Oh well. I guess there goes my opportunity of posting a diary entry before leaving to Mexico tomorrow morning.
I wouldn't have thought this to be the best story from kuro5hin to post on here either. In fact I think I gave it a -1 because it was too ranty and didn't make much sense as a whole article. Oh well, such is life.
I remember "Bad Dudes" for the NES had a powerup that was a coke can. How did I know it was a coke can? It had the distinctive curved stripe on it. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games for the NES also had a lot of ads for Pizza Hut in them. It didn't detract from the game although to me it seemed a little silly at the time.
According to the article it will block many car CD players, portable CD players, and of course CD ROM drives. That is a pretty significant amount. It's not just ripping that will be affected. You won't be able to listen to your CD player in your car anymore. You won't be able to use your discman. You can't listen to them at work in your CDROM. This idea needs to be flushed immediately into the rancid stinking hole it originated from.
But they say things like, "It is going to be a beautiful day today..." which is their opinion. I happen to like storms and I feel more awake when there's a huge cumulonumbus cloud overhead rather than clear skies and sun.
And I haven't seen any sex in video games in the arcades. I mean c'mon, Princess Toadstool's dress didn't even show her ankles! Oh, but maybe those "power balls" that Ms. Pacman eats were something else entirely...Oh my God!!! Ms. Pacman ate my balls!
I am oh so happy that I spent my formative years as an arcade rat/nintendo nazi. Yeah, that did a lot to prepare me for the real world.
Me too. Now I can stomp on mushrooms better than all my coworkers, and I bash my head against bricks a lot. I did get in trouble when I went into that pet store and kicked the turtles though. It seems the majority of the people are just not aware of the mighty Koopa invasion. Let me go put on my red coveralls and matching hat now, I have a princess to save!
To me, this article just seems totally biased towards the ordinance in question, and fails to even mention any of the other sides of the story.
This is how 99.9% of the mainstream news is. Even the weather is biased. Basically, since the news is slanted in such a way, you just have to read it, disregard the majority of the crap, find out what the facts are, then go back and research to find out if they were lying or not. You'd be suprised of how much in the paper and on TV news is made up so they can have a good story, or are too lazy to get the real facts.
GSM phone next to my head using the only modulation method that *has* correlated to cancer in laboratory tests.
I've not heard anything about this. Do you have any links to articles or the research done about this? I currently use a GSM phone and it works well but if there is a real hazard, why is this technology spreading in the U.S.? We usually end up behind on trends like this if there is a potential health hazard.
Things such as the printing press, steam engine, telephone, computer, etc. have always come during certain special periods of enlightenment. They end up revolutionizing the world but not always so quickly. The computer is not finished at this point, so I'd say that we are still improving the extent of computers. We have mainframes, PCs, small embedded computers, and PDAs. The field is diversifying more than 20 years ago.
I do think that things that are free can be better than patented, just because they catch on faster and easier. This is the problem, that current IP laws in the U.S. stifle innovation. Recently I read about a patent on the crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This only harms scientists and engineers that are fully intelligent and capable of making "the next big thing(TM)" but the (TM) is part of the problem that holds them back.
I think there are a few ideas out there that are really great, but will not be useful enough and widespread for everyone to change society. ADSL is one such technology. GSM phones are another. I can name countless small advances like that, but for the next big thing, I'd say that it will probably not be in the computer or communications field. I'd put my bets on it being either mechanical (a cheap, environmental friendly engine or fuel) or in the health industry (finding a cure for diseases, or something to modify the genome in a way to eliminate problems.) Of course, this sort of thing is seemingly random. So unless I am the one that has the idea to invent that will change the world, I can't really guess what it will be.
I guess the money that the artist and record company would have been paid were you to legally procure said works is besides the point.
