The movie industry * Deserves our money * Is a font of creativity and artistry * Is the victim of amoral customer base * Produces 1 good film in 20 * Is far, far beyone the Whiny Little Bitch stage * Can shrivel up and die for all I care * Hasn't gotten any of MY money since "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Turtles In Time" * Should put CowboyNeal in Starwars 3
software is an implementation. you can't give information to an uninformed, uneducated Joe Anybody Computeruser and expect them to use it to watch downloaded DVDs. i've looked at DeCSS, and i couldn't have written it from any of the 'information' about cracking CCA i've ever read. but i bet i could compile it and run it if i tried.
as i understand it, providing SOFTWARE with regards to computer security falls under the "primarily intended for hacking" clause; whereas providing INFORMATION with regards to computer security does not, since INFORMATION can be turned into SOFTWARE.
that's why (as i understand it) a commercial DVD player isn't affected by the same clause that affects DeCSS -- the "primary use" is different; but that unlucky professor still can't discuss breaking the secure music format.
this could be wrong. i haven't read the law, and i'm sure as hell not a lawyer.
i saw this link on fark recently. as was so perfectly stated at that time, i can't believe anyone decided that DVDA (DVD-Audio) would be a good acronym for... well for anything at all. sorry, that acronym is tained for all time.
the link in the story is to the microsoft testimonial of a "seventh grade" kid. not the kid pictured, mind you, but aparently to a real life seventh grader.
um. then the testimonial says this:
Our first assignment this year was to read a historical novel. I chose Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. I read the book over the weekend. The guide for A Tale of Two Cities helped me to consider some things about the book that I might not have noticed just reading it once, like asking me to look for thematic images and foreshadowing like the red sunset falling on the French palace.
i see two possibilities: (1) it's all fake; (2) this is the most brillian seventh grader in the history of formal education. shit, in seventh grade i was hardly reading Dickens, much less doing presentations about thematic images and foreshadowing. and what kind of genius reads A Tale of Two Cities "over the weekend"? i think microsoft would do well to employ this golden child.
I wasn't surprised to hear people ridicule Judge Jackson considering the three other most famous Dartmouth alums are Dr. Seuss, Captain Kangeroo, and Mr. Rogers (who spoke at the most recent graduation ceremony).
"why not"? where to begin? i'll come back with one reason why not: law is hollow without a police force. who is your police force, w3c?
"hello, sir, this is tim berners-lee. we understand that you tried to hack into a website. i am armed with electro-pulse devices and will disable your computer if you resist. please follow me to internet jail."
i guess i don't understand what you don't understand.
you call Southwest, you talk to a person. let's say you talk to them for 30 minuts -- that's like $5 or $6 or $7 of personnel time for Southwest. for a million users that's $5,000,000 (i personally think this is a conservative estimate). this ignores the equipment cost -- the phone lines, the headsets, the computers used by the operators -- and accounts only for the actual people.
a million people use the Southwest website to buy tickets (i don't think that's an exaggeration). the website cost -- let's say -- $100,000 to set up.
it is, in fact, true that websites lower costs. very true. once written, software on a computer will run at no additional cost (electricity maybe) forever.
for the record, i am still undecided about the greater issue at hand.
the "incremental effort" for a business to support blacks may be zero, but the business impact is not. if white people won't go to a restaurant that serves black people, then legislation requiring integration might be bad for business.
but that's not really the point. the point is that we are a Great Society of Right Minded People (right?). we believe that if we CAN serve a disenfranchized minority, that we SHOULD -- because we believe that a minority person is still a PERSON.. sometimes the definition of CAN is in question, but the ADA has a clause for financial reasonability (that is, you don't have to build a handicap ramp if you really, really can't afford to).
as it is, i generally oppose any new legislation or any legislation which forces people to Be Nice To Eachother (like the ADA). that said, i think the ADA is a reasonable piece of legislation.
This situation is also present at Universities. I currently work for Dartmouth College writing a flashcard-type program for foreign language students. My job ends at the end of the summer because the money to develop the software has dried up. Dartmouth has been cutting back on many of its software projects while weathering the tech bust and, more generally, the bear stock market. I am aware that the budgets for hardware and software both have shrunk considerably from last year and a lot of our techies are scrambling to figure out where they'll find the money to buy the things the want and need.
