'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This format is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the drive 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the spindle! 'E's kicked the bit-bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-FORMAT!!
Eponymous Mallard
"If it quacks like a duck, it's probably th'Eponymous Mallard"
Whenever I read such an article in the popular press I always try to access the actual scientific journal article about the study. In this case the study was published in the December 2004 issue of The Journal of Neurotrauma which is available online. Just click in the link labelled "Scientists Reverse Paralysis in Dogs" and you can download the complet pdf file of the research paper. (I hope they don't mind being slashdotted.)
Lavert, PH et al. A Preliminary Study of Intravenous Surfactants in Paraplegic Dogs: Polymer Therapy in Canine Clinical SCI. Journal of Neurotrauma. December 2004, Vol. 21, No. 12, Pages 1767-1777
Hydrophilic polymers, both surfactants and triblock polymers, are known to seal defects in cell membranes. In previous experiments using laboratory animals, we have exploited this capability using polyethylene glycol (PEG) to repair spinal axons after severe, standardized spinal cord injury (SCI) in guinea pigs. Similar studies were conducted using a related co-polymer Poloxamer 188 (P 188). Here we carried out initial investigations of an intravenous application of PEG or P 188 (3500 Daltons, 30% w/w in saline; 2 mL/kg I.V. and 2 mL/kg body weight or 300 mL P 188 per kg, respectively) to neurologically complete cases of paraplegia in dogs. Our aim was to first determine if this is a clinically safe procedure in cases of severe naturally occurring SCI in dogs. Secondarily, we wanted to obtain preliminary evidence if this therapy could be of clinical benefit when compared to a larger number of similar, but historical, control cases. Strict entry criteria permitted recruitment of only neurologically complete paraplegic dogs into this study. Animals were treated by a combination of conventional and experimental techniques within 72 h of admission for spinal trauma secondary to acute, explosive disk herniation. Outcome measures consisted of measurements of voluntary ambulation, deep and superficial pain perception, conscious proprioception in hindlimbs, and evoked potentials (somatosensory evoked potentials [SSEP]). We determined that polymer injection is a safe adjunct to the conventional management of severe neurological injury in dogs. We did not observe any unacceptable clinical response to polymer injection; there were no deaths, nor any other problem arising from, or associated with, the procedures. Outcome measures over the 68-week trial were improved by polymer injection when compared to historical cases. This recovery was unexpectedly rapid compared to these comparator groups. The results of this pilot trial provides evidence consistent with the notion that the injection of inorganic polymers in acute neurotrauma may be a simple and useful intervention during the acute phase of the injury.
Eponymous Mallard. "It it quacks like a duck, it may be the Eponymous Mallard."
Re:Don't hold your breath...
on
Hibernating to Mars
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
When you get told you have to have open heart surgery, let me tell you, YOU WANT TO GET OUT OF IT. All surgeries relating to the heart are considered necessary as certain tissues have the consistency of wet toilet paper (aortic valve for example)
I can second that. I've been told I might need open heart surgery someday due to a perforated aortic valve, and I do indeed want to get out of it. It's scary as hell. You have my respect and sympathy for making it through.
Funny you should mention the consistency of "wet toilet paper." I had an infection (endocarditis) that burned a tiny, 1-2mm, hole in my valve. If the hole gets larger I may need surgery. I was wondering about the odds of that occurring, so I asked my cardiologist about the consistency of the aortic valve. He compared it to chicken skin - very thin but tough. "Wet toilet paper" doesn't sound so good.
Either way, the aortic valve is one nasty point-of-failure for the human body.
The Eponymous Mallard -- "If it quacks like a duck, it may be The Epomymous Mallard"
This is just one part of a larger trend. All work will eventually become obsolete. First machines were able to do work which requires muscle. Now machines can do jobs which require brain work. This will only continue. Programmers? Programs can write programs. Doctors? Expert programs will soon do it better in most cases. Surgeons? Google for robotic surgery. Pilots? The computer does most of the flying now, anway. In summary: for all job in [butcher, baker, candlestick-maker]: job.make_obsolete() The jobs which persist longest will be those requiring hard-to-mimic human traits. Prostitution was the first profession and may the last. Lawyers and politicians may last a while -- but perhaps I make myelf redundant, having already mentioned prostitution, of which these are but special cases. Eventually we have a society similar to slave-holding societies but the slaves are machines. But how do you decide on the distribution of wealth when no human does useful work? A capitalist model will mean a super-class of those who own lots of machines. Or there could be a socialist model in which capital/machines are owned by all. The social adjustments will be enormous. And I haven't even talked about what happens if the machines revolt.
