By that same token, if I happen to circumvent their attempts to impede my fair use of the product, and I do so in a manner that does not infringe their copyright, then they have no legal recourse.
It seems to me that they are lobbying to change this.
It seem sto me that Berke is pretty much doing that with Opus. Over the past couple of years, I've seen almost every major character at least once, except for Milo. He's just taking the route Bill Amend did with Fox Trot; he still wants to draw the strip (or, rediscovered his desire to draw it) but the pace of drawing a daily strip no longer suits him.
True, but the sheer number of pixels allows for a much larger palette of colors and gradients, in only a 55-pixel grid. Imagine your favorite NES sprites squashed and rendered in more colors than your eye can see...
I think you forgot: Transformers, Star Dust, Daddy Day Care 2, Skinwalkers, Harry Potter 5, Hot Rod, Bratz, and Ratatouille, I know who killed me, Who's Your Caddy?, Becoming Jane, Talk to Me, Rescue Dawn, Knocked up, Sicko and Bruce Almighty 2 to name just a few of the ones in theaters RIGHT NOW.
Not to mention the "originals" in the above list that simply re-hash movies that already made it big: Transformers: The Movie, Napoleon Dynamite, High School Musical, Toy Story, Caddyshack, Good Morning, Vietnam, and Bowling for Columbine.
My point is, every few years Hollywood stops making original, non-derivative movies and decides to paint-by-numbers their way through a season or two. This is one of those times. The Simpsons is the best movie I've seen this summer, and frankly, it wasn't that good. (Hot Rod sucked, and I really wanted it to not suck because I like Andy Samberg.)
I do have high hopes for Stardust and Superbad, and I still want to see Knocked Up, though.
Because, as this summer has proven amply, the movie industry has temporarily run out of ideas and is only capable of producing sequels. Spider-man 3, Shrek 3, Pirates 3, Die Hard 4, Napster 2...
They are often counted as 'Administrative fees' and such, in order to get around legal loopholes, such as "the accused has a right to face their accuser in court".
It's a petty misdemeanor in Hennepin County, I believe. The whole issue with the way it was implemented in Minneapolis was that the camera snapped a picture of your car, your license plate was entered into a database of offenders, and you were automatically issued a fine. There was no due process; you were guilty because your car was caught on tape, and it was up to you to prove you WEREN'T the driver. Which, of course, is not how our criminal justice system works. (Supposedly.)
In Minnesota, there is a mandatory administrative fee ($70, I think) and a law library fee ($10) built into all fines, which might be what you're thinking of. This is a useful fact to know if you ever get two citations on one ticket - better to go to court and plead guilty to both than pay the fines outright, since the "fees" are built in to the fines quoted, but a judge can only charge you the fees once.
Like a Red-light camera: they send the ticket to the owner of the car, not necessarily the driver. (Of course, in that case, the owner can simply prove it was not them, and provide the name of the driver, and the ticket will be re-assigned.)
Or, as in the case of Minneapolis' red-light cameras, the entire process is deemed unconstitutional because it presumes guilt rather than innocence.
That doesn't really solve the problem. The tool is designed to detect whether or not your ISP is futzing with the HTML it's carrying. Even supposing SSL would make it impossible to corrupt, if the ISP couldn't alter the page if it tried, the tool would register a false negative. You would need to be able to allow the ISP to alter the page, but have the tool be able to detect and report that corruption in some inalterable way.
What makes this so tricky is that you can't trust ANYthing the ISP is sending to you, nor trust it to accurately relay any message for you. Even if you do use cryptographic protocols, you're still relying on your ISP to ferry the information back and forth, and thus they can intercept the key exchange and spoof identities.
Solving this problem is non-trivial; I'd be interested in what they come up with.
Caveat 2: Our integrity checking mechanism is not cryptographically secure. If a "party in the middle" were modifying web pages that you visit, it could modify our scripts as well. Instead, our mechanism acts as a "tripwire" that is likely to catch any party that is currently unaware of our experiment. In the future, we could create a huge number of variants on the JavaScript tripwire. This would make it more difficult for a "party in the middle" to reliably determine that a JavaScript tripwire is running.
