing our rights.
Projects like the cripple-free DivX box projects could also be aided by the foundation.
What happens when technology advances to a point where high-end music making equipment is dirt-cheap?
Ain't gonna happen without a fight. Four years ago, I thought the same thing about video/film/animation when I saw what technologies were under development. Today, those technologies are (barely) starting to reach the market, but the cripples that have been put in place (ostensibly to prevent piracy) have been placed such that you still pretty much have to buy production rather than consumer gear. For example, while computer equipment is normally the exception, even that wonderful DVD writer in the new Apple computers that allows you to make your own DVD movies is so heavily crippled that you can't even use it master your own work.
Think about:
1) there is a huge financial incentive to preserve the huge price difference between consumer gear and production gear.
2) there is a huge financial incentive to avoid a world where a consumer can either pay $5 to see the latest hollywood drek, or tune his cable to the latest commercial-quality yet free content (imagine productions like "Troops" at DVD quality, instantly availible on your big screen TV).
If amature content ever became dirt cheap to produce and dirt cheap to distribute, content sellers would not be unaffected. I sure as hell already prefer intelligent material made by people like me over most of the crap hollywood spews. Currently however I don't have a choice. Hollywood would like to keep it that way.
3) the difference in the actual technology between consumer and production gear is now sometimes non-existant - the only change is that the production gear has a plug wired directly to the digital output of the circuitry, wheras the consumer version interposes a DAC between the plug and the digital output purely to deny the consumer digital reproduction. (Sure, you might try to make a case around the SCMS for something like a sony minidisc doing this, but it is also happening in devices that would comply with the SCMS regardless).
I'm not suggesting the industry is going to make blood pacts and send in the troops to keep content production and distribution out of consumer hands, but I think it is already the case that industry players are taking advantage of the "happy coincidence" that anti-piracy measures can be so easily tweaked to also discourage commercial quality production and distribution. Discourage is the word here - the price of production will fall, but not as far as technological progress would suggest, and it will be a major difficulty to set up a rig from consumer gear such that the units can talk to each other with few enough copy control cripples to allow commercial quality content production. Production gear will remain the way to go, despite consumer gear being same tech inside a different case (just fewer plugs).
Be it for reason (1) or reason (2), almost everyone has a good reason to make sure their content control goes above and beyond what is needed to deter piracy.
It's also a mistake to think that we'll always be able to get around copy-control. Sure, that might be true, but it's irrelevant - it's opting out of the fight and letting them win, because it doesn't matter if we (the tech elite) can enforce our rights (or whatever) if no-one else can - we will never achieve that world where there is a free, commercial-quality amature alternative to Hollywood if cheap content production is availible only to us, and not to all the people out there would actually make great films and music and the like.
The "All Purpose Magic Cure-All Elixir" salesman never lets his customers know how to make it themselves. Indeed, he goes to lengths to prevent people finding out. As the copy-control mechanisms increasingly exceed what is actually needed to enforce copyrights, I think it's looking less and less paranoid to suspect a wider agenda. An agenda that is defintiely not in our favour.
Sorry, I was thinking of making an MP3-only box when I wrote that message, and obviously a 486 ain't enough for video. I think the bisuit PCs come in much more powerful ranges, but I don't know what.
>sue to have it revoked for being in blatant violation of the First Amendment.
>However, the Supreme Court has a very good track record of maintaining the sanctity of the First Amendment.
In case you hadn't noticed, the rules have changed. As seen in Kaplin's decision (that might be overturned, but don't bet on it), the New Strategy is along the lines of "It doesn't matter what rights the constitution grants you, it doesn't grant you the right to have access to the equipement needed to use those rights in mainstream media formats".
The constitution will protect your right to yabber on HAM radio, and it will protect your right to free speech via DVD, but unlike HAM radio, you will simply not be able to purchase any DVD equipment sporting the features that allow free speech. And the law can't touch that.
This is why making un-crippled technology (like these set top boxes) is so important - it will likely be the only way to have a soap box in the dominant media format.
You might have noticed that the DVD writer that comes with the new apples can write a single DVD, but that DVD is block so that it can't be used to master your creation - in fact you can't actually master your work at all using the DVD writer.
This is a taste of the future.
We are approaching a time when the technology of cheap, affordable production and distribution could have resulted in amature content creation (like star wars fan films, eg Troops) becoming a significant part of our media diet.
In other words, we would have less need to buy content from the industry. The industry doesn't like that idea, and this is yet another reason why these devices are now designed to preclude us making or distributing content. Piracy, while a legimiate concern, is also being used as a whitewash to lever into position the necessary infrastructure to keep consumers and artists dependant on the existing distribution structure, and thus cash cows (the artists too - both sides get screwed, the non-productive parasites in the middle with the keys to the Wall make the money).