Actually it is in most cases. The thing with theft is that a material thing is gone. If you have a car and I steal it, you can no longer use that car. You have a loss. Likewise, if I steal a car from the dealership, they have lost a car (which usually will be covered by some insurance but there is a loss of money down the line due to the loss of a material posession.) In the case of trading copyrighted music, income is not necessarily lost. That is why this is a gray area. If I download an mp3 of the latest Britney Spears song so I can listen to it a few times, I would do so without ever intending to buy the CD. I don't like her music, and if for some reason I wanted to hear one of her songs I would not want to pay for it. Likewise, many people prefer to spend money on something other than music. If they answer the question, "If the only way to hear it required you to buy the CD, would you do so?" with "Yes" then the RIAA might be able to complain. However, I would think in most cases people would say no. They wouldn't buy the music, therefore the CD's would sit on the shelf waiting to be sold just like they would with mp3s.
Also there is the fact that the music industry is making more money than ever. While I am too lazy to go look up the statistics (there's been stories on this site about it if you want to look) I also am aware of the ancedotal evidence. The other day I bought a CD from the Enanitos Verdes, a group from Argentina. I would have never known about them or that I liked their music if it wasn't for Napster. I heard about them from a friend, was curious, then downloaded a few songs. The music interested me and so I purchased the CD. I have done things like this many times, and know of others that have as well. It's a pretty common way for hearing music that isn't what they play on the radio.
So you see, trading mp3s can't be theft, because nothing is missing. And, if they weren't complete idiots, the RIAA would see that things like Napster could help them make more money. At the least, they should have joined up with them and took advantage of the greatest marketing scheme ever. Imagine if they had the ability to see what music was most popular by electronically surveying their customers that way. The database logs of Napster would have been golden to the RIAA, but they threw it away.
You left out one thing. It will also mean a lot more games don't get returned. I can see kids having their mom rent the latest and greatest FPS for their kids, only for it to end up "missing" on the day it is due to be returned. I think something like divx where they dispose of the CD after rental would be more likely here, although that is a complete waste of resources.
I can see this coming in handy at work as well. Any time a user sends me requirements for a project, I simply type in the wrong password...I can continue reading slashdot and kuro5hin idefinitely now.:o)
What we need to do is identify what rights we have as consumers (and, no, not the right to pirate), then pressure our governments to create a law that forces RIAA, MPAA, M$, and other Copyright-based companies to protect our fair-use rights!
I agree with you, however, many people are of the opinion that there is no way to win in the legal system. The big companies basically own the U.S. government, although there are a few (very few) good people left to keep things from going into utter chaos. So, basically the laws are written by the whores of Sony, Microsoft, IBM, MPAA, etc. and the citizens are getting the shaft. The few of us that know we can make a difference lack the resources of these companies.
However, I agree with you, although that has to be qualified. I think that we need to pressure our government to create fair laws to protect our rights from big companies. The only way to do this is if the majority of the people wake up and do what's right rather than blindly supporting Republicans and Democrats. We need new blood in our legal system. We need to wake up the public from their apathy. I think it's ok to hack stuff to use it fairly, but at the same time that should be secondary to making sure those in power understand that we have rights and they are not to infringe upon them.
Unfortunately, in the crowd that is most technologically intelligent, we tend to think that we can ignore the government and it will go away just like our bosses at work. Instead, the government is more like a hyper child that just drank a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew. We are the ones that control the government, not the other way around. Unfortunately, many of us end up doing like we do at work. When our boss asks for a stupid feature in a program we are making, we make it but find a way to get around it to work right. Other times we ignore that we were even asked to do something. However, in this case there are more consequences. The U.S. government thinks we are all very expendable, and most politicians would have no problem taking some money from a big company to make a law and proceed to put you in jail. Hacking for usage of pirating doesn't solve the problem, it only works as a temporary workaround, or could sometimes make things even worse.
I think somewhere like Cuba would be perfect. It's a poor nation because of the continued mistreatment by the U.S. (why do we still have an embargo against them when the cold war ended years ago?) Because they are generally poor, they need money. They do not have financial ties to the U.S., so they can also ignore the laws and would probably do this just to spite the government. They just need to have a way to connect to the internet other than via the U.S. That is the real tricky part. However, I am sure that it could be overcome. Once the Cuban government run business opened up, companies would probably flock to it in order to do business out of the country. I know that it would be a little difficult for U.S. based businesses to do so, but I am sure they could find a way (perhaps opening a subsidary in the Netherlands, then having them do business with Cuba.) There's a lot of potential here, it would help Cuba recover from the poverty the U.S. has pushed onto them, and we would all benefit because we don't have to put up with stupid laws to brown nose corporations like the world seems to be full of these days.