Anyway, I'm still laughing at the idea of Harsh Realm, the guy's supposed to spend a season or two hunting down a guy who should be sitting in the VR pod next to him. Reset the damn sim!
IIRC, Santiago couldn't be disconnected because nobody actually knew where he was - he'd used his real-life connections to get his body moved to a secret location. As far as rebooting the sim, it would be tantamount to killing the thousands of "real" people who had connected to it. The closing shot of the first episode had Hobbes' body wheeled on a gurney into a warehouse with gurneys beyond number laid out in every direction, and physically disconnecting from Harsh Realm would have left those bodies without occupants, so to speak.
As for why there weren't safeguards to allow for rapid disconnection, that's why they had to track down Santiago to begin with. He hijacked the sim and had taken total control of the system.
If that was directed at me, please realize that I'm writing this on my laptop, which runs XP and Ubuntu. While I am aware that Apple makes it illegal to install OSX on this machine, it doesn't much concern me as I don't have that kind of time. Because, as you've mentioned, the hardware lock-in can be worked around, and while I would have no compunction about employing those workarounds despite the license, I would then have to spend countless hours getting the hardware to work correctly once OSX did boot.
To wit: this laptop was purchased in early January with a free update to Vista Home Premium, which I ignored for similar reasons. XP works fine. After a modicum of effort, Ubuntu worked fine. My machine runs a Windows variant and a *nix; that's about all I need.
You protest loudly about how Microsoft makes it hard to run Windows on a Mac.
When did I do that? I was offering up what I think to be a reasonable explanation for Microsoft wavering on the virtualization issue.
Actually, Apple's hardware lock-in is much worse.
Agreed, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts as to why.
Not to mention that the Mac Mini is an underpowered piece of crap. Why would I pay $600 for a mini when I can get a much more powerful mini-PC...
I agree - the Mac Mini is underpowered, but $600 won't buy you anything close to fully-loaded with options a Mini won't have, and this laptop I bought to tide me over while waiting for Leopard to come pre-installed has pretty similar specs to a Mini for roughly the same price.
I have no idea why you'd pay $600 for it, but I know why I would - because I don't need the latest and greatest bleeding-edge, still-paying-off-R&D-with-retail-sales technology; I want something that works and that I can configure to my liking in under two hours. For me a computer is a tool and an important one, but less powerful and less important than money or time, and only truly useful when it can save me both. I don't need a MacBook Pro, a Mini will suffice. If I'm going to wind up replacing a computer every two years, I'd rather spend on of ease of use and not pay for processor- and bus-cycles I'll never even notice, contenting myself with what I have and not have to succumb to techno-envy two months after I've shelled out for what was top-of-the-line. That I'd consume less electricity is an added bonus.
Microsoft isn't just trying to make a buck, they're trying to decrease the rate of Vista/Windows virtualization.
My bet is they're doing so to protect the interests of OEMs, who purchase Windows licenses in bulk and bring in the capital-dollar-sign money to Microsoft. If it came down to buying a comparable Dell with Vista Home Premium pre-installed or buying a Mac Mini and shelling out $250 for Parallels and Vista Home Basic, I'd choose the latter and gladly pay the price difference for the extra utility. As you mentioned, Parallels almost seamlessly integrates Windows programs to the desktop now - who gives a rip about Aero?
Slashdot Mirror
By that same token, if I happen to circumvent their attempts to impede my fair use of the product, and I do so in a manner that does not infringe their copyright, then they have no legal recourse.
It seems to me that they are lobbying to change this.
At long last, Christopher Reeve will be able to walk again.
What's that you say? Ohhhh...
"B-52, this is the United States Air Force. You have entered U.S. airspace. If you do not leave immediately, we will be forced to open fire."
I think he'd be perfectly justified calling it the Weinermobile.