The whole thing is frightening in its genius. I think it's going to work. I think we're going to lose. I plan to build my own hardware, but that simply isn't a consumer option - it effectively means I'm just opting out of the fight. I'm not sure if there is a better way yet.
Look into biscut PCs. They're probably called other things as well. They're basically a complete PC (such as a 386 or 486) on a circuit board about 15cm quare. And if you're using a low end chip like that, you don't need a fan.
I'm not sure where to get them - I know about them because my brother worked on a motorised flight simulator, and they used a biscut PC for each of the flight status readout screens, networked to the main PC which handled the 3d virtual reality display. They're perfect - small, quiet, prefabricated, and run normal PC software.
Sorry I can't help you find them, but just knowing they exist should help. Hopefully someone else here can give a pointer.
Is there anything like Project DivX for miniature hard disk based MP3 players? I want to build a pocket-sized music player that is free of RIAA cripples, but my areas of experience only cover part of what's needed to achieve this.
Currently minidisc is the ultimate personal sound system for me, and whem MP3 players ditch flash RAM and move to 6gig HDDs (and become more power efficient, probably via more RAM), then they'll be kind of the hill, except I doubt commercial ones will be uncrippled, so I'd like to look into building my own dream machine.
Any pointers to projects along these lines? (Even non-miniature MP3 boxes would be great - they would help me in the areas I'm weak in, while I could work on the miniaturisation).
The "government takes your money at gunpoint" is a bit melodramatic, I admit, but fundamentally, it is true
I disagree - that's not what the government does. The government is more analagous to a armed landlord saying "you pay the rent or you move out. If you don't pay the rent and don't move out, I'll shoot you." which, I don't think can be said to be taking your money at gunpoint, because you have the choice to not pay and not get shot by choosing to leave.
The government does not force you to stay in a society and incur the rent (taxes) that said society requires of you for the priviledges you gain from being a part of the society. (Unless you've committed a crime or something. (Which can of course, include previous attempts to use the priviledges without paying for them)).
You benefit immensely from being a part of a society, and if that society decides that some of the costs of those benefits should be met by taxation, (and furthermore, as a part of that society you have the right to try to change that decision) I can't see how claims of duress can be made. It kind of sounds like people want to have their cake and eat it too. Which is quite natural I guess, but hardly a challenge to justice.
I manage about 5 egroups, and am a member of about 12 groups. But i had do nothing at all, *NOTHING*, and my old groups work as they were working till now...
I don't manage any groups, but I'm joined to several. Or was joined...
It took 15 minutes of fucking around non-sensical yahoo pages just to be able to reply to a message via the web.
Neither my egroups account or my yahoo account could be used anymore. I had to modify my yahoo account and use that. Next thing, it wants a second email address - it already has one, but it needs one for egroups. Except it doesn't - I read the groups online and don't recieve the messages by email, so a new egroups email address is not needed.
But yahoo morons don't know this, because in ditching my egroups account without my permission, they lost my settings such as which groups I belong to and whether or not I get email or read off the web.
So I have to track down all my groups and re-join on top of it all. The whole bloody mess just doesn't end. I could strangle someone.
The bastards did the same thing with geocities. Totally fu(ked one of my best accounts. And I never got my (really nice) account name back.
I agree with you. Unfortunately, we (Americans and most of the developed world) live in a society that views disposible products as convenient and useful and does not really care about the ecological costs involved. AOL CDs are a good example of this (convenient and useful from AOL's perspective of course).
You just inspired an idea that could save California - turn a national liability into a national asset - that's right - collect all those AOL CDs that pollute our environment, glue them to sheets of plywood (reflective side facing up), and make huge mirror-based solar farms - free!
Plus, you get more (and more useful) "free hours" out of each and every CD this way.
I calculate each reasonably sized solar farm would want a good two million AOL CDs, so if we build enough farms, we could quite possibly put a noticeable dent in the number of AOL CDs floating around.
Any decent person who values their privacy perhaps?
The NSA and their ilk will try to tell you that uncrippled encryption is likewise only useful to criminals, yet it clearly has a huge range of legimate uses - some of which would also apply to cellphones that can't be used to secretly identify or track a person, and I imagine there are a fair few legimate uses on top of those.
Otherwise it seems that it's just a ploy so companies can keep huge databases full of buying habits
That's not necessarily a bad thing - I once worked at a games company, and there was a bit of hand-wringing over how much polish should be sacrificed to make the game availible for lower-end machines. What it boiled down to was that it was very difficult to know what kind of computer hardware breakdown was out there, so such conversation turned into "what giveaways could we give for registering, so we can find out how low people want us to go".
So when people complain "It's ridiculous! My machine is perfectly good, not very old, and I can't play any games on it!", I often say "Send in your registration cards - since no-one else does, you'll be voting with the power of 20 men:-)"
Of course, a huge amoubt of the info they want is marketing guff for junkmail, etc, but with some companies, it can be a way to have some input and give some feedback.
