And John von Neumann, Leonardo da Vinci and Richard Feynman didn't seem to have anything wrong with their lives.
Leonardo da Vinci disected dead bodies to see what was under the skin so he could more accurately represent it in his art.... That was very deviant behavior for his time (even illegal).
You can argue what's the cause and what's the effect.
You should also check out the fairy tales by Chrétien de Troyes (which include a ring that makes the wearer invisible) and Marie de France.
There are stories that are a part of who we are as humans. Several societies have legends/myths/religious texts that mention a great flood or deluge. And every society seems to have their heroic epics. Over time, these stories are retold and rehashed, divided and distrubited into digestible parts for frequent/easy consumption.
In the western world, be it Frankish, Saxon, Norse, Gothic, etc., these primordial stories were kept alive in fairy tales and folk tales. Tolkein knew these (especially Celtic and the like) and was able to take pieces of them and weave them into a coherant story.
So, when a teenager in Nebraska, or a 30-something in New York, reads the trilogy, there is something with which they identify - something rings true.
It's stories we've been telling for ages, retold and preserved by a master of the trade.
Simply put, defeating DVD region coding is not illegal (at least in the US - the UK is a different matter). I know, I author DVDs for a living. (And, no, not on a Mac.... I've been doing it longer than that.)
The DMCA covers only encryption mechanisms and copy protection schemes. Region coding is neither. It does not encrypt the contents of the DVD, nor does it hinder copying DVDs.
Which is why the pockets of sane people (like AUS) are taking legal actions against the practice. It is designed to create a false scarcity and raise prices (and profits).
One thing I haven't seen mentioned that I saw when I worked at IBM was to use a false floor. If you raise the floor 6-12 inches on a simple framework, and use removeable tiles, you can run cables and cords from anywhere to anywhere and not worry about tripping.
In fact, they not only used this technique in their server farms, but also in the production line. When they added on to the line, they dug a 8-foot hole, and then built scaffolding and a false floor. All the plumbing and wiring run under it.
I know Cannon personally, and I never thought I'd hear him say this. He lives in a big house in a very small town in Utah, and is typical republican, and didn't even respond to my anti-DMCA emails (although Orrin Hatch did). I was resigned to vote against him next election, but if he follows this comment up with more sustained actions, I will reconsider.
An example of a similar misuse of statistics was when a date-rape activist came to speak to the dorm where I worked. She said that one out of every 5 people have been the victim of sexual assault (and that only one out of 10 get reported(?)).
We resident assistants got an extra question and answer session with her, and someone asked what defined sexual assault. She said any unwanted physical contact.
Well, using that criteria, I guess you can add me to that number since some chick grabbed my butt back in high school.
I still do not know how they figure out how many are not reported.
As for the handicapped issue at hand, they could mean that there are 50M Americans who do not have 20/20 vision, or who are not coordinated enough to type effectively.
Could be that you and I are hadicapped, and just haven't been told.
This reminds me of the maconlin project. (http://www.maconlinux.org/). On PPC Linux, you can run MacOS 9. The first thing I though was, "Boot Linux, start MacOS, start VirtualPC..... Run Cygwin!"
My laptop dual boots Debian and Win98. I have StarOffice 5.2 on both sides, and use it instead or MS office. I have been most impressed with it's PPt clone, and have received, edited, and sent back several.ppt files and no one's seen a difference.
I also used the spreadsheet program in my stats class. It has just about every stats function I needed. The graders couldn't figure out how I was doing 5 decimal accuracy when the charts in the book only went to 3.
Although all DVD-authoring systems (okay, not iDVD), have the ability to read the parental guidence registry very few DVDs have ever used this feature. It seriously would take two lines of script to implement this feature. Somthing like:
Jump To SexScene if SPRM13 < X
Jump To NextScene if SPRM13 >=X
Most studios stand by their "film as an art", so it never gets done. This product is a third party coming in, whether one agrees with it or not, and adding a feature which a good portion of the consumers want.
How many want it? Enough that SPRM13 was a register set aside in the DVD spec just for parental control.
This is actually what the movie industry calls a 'teaser'.
Agreed.
The video file is 1:07 long, but after I cut out the Fox and Lucasfilm titles, and the end Star Wars logo, and then removed all of the blank screen, I was left with (I kid you not) 25 seconds of video.
What makes the hardware division even better is the fact that they don't (to the best of my knowledge) do this shady stuff that the MS software division does.
I heard (from the VP of sales at Logitech at the time) that MS went to Logitech and said they were interested at branding Logitech mice with MS's logo. Of course, the Logitech guys got dollar-signs in their eyes and put their best sales people on the job.
Six months later, after much negotiation, Logitech had widdled away their price estimates, and it came time for MS to sign the paperwork. The MS rep never showed.
A couple of months later, MS released their first mouse, undercutting Logitech because they knew every detail about Logitech's production costs.
