"I thought torrents randomly sent chunks from all over the file, rather than as a stream. Wouldn't this make no sense unless you wanted to wait forever for the program to be completely downloaded ?"
Step 1: Pick a program to record.
Step 2: Wait for the program to become available.
Step 3: Watch the program.
Those 3 steps both describe the way this system would presumably work and the way a PVR already works with traditional broadcast TV. The only difference is whether step 2 represents waiting for the next episode to be broadcast or if it represents waiting for the file to be transferred via bit torrent. So the system's fine as long as you don't try and equate it to a utopian video on demand service.
Also, as a minor technical nitpick, it's not that the chunks are sent in random order, but rather that they're requested in random order. I know with BitTornado, there's a half-hidden option that lets you prioritize the files within a torrent to get the client to try and complete certain files first. So if you've got a multi-gig torrent containing several videos in a series, you can start watching the first video much more quickly than if you let things occur in the default, random order.
"Will that day come in the next 40 years, or even ever ?"
IF (and this is a big "if") Moore's law holds (i.e. processor speed doubles every 18 months), then it should happen easily. Some quick calculations come up with:
40 years * 12 months / 18 months = 26 doublings of processor speed
2^26 = processor is 67108864 times faster than before
Something that runs at 60 fps in the future / 67108864 =.0000008940 fps on a current processor.
Taking the reciprocal, we get 1118481 seconds/frame or roughly 12 days per frame on a current processor. So anything we can raytrace now in 12 days, we would be able to raytrace at 60 fps 40 years down the round. Again, assuming that Moore's law holds.
However, I don't think it's going to be so cut and dried. It seems like we're always on the cusp of the failure of Moore's law by reaching some sort of limit on how small we can make things. On the plus side, proper raytracing isn't exactly a prerequisite to good looking, photo-realistic images -- we're getting better and better at "cheating" with more efficient rendering algorithms that look good enough. So we might not exactly have what we're looking for, but I don't doubt for a second that rendered graphics 40 years from now will look amazing.
"The whole point of some blacklists is to prevent *commercial* email. So, what kind of email are companies going to send you?"
Actually, it's mainly *unsolicited* commercial email that people don't want. If someone sends in a question to the customer service desk at work, I'm positive that they're interested in receiving a reply, even though it's coming from a company.
"First of all, let me say: Agreed, HTML is programming, just as C++ is - the computer is interpreting coded instructions to process data."
Is double-clicking on the Freecell icon considered programming? You're coding your intent to start the application into the form of two timed presses of the mouse button, and the computer is interpreting that as an instruction to process the data in the shortcut (which in turn, leads to it processing instructions in the Freecell executable itself).
I think you've overgeneralized the definition of programming to the point where it includes any interaction with a computer, and then you've used that newfound freedom to apply it to a task that's certainly complex and expressive but still lacking in actual programming.
Nope. You're completely correct. The whole stonecutters aspect of the story was introduced by the parking lot joke -- after Homer first walks from where he parks to the power plant, he sees Lenny and Carl parking at the front. He asks about their spots, Lenny says it's a secret, and Carl tells him to shut up.
But the single worst feature of Lindows lurks under its colorful interface. Lindows sets the PC's owner up to run the machine as its "root" user, with unrestricted access to every system command and capability, no matter how potentially damaging. Worse yet, the test system left the root password blank.
However, for the record, I've seen passing references while googling that indicate this has been fixed. But the point still stands that if you're going to criticize Microsoft for doing this in the past, it's only fair to criticize Lindows for also doing this in the past.
"They could also find out how many free minutes you have left, and limit the length of their call to you to this duration (a countdown timer shows up on the telemarketing agent's computer screen)."
If they're using up "free" minutes, then there's still a cost the receiver is paying to take the call (other than the "time wasted" cost that all telemarketing carries). Even though the time the telemarketer spends on the phone with you doesn't correlate to a dollars-and-cents item on your monthly bill, they're still using up a limited, prepaid resource that the phone user has paid for (in the form of a monthly fee).
I've heard that it's better to say "please put me on your 'do not call' list", instead. Asking to be removed from the company's calling list may result in your number being added back to the database later while being explicitly added to the company's own DNC list will keep them from calling you for as long as they're required to keep the entry.