Imagine a world where you have these small disks. Your old CD players are no longer compatible with the new music coming out. You now have this thing that is nearly impossible to copy. Even if you could copy it, the blanks would cost between $5 and $12 (according to the article.) Also, they could decide to lock the CD's completely until you register them via the phone or web much like software (according to the article, they have this capability.)
Now, imagine lots of fed up people like you and I that might have cd burners and high speed internet connections. We will always find a way to trade music even if they bring down napster, so then we make our own CD's. We simply record the audio from MTV or however we want in order to get the mp3's we need. Of course, I can see the quality increasing in digital audio as well so that we get CD quality files on our hard drives, and simply write the cd's ourselves.
Also, this could become a big pirate business. Because noone will be able to play music with these handicapped disks, people will look for alternatives. We could start burning CD's for our friends and family for $1 a piece, bypassing the record labels and (unfortunately) the artists. The RIAA is shooting themselves in the foot with this technology I think. We've gotten too used to CD's and there is too much money already in the CD players, and the future is the mp3 player, not this minidisk that has it's crippleware.
"...Napster Inc. has just 72 hours to block any copyright songs."
Thanks goodness! If it had said they have to block all copyrighted songs they would be in trouble. Now, they just have to block two and they will be ok. My nominations are "REM - Shiny Happy People" and any of the songs by Souxie(sp?) and the Banshees.
The biggest reason the average person doesn't use linux is the lack of a lot of good applications. I can see using something like this if you can run xterms and such out of it without paying a lot of money for exceed, but that's about it.
Also, it's obvious that the author doesn't really know what he's talking about because:
Also, I tend to think that the apps on linux mostly suck when you are using linux as a desktop. Server applications are where linux shines, and if you were going to run something like apache webserver, why not just use the linux version on linux, or the windows version on windows?
Anyways, I think this could be an interesting project, but it's no holy grail to get people to start using linux apps since the applications for Windows are usually superior. It's the OS that everyone hates, not the applications (well, some of the applications too.)
I say that with sarcasm, but I guess it could be useful. I know VB is useful to a lot of people that just want to make small programs and don't want to deal with coding all kinds of crap in C++ or anything.
The hobbyist bbs has evolved, and is still alive and kicking though more obscure. The same type of community has moved to the internet in various places. The only difficult part is that it is not as cohesive. You can find local people to chat with in IRC and other chatrooms. You can find small message boards just like in the old BBS's, though sometimes they end up becoming too big, like/. has. You can download files of all types from many sources. I think the real problem is that it is hard to find those places when you have so many alternatives and other distractions. If you and I were alone in a room, you could hear me whisper. However, if we were at a monster truck rally where I could be screaming and standing next to you, you still might not hear me with all the engine noises, loudspeakers playing music and other fans screaming. I think the internet is more like a monster truck rally, so it's no wonder it's hard to find those smaller places. I do think kuro5hin is somewhat like that, though it has gotten a lot bigger and it is harder to build a sense of community in it's diary section since they are gone within an hour of posting, and the IRC channel is somewhat boring to me, and lacking varied discussion.
Anyways, I hate banner ads too, but with it being cheaper for an everyday person like you or me to have broadband, we'll see a resurgance of hobbyists online yet. The commercial internet has had it's heydey of it's present form, and now we are going to see more people online for fun again, and a refinement of online commerce to not be so annoying. But then again, I could be wrong.
Or we could drive cars that are filled with some chemicals that dissolve our bodies, so when we crash, we're removed from the gene pool and won't breed clumsy offspring. That would be really good.