I dunno'. That sounds shadey to me.
PS - I will admit that the MS optical mouse is the best mouse I've ever used.
I just find it rather surprising that academia has taken this long to embrace p2p. It's not as if p2p has been an unknown or undiscussed topic in the realm of computer science.
Here at my school, the academics (from the CS faculty to the French Lit dept.) have known and used p2p for a while. It's the administration which is ignorant/fears it.
A friend of mine worked in doc support of the IT office, and let me know that their worries of Napster et al came from the top, not from the techs. The VP of IT announced that they would be blocking Napster because it was sucking 46% of the network. Then, when it happened, they lied and said that they saw a 46% jump in performance the moment they began blocking.
Funny that it should have been closer to a 90% jump (since the system was supposedly running at 54% before).
Anyway, the academics have been flying under the radar of the administration and using p2p for a couple of years now. There's even http://educommons.org/, a p2p program at Utah State to allow teacher to swap instructional materials.
Last year some MS reps came to my work at a University's online independent study program. After about an hour of discussion, they finally popped a question that set off considerable fireworks.
They asked, "What services, available for free on the web today, would you be willing to pay for if you had to."
Now, with the recent threat of getting anthrax through the mail, will congressmen actually read their mail? We already know that they don't
actually read email.
Actually, I sent an email to my senator (Orrin Hatch) to complain about the DMCA after the Felton and Sklyarov issues came out.
I received an email back from his aide saying that he would not respond to my letter unless I included an address from his state. So I re-sent the email.
A couple of days ago, I got a response via snailmail in which Senator Hatch explained his position. I didn't agree with most of what he said, but he did say that because the situations were still pending, it would be improper for him to comment, and that he was "monitoring closly the situation."
Slashdot Mirror
Leonardo da Vinci disected dead bodies to see what was under the skin so he could more accurately represent it in his art.... That was very deviant behavior for his time (even illegal).
You can argue what's the cause and what's the effect.
http://www.despair.com/pretension.html
You should also check out the fairy tales by Chrétien de Troyes (which include a ring that makes the wearer invisible) and Marie de France.
There are stories that are a part of who we are as humans. Several societies have legends/myths/religious texts that mention a great flood or deluge. And every society seems to have their heroic epics. Over time, these stories are retold and rehashed, divided and distrubited into digestible parts for frequent/easy consumption.
In the western world, be it Frankish, Saxon, Norse, Gothic, etc., these primordial stories were kept alive in fairy tales and folk tales. Tolkein knew these (especially Celtic and the like) and was able to take pieces of them and weave them into a coherant story.
So, when a teenager in Nebraska, or a 30-something in New York, reads the trilogy, there is something with which they identify - something rings true.
It's stories we've been telling for ages, retold and preserved by a master of the trade.
Simply put, defeating DVD region coding is not illegal (at least in the US - the UK is a different matter). I know, I author DVDs for a living. (And, no, not on a Mac.... I've been doing it longer than that.)
The DMCA covers only encryption mechanisms and copy protection schemes. Region coding is neither. It does not encrypt the contents of the DVD, nor does it hinder copying DVDs.
Which is why the pockets of sane people (like AUS) are taking legal actions against the practice. It is designed to create a false scarcity and raise prices (and profits).
One thing I haven't seen mentioned that I saw when I worked at IBM was to use a false floor. If you raise the floor 6-12 inches on a simple framework, and use removeable tiles, you can run cables and cords from anywhere to anywhere and not worry about tripping.
In fact, they not only used this technique in their server farms, but also in the production line. When they added on to the line, they dug a 8-foot hole, and then built scaffolding and a false floor. All the plumbing and wiring run under it.
I know Cannon personally, and I never thought I'd hear him say this. He lives in a big house in a very small town in Utah, and is typical republican, and didn't even respond to my anti-DMCA emails (although Orrin Hatch did). I was resigned to vote against him next election, but if he follows this comment up with more sustained actions, I will reconsider.
I bought my ThinkPad X20 from them for a great deal, and they treated me right.
When it came time for me to get a server for my Ph.D. research, they offered me educational pricing.
You should read Clancy's "A Guided Tour" series and then repost begging forgiveness. The man used to write naval text books.
gateway already has flat-panel, all-in-one pcs. I avoid them, 'cuz you can't really upgrade 'em.
AT&T say that as of Tuesday morning they have moved 500,000 of their subscribers over to their network.
Whose subscribers to whose network?
An example of a similar misuse of statistics was when a date-rape activist came to speak to the dorm where I worked. She said that one out of every 5 people have been the victim of sexual assault (and that only one out of 10 get reported(?)).
We resident assistants got an extra question and answer session with her, and someone asked what defined sexual assault. She said any unwanted physical contact.
Well, using that criteria, I guess you can add me to that number since some chick grabbed my butt back in high school.
I still do not know how they figure out how many are not reported.