"Actually cut up some of the carts with a plasma torch and use the pieces to create individual molecules (G T C A) on the helix, there's lots of interesting structures to be built with the steel grids and wheels and legs, etc."
I like the cutting idea. You could cut the cart one way to produce the two molecules for a GC pair and another way to produce a TA pair. So if the left half of a cart represents G and the right half of a cart represents C, you've got a visual reminder that the two molecules are always paired up. Ditto for using, say, the front half of a cart for T and the back half of a cart for A.
"Apparently copyright infringement is a criminal charge in Japan."
It's a criminal charge in the US, as well.
Most of the copyright-related cases we've seen lately on Slashdot (namely RIAA stuff) have been handled via civil suits. However, if you recall the incident where the guy was busted for leaking the workprint of The Hulk, he was actually charged with (and plead guilty to) felony copyright infringement: http://news.com.com/2100-1026-1021005.html?tag=nl
"Perhaps better: while `sleep $RANDOM`; do kill -9 $RANDOM; done"
That's worse. Since that code often sleeps for 20-30 thousand seconds, you'll execute the 'kill -9 $RANDOM' so rarely that it'll almost never get lucky and hit a valid process id.
"Yet there's quite a bit of the/. crowd that thinks it is perfectly normal and acceptable to sell items or characters for an EverQuest game."
However, a number of Slashdot posters are critical of EverQuest items, as well. Furthermore, the EverQuest items at least have a use, even if that use is constrained to virtual progress in a virtual world. In contrast, the FunHi items are purely ornamental -- you can't even use them within the virtual world.
On the other hand, there's one thing that I think does justify the FunHi system -- the trick is to look at the real money being paid as donations to keep the site going. The status symbol rewards are just fun little virtual recognitions of those donations. This isn't like EverQuest where everyone is already paying monthly to keep the servers up and running.
"But I don't think the RIAA will send a "slew" of lawyers over $3K."
But it isn't just $3k. $3k is the average settlement amount -- the amount that they're suing for is generally quite higher. Furthermore, if a single one of these cases were to go to trial, the RIAA would want to take it seriously because of all the publicity it would garner. The last thing the RIAA wants is the public perception that it's easy to get away with copyright infringement.
"They could do it free with some Common Content released under a Creative Commons license."
They could, but they'd probably be more interested in promoting artists that're signed up with iTunes instead. In fact, I'm surprised they aren't already doing that.
"Let's follow this analogy to its conclusion. If I have $20 dollars, let you "borrow" $20, but still have my original $20, well... Yes. I would have no problem with you "borrowing" my $20."
That's all nice and good until everyone does it, and you discover that your system results in runaway inflation.
Surprisingly enough, despite the absurdity of the analogy, we can compare it back to intellectual property. As less people purchase IP-based products and more people simply "borrow" them from "friends", the incentive for people to spend time, money, and effort on creating new IP goes down.
"Would you really want to have a "famous" phone number? Just think about all the random calls you would get?"
I wouldn't mind it if I could set something up where my phone doesn't ring until after the caller enters a PIN. Something really easy like the numeric equivalent of the first 3 letters of my name. That'd kill the random calls and also telemarketing and survey nonsense (although I must admit the no-call list is doing a pretty good job with the telemarketers). And if I had to give out my number to a business for some reason, I'd just list the PIN as my extension number.
"exactly, except for the fact that you don't really need DMCA to send such a letter: plain old copyright laws already allowed this."
You're correct in the sense that copyright holders would still be able to send out complaint letters if the DMCA were repealed. However, the DMCA does give extra weight to those letters by requiring a certain amount of response within a certain amount of time under threat of additional penalties. With non-DMCA complaint letters, I'm not sure if they do anything beyond serving as further evidence of the copyright violation being a willful one.
"(no, you didn't find a good use of DMCA, sorry:) )"
Well, I'd argue it's at least the least objectionable. A copyright holder using the DMCA to get someone to remove the holder's copyrighted works is still a lot better than the controversially vague "circumvention device" issue or the now defunct ability to directly subpoena an ISP for records without judicial oversight (as seen in the Verizon case). Even so, this use of the DMCA seems to have problems in that there are no consequences for a copyright holder who misidentifies a work or who ignores that a given use of the work falls under fiar use.