Well, the only problem with that is the fact that most accidents smart people are inare not the fault of the intelligent person. It's usually some idiot yuppie in a bigass SUV talking on their cellphone, the highschool dumbass that thinks if they die they will just go train with Gokou and their friends can get the dragon balls to wish them back, some old blue-hair that can't see over her steering wheel while wetting herself, and then the truck driver who doesn't give a shit because he's smoking crack and his truck can easily squash your car if you get in his way.
I hate all of the above. A fuckhead truck driver cut me off on the way to work today in fact. Of course, I got in front of him again, slowed down so he could see me clearly, rolled down my window, entended the solitary finger salute and honked my horn to get his attention. It ruined my morning though.
So...what I assume is that this is the first crude steps towards true self-healing materials. Potentially in the future, we could be driving cars that are filled with some chemicals that scab and repair the body underneath just like our skin does. That would be really good and I'm glad we are making the first steps towards that.
Of course, with the great strides we are making with placing computers in cars and crude AI systems, how long will it be before our car says, "Daddy, I have a booboo on my tailpipe. Can you kiss it and make it better?"
Now when I get the blue screen o death and decide to chuck the box out a 10 story window, the hardrive might still work.
Wrong. You simply open up your hard drive case, turn the platter upside down and use the other side. I can see some good potential uses. The first dual boot system where to go from windows to linux you simply flip your pc over. It's almost like an electronic etch a sketch.
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't have thought this to be the best story from kuro5hin to post on here either. In fact I think I gave it a -1 because it was too ranty and didn't make much sense as a whole article. Oh well, such is life.
I remember "Bad Dudes" for the NES had a powerup that was a coke can. How did I know it was a coke can? It had the distinctive curved stripe on it. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games for the NES also had a lot of ads for Pizza Hut in them. It didn't detract from the game although to me it seemed a little silly at the time.
According to the article it will block many car CD players, portable CD players, and of course CD ROM drives. That is a pretty significant amount. It's not just ripping that will be affected. You won't be able to listen to your CD player in your car anymore. You won't be able to use your discman. You can't listen to them at work in your CDROM. This idea needs to be flushed immediately into the rancid stinking hole it originated from.
Ummm...anyways...nevermind.
So what do they have against the Ibrator?
And I haven't seen any sex in video games in the arcades. I mean c'mon, Princess Toadstool's dress didn't even show her ankles! Oh, but maybe those "power balls" that Ms. Pacman eats were something else entirely...Oh my God!!! Ms. Pacman ate my balls!
Anyways, this is silly, I will stop now.
Me too. Now I can stomp on mushrooms better than all my coworkers, and I bash my head against bricks a lot. I did get in trouble when I went into that pet store and kicked the turtles though. It seems the majority of the people are just not aware of the mighty Koopa invasion. Let me go put on my red coveralls and matching hat now, I have a princess to save!
This is how 99.9% of the mainstream news is. Even the weather is biased. Basically, since the news is slanted in such a way, you just have to read it, disregard the majority of the crap, find out what the facts are, then go back and research to find out if they were lying or not. You'd be suprised of how much in the paper and on TV news is made up so they can have a good story, or are too lazy to get the real facts.
I've not heard anything about this. Do you have any links to articles or the research done about this? I currently use a GSM phone and it works well but if there is a real hazard, why is this technology spreading in the U.S.? We usually end up behind on trends like this if there is a potential health hazard.
I do think that things that are free can be better than patented, just because they catch on faster and easier. This is the problem, that current IP laws in the U.S. stifle innovation. Recently I read about a patent on the crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This only harms scientists and engineers that are fully intelligent and capable of making "the next big thing(TM)" but the (TM) is part of the problem that holds them back.
I think there are a few ideas out there that are really great, but will not be useful enough and widespread for everyone to change society. ADSL is one such technology. GSM phones are another. I can name countless small advances like that, but for the next big thing, I'd say that it will probably not be in the computer or communications field. I'd put my bets on it being either mechanical (a cheap, environmental friendly engine or fuel) or in the health industry (finding a cure for diseases, or something to modify the genome in a way to eliminate problems.) Of course, this sort of thing is seemingly random. So unless I am the one that has the idea to invent that will change the world, I can't really guess what it will be.