As for the handicapped issue at hand, they could mean that there are 50M Americans who do not have 20/20 vision, or who are not coordinated enough to type effectively.
Could be that you and I are hadicapped, and just haven't been told.
This reminds me of the maconlin project. (http://www.maconlinux.org/). On PPC Linux, you can run MacOS 9. The first thing I though was, "Boot Linux, start MacOS, start VirtualPC..... Run Cygwin!"
Right on.
My laptop dual boots Debian and Win98. I have StarOffice 5.2 on both sides, and use it instead or MS office. I have been most impressed with it's PPt clone, and have received, edited, and sent back several .ppt files and no one's seen a difference.
I also used the spreadsheet program in my stats class. It has just about every stats function I needed. The graders couldn't figure out how I was doing 5 decimal accuracy when the charts in the book only went to 3.
PS - Yes, the professor knew I was using it.
M$ wants to give schools free stuff, but....
I can't find one donor to give me $500 to build a server for my Ph.D. studies!
PS - If you know anybody willing, let me know. :)
The top ten grossing movies ever (from www.the-movie-times.com):
Interesting how none of these were rated R.
Although all DVD-authoring systems (okay, not iDVD), have the ability to read the parental guidence registry very few DVDs have ever used this feature. It seriously would take two lines of script to implement this feature. Somthing like:
Jump To SexScene if SPRM13 < X
Jump To NextScene if SPRM13 >=X
Most studios stand by their "film as an art", so it never gets done. This product is a third party coming in, whether one agrees with it or not, and adding a feature which a good portion of the consumers want.
How many want it? Enough that SPRM13 was a register set aside in the DVD spec just for parental control.
* 2001-11-09 00:37:56 Att Gen Further Destroys Rights (articles,usa) (rejected)
Ok, this is OT, but I thought I'd share.
Posting those .movs on my IBM X20 laptop was probably not a good idea, but it has given me the chance to see how Apache would hold up.
Since September 18, 2001, Code Red 2 has hit me with 1177 GET requests.
In the last hour since I posted the Episode II trailer, Slashdot has hit me 662 times.
Needless to say that I've moved to another station to get some work done.
This is actually what the movie industry calls a 'teaser'.
Agreed.
The video file is 1:07 long, but after I cut out the Fox and Lucasfilm titles, and the end Star Wars logo, and then removed all of the blank screen, I was left with (I kid you not) 25 seconds of video.
Here are the files:
The whole 640 trailer
The one I edited
About half way through, there's a shot of a rather pensive Mace Windu, with Yoda behind him facing the other way.
Yoda is looking at an approaching group. Among them are the Queen (Natalie Portman!), and Jar-Jar Binks.
I think I'll wait for the DVD.
I heard a lot of people whine that one reason Episode I was such a disappointment was that the trailer rocked.
I guess Lucas figured out that he could make a less-than-impressive trailer so people wouldn't be so disappointed.
PS - I don't think I saw this much face-sucking in the other 4 movies combined.
I heard (from the VP of sales at Logitech at the time) that MS went to Logitech and said they were interested at branding Logitech mice with MS's logo. Of course, the Logitech guys got dollar-signs in their eyes and put their best sales people on the job.
Six months later, after much negotiation, Logitech had widdled away their price estimates, and it came time for MS to sign the paperwork. The MS rep never showed.
A couple of months later, MS released their first mouse, undercutting Logitech because they knew every detail about Logitech's production costs.
I dunno'. That sounds shadey to me.
PS - I will admit that the MS optical mouse is the best mouse I've ever used.
Here at my school, the academics (from the CS faculty to the French Lit dept.) have known and used p2p for a while. It's the administration which is ignorant/fears it.
A friend of mine worked in doc support of the IT office, and let me know that their worries of Napster et al came from the top, not from the techs. The VP of IT announced that they would be blocking Napster because it was sucking 46% of the network. Then, when it happened, they lied and said that they saw a 46% jump in performance the moment they began blocking.
Funny that it should have been closer to a 90% jump (since the system was supposedly running at 54% before).
Anyway, the academics have been flying under the radar of the administration and using p2p for a couple of years now. There's even http://educommons.org/, a p2p program at Utah State to allow teacher to swap instructional materials.
Last year some MS reps came to my work at a University's online independent study program. After about an hour of discussion, they finally popped a question that set off considerable fireworks.
They asked, "What services, available for free on the web today, would you be willing to pay for if you had to."
Actually, I sent an email to my senator (Orrin Hatch) to complain about the DMCA after the Felton and Sklyarov issues came out.
I received an email back from his aide saying that he would not respond to my letter unless I included an address from his state. So I re-sent the email.
A couple of days ago, I got a response via snailmail in which Senator Hatch explained his position. I didn't agree with most of what he said, but he did say that because the situations were still pending, it would be improper for him to comment, and that he was "monitoring closly the situation."