How long before this information can be used practically, and how does one go about doing this? My knowledge of the subject is little to none, but my curiosity is high considering cancer has struck my mother in the past. Any info would be appreciated.
There is already a cancer drug based on the inhibition of proteasomes. The drug is Velcade (bortezomid.) The US Gov. has a site you can use to search for clinical trials. The following page lists the trials currently underway using this drug.
There are forty trials currently recruiting patients. This drug however blocks all proteasome activity.
Future drugs may be able to control the activity
by modfying ubiqutination regulation.
The Eponymous Mallard -- "If it quacks like a duck..."
Yep, they're finished. You know why? 'Cause I just bought one, that's why! Never owned a PDA before. So today I go and buy a Palm. Feeling mighty pleased with myself... then I log into Slashdot and what do I see but this topic. Thanks, guys. Thanks.
It's like I'm cursed or something.
Eponymous Mallard "If it quacks like a duck, it may be the Eponymous Mallard"
"There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me."
Shouldn't that be: There are 10(two) types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
No. You're missing the point of the joke. He's saying he's part of the set of people who don't understand binary. Therefore he uses binary incorrectly, writing 01 instead of 10.
But what makes it clever is that his use of this.sig indicates he does in fact really understand binary.
It's a variant of the classic self referential paradox as in "All Cretans are liars. I am a Cretan" or Magritte's "Ceci N'est pas un pipe" and closely related to Bertrand Russells paradox "the set of all sets that are not member of themselves."
Probably more than you wanted to know. But I am comforted by the fact that, given the logical explanation, you now find the joke uproariously funny.
Eponymous Mallard. "If it quacks like a duck... it may be the Eponymous Mallard."
>Microsoft or no Microsoft, do YOU feel comfortable with your government having only ONE vendor and source for operating systems for critical services?
Did anyone actually read this user agreement? It doesn't say what Slashdot says it says. "Use the source" applies to journalism as well as to computer programming.
This is what the Slashdot story says:
The associated Membership Agreement for the Support Forum includes the clause 'You shall not to share [sic] the information contained herein with any other party.'
This is what the Membership Agreement says as of 4pm EST: Membership Agreement As a member of the Support Center you must agree to the following terms:
1. You shall not to share your account information and privileged access with any other party.
2. You shall not republish the information contained herein, in any format including, but not limited to physical and electronic formats.
3. You shall use the information contained herein for legal purposes.
4. Should you be found guilty of violating the membership agreement, you shall forfeit your rights to all support agreements with PLAINBLACK and shall not receive a refund.
Now something is wrong. The membership agreement says you may not "republish" the information, while the Slashdot story says the agreement specifies you cannot "share" the information. There is a big difference. The only thing the agreement says you cannot "share" is your "account information." "Account information" clearly refers to things like your ID and password, not to the technical support "information."
Either the Slashdot story is based on a mis-quotation or the company has changed the user agreement in the last few hours.
Which is it?
If the company changed the agreement, that is good news. A company has responded to the Open Source community by changing its user agreement.
On the other hand, if the original story is a mis-quote, than Slashdot has created a tempest out of a sloppy error and this story is merely an example of bad journalism.
The book isn't half as funny as the author's toupee!
Check it out!
beforeafter
Don't know about that over 40 rule. He may be too old to "get" his own book!
There are at least two peer to peer Internet radio networks: Streamer and PeerCast.
You could also serve hot streaming mp3s with this very cool perl script
Or you could just bliss out to some great trance music... as long as they can afford to keep going.
Eponymous Mallard "If it quacks like a duck, it's the Eponymous Mallard"
Is it Science? Is it New?
on
Wolframania
·
· Score: 1
Is it science? Does it propose a testable (and falsifiable) hypothesis? Does it explain phenomena not previously understandable?