Crap, did I miss a strip with Binkley?
Probably.
It seem sto me that Berke is pretty much doing that with Opus. Over the past couple of years, I've seen almost every major character at least once, except for Milo. He's just taking the route Bill Amend did with Fox Trot; he still wants to draw the strip (or, rediscovered his desire to draw it) but the pace of drawing a daily strip no longer suits him.
True, but the sheer number of pixels allows for a much larger palette of colors and gradients, in only a 55-pixel grid. Imagine your favorite NES sprites squashed and rendered in more colors than your eye can see...
Does it qualify under the Dave Barry definition?
Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it.
I think you forgot: Transformers, Star Dust, Daddy Day Care 2, Skinwalkers, Harry Potter 5, Hot Rod, Bratz, and Ratatouille, I know who killed me, Who's Your Caddy?, Becoming Jane, Talk to Me, Rescue Dawn, Knocked up, Sicko and Bruce Almighty 2 to name just a few of the ones in theaters RIGHT NOW.
Not to mention the "originals" in the above list that simply re-hash movies that already made it big: Transformers: The Movie, Napoleon Dynamite, High School Musical, Toy Story, Caddyshack, Good Morning, Vietnam, and Bowling for Columbine.
My point is, every few years Hollywood stops making original, non-derivative movies and decides to paint-by-numbers their way through a season or two. This is one of those times. The Simpsons is the best movie I've seen this summer, and frankly, it wasn't that good. (Hot Rod sucked, and I really wanted it to not suck because I like Andy Samberg.)
I do have high hopes for Stardust and Superbad, and I still want to see Knocked Up, though.
Because, as this summer has proven amply, the movie industry has temporarily run out of ideas and is only capable of producing sequels. Spider-man 3, Shrek 3, Pirates 3, Die Hard 4, Napster 2...
They are often counted as 'Administrative fees' and such, in order to get around legal loopholes, such as "the accused has a right to face their accuser in court".
It's a petty misdemeanor in Hennepin County, I believe. The whole issue with the way it was implemented in Minneapolis was that the camera snapped a picture of your car, your license plate was entered into a database of offenders, and you were automatically issued a fine. There was no due process; you were guilty because your car was caught on tape, and it was up to you to prove you WEREN'T the driver. Which, of course, is not how our criminal justice system works. (Supposedly.)
In Minnesota, there is a mandatory administrative fee ($70, I think) and a law library fee ($10) built into all fines, which might be what you're thinking of. This is a useful fact to know if you ever get two citations on one ticket - better to go to court and plead guilty to both than pay the fines outright, since the "fees" are built in to the fines quoted, but a judge can only charge you the fees once.
Like a Red-light camera: they send the ticket to the owner of the car, not necessarily the driver. (Of course, in that case, the owner can simply prove it was not them, and provide the name of the driver, and the ticket will be re-assigned.)
Or, as in the case of Minneapolis' red-light cameras, the entire process is deemed unconstitutional because it presumes guilt rather than innocence.
There's a hot female geek
Rock-paper-scissors will have to decide this, guys.
Fry: Whatcha doing Bender? Building yourself a wife?
Bender: Part of one.
That doesn't really solve the problem. The tool is designed to detect whether or not your ISP is futzing with the HTML it's carrying. Even supposing SSL would make it impossible to corrupt, if the ISP couldn't alter the page if it tried, the tool would register a false negative. You would need to be able to allow the ISP to alter the page, but have the tool be able to detect and report that corruption in some inalterable way.
What makes this so tricky is that you can't trust ANYthing the ISP is sending to you, nor trust it to accurately relay any message for you. Even if you do use cryptographic protocols, you're still relying on your ISP to ferry the information back and forth, and thus they can intercept the key exchange and spoof identities.
Solving this problem is non-trivial; I'd be interested in what they come up with.