This discovery proves that there is a God, who has hidden this inside a prime number to get our attention, and to let us know that he is a hacker.
That also explains why the bible is so damn tedious to read, just like most of the man pages I have to deal with.
Actually it is in most cases. The thing with theft is that a material thing is gone. If you have a car and I steal it, you can no longer use that car. You have a loss. Likewise, if I steal a car from the dealership, they have lost a car (which usually will be covered by some insurance but there is a loss of money down the line due to the loss of a material posession.) In the case of trading copyrighted music, income is not necessarily lost. That is why this is a gray area. If I download an mp3 of the latest Britney Spears song so I can listen to it a few times, I would do so without ever intending to buy the CD. I don't like her music, and if for some reason I wanted to hear one of her songs I would not want to pay for it. Likewise, many people prefer to spend money on something other than music. If they answer the question, "If the only way to hear it required you to buy the CD, would you do so?" with "Yes" then the RIAA might be able to complain. However, I would think in most cases people would say no. They wouldn't buy the music, therefore the CD's would sit on the shelf waiting to be sold just like they would with mp3s.
Also there is the fact that the music industry is making more money than ever. While I am too lazy to go look up the statistics (there's been stories on this site about it if you want to look) I also am aware of the ancedotal evidence. The other day I bought a CD from the Enanitos Verdes, a group from Argentina. I would have never known about them or that I liked their music if it wasn't for Napster. I heard about them from a friend, was curious, then downloaded a few songs. The music interested me and so I purchased the CD. I have done things like this many times, and know of others that have as well. It's a pretty common way for hearing music that isn't what they play on the radio.
So you see, trading mp3s can't be theft, because nothing is missing. And, if they weren't complete idiots, the RIAA would see that things like Napster could help them make more money. At the least, they should have joined up with them and took advantage of the greatest marketing scheme ever. Imagine if they had the ability to see what music was most popular by electronically surveying their customers that way. The database logs of Napster would have been golden to the RIAA, but they threw it away.
You left out one thing. It will also mean a lot more games don't get returned. I can see kids having their mom rent the latest and greatest FPS for their kids, only for it to end up "missing" on the day it is due to be returned. I think something like divx where they dispose of the CD after rental would be more likely here, although that is a complete waste of resources.
I can see this coming in handy at work as well. Any time a user sends me requirements for a project, I simply type in the wrong password...I can continue reading slashdot and kuro5hin idefinitely now. :o)
I agree with you, however, many people are of the opinion that there is no way to win in the legal system. The big companies basically own the U.S. government, although there are a few (very few) good people left to keep things from going into utter chaos. So, basically the laws are written by the whores of Sony, Microsoft, IBM, MPAA, etc. and the citizens are getting the shaft. The few of us that know we can make a difference lack the resources of these companies.
However, I agree with you, although that has to be qualified. I think that we need to pressure our government to create fair laws to protect our rights from big companies. The only way to do this is if the majority of the people wake up and do what's right rather than blindly supporting Republicans and Democrats. We need new blood in our legal system. We need to wake up the public from their apathy. I think it's ok to hack stuff to use it fairly, but at the same time that should be secondary to making sure those in power understand that we have rights and they are not to infringe upon them.
Unfortunately, in the crowd that is most technologically intelligent, we tend to think that we can ignore the government and it will go away just like our bosses at work. Instead, the government is more like a hyper child that just drank a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew. We are the ones that control the government, not the other way around. Unfortunately, many of us end up doing like we do at work. When our boss asks for a stupid feature in a program we are making, we make it but find a way to get around it to work right. Other times we ignore that we were even asked to do something. However, in this case there are more consequences. The U.S. government thinks we are all very expendable, and most politicians would have no problem taking some money from a big company to make a law and proceed to put you in jail. Hacking for usage of pirating doesn't solve the problem, it only works as a temporary workaround, or could sometimes make things even worse.