So the compromise solution would be to ONLY fill in those parts of the form relevant to what you want them to know. If half the boxes are not check, I can't see them denying your registration (there would be no point - it's not like a webform that won't accept submit until you've finished - once the card is mailed, it's mailed).
Any suggestions for a hypthetical, particulaly nasty card that you want to fill in, but don't want to give your address to for mandatory junk mail, but do want to give it for some freebie offer for registering?
Actually, if I had my choice, some of the books I have would be on vellum with hard leather or wooden covers (such as my hardback copies of Tolkien). However, since I am not rich and can't get the custom printing and binding done, this will probably be forever a dream...
You don't need to be rich these days - download the text, format it and print it yourself, the way you want, on gorgeous paper, and hand bind it. Make the book such a beautiful and tactile item that you want to touch it, and handle it, and read it.
It's a very satisfying thing to do.
A start might be to choose a smaller book (say a short story), only a few pages perhaps, and produce that, perhaps with illutrations or illuminations (not necessarily your own art) as an exquisite gift for someone. It's a smaller project, so the monetary costs (paper, ink) are less, while the time required is about the same, due to the more complex layout (eg a lot more on each page more than a single block of text).
In the age of DTP and the web, everyone is a "designer", and the result is truckloads of badly designed garbage. But the point is that the tools are accessible, so if you do actually know what it is that you want, you can get there.
Another advantage of doing things like binding it yourself is that you can do far more sophisticated things by hand than what mass production allows.
(When I was studying typography, I hated actually doing it, but loved the results. Now that I rarely do it, it can be fun again, and I still love the results:-)
Primarily, I'd suspect, through a) whistleblowing, and b) alleged victims who suspect this, and raise havoc
Put simply, whistleblowing is illegal when it regards intelligence activities. Apprently it "compromises National Security". Ok ok, in many countries whistleblowing is technically not illegal, but in reality, a potential whistleblower is walking a legal minefield in which whistleblower defence is NOT guuarenteed, and there are a whole lot ways that it might be denied, and then you are food for the wolves.
The other thing is that (IMHO) people working and living in the intelligence culture are unlikely to see much wrong with things we would find intolerable, and so unlikely to risk their livelyhoods whistleblowing.
I've followed a few cases where innocent victims managed to raise hell. The end result is either the fuss dies down and is forgotton, or a toothless inquiry is made to reassure everyone that it won't happen again, or in one New Zealand case, the laws were changed in such a way that satisfied the public and the intelligence agency - the change INCREASED agency power, but appeared, to the layman, to do the opposite. The Privacy Comissioner was Not Impressed, but the government of the day never paid much attention to him anyway.
Did you really think that if you thought of that, that its watchdogs would not?
So what if the watchdogs do know it's going on? They are toothless and can do nothing about it, let alone try to prove it.
Since when has the law been an effective barrier to intelligence when the agency in question simply cites "national security" whenever someone seeks evidence, and so halts the inquiry right there?
In those very rare instances when sufficient authority and teeth are made availible to an inquiry, the cases I've read about or seen seem to have only two possible outcomes:
1) Blatent, routine, and arrogant disregard for the law, civil rights, etc is uncovered. Or,
2) Tough questions are simply not asked, answers are not verified, evidence is not required, just a political PR exercise.
I find the overall picture worrying.
It's not a big conspiracy, it's just that these people believe they are acting for a higher purpose. Just like the cop who plants dope because he knows the guy is dealing to kids, yet will walk and keep dealing unless they have something on him. It works great, until the authority's judgement is so insular and the corrupt practices so routine that innocent people regularly become victims. And I know enough innocent victims to think that we're already there.
I've been told Dubya believes that the accidental execution of innocents is a price worth paying to be able to execute criminals. The causes are everywhere. When justice can be sacrificed for some vague "greater good", things get dangerous. I'm glad I'm not a black man (let alone a black man with an intimitating physique...)
The NSA might claim they don't use foreign intelligence when it involves US citizens, and it might be their "official" policy too, but at the actual operater level, where the rubber meets the road, I would be very surprised if it wasn't almost routine.
Uh, the governement doesn't decide who should live and who should die. Defendants on trial in capital cases have the right to a trial by jury, a trial by peers. They are not the government.
Not so, the jury does not decide who lives and who dies - the jury merely delivers the verdict. It is the Judge - an arm of the government - who decides on the sentence, ie who lives and who dies.
Perhaps some courts do things differently, but I'm guessing phrases like "they call him the Hangin' Judge" suggest it is government power:-)
Besides, if genuinely were a "jury of my peers", they would be my peers, not a non-random selection of people in whoose bigoted eyes I probably look like a young thug...