Is it new? Is there anything that is not a corollary, albeit elaborate, of the work of Turing and Von Neumann and of the development of computational science over the past fity years?
The Eponymous Mallard "Graccito Ergo Sum" -- I quack therefore I am.
Check out the guy's other paper in which he shows that our ability to rapidly sequence DNA is
growing at a super-exponential rate, rather than
the merely exponential rate of increase of CPU
power posited by Moore's Law.
Take a look at the following page from MS research on the "Secure PC":
http://research.microsoft.com/crypto/openbox.asp
"Essentially, this would turn the PC into a record player as far as music is concerned, while preserving the other open aspects of the computer. Record companies could release their records in an encrypted, unable to be copied Windows Media Audio format that would only work on the secure version of the Windows Media Player. A similar arrangement could be reached with the movie studios for film distribution..."
"He [Microsoft Research cryptographer Paul England] says an agreement between software and hardware makers is near, and "we should see some hardware for content protection within a year." Microsoft is already shipping a secure version of Windows Media Player. England is pretty sure that it will be cracked eventually, but he says it will do for now. The way to slam the door on the pirates lies in a modification of the hardware, he says. "We must make it immune to a software attack, and close the PC in that way."..."
So the idea is to embed content protection into the PC from the operating system down to the hardware. So how does this relate to USB? Well, there is no copy protection built into the USB specification. But there will be copy protection support built into the 1394 (Fire Wire) standard, as announced by the 1394 Trade Association (of which MS is a member) three weeks ago.
"SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 21, 2001-- The leaders of the 1394 Trade Association today urged the consumer electronics and computer industries to adopt the comprehensive digital copy protection system known as Digital Transmission Copy Protection, or ``5C,'' developed by leaders of the electronics industry to prevent unauthorized use of copy-protected content..."
Other members of the 1394 Trade Association include Sony, Philips, Intel, Texas Instruments, Panasonic, Canon, Fujitsu, Compaq and many more.
Six days after the announcement of 1394 support of copy protection, Microsoft confirmed that it would not support USB in Windows XP.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/17919.htm l
1394 will incorporate support for DTCP copy protection designed by the 5C group (Sony, Intel, Toshiba, Matushita, and Hitachi):
http://www.dtcp.com/spec.html
"To allow for protected transmission of copy-protected material between digital devices like PC's, DVD Players, and Digital TV's, five companies -- Hitachi, Intel, Matsushita (MEI), Sony and Toshiba have prepared the "5C" Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP) specification..."
"The DTCP specification defines a cryptographic protocol for protecting audio/video entertainment content from illegal copying, intercepting and tampering as it traverses high performance digital buses, such as the IEEE 1394 standard."
Microsoft is acting in cooperation with content providers (the music, movie, and video game industry) and with hardware makers to produce a totally copy-protected ("secure") PC. That way the movie and music people can get a payment each time you play a file, and MS will also get its cut. It is essential that copy protection be put into the hardware, since otherwise consumers would be tempted to operating systems without copy protection such as Linux. You will get a music file, from say, Sony, with built-in copy protection, over MS.NET (with possible built in copy protection filters) downloaded to your (copy protected) hard drive, played by MS Media Player (with built in copy protection) running on Windows XP (with copy protection support) and transmitted via the copy protected 1394 bus. It's multi-layered protection and the bus is the last line of defense.
So USB (no built-in copy protection) has to go, and 1394, with built-in copy protection support, gets Windows support from now on.
Slashdot Mirror
That's why I always eat my pineapples on Jupiter.
'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This format is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the drive 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the spindle! 'E's kicked the bit-bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-FORMAT!!