I think somewhere like Cuba would be perfect. It's a poor nation because of the continued mistreatment by the U.S. (why do we still have an embargo against them when the cold war ended years ago?) Because they are generally poor, they need money. They do not have financial ties to the U.S., so they can also ignore the laws and would probably do this just to spite the government. They just need to have a way to connect to the internet other than via the U.S. That is the real tricky part. However, I am sure that it could be overcome. Once the Cuban government run business opened up, companies would probably flock to it in order to do business out of the country. I know that it would be a little difficult for U.S. based businesses to do so, but I am sure they could find a way (perhaps opening a subsidary in the Netherlands, then having them do business with Cuba.) There's a lot of potential here, it would help Cuba recover from the poverty the U.S. has pushed onto them, and we would all benefit because we don't have to put up with stupid laws to brown nose corporations like the world seems to be full of these days.
Now, imagine lots of fed up people like you and I that might have cd burners and high speed internet connections. We will always find a way to trade music even if they bring down napster, so then we make our own CD's. We simply record the audio from MTV or however we want in order to get the mp3's we need. Of course, I can see the quality increasing in digital audio as well so that we get CD quality files on our hard drives, and simply write the cd's ourselves.
Also, this could become a big pirate business. Because noone will be able to play music with these handicapped disks, people will look for alternatives. We could start burning CD's for our friends and family for $1 a piece, bypassing the record labels and (unfortunately) the artists. The RIAA is shooting themselves in the foot with this technology I think. We've gotten too used to CD's and there is too much money already in the CD players, and the future is the mp3 player, not this minidisk that has it's crippleware.
You could accidentally put the Aerosmith minidisk into a jukebox...in order to play an Aerosmith song.
Thanks goodness! If it had said they have to block all copyrighted songs they would be in trouble. Now, they just have to block two and they will be ok. My nominations are "REM - Shiny Happy People" and any of the songs by Souxie(sp?) and the Banshees.
Also, it's obvious that the author doesn't really know what he's talking about because:
1) - There is a version of GIMP that has been ported to Windows. 2) - There is a TuxRacer version for Windows.
Also, I tend to think that the apps on linux mostly suck when you are using linux as a desktop. Server applications are where linux shines, and if you were going to run something like apache webserver, why not just use the linux version on linux, or the windows version on windows?
Anyways, I think this could be an interesting project, but it's no holy grail to get people to start using linux apps since the applications for Windows are usually superior. It's the OS that everyone hates, not the applications (well, some of the applications too.)
There are Win32 versions of the Gimp and Tuxracer. I have tried them both. They work.
I say that with sarcasm, but I guess it could be useful. I know VB is useful to a lot of people that just want to make small programs and don't want to deal with coding all kinds of crap in C++ or anything.
Anyways, I hate banner ads too, but with it being cheaper for an everyday person like you or me to have broadband, we'll see a resurgance of hobbyists online yet. The commercial internet has had it's heydey of it's present form, and now we are going to see more people online for fun again, and a refinement of online commerce to not be so annoying. But then again, I could be wrong.
Well, the only problem with that is the fact that most accidents smart people are inare not the fault of the intelligent person. It's usually some idiot yuppie in a bigass SUV talking on their cellphone, the highschool dumbass that thinks if they die they will just go train with Gokou and their friends can get the dragon balls to wish them back, some old blue-hair that can't see over her steering wheel while wetting herself, and then the truck driver who doesn't give a shit because he's smoking crack and his truck can easily squash your car if you get in his way.
I hate all of the above. A fuckhead truck driver cut me off on the way to work today in fact. Of course, I got in front of him again, slowed down so he could see me clearly, rolled down my window, entended the solitary finger salute and honked my horn to get his attention. It ruined my morning though.
Of course, with the great strides we are making with placing computers in cars and crude AI systems, how long will it be before our car says, "Daddy, I have a booboo on my tailpipe. Can you kiss it and make it better?"
Wrong. You simply open up your hard drive case, turn the platter upside down and use the other side. I can see some good potential uses. The first dual boot system where to go from windows to linux you simply flip your pc over. It's almost like an electronic etch a sketch.