(I live in a place where the word "youth" is used as a synonym and/or euphimism for "thug" in the newspaper, and likewise in the minds of Decent Folk).
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not very familiar with US law, but I heard there was a law that the Scientologists (almost?) ran afoul of intended to be used against people who regularly use lawsuits for bullying.
Since his method of attack is essentially "Pay me $5000 now, else guilty or not, I'll drag you through years of court battles which will cost you $100k", can something be made of how this seems to be simple extortion, or is this form of extortion simply the way the US legal system is normally used?
Isn't the issue of protecting personal data the same issue as protecting copyrighted data?
:-)
I don't think so. The only similarity between the two seems to be that they are both "data". There is a HUGE difference between (for example) a work of fiction designed and intended for publication, and (for example) medical records, SSN, whatever, which has the express purpose of granting real world authorisations, powers of action, etc. to a select few.
If you mean it's the same issue in terms of the technology involved, then yes - data is just data, as the RIAA is finding out. If you mean the same issue in terms of ethics involved and possible solutions, then I completely disagree.
But I can't be bothered arguing
I'm against a company disseminating my personal information when I explicitly prohibit them from doing so. However, all this talk of Big Brother and Joseph K. is a little too heavy on the melodrama and scare tactics.
I disagree - the only difference between the Kafka nightmare and, for example, some (innocent) people's credit rating agency nightmare is that the final execution that takes place is to your hopes of ever owning a home or car, or whatever. The actual story is the same - and it's real. So I don't think it's melodramatic - the stakes might not be execution, but they are still high.
The Kafka story seems a fairly accurate depiction of what actually happens to day. It's hardly something "not even on the horizon" - it's already here. The crucial point is that it only affect a small minority of people. (Not everyone in "The Trial" society will be executed), it's about the powerlessness when things do go wrong, and that exists here and now, and is not FUD.
Although I generally agree with you, I have to say that I laughed out loud at 'The programs are utterly immense, yet need an interface free of ad-hoc additions' when talking about Max. That's Max the poly-modeller, Max the broken-bezier-patch-modeller and Max the NURBS modeller.
:-)
:-)
:-)
For the record, I didn't mean to suggest that Max is entirely successful along those lines, allthough I was thinking of Max from a different point of view - 3DS R4 was getting to the point where the only way to introduce the new features made possible by the new technology was going to be seriously ad-hoc. 3DS Max re-did the interface from the ground up to incorporate those things consistantly. Regardless of how successful it was, it was far more successful than trying to patch the features into 3DS R4 would have been. That was years ago, and while I haven't used a recent version of Max, it wouldn't surprise me if 3DS Max is now where 3ds R4 was (ie the interface is starting to break down under the weight of features that could not have been anticipated, and so could greatly benefit from an interface overhaul). I don't know if that's the case or not, but it sounds like at least you would describe it along those lines
I've been out of the high-end 3d loop for a while
For me anyway, this is a pretty big problem - these packages can take years to truly master (partly due to their complexity) so you don't want to throw half of that investment away by throwing out the UI every year, but the UI breaks down pretty quickly due to the speed of innovation, so it's a choice between two evils. If only another way could be found. Direct neural connection or something
Ok, I admit from the start that it's unfair to compare this to the likes of 3ds (though it's hard for me not too, as I haven't done much work with lower-end stuff), but at first glance, this doesn't look like it will be useful for much for a long time (other than really basic stuff, like simple web animations etc). And I suspect it might even look worse at second glance.
:-) with the expertise to make a non-raytracing renderer that produces raytracer-quality (or better) results at a fraction of the render time.
:-)
Gimp, while not photoshop, is still at a level where it offers a viable alternative (for a fair amount of uses) to one of the leading packages. Even mid-range 3d apps dwarf photoshop in complexity (and usually price), so it's no surprise that this (great) start in that direction has a long way to go, but I don't think this thing can be called the Gimp of 3d - it just doesn't offer a serious alternative, and doesn't look like it will for a very long time (if ever).
But for a very long time now, I've been of the view that open source simply cannot produce a 3ds MAX or SoftImage, or whatever (or at least not with the current methods of production). The programs are utterly immense, yet need an interface free of ad-hoc additions and localised revisions to be a fast production tool, not to mention there being so few people in the world (virtually none
Compounding that is that the 3d apps evolve much faster than the like of photoshop (which already seems to evolve faster than Gimp, (but I haven't compared the latest versions, I might be wrong)), so the successful open-source model of gradual accumulated improvements - great for a word processor - just won't work.