I am a recent computer science graduate; instead of trying to find a job in the tech industry, I'm taking some time off from working -- and when I decide to return to work I don't think I'll be looking in the computer industry.
i agree. as it is, i have a years-old macintosh (original iMac) and i'm treading water waiting for Linux to become Good Enough for me. i had Linux installed on my iMac for a while but found it not-quite-usable enough to make it worthwhile -- it's not that i don't understand how a computer works (writing software is, in fact, my profession), it's that i don't know by heart the 150 little utilities, scripts, and commands to frob the tiny little details of the system, and couldn't convince myself to read any of the 1,000 page Linux tomes.
i was heartened recently with the new releases of Mozilla and Gnome and OpenOffice. i'm waiting for those three pieces of software to make it into the distros and i'll be ready to buy a cheap PC and run only Linux (i don't and never have done Windows). i'm long past having developed a hatred for MacOS (for crashes alone; i think it's still the most usable OS).
one really great thing about Linux is how absolutely sure i am that it and other Free software will "win". already, Free alternatives are just about as good as their commercial counterparts. already they are more stable and secure, and our community is watching as one after another popular title becomes super-user-friendly, too. it's folly to think that people will keep paying for software when free software is better. free operating systems, browsers, office suites, chat clients, file browsers, peer-to-peer software, mp3 players, and graphics programs WILL win market share in the end simply because they are Good and Free.
plus, what about the next company which decides it wants to write it wants to release it's own web browser? you think they'll reinvent the wheel instead of using Mozilla? why would they do that? so they don't have to comply with the GPL? no way. with software so complex, companies will wisely choose to build on the already-Free options then bit the bullet and release their modifications back to the community.
i really really believe that the momentum is absolutely impossible to stop. the future of consumer software will not be like the past. the reason is simple economics.
The Gecko rendering engine at the heart of the Mozilla Web browser is scheduled to replace Microsoft's Internet Explorer as AOL's default browser -- the one in the millions of free AOL CDs distributed every year -- in the 8.0 version of AOL's client software. (The current version is 7.0.)
with the frequency of AOL's point-zero software releases, we'll see Mozilla in AOL by the end of next week.
you know that's a surprisingly interesting suggestion; why doesn't someone try putting all the components into a largish keyboard? my keyboard is already pretty large; adding RAM and a HD makes perfect sense, and even something like a CD drive would be okay if it didn't shake around so much. Think about it: you plug your keyboard into the wall and into the monitor, and off you go.
i'm a Mac person myself, so Office is available to me (I even "own" it, because it comes with your first tuition payment at Dartmouth), but I don't use Office (don't have it installed) because I prefer other (also nonfree) software (AppleWorks -- try not to laugh). so when I get a Word doc I do indeed have to ask people to send me another format. two good stories:
1.) once a female student here sent me a document for some reason which now eludes me. at that time i was still in the "open with BBEdit" phase (not yet in the "bitch the person out over blitz" phase) so i did that, only to find all sorts of text from other documents (we've all heard about this bug). it was funny stuff: snippets of a love letter this girl had once received from an EXTREMELY infatuated beau, let me tell you. so i responded to her with the text of the love letters, explaining the bug and how to avoid it, and she was HORRIFIED -- i wonder if she gave up Word? somehow i doubt it.
2.) one time a secretary in the office for my major (cs) emailed all the CS majors a Word doc with a message to the effect of "this is the most damn important file you'll ever receive as a major -- open it immediately and blah blah blah". i wrote her back and asked her to send it in RTF but i never heard from her again. i hope it wasn't TOO important, because it's been a couple years and i still don't know what was in that doc.
I'm a Mac user, mostly, but I don't use Office or Word. When I need to exchange formatted text with someone, I use RTF. It's a Microsoft standard so there is never any problem with other people being able to open it in Word, and I can use AppleWorks. RTF has been around for years and years, and all Office suites I've ever used already support it. If Office suites on Linux don't support it, perhaps that's the issue.
1. I agree that ten percent is not an insignificant population.
2. I completely disagree that people should avoid CSS. (Yes, this is going to be a CSS rant.) I code my website (see my sig) to be very standards compliant (I'm a huge nerd) but I REFUSE TO CODE FOR NETSCAPE 4.7. Netscape 4.7 wasn't a good browser years ago when it came out, and it's even worse now. I use Mozilla as my browser of choice FOR THE REASON that it renders CSS properly. Why would we hold up the web for a browser that has sucked for so so so long?
CONCLUSION: don't suck. Use stylesheets. They are your friend. And for the love of God, don't use Netscape 4.7. Go get a real browser. I'd rather use IE than that buggy piece of crud.
I know this sounds pretty stupid, but one thing that I like about IE is the google search toolbar you can add. Is there a way to have this in Mozilla?
Yes, there is a way.
Go into your preferences and choose the Navigator->Internet Search screen and choose "Google" from the list of search sites. Then, all you have to do is type your search string into the address field and you'll see the familiar drop-down URL menu containing a "Google Search For..." option.
That's how I have mine set up. Pretty sweet.
They also, by the way, have a nifty bookmark you can choose which is really a little javascript hack which asks you for the search string and sends you to the search results. I don't remember where I ever saw that, though.
Slashdot Mirror
even better, this is the link to google's cache without the damn word-hilighting.