Eponymous Mallard
"If it quacks like a duck, it's probably th'Eponymous Mallard"
I'll see your Command & Conquer and raise you one Star Trek TNG:
"You are an imperfect being. Created by an imperfect being. Finding your weakness is only a matter of time." - Borg Queen to Data, First Contact
Eponymous Mallard
Here is the abstract of the article:
Lavert, PH et al. A Preliminary Study of Intravenous Surfactants in Paraplegic Dogs: Polymer Therapy in Canine Clinical SCI. Journal of Neurotrauma. December 2004, Vol. 21, No. 12, Pages 1767-1777
Hydrophilic polymers, both surfactants and triblock polymers, are known to seal defects in cell membranes. In previous experiments using laboratory animals, we have exploited this capability using polyethylene glycol (PEG) to repair spinal axons after severe, standardized spinal cord injury (SCI) in guinea pigs. Similar studies were conducted using a related co-polymer Poloxamer 188 (P 188). Here we carried out initial investigations of an intravenous application of PEG or P 188 (3500 Daltons, 30% w/w in saline; 2 mL/kg I.V. and 2 mL/kg body weight or 300 mL P 188 per kg, respectively) to neurologically complete cases of paraplegia in dogs. Our aim was to first determine if this is a clinically safe procedure in cases of severe naturally occurring SCI in dogs. Secondarily, we wanted to obtain preliminary evidence if this therapy could be of clinical benefit when compared to a larger number of similar, but historical, control cases. Strict entry criteria permitted recruitment of only neurologically complete paraplegic dogs into this study. Animals were treated by a combination of conventional and experimental techniques within 72 h of admission for spinal trauma secondary to acute, explosive disk herniation. Outcome measures consisted of measurements of voluntary ambulation, deep and superficial pain perception, conscious proprioception in hindlimbs, and evoked potentials (somatosensory evoked potentials [SSEP]). We determined that polymer injection is a safe adjunct to the conventional management of severe neurological injury in dogs. We did not observe any unacceptable clinical response to polymer injection; there were no deaths, nor any other problem arising from, or associated with, the procedures. Outcome measures over the 68-week trial were improved by polymer injection when compared to historical cases. This recovery was unexpectedly rapid compared to these comparator groups. The results of this pilot trial provides evidence consistent with the notion that the injection of inorganic polymers in acute neurotrauma may be a simple and useful intervention during the acute phase of the injury.
Eponymous Mallard. "It it quacks like a duck, it may be the Eponymous Mallard."
I can second that. I've been told I might need open heart surgery someday due to a perforated aortic valve, and I do indeed want to get out of it. It's scary as hell. You have my respect and sympathy for making it through.
Funny you should mention the consistency of "wet toilet paper." I had an infection (endocarditis) that burned a tiny, 1-2mm, hole in my valve. If the hole gets larger I may need surgery. I was wondering about the odds of that occurring, so I asked my cardiologist about the consistency of the aortic valve. He compared it to chicken skin - very thin but tough. "Wet toilet paper" doesn't sound so good.
Either way, the aortic valve is one nasty point-of-failure for the human body.
The Eponymous Mallard -- "If it quacks like a duck, it may be The Epomymous Mallard"
This is just one part of a larger trend. All work will eventually become obsolete. First machines were able to do work which requires muscle. Now machines can do jobs which require brain work. This will only continue. Programmers? Programs can write programs. Doctors? Expert programs will soon do it better in most cases. Surgeons? Google for robotic surgery. Pilots? The computer does most of the flying now, anway. In summary:
for all job in [butcher, baker, candlestick-maker]:
job.make_obsolete()
The jobs which persist longest will be those requiring hard-to-mimic human traits. Prostitution was the first profession and may the last. Lawyers and politicians may last a while -- but perhaps I make myelf redundant, having already mentioned prostitution, of which these are but special cases.
Eventually we have a society similar to slave-holding societies but the slaves are machines. But how do you decide on the distribution of wealth when no human does useful work? A capitalist model will mean a super-class of those who own lots of machines. Or there could be a socialist model in which capital/machines are owned by all.
The social adjustments will be enormous.
And I haven't even talked about what happens if the machines revolt.
Eponymous Mallard "If it quacks like a duck..."
There is already a cancer drug based on the inhibition of proteasomes. The drug is Velcade (bortezomid.) The US Gov. has a site you can use to search for clinical trials. The following page lists the trials currently underway using this drug. There are forty trials currently recruiting patients. This drug however blocks all proteasome activity. Future drugs may be able to control the activity by modfying ubiqutination regulation.
The Eponymous Mallard -- "If it quacks like a duck..."
I tried to volunteer to feed the homeless but the CEO of McDonalds accused me of killing jobs in the fast food industry.