Such a project would have to be so full on that it would have to be full time for a lot of people for a very long time. I can envisage some business models which could allow this, but I'm not going to hold my breath. (Besides, holding no hope can allow for nice surprises
Hmmm. I realise this entire post sounds like a petulant bashing of what is a praiseworthy and excellent piece of work, but I have this sinking feeling that the next thing we know, people will be touting this as almost up there with production-level apps - as viable an alternative as Gimp to photoshop, and I just don't want to see that happen. I can so imagine some rabid zealot defending open-source along these lines and thus teaching people who are unfamiliar with open source that o/source is a "viable alternative" in the same sense that amputation is a viable alternative to antibiotics.
I'm curious how libertarians feel about it, as many propose abolishing community/govt healthcare in favour of private insurance, however the logical conclusion of deregulation of private health insurance would be genetically uninsurable people - people who are unable to purchase insurance at all, and thus are denied healthcare for no fault of their own, for no disease they have or are guarenteed to get.
:-)
I know some libertarians support culling the genetically weak, but I prefer to think that they don't speak for libertarianism so much as their own bigotry. (Such a person might claim that anyone who is uninsurable can pay for their own healthcare, and if don't earn enough money to do so, their contribution to society is obviously insufficient to justify their continued existance.)
But I have difficulty thinking of a highly deregulated free-market solution that does not entail this (though many such solutions appear to be more agreeable on the surface or In Theory).
The quandry - insurers sell the spreading of risk. Profit-motivated companies can enhance profits by diminishing the risk, while still maintaining the appearance of spreading it. Because they can then offer lower premiums at the expense of the people they reject, market success (consumer popularity) as well as profit margins are improved.
Or to put it in free market terms, those with insurance are being heavily subsidised by the costs to those denied it, by isolating rather than spreading the risk. No "everyone welcome" insurer could compete, dispite (and because of) the underclass market who can't buy insurance anywhere else.
Do libertarians feel that insurance should be regulated for the common good, or is there a belief that the free market can somehow make it work, or is there some other opinion? (hopefully not those almost eugenic views)
My suspicion is that I'll probably think the libertarian view on this matter is insane, but I'm hoping for a nice surprise
The reason men pay more for insurance is because men tend to be unsafe drivers.
:-)
False. The reason is that men are far more likely to be in an accident. If you look at the statistics involved, (those for my country anyway)
1) Men are twice as likely to be in an accident as women.
2) Men drive, per year, 4-5 times the kilometres than women. (Somewhat fewer women in the workforce)
Conclusion: Men tend to be twice as safe at driving as women tend to be, per kilometre driven. Men are still, however, at a much higher risk of accident because they tend to have to spend far more time on the road, commuting, etc.
Which means that if you're a women who drives to work, you're fooling yourself if you think statistics suggest you're safer.
Note that depending on the conditions where you live, even if only slightly more men than women are in the workforce, it can translate into a noticable gender-difference of average kilometres travelled.
(I assume that other insurers questions also narrow down who is likely to spend little or lots of time on the road.)
Note also that my stats are at least 2 years out of date, possibly more.
I'm not sure that driving miles rather than kilometres helps, either
They can't be the smallest untethered autonomous robots ever created because I've created at least one that is smaller, and one that might be smaller (about the same size).
:-)
Sure, my smallest robot might be pretty boring and simple compared to these things (and operating with vastly reduced efficiency because I still haven't got around to putting the coaster wheel on...), but it's probably almost half the size - and since it's solar powered, it is genuinely autonomous (I don't think a battery powered robot can be said to be fully autonomous unless it is capable of recharging or replacing its own batteries).
So Nyah to Sandia - your robots might be much better, but mine are still smaller
Yes, there is hope along these lines (and it's a lovely example :-), but off the top of my head, I can't think of any electronics manufacturers (even the smaller fish) that don't make money from production gear. Not that I'm an expert in the field. Hopefully someone who knows of more companies would be able to name some.
The problem is that it's the smaller companies that would benefit from "selling the rope", but by the same token, those companies aren't big enough to stand up to the threat of lawsuits.
Will all the hardware and media being locked up to deny people the ability to exercise rights such time shifting, fair use, etc, in favour of having to pay for these conveniences, what the world needs is an organisation, perhaps a bit like the EFF, dedicated to legally reverse-engineering media cripples (such as CSS) and publishing easy-to-follow instructions online, such that Joe Average on the street can time-shift HDTV if he desires, or Joe Geek on his computer can play DVDs on linux with an open-source and uncrippled player, or Joe Apple can download a movie trailer that was officially posted online and write it to DVD with his new apple computer.
:-(
I'd donate, and so perhaps donations could provide a cash and fame incentive for hackers to reverse engineer these attempts at bypassing our rights.
Projects like the cripple-free DivX box projects could also be aided by the foundation.
Lawyers would probably be needed as well
What happens when technology advances to a point where high-end music making equipment is dirt-cheap?