The movie industry
* Deserves our money
* Is a font of creativity and artistry
* Is the victim of amoral customer base
* Produces 1 good film in 20
* Is far, far beyone the Whiny Little Bitch stage
* Can shrivel up and die for all I care
* Hasn't gotten any of MY money since "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Turtles In Time"
* Should put CowboyNeal in Starwars 3
software is an implementation. you can't give information to an uninformed, uneducated Joe Anybody Computeruser and expect them to use it to watch downloaded DVDs. i've looked at DeCSS, and i couldn't have written it from any of the 'information' about cracking CCA i've ever read. but i bet i could compile it and run it if i tried.
as i understand it, providing SOFTWARE with regards to computer security falls under the "primarily intended for hacking" clause; whereas providing INFORMATION with regards to computer security does not, since INFORMATION can be turned into SOFTWARE.
that's why (as i understand it) a commercial DVD player isn't affected by the same clause that affects DeCSS -- the "primary use" is different; but that unlucky professor still can't discuss breaking the secure music format.
this could be wrong. i haven't read the law, and i'm sure as hell not a lawyer.
i saw this link on fark recently. as was so perfectly stated at that time, i can't believe anyone decided that DVDA (DVD-Audio) would be a good acronym for... well for anything at all. sorry, that acronym is tained for all time.
the link in the story is to the microsoft testimonial of a "seventh grade" kid. not the kid pictured, mind you, but aparently to a real life seventh grader.
um. then the testimonial says this:
Our first assignment this year was to read a historical novel. I chose Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. I read the book over the weekend. The guide for A Tale of Two Cities helped me to consider some things about the book that I might not have noticed just reading it once, like asking me to look for thematic images and foreshadowing like the red sunset falling on the French palace.
i see two possibilities: (1) it's all fake; (2) this is the most brillian seventh grader in the history of formal education. shit, in seventh grade i was hardly reading Dickens, much less doing presentations about thematic images and foreshadowing. and what kind of genius reads A Tale of Two Cities "over the weekend"? i think microsoft would do well to employ this golden child.
I don't know if this has been posted elsewhere, but here is google's cache of that page. I had to frob the url but it works.
peace
(I'm a Dartmouth alum, too.)
I wasn't surprised to hear people ridicule Judge Jackson considering the three other most famous Dartmouth alums are Dr. Seuss, Captain Kangeroo, and Mr. Rogers (who spoke at the most recent graduation ceremony).
(it's a joke. laugh.)
peace
what part of "eventually" didn't you understand?
correlary: Sony in 1980 "hey should we worry about this new CD format? EVENTUALLY consumers might figure out how to make high-quality copies..."
"why not"? where to begin? i'll come back with one reason why not: law is hollow without a police force. who is your police force, w3c?
"hello, sir, this is tim berners-lee. we understand that you tried to hack into a website. i am armed with electro-pulse devices and will disable your computer if you resist. please follow me to internet jail."
i guess i don't understand what you don't understand.
you call Southwest, you talk to a person. let's say you talk to them for 30 minuts -- that's like $5 or $6 or $7 of personnel time for Southwest. for a million users that's $5,000,000 (i personally think this is a conservative estimate). this ignores the equipment cost -- the phone lines, the headsets, the computers used by the operators -- and accounts only for the actual people.
a million people use the Southwest website to buy tickets (i don't think that's an exaggeration). the website cost -- let's say -- $100,000 to set up.
it is, in fact, true that websites lower costs. very true. once written, software on a computer will run at no additional cost (electricity maybe) forever.
for the record, i am still undecided about the greater issue at hand.
the "incremental effort" for a business to support blacks may be zero, but the business impact is not. if white people won't go to a restaurant that serves black people, then legislation requiring integration might be bad for business.
but that's not really the point. the point is that we are a Great Society of Right Minded People (right?). we believe that if we CAN serve a disenfranchized minority, that we SHOULD -- because we believe that a minority person is still a PERSON.. sometimes the definition of CAN is in question, but the ADA has a clause for financial reasonability (that is, you don't have to build a handicap ramp if you really, really can't afford to).
as it is, i generally oppose any new legislation or any legislation which forces people to Be Nice To Eachother (like the ADA). that said, i think the ADA is a reasonable piece of legislation.