"Electronic dissemination provided by : xxxxxxx Consultants PO Box xxxx Plaza Del Lago Airport xxxx xxxx Bay, St. Maarten (no country specified... from US for sure)"
St. Maarten is an island in the West Indies that's part French and part Dutch. The "St. Maarten" spelling refers to the southern, Dutch-side of the island while the northern, French-side is "St. Martin".
"What was presented that makes this case different?"
I believe the main difference is that the people running the P2P networks still have on-going contact with the activity on that network. If I buy a VCR from Sony, they have no idea what I'm doing with it. If I hop on a network run by Morpheus, they still have some theoretical involvement with what's going on.
I'm honestly not decided on this issue (since I'm pro-copyright but I dislike the thought on having all online speech regulated), but I do think there's enough of a difference between this and the Betamax case that it should go to the courts again.
"It related to the creation of p2p networks (gnutella, freenet, etc.), NOT the question at hand: the subpoena power of the RIAA under the DMCA, which is what this case is about."
Are you sure you aren't confusing this with the Verizon case? Neither this article nor the previous article about this case mentions the DMCA subpoena powers. Furthermore, I don't see what information the RIAA would want to subpoena the P2P network itself for. Most of the good stuff (from a lawsuit perspective) is buried in the customer records of the ISP.
"In the article, the RIAA "enforcers" claim they don't try to create the idea that they're a police force. Why, then, would a victim say that, "They said they were police from the recording industry or something, and next time they'd take me away in handcuffs."?"
The victim in this case, who doesn't speak English and who allegedly got caught up in selling bootlegs, isn't exactly the most reliable source. He's not necessarily lying, but he may be mistaken in what occurred. For example, he may have confused the RIAA enforcers' claim that they'd go to the police and get this guy arrested with a claim that the RIAA enforcers would be arresting him.
Now I won't say for sure that the RIAA enforcers didn't overstep their legal bounds, but simply taking the victims word at face value in this case is a bit unfair.
"The problem is that the ISPs advertise an "UNLIMITED CONNECTION" to the internet but do not offer any plan that allows this."
A quick googling on '"unlimited connection" dsl' shows that a number of DSL providers are actually offering "unlimited connection time". So they're saying you can leave your DSL running 24/7/365, but they aren't necessarily promising that you continually saturate your bandwidth during that time.
"I know, but it's damn hard to tell. Maybe I was fooled. If anyone has more information, tell me."
Here's the donation thread from the forums. Based on what I've seen in the SA forums, I'm fairly confident that it's on the level. SA is usually more "over the top" with their hoaxes, and accepting donations like this for a hoax would have a decent chance of getting them in trouble for fraud.
"In an age when replicating goods (including such goods as contained intellectual property, such as books) was only possible through hard labour and toil, the concept of copyright may have seemed to be valid, but in the world where goods containing intellectual property can be duplicated for negligable cost, it seems that a new model would be more equitable."
I think you're a bit off base here. Copyright addresses the problem that producing the original work requires significantly more effort than duplicating that work once it's been created. That was true then, and it's true now -- it can take months or years for an author to write a book, but even the old Guttenberg press could print a vast number of copies with ease.
Slashdot Mirror
Step 1: Pick a program to record.
Step 2: Wait for the program to become available.
Step 3: Watch the program.
Those 3 steps both describe the way this system would presumably work and the way a PVR already works with traditional broadcast TV. The only difference is whether step 2 represents waiting for the next episode to be broadcast or if it represents waiting for the file to be transferred via bit torrent. So the system's fine as long as you don't try and equate it to a utopian video on demand service.
Also, as a minor technical nitpick, it's not that the chunks are sent in random order, but rather that they're requested in random order. I know with BitTornado, there's a half-hidden option that lets you prioritize the files within a torrent to get the client to try and complete certain files first. So if you've got a multi-gig torrent containing several videos in a series, you can start watching the first video much more quickly than if you let things occur in the default, random order.