Ain't gonna happen without a fight. Four years ago, I thought the same thing about video/film/animation when I saw what technologies were under development. Today, those technologies are (barely) starting to reach the market, but the cripples that have been put in place (ostensibly to prevent piracy) have been placed such that you still pretty much have to buy production rather than consumer gear. For example, while computer equipment is normally the exception, even that wonderful DVD writer in the new Apple computers that allows you to make your own DVD movies is so heavily crippled that you can't even use it master your own work.
Think about:
1) there is a huge financial incentive to preserve the huge price difference between consumer gear and production gear.
2) there is a huge financial incentive to avoid a world where a consumer can either pay $5 to see the latest hollywood drek, or tune his cable to the latest commercial-quality yet free content (imagine productions like "Troops" at DVD quality, instantly availible on your big screen TV).
If amature content ever became dirt cheap to produce and dirt cheap to distribute, content sellers would not be unaffected. I sure as hell already prefer intelligent material made by people like me over most of the crap hollywood spews. Currently however I don't have a choice. Hollywood would like to keep it that way.
3) the difference in the actual technology between consumer and production gear is now sometimes non-existant - the only change is that the production gear has a plug wired directly to the digital output of the circuitry, wheras the consumer version interposes a DAC between the plug and the digital output purely to deny the consumer digital reproduction. (Sure, you might try to make a case around the SCMS for something like a sony minidisc doing this, but it is also happening in devices that would comply with the SCMS regardless).
I'm not suggesting the industry is going to make blood pacts and send in the troops to keep content production and distribution out of consumer hands, but I think it is already the case that industry players are taking advantage of the "happy coincidence" that anti-piracy measures can be so easily tweaked to also discourage commercial quality production and distribution. Discourage is the word here - the price of production will fall, but not as far as technological progress would suggest, and it will be a major difficulty to set up a rig from consumer gear such that the units can talk to each other with few enough copy control cripples to allow commercial quality content production. Production gear will remain the way to go, despite consumer gear being same tech inside a different case (just fewer plugs).
Be it for reason (1) or reason (2), almost everyone has a good reason to make sure their content control goes above and beyond what is needed to deter piracy.
It's also a mistake to think that we'll always be able to get around copy-control. Sure, that might be true, but it's irrelevant - it's opting out of the fight and letting them win, because it doesn't matter if we (the tech elite) can enforce our rights (or whatever) if no-one else can - we will never achieve that world where there is a free, commercial-quality amature alternative to Hollywood if cheap content production is availible only to us, and not to all the people out there would actually make great films and music and the like.
The "All Purpose Magic Cure-All Elixir" salesman never lets his customers know how to make it themselves. Indeed, he goes to lengths to prevent people finding out. As the copy-control mechanisms increasingly exceed what is actually needed to enforce copyrights, I think it's looking less and less paranoid to suspect a wider agenda. An agenda that is defintiely not in our favour.
Replying to my message again
Sorry, I was thinking of making an MP3-only box when I wrote that message, and obviously a 486 ain't enough for video. I think the bisuit PCs come in much more powerful ranges, but I don't know what.
>sue to have it revoked for being in blatant violation of the First Amendment.
>However, the Supreme Court has a very good track record of maintaining the sanctity of the First Amendment.
In case you hadn't noticed, the rules have changed. As seen in Kaplin's decision (that might be overturned, but don't bet on it), the New Strategy is along the lines of "It doesn't matter what rights the constitution grants you, it doesn't grant you the right to have access to the equipement needed to use those rights in mainstream media formats".
The constitution will protect your right to yabber on HAM radio, and it will protect your right to free speech via DVD, but unlike HAM radio, you will simply not be able to purchase any DVD equipment sporting the features that allow free speech. And the law can't touch that.
This is why making un-crippled technology (like these set top boxes) is so important - it will likely be the only way to have a soap box in the dominant media format.
You might have noticed that the DVD writer that comes with the new apples can write a single DVD, but that DVD is block so that it can't be used to master your creation - in fact you can't actually master your work at all using the DVD writer.
This is a taste of the future.
We are approaching a time when the technology of cheap, affordable production and distribution could have resulted in amature content creation (like star wars fan films, eg Troops) becoming a significant part of our media diet.
In other words, we would have less need to buy content from the industry. The industry doesn't like that idea, and this is yet another reason why these devices are now designed to preclude us making or distributing content. Piracy, while a legimiate concern, is also being used as a whitewash to lever into position the necessary infrastructure to keep consumers and artists dependant on the existing distribution structure, and thus cash cows (the artists too - both sides get screwed, the non-productive parasites in the middle with the keys to the Wall make the money).
The whole thing is frightening in its genius. I think it's going to work. I think we're going to lose. I plan to build my own hardware, but that simply isn't a consumer option - it effectively means I'm just opting out of the fight. I'm not sure if there is a better way yet.
I can't spell biscuit. At any rate, that's just what the flight sim developers called them - it might not be their proper name.