Lest you think I'm merely joking, FTFA:
Caveat 2: Our integrity checking mechanism is not cryptographically secure. If a "party in the middle" were modifying web pages that you visit, it could modify our scripts as well. Instead, our mechanism acts as a "tripwire" that is likely to catch any party that is currently unaware of our experiment. In the future, we could create a huge number of variants on the JavaScript tripwire. This would make it more difficult for a "party in the middle" to reliably determine that a JavaScript tripwire is running.
ISPs intercepting, altering results from online security tool
As long as they don't call it the PiiNES...
Farnsworth: Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. "I'm my own grandfather."
You beat me to the punchline.
So to speak...
Anyway, I'm still laughing at the idea of Harsh Realm, the guy's supposed to spend a season or two hunting down a guy who should be sitting in the VR pod next to him. Reset the damn sim!
IIRC, Santiago couldn't be disconnected because nobody actually knew where he was - he'd used his real-life connections to get his body moved to a secret location. As far as rebooting the sim, it would be tantamount to killing the thousands of "real" people who had connected to it. The closing shot of the first episode had Hobbes' body wheeled on a gurney into a warehouse with gurneys beyond number laid out in every direction, and physically disconnecting from Harsh Realm would have left those bodies without occupants, so to speak.
As for why there weren't safeguards to allow for rapid disconnection, that's why they had to track down Santiago to begin with. He hijacked the sim and had taken total control of the system.
My thoughts exactly
Well, not exactly...
Ah, Mac fanboys... you never cease to amaze me.
If that was directed at me, please realize that I'm writing this on my laptop, which runs XP and Ubuntu. While I am aware that Apple makes it illegal to install OSX on this machine, it doesn't much concern me as I don't have that kind of time. Because, as you've mentioned, the hardware lock-in can be worked around, and while I would have no compunction about employing those workarounds despite the license, I would then have to spend countless hours getting the hardware to work correctly once OSX did boot.
To wit: this laptop was purchased in early January with a free update to Vista Home Premium, which I ignored for similar reasons. XP works fine. After a modicum of effort, Ubuntu worked fine. My machine runs a Windows variant and a *nix; that's about all I need.
You protest loudly about how Microsoft makes it hard to run Windows on a Mac.
When did I do that? I was offering up what I think to be a reasonable explanation for Microsoft wavering on the virtualization issue.
Actually, Apple's hardware lock-in is much worse.
Agreed, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts as to why.
Not to mention that the Mac Mini is an underpowered piece of crap. Why would I pay $600 for a mini when I can get a much more powerful mini-PC...
I agree - the Mac Mini is underpowered, but $600 won't buy you anything close to fully-loaded with options a Mini won't have, and this laptop I bought to tide me over while waiting for Leopard to come pre-installed has pretty similar specs to a Mini for roughly the same price.
I have no idea why you'd pay $600 for it, but I know why I would - because I don't need the latest and greatest bleeding-edge, still-paying-off-R&D-with-retail-sales technology; I want something that works and that I can configure to my liking in under two hours. For me a computer is a tool and an important one, but less powerful and less important than money or time, and only truly useful when it can save me both. I don't need a MacBook Pro, a Mini will suffice. If I'm going to wind up replacing a computer every two years, I'd rather spend on of ease of use and not pay for processor- and bus-cycles I'll never even notice, contenting myself with what I have and not have to succumb to techno-envy two months after I've shelled out for what was top-of-the-line. That I'd consume less electricity is an added bonus.
Microsoft isn't just trying to make a buck, they're trying to decrease the rate of Vista/Windows virtualization.
My bet is they're doing so to protect the interests of OEMs, who purchase Windows licenses in bulk and bring in the capital-dollar-sign money to Microsoft. If it came down to buying a comparable Dell with Vista Home Premium pre-installed or buying a Mac Mini and shelling out $250 for Parallels and Vista Home Basic, I'd choose the latter and gladly pay the price difference for the extra utility. As you mentioned, Parallels almost seamlessly integrates Windows programs to the desktop now - who gives a rip about Aero?
Ironic that you should mention Mandriva in response to an article about corporate begging...