Epnymous Mallard
Yep, they're finished. You know why? 'Cause I just bought one, that's why! Never owned a PDA before. So today I go and buy a Palm. Feeling mighty pleased with myself ... then I log into Slashdot and what do I see but this topic. Thanks, guys. Thanks.
It's like I'm cursed or something.
Eponymous Mallard "If it quacks like a duck, it may be the Eponymous Mallard"
Shouldn't that be: There are 10(two) types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
No. You're missing the point of the joke. He's saying he's part of the set of people who don't understand binary. Therefore he uses binary incorrectly, writing 01 instead of 10. But what makes it clever is that his use of this .sig indicates he does in fact really understand binary.
It's a variant of the classic self referential paradox as in "All Cretans are liars. I am a Cretan" or Magritte's "Ceci N'est pas un pipe" and closely related to Bertrand Russells paradox "the set of all sets that are not member of themselves."
Probably more than you wanted to know. But I am comforted by the fact that, given the logical explanation, you now find the joke uproariously funny.
Eponymous Mallard. "If it quacks like a duck ... it may be the Eponymous Mallard."
Shouldn't that be the GNU/Czech Republic?
-The Eponymous Mallard-
"...led by anti-music industry group Downhill Battle, who insists that the major record labels are stifling creativity."
"anti-music industry group"? Is that
1. A group in an industry that makes anti-music?
2. An industry group that is against music?
3. A group that is against the music industry?
I guess you meant #3, but I prefer meaning #1. What does anti-music sound like? If music and anti-music meet, will they annhilate each other?
Eponymous Mallard
It is being discussed on the BIND mailing list.
Other server patches are listed here
Verisign may be backing down
The Eponymous Mallard
"If it quacks like a duck, it's the Eponymous Mallard."
All your domains are belong to us.
--Verisign
>Microsoft or no Microsoft, do YOU feel comfortable with your government having only ONE vendor and source for operating systems for critical services?
Ironically, one of the major grievances that gave birth to the US was a protest against a British government monopoly . Microsoft is using similar tactics , and can expect similar results.
Epomymous Mallard
Well of course Thomas Jefferson would have been against a minimum wage! He owned slaves, you moron!
A minmum wage kind of puts a crimp in the whole plantation business - so inconvenient to actually pay someone when you can whip them.
And, no, slaves don't get stock options.
But, hey, don't let me interrupt your libertarian onanism with actual thought.
Eponymous Mallard
Did anyone actually read this user agreement? It doesn't say what Slashdot says it says. "Use the source" applies to journalism as well as to computer programming.
This is what the Slashdot story says:
The associated Membership Agreement for the Support Forum includes the clause 'You shall not to share [sic] the information contained herein with any other party.'
This is what the Membership Agreement says as of 4pm EST:
Membership Agreement
As a member of the Support Center you must agree to the following terms:
1. You shall not to share your account information and privileged access with any other party.
2. You shall not republish the information contained herein, in any format including, but not limited to physical and electronic formats.
3. You shall use the information contained herein for legal purposes.
4. Should you be found guilty of violating the membership agreement, you shall forfeit your rights to all support agreements with PLAINBLACK and shall not receive a refund.
Now something is wrong. The membership agreement says you may not "republish" the information, while the Slashdot story says the agreement specifies you cannot "share" the information. There is a big difference. The only thing the agreement says you cannot "share" is your "account information." "Account information" clearly refers to things like your ID and password, not to the technical support "information."
Either the Slashdot story is based on a mis-quotation or the company has changed the user agreement in the last few hours.
Which is it?
If the company changed the agreement, that is good news. A company has responded to the Open Source community by changing its user agreement.
On the other hand, if the original story is a mis-quote, than Slashdot has created a tempest out of a sloppy error and this story is merely an example of bad journalism.
Eponymous Mallard
telco delivered video on demand
I swear, when I first read that I thought it said, "tacos delivered on demand"!
The Eponymous Mallard
Epomymous Mallard
I highly recommend this book review for anyone with an IQ under 40. Over that, (unless you're somewhat feral) I don't think you'll get it.
Eponymous Mallard
There are at least two peer to peer Internet radio networks: Streamer
... as long as they can afford to keep going.
and PeerCast.