Look into biscut PCs. They're probably called other things as well. They're basically a complete PC (such as a 386 or 486) on a circuit board about 15cm quare. And if you're using a low end chip like that, you don't need a fan.
I'm not sure where to get them - I know about them because my brother worked on a motorised flight simulator, and they used a biscut PC for each of the flight status readout screens, networked to the main PC which handled the 3d virtual reality display. They're perfect - small, quiet, prefabricated, and run normal PC software.
Sorry I can't help you find them, but just knowing they exist should help. Hopefully someone else here can give a pointer.
Is there anything like Project DivX for miniature hard disk based MP3 players? I want to build a pocket-sized music player that is free of RIAA cripples, but my areas of experience only cover part of what's needed to achieve this.
Currently minidisc is the ultimate personal sound system for me, and whem MP3 players ditch flash RAM and move to 6gig HDDs (and become more power efficient, probably via more RAM), then they'll be kind of the hill, except I doubt commercial ones will be uncrippled, so I'd like to look into building my own dream machine.
Any pointers to projects along these lines? (Even non-miniature MP3 boxes would be great - they would help me in the areas I'm weak in, while I could work on the miniaturisation).
The "government takes your money at gunpoint" is a bit melodramatic, I admit, but fundamentally, it is true
I disagree - that's not what the government does. The government is more analagous to a armed landlord saying "you pay the rent or you move out. If you don't pay the rent and don't move out, I'll shoot you." which, I don't think can be said to be taking your money at gunpoint, because you have the choice to not pay and not get shot by choosing to leave.
The government does not force you to stay in a society and incur the rent (taxes) that said society requires of you for the priviledges you gain from being a part of the society. (Unless you've committed a crime or something. (Which can of course, include previous attempts to use the priviledges without paying for them)).
You benefit immensely from being a part of a society, and if that society decides that some of the costs of those benefits should be met by taxation, (and furthermore, as a part of that society you have the right to try to change that decision) I can't see how claims of duress can be made. It kind of sounds like people want to have their cake and eat it too. Which is quite natural I guess, but hardly a challenge to justice.
I manage about 5 egroups, and am a member of about 12 groups. But i had do nothing at all, *NOTHING*, and my old groups work as they were working till now...
I don't manage any groups, but I'm joined to several. Or was joined...
It took 15 minutes of fucking around non-sensical yahoo pages just to be able to reply to a message via the web.
Neither my egroups account or my yahoo account could be used anymore. I had to modify my yahoo account and use that. Next thing, it wants a second email address - it already has one, but it needs one for egroups. Except it doesn't - I read the groups online and don't recieve the messages by email, so a new egroups email address is not needed.
But yahoo morons don't know this, because in ditching my egroups account without my permission, they lost my settings such as which groups I belong to and whether or not I get email or read off the web.
So I have to track down all my groups and re-join on top of it all. The whole bloody mess just doesn't end. I could strangle someone.
The bastards did the same thing with geocities. Totally fu(ked one of my best accounts. And I never got my (really nice) account name back.
I agree with you. Unfortunately, we (Americans and most of the developed world) live in a society that views disposible products as convenient and useful and does not really care about the ecological costs involved. AOL CDs are a good example of this (convenient and useful from AOL's perspective of course).
You just inspired an idea that could save California - turn a national liability into a national asset - that's right - collect all those AOL CDs that pollute our environment, glue them to sheets of plywood (reflective side facing up), and make huge mirror-based solar farms - free!
Plus, you get more (and more useful) "free hours" out of each and every CD this way.
I calculate each reasonably sized solar farm would want a good two million AOL CDs, so if we build enough farms, we could quite possibly put a noticeable dent in the number of AOL CDs floating around.
I wonder if I can patent this...
Who else needs anonymous wireless communication?
Any decent person who values their privacy perhaps?
The NSA and their ilk will try to tell you that uncrippled encryption is likewise only useful to criminals, yet it clearly has a huge range of legimate uses - some of which would also apply to cellphones that can't be used to secretly identify or track a person, and I imagine there are a fair few legimate uses on top of those.
Otherwise it seems that it's just a ploy so companies can keep huge databases full of buying habits
:-)"
That's not necessarily a bad thing - I once worked at a games company, and there was a bit of hand-wringing over how much polish should be sacrificed to make the game availible for lower-end machines. What it boiled down to was that it was very difficult to know what kind of computer hardware breakdown was out there, so such conversation turned into "what giveaways could we give for registering, so we can find out how low people want us to go".
So when people complain "It's ridiculous! My machine is perfectly good, not very old, and I can't play any games on it!", I often say "Send in your registration cards - since no-one else does, you'll be voting with the power of 20 men
Of course, a huge amoubt of the info they want is marketing guff for junkmail, etc, but with some companies, it can be a way to have some input and give some feedback.