I am a recent computer science graduate; instead of trying to find a job in the tech industry, I'm taking some time off from working -- and when I decide to return to work I don't think I'll be looking in the computer industry.
the moon reflects light from the Sun... not that i'm suggesting you could bounce signals off of it.
hey, taco, it comes in black.
i agree. as it is, i have a years-old macintosh (original iMac) and i'm treading water waiting for Linux to become Good Enough for me. i had Linux installed on my iMac for a while but found it not-quite-usable enough to make it worthwhile -- it's not that i don't understand how a computer works (writing software is, in fact, my profession), it's that i don't know by heart the 150 little utilities, scripts, and commands to frob the tiny little details of the system, and couldn't convince myself to read any of the 1,000 page Linux tomes.
i was heartened recently with the new releases of Mozilla and Gnome and OpenOffice. i'm waiting for those three pieces of software to make it into the distros and i'll be ready to buy a cheap PC and run only Linux (i don't and never have done Windows). i'm long past having developed a hatred for MacOS (for crashes alone; i think it's still the most usable OS).
one really great thing about Linux is how absolutely sure i am that it and other Free software will "win". already, Free alternatives are just about as good as their commercial counterparts. already they are more stable and secure, and our community is watching as one after another popular title becomes super-user-friendly, too. it's folly to think that people will keep paying for software when free software is better. free operating systems, browsers, office suites, chat clients, file browsers, peer-to-peer software, mp3 players, and graphics programs WILL win market share in the end simply because they are Good and Free.
plus, what about the next company which decides it wants to write it wants to release it's own web browser? you think they'll reinvent the wheel instead of using Mozilla? why would they do that? so they don't have to comply with the GPL? no way. with software so complex, companies will wisely choose to build on the already-Free options then bit the bullet and release their modifications back to the community.
i really really believe that the momentum is absolutely impossible to stop. the future of consumer software will not be like the past. the reason is simple economics.
IDG: How about just the idea of having an open source browser, the Opera Web browser for instance.! Is that beneficial to users or developers?
Andreessen: How much (browser) market share does Opera have?
IDG: Let's pretend Opera has a 93 percent market share. Does it make a difference that its code is open source?
Andreessen: (Pause). I don't think so.
with the frequency of AOL's point-zero software releases, we'll see Mozilla in AOL by the end of next week.
you know that's a surprisingly interesting suggestion; why doesn't someone try putting all the components into a largish keyboard? my keyboard is already pretty large; adding RAM and a HD makes perfect sense, and even something like a CD drive would be okay if it didn't shake around so much. Think about it: you plug your keyboard into the wall and into the monitor, and off you go.
i'm a Mac person myself, so Office is available to me (I even "own" it, because it comes with your first tuition payment at Dartmouth), but I don't use Office (don't have it installed) because I prefer other (also nonfree) software (AppleWorks -- try not to laugh). so when I get a Word doc I do indeed have to ask people to send me another format. two good stories:
1.) once a female student here sent me a document for some reason which now eludes me. at that time i was still in the "open with BBEdit" phase (not yet in the "bitch the person out over blitz" phase) so i did that, only to find all sorts of text from other documents (we've all heard about this bug). it was funny stuff: snippets of a love letter this girl had once received from an EXTREMELY infatuated beau, let me tell you. so i responded to her with the text of the love letters, explaining the bug and how to avoid it, and she was HORRIFIED -- i wonder if she gave up Word? somehow i doubt it.
2.) one time a secretary in the office for my major (cs) emailed all the CS majors a Word doc with a message to the effect of "this is the most damn important file you'll ever receive as a major -- open it immediately and blah blah blah". i wrote her back and asked her to send it in RTF but i never heard from her again. i hope it wasn't TOO important, because it's been a couple years and i still don't know what was in that doc.
I'm a Mac user, mostly, but I don't use Office or Word. When I need to exchange formatted text with someone, I use RTF. It's a Microsoft standard so there is never any problem with other people being able to open it in Word, and I can use AppleWorks. RTF has been around for years and years, and all Office suites I've ever used already support it. If Office suites on Linux don't support it, perhaps that's the issue.
1. I agree that ten percent is not an insignificant population.
2. I completely disagree that people should avoid CSS. (Yes, this is going to be a CSS rant.) I code my website (see my sig) to be very standards compliant (I'm a huge nerd) but I REFUSE TO CODE FOR NETSCAPE 4.7. Netscape 4.7 wasn't a good browser years ago when it came out, and it's even worse now. I use Mozilla as my browser of choice FOR THE REASON that it renders CSS properly. Why would we hold up the web for a browser that has sucked for so so so long?
CONCLUSION: don't suck. Use stylesheets. They are your friend. And for the love of God, don't use Netscape 4.7. Go get a real browser. I'd rather use IE than that buggy piece of crud.
Yes, there is a way.
Go into your preferences and choose the Navigator->Internet Search screen and choose "Google" from the list of search sites. Then, all you have to do is type your search string into the address field and you'll see the familiar drop-down URL menu containing a "Google Search For..." option.
That's how I have mine set up. Pretty sweet.
They also, by the way, have a nifty bookmark you can choose which is really a little javascript hack which asks you for the search string and sends you to the search results. I don't remember where I ever saw that, though.
oh my god this guy is going to make a million dollars
I wrote a paper for a college class ("Offensive Art") which dealt in part with that case.