IF (and this is a big "if") Moore's law holds (i.e. processor speed doubles every 18 months), then it should happen easily. Some quick calculations come up with:
40 years * 12 months / 18 months = 26 doublings of processor speed .0000008940 fps on a current processor.
2^26 = processor is 67108864 times faster than before
Something that runs at 60 fps in the future / 67108864 =
Taking the reciprocal, we get 1118481 seconds/frame or roughly 12 days per frame on a current processor. So anything we can raytrace now in 12 days, we would be able to raytrace at 60 fps 40 years down the round. Again, assuming that Moore's law holds.
However, I don't think it's going to be so cut and dried. It seems like we're always on the cusp of the failure of Moore's law by reaching some sort of limit on how small we can make things. On the plus side, proper raytracing isn't exactly a prerequisite to good looking, photo-realistic images -- we're getting better and better at "cheating" with more efficient rendering algorithms that look good enough. So we might not exactly have what we're looking for, but I don't doubt for a second that rendered graphics 40 years from now will look amazing.
Actually, it's mainly *unsolicited* commercial email that people don't want. If someone sends in a question to the customer service desk at work, I'm positive that they're interested in receiving a reply, even though it's coming from a company.
Is double-clicking on the Freecell icon considered programming? You're coding your intent to start the application into the form of two timed presses of the mouse button, and the computer is interpreting that as an instruction to process the data in the shortcut (which in turn, leads to it processing instructions in the Freecell executable itself).
I think you've overgeneralized the definition of programming to the point where it includes any interaction with a computer, and then you've used that newfound freedom to apply it to a task that's certainly complex and expressive but still lacking in actual programming.
Nope. You're completely correct. The whole stonecutters aspect of the story was introduced by the parking lot joke -- after Homer first walks from where he parks to the power plant, he sees Lenny and Carl parking at the front. He asks about their spots, Lenny says it's a secret, and Carl tells him to shut up.
Apparently, Lindows was guilty of this even more recently than Windows. From a July 21, 2002 Washington Post article:
However, for the record, I've seen passing references while googling that indicate this has been fixed. But the point still stands that if you're going to criticize Microsoft for doing this in the past, it's only fair to criticize Lindows for also doing this in the past.
If they're using up "free" minutes, then there's still a cost the receiver is paying to take the call (other than the "time wasted" cost that all telemarketing carries). Even though the time the telemarketer spends on the phone with you doesn't correlate to a dollars-and-cents item on your monthly bill, they're still using up a limited, prepaid resource that the phone user has paid for (in the form of a monthly fee).
I've heard that it's better to say "please put me on your 'do not call' list", instead. Asking to be removed from the company's calling list may result in your number being added back to the database later while being explicitly added to the company's own DNC list will keep them from calling you for as long as they're required to keep the entry.
I like the cutting idea. You could cut the cart one way to produce the two molecules for a GC pair and another way to produce a TA pair. So if the left half of a cart represents G and the right half of a cart represents C, you've got a visual reminder that the two molecules are always paired up. Ditto for using, say, the front half of a cart for T and the back half of a cart for A.
It's a criminal charge in the US, as well.
Most of the copyright-related cases we've seen lately on Slashdot (namely RIAA stuff) have been handled via civil suits. However, if you recall the incident where the guy was busted for leaking the workprint of The Hulk, he was actually charged with (and plead guilty to) felony copyright infringement: http://news.com.com/2100-1026-1021005.html?tag=nl
That's worse. Since that code often sleeps for 20-30 thousand seconds, you'll execute the 'kill -9 $RANDOM' so rarely that it'll almost never get lucky and hit a valid process id.
However, a number of Slashdot posters are critical of EverQuest items, as well. Furthermore, the EverQuest items at least have a use, even if that use is constrained to virtual progress in a virtual world. In contrast, the FunHi items are purely ornamental -- you can't even use them within the virtual world.
On the other hand, there's one thing that I think does justify the FunHi system -- the trick is to look at the real money being paid as donations to keep the site going. The status symbol rewards are just fun little virtual recognitions of those donations. This isn't like EverQuest where everyone is already paying monthly to keep the servers up and running.