You could also serve hot streaming mp3s with this very cool perl script
Or you could just bliss out to some great trance music
Eponymous Mallard
"If it quacks like a duck, it's the Eponymous Mallard"
Is it science? Does it propose a testable (and falsifiable) hypothesis? Does it explain phenomena not previously understandable?
Is it new? Is there anything that is not a corollary, albeit elaborate, of the work of Turing and Von Neumann and of the development of computational science over the past fity years?
The Eponymous Mallard
"Graccito Ergo Sum" -- I quack therefore I am.
Tattoo says:
x/a + y/b + z/c = 1
"The plane! The plane!"
The Eponymous MallardCheck out the guy's other paper in which he shows that our ability to rapidly sequence DNA is growing at a super-exponential rate, rather than the merely exponential rate of increase of CPU power posited by Moore's Law.
Exponential Improvement in Biological Technologies: A Comparison with Moore's LawIf this keeps up, in a few years you will be able to sequence your own genome in a fraction of a second.
Eponymous Mallard
If it quacks like a duck, it's the Eponymous Mallard
[Let's try this again properly formatted.]
p
..."
a .h tm
m l
It's all about two words, "copy protection."
Take a look at the following page from MS research on the "Secure PC":
http://research.microsoft.com/crypto/openbox.as
"Essentially, this would turn the PC into a record player as far as music is concerned, while preserving the other open aspects of the computer. Record companies could release their records in an encrypted, unable to be copied Windows Media Audio format that would only work on the secure version of the Windows Media Player. A similar arrangement could be reached with the movie studios for film distribution..."
"He [Microsoft Research cryptographer Paul England] says an agreement between software and hardware makers is near, and "we should see some hardware for content protection within a year." Microsoft is already shipping a secure version of Windows Media Player. England is pretty sure that it will be cracked eventually, but he says it will do for now. The way to slam the door on the pirates lies in a modification of the hardware, he says. "We must make it immune to a software attack, and close the PC in that way."
So the idea is to embed content protection into the PC from the operating system down to the hardware. So how does this relate to USB? Well, there is no copy protection built into the USB specification. But there will be copy protection support built into the 1394 (Fire Wire) standard, as announced by the 1394 Trade Association (of which MS is a member) three weeks ago.
http://www.1394ta.org/Press/2001Press/mar/3.21.
"SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 21, 2001-- The leaders of the 1394 Trade Association today urged the consumer electronics and computer industries to adopt the comprehensive digital copy protection system known as Digital Transmission Copy Protection, or ``5C,'' developed by leaders of the electronics industry to prevent unauthorized use of copy-protected content..."
Other members of the 1394 Trade Association include Sony, Philips, Intel, Texas Instruments, Panasonic, Canon, Fujitsu, Compaq and many more.
Six days after the announcement of 1394 support of copy protection, Microsoft confirmed that it would not support USB in Windows XP.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/17919.ht
1394 will incorporate support for DTCP copy protection designed by the 5C group (Sony, Intel, Toshiba, Matushita, and Hitachi):
http://www.dtcp.com/spec.html
"To allow for protected transmission of copy-protected material between digital devices like PC's, DVD Players, and Digital TV's, five companies -- Hitachi, Intel, Matsushita (MEI), Sony and Toshiba have prepared the "5C" Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP) specification..."
"The DTCP specification defines a cryptographic protocol for protecting audio/video entertainment content from illegal copying, intercepting and tampering as it traverses high performance digital buses, such as the IEEE 1394 standard."
Microsoft is acting in cooperation with content providers (the music, movie, and video game industry) and with hardware makers to produce a totally copy-protected ("secure") PC. That way the movie and music people can get a payment each time you play a file, and MS will also get its cut. It is essential that copy protection be put into the hardware, since otherwise consumers would be tempted to operating systems without copy protection such as Linux. You will get a music file, from say, Sony, with built-in copy protection, over MS.NET (with possible built in copy protection filters) downloaded to your (copy protected) hard drive, played by MS Media Player (with built in copy protection) running on Windows XP (with copy protection support) and transmitted via the copy protected 1394 bus. It's multi-layered protection and the bus is the last line of defense.
So USB (no built-in copy protection) has to go, and 1394, with built-in copy protection support, gets Windows support from now on.