So the compromise solution would be to ONLY fill in those parts of the form relevant to what you want them to know. If half the boxes are not check, I can't see them denying your registration (there would be no point - it's not like a webform that won't accept submit until you've finished - once the card is mailed, it's mailed).
Any suggestions for a hypthetical, particulaly nasty card that you want to fill in, but don't want to give your address to for mandatory junk mail, but do want to give it for some freebie offer for registering?
Actually, if I had my choice, some of the books I have would be on vellum with hard leather or wooden covers (such as my hardback copies of Tolkien). However, since I am not rich and can't get the custom printing and binding done, this will probably be forever a dream...
:-)
You don't need to be rich these days - download the text, format it and print it yourself, the way you want, on gorgeous paper, and hand bind it. Make the book such a beautiful and tactile item that you want to touch it, and handle it, and read it.
It's a very satisfying thing to do.
A start might be to choose a smaller book (say a short story), only a few pages perhaps, and produce that, perhaps with illutrations or illuminations (not necessarily your own art) as an exquisite gift for someone. It's a smaller project, so the monetary costs (paper, ink) are less, while the time required is about the same, due to the more complex layout (eg a lot more on each page more than a single block of text).
In the age of DTP and the web, everyone is a "designer", and the result is truckloads of badly designed garbage. But the point is that the tools are accessible, so if you do actually know what it is that you want, you can get there.
Another advantage of doing things like binding it yourself is that you can do far more sophisticated things by hand than what mass production allows.
(When I was studying typography, I hated actually doing it, but loved the results. Now that I rarely do it, it can be fun again, and I still love the results
Primarily, I'd suspect, through a) whistleblowing, and b) alleged victims who suspect this, and raise havoc
Put simply, whistleblowing is illegal when it regards intelligence activities. Apprently it "compromises National Security". Ok ok, in many countries whistleblowing is technically not illegal, but in reality, a potential whistleblower is walking a legal minefield in which whistleblower defence is NOT guuarenteed, and there are a whole lot ways that it might be denied, and then you are food for the wolves.
The other thing is that (IMHO) people working and living in the intelligence culture are unlikely to see much wrong with things we would find intolerable, and so unlikely to risk their livelyhoods whistleblowing.
I've followed a few cases where innocent victims managed to raise hell. The end result is either the fuss dies down and is forgotton, or a toothless inquiry is made to reassure everyone that it won't happen again, or in one New Zealand case, the laws were changed in such a way that satisfied the public and the intelligence agency - the change INCREASED agency power, but appeared, to the layman, to do the opposite. The Privacy Comissioner was Not Impressed, but the government of the day never paid much attention to him anyway.
Did you really think that if you thought of that, that its watchdogs would not?
So what if the watchdogs do know it's going on? They are toothless and can do nothing about it, let alone try to prove it.
Since when has the law been an effective barrier to intelligence when the agency in question simply cites "national security" whenever someone seeks evidence, and so halts the inquiry right there?
In those very rare instances when sufficient authority and teeth are made availible to an inquiry, the cases I've read about or seen seem to have only two possible outcomes:
1) Blatent, routine, and arrogant disregard for the law, civil rights, etc is uncovered. Or,
2) Tough questions are simply not asked, answers are not verified, evidence is not required, just a political PR exercise.
I find the overall picture worrying.
It's not a big conspiracy, it's just that these people believe they are acting for a higher purpose. Just like the cop who plants dope because he knows the guy is dealing to kids, yet will walk and keep dealing unless they have something on him. It works great, until the authority's judgement is so insular and the corrupt practices so routine that innocent people regularly become victims. And I know enough innocent victims to think that we're already there.
I've been told Dubya believes that the accidental execution of innocents is a price worth paying to be able to execute criminals. The causes are everywhere. When justice can be sacrificed for some vague "greater good", things get dangerous. I'm glad I'm not a black man (let alone a black man with an intimitating physique...)
The NSA might claim they don't use foreign intelligence when it involves US citizens, and it might be their "official" policy too, but at the actual operater level, where the rubber meets the road, I would be very surprised if it wasn't almost routine.
Uh, the governement doesn't decide who should live and who should die. Defendants on trial in capital cases have the right to a trial by jury, a trial by peers. They are not the government.
:-)
Not so, the jury does not decide who lives and who dies - the jury merely delivers the verdict. It is the Judge - an arm of the government - who decides on the sentence, ie who lives and who dies.
Perhaps some courts do things differently, but I'm guessing phrases like "they call him the Hangin' Judge" suggest it is government power
Besides, if genuinely were a "jury of my peers", they would be my peers, not a non-random selection of people in whoose bigoted eyes I probably look like a young thug...
(I live in a place where the word "youth" is used as a synonym and/or euphimism for "thug" in the newspaper, and likewise in the minds of Decent Folk).