But it isn't just $3k. $3k is the average settlement amount -- the amount that they're suing for is generally quite higher. Furthermore, if a single one of these cases were to go to trial, the RIAA would want to take it seriously because of all the publicity it would garner. The last thing the RIAA wants is the public perception that it's easy to get away with copyright infringement.
They could, but they'd probably be more interested in promoting artists that're signed up with iTunes instead. In fact, I'm surprised they aren't already doing that.
That's all nice and good until everyone does it, and you discover that your system results in runaway inflation.
Surprisingly enough, despite the absurdity of the analogy, we can compare it back to intellectual property. As less people purchase IP-based products and more people simply "borrow" them from "friends", the incentive for people to spend time, money, and effort on creating new IP goes down.
I wouldn't mind it if I could set something up where my phone doesn't ring until after the caller enters a PIN. Something really easy like the numeric equivalent of the first 3 letters of my name. That'd kill the random calls and also telemarketing and survey nonsense (although I must admit the no-call list is doing a pretty good job with the telemarketers). And if I had to give out my number to a business for some reason, I'd just list the PIN as my extension number.
You're correct in the sense that copyright holders would still be able to send out complaint letters if the DMCA were repealed. However, the DMCA does give extra weight to those letters by requiring a certain amount of response within a certain amount of time under threat of additional penalties. With non-DMCA complaint letters, I'm not sure if they do anything beyond serving as further evidence of the copyright violation being a willful one.
"(no, you didn't find a good use of DMCA, sorry :) )"
Well, I'd argue it's at least the least objectionable. A copyright holder using the DMCA to get someone to remove the holder's copyrighted works is still a lot better than the controversially vague "circumvention device" issue or the now defunct ability to directly subpoena an ISP for records without judicial oversight (as seen in the Verizon case). Even so, this use of the DMCA seems to have problems in that there are no consequences for a copyright holder who misidentifies a work or who ignores that a given use of the work falls under fiar use.
St. Maarten is an island in the West Indies that's part French and part Dutch. The "St. Maarten" spelling refers to the southern, Dutch-side of the island while the northern, French-side is "St. Martin".
I believe the main difference is that the people running the P2P networks still have on-going contact with the activity on that network. If I buy a VCR from Sony, they have no idea what I'm doing with it. If I hop on a network run by Morpheus, they still have some theoretical involvement with what's going on.
I'm honestly not decided on this issue (since I'm pro-copyright but I dislike the thought on having all online speech regulated), but I do think there's enough of a difference between this and the Betamax case that it should go to the courts again.
Are you sure you aren't confusing this with the Verizon case? Neither this article nor the previous article about this case mentions the DMCA subpoena powers. Furthermore, I don't see what information the RIAA would want to subpoena the P2P network itself for. Most of the good stuff (from a lawsuit perspective) is buried in the customer records of the ISP.
70 years old is just about the right age for having a technologically savvy grandson in his teens or twenties.
The victim in this case, who doesn't speak English and who allegedly got caught up in selling bootlegs, isn't exactly the most reliable source. He's not necessarily lying, but he may be mistaken in what occurred. For example, he may have confused the RIAA enforcers' claim that they'd go to the police and get this guy arrested with a claim that the RIAA enforcers would be arresting him.
Now I won't say for sure that the RIAA enforcers didn't overstep their legal bounds, but simply taking the victims word at face value in this case is a bit unfair.
A quick googling on '"unlimited connection" dsl' shows that a number of DSL providers are actually offering "unlimited connection time". So they're saying you can leave your DSL running 24/7/365, but they aren't necessarily promising that you continually saturate your bandwidth during that time.
Here's the donation thread from the forums. Based on what I've seen in the SA forums, I'm fairly confident that it's on the level. SA is usually more "over the top" with their hoaxes, and accepting donations like this for a hoax would have a decent chance of getting them in trouble for fraud.
I think you're a bit off base here. Copyright addresses the problem that producing the original work requires significantly more effort than duplicating that work once it's been created. That was true then, and it's true now -- it can take months or years for an author to write a book, but even the old Guttenberg press could print a vast number of copies with ease.