Kodak and Xerox were both forced in antitrust cases NOT to tie their service and supplies to their products (copiers and film). To force customers of autos to buy affiliated services would be per se illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act (I think) and so it doesn't happen, much. I would think that if the music biz ever successfully forced consumers to use "affiliated" players or hardware, they'd get spanked hard in antitrust court.
This is the key question. Was it positioned as an interview, a conversation, or a statement? If it wasn't a conversation, then I would agree that they weren't given the best chance to speak.
Then again, their statement really did invite a response. I mean, they could have at least contacted Grammar Nazi for an edit...
I agree. Taco might have reversed bold and plain text, but I personally found his comments informative and even-handed. This is a conversation with these guys, after all.
On topic: I don't have a Cuecat or use Linux (but I have received cuecat responses to my posts), but this seems like a pretty open-and-shut case. If you don't have the right to examine the output from a hardware device and do with it what you will, you lose the right to control your PC in any substantial way. Think of the network security implications of a CueCat victory - not to mention the obvious fact that if they win you really don't own your PC anymore.
I say fuck 'em. If you need a barcode scanner, go buy a barcode scanner at Fry's. Don't give these guys any reason to claim success in the marketplace.
Here's a better libertarian idea for all you fuck-the-man types out there. Someone could write a tool to capture the most popular items on Freenet and/or Gnutella, regardless of content, and post these on the satellite website. These would certainly be representative of our era, in some respects!
The old struggle between the ragtag rebels and the spit-polish Empire seems to have been replaced with Shiny vs. Shiny. It really is depressing that as the grafx have gotten better (e.g. Coruscant, which was stunning), the movies have become so much less human.
Sigh.
sulli
p.s. The theater where (I think) Star Wars opened, the Coronet, is about to be smashed to bits. I guess nothing is sacred, but who expected it to be?
It is highly unethical to compromise a not-for-attribution source. Good journalists go to jail when faced with such an order. IANAL (and IANAJ) but my understanding is that such orders are rarely granted because of the need to preserve this system.
Yahoo is a different beast. When you post to Yahoo, they get lots of info that they can use to track you. Some work-arounds exist, but the clueless user will probably make the fatal error of providing his/her own email address to receive the password for the new account. Also, unlike/. they make no claims that they will attempt to preserve anonymity.
True enough. The press definitely takes liberties when they have an agenda, so I wouldn't be too surprised if that happened here. It's hard to tell without seeing an actual transcript, and I would doubt very much that such is available.
and they're sticking to it. Note carefully that the Sony email does not say that he didn't say it - just that it wan't in his prepared speech, and that it doesn't represent Sony corporate policy, at this time.
Just think what it must be like to be a Sony PR droid right now.... all that goodwill you built with the AIBO going down the drain.
I guess it's no surprise that the Russian navy was hiding something, given that they kept the rescue crews away. But it's really sad that they seem to have sacrificed the lives of the crew to preserve the secret torpedo design, if that's why they kept the rescuers away from the damaged torpedo section.
By the way, you can contribute to a fund for the families of the crew at the Russian Embassy. Some of these folks scraped together the cash to pay for milk-run train tickets to get to the Kursk's home port, while Putin was on vacation. Only now are the authorities trying to help out, but in Russia as well private charity seems to be taking over where the bureaucrats can't seem to do the right thing.
Hmmm. I was a student at Yale in 1989-93. At that time we had telnet access to the card catalog, from Macintosh as well as dumb terminal. (We had wired dorm rooms in 1992 - pretty advanced for the time.) Before that I briefly attended the University of Michigan, which also has telnet access to its library, although I don't know when these were made available via the net.
I bet you could find someone who used Xterminal to access one or both of these pre-1992...
But the whole business model of this outfit is about forcing textbooks on people! Textbooks are like HMOs or corporate PCs - the buyers != the users.
If I were a med student, for example, and had to KEEP PAYING for the same damn textbook I thought I'd already bought when I signed up for the course, I'd be hella pissed. I'd mention DIVX (the bad kind) to my prof, but do you think he'd listen?
Good news though: Windows has screenshots. Who'll be the first to create an automated screenshot-creation tool (general-purpose, not specific to this) and make it available to those wanting to keep what they have paid for?
I would think that hijacking someone's phone number (e.g. routing 1-800-Flowers to your corner florist) would be illegal as wire fraud, not as theft. I could be wrong, but that's how I'd pursue it if someone stole my domain name(s).
Sen. Byrd is famous for bringing a wide range of (mostly pork-barrel) federal projects to West Virginia. The very appropriately named Bureau of the Public Debt is located there, for example, despite the fact that the market for Treasury bonds is based in New York.
In this case, the scientific community will probably benefit, but I do wonder what the opportunity cost is...
The problem, according to reviews I've seen, is that you have to use an annoying "rights management" thing that limits your ability to copy files to/from the player. Also, conversion from MP3 to Music Clip is one-way. In all, way too user hostile for me or the various reviewers; I haven't seen a positive review yet.
Sometimes the market is a nice thing to have around. It's a good thing MP3 players aren't bought by pointy-haired IT managers...
The appropriately named Heckler seems to be doing everything he can to piss off the fans and customers. Talk of blocking stuff at the PC or ISP is so colossally stupid and inappropriate it's amazing. So remember this next time you're in the Sony Style store and think those big headphones look cool...
You have to convert MP3 into some crappy proprietary "secure" format to run it on Music Clip. So, not surprisingly, it's been a failure thus far in the market. Music Clip was supposed to be the big splash for SDMI, but thus far no such luck.
Unless the thing misfired. If the torpedo failed to launch and then somehow came to believe that it had hit the target, that would be highly troublesome.
But I too am highly skeptical of this one. Russian media are well-known for rumor-mongering, so I don't give it much credibility.
If I were Russian, though, I would be hella pissed. I know it's a little bit off-topic, but this Putin guy is a total incompetent.
"the RIAA has sued the Internet Engineering Task Force for standardizing e-mail, a pernicious protocol used to forward MP3s to unauthorized parties. The RIAA has lost billions of dollars due to this highly illegal service."
Slashdot Mirror
sulli
http://dvdcity.com/codefree/codefree index.php3
Code-free dvd players. Some Macrovision free as well. Fully legal, apparently, as several makers (including MPAA member Sony!) are shipping them.
It's nice how the (mostly) free market works. Looks like Pioneer has found that customers know no borders...
sulli
Then again, their statement really did invite a response. I mean, they could have at least contacted Grammar Nazi for an edit...
On topic: I don't have a Cuecat or use Linux (but I have received cuecat responses to my posts), but this seems like a pretty open-and-shut case. If you don't have the right to examine the output from a hardware device and do with it what you will, you lose the right to control your PC in any substantial way. Think of the network security implications of a CueCat victory - not to mention the obvious fact that if they win you really don't own your PC anymore.
I say fuck 'em. If you need a barcode scanner, go buy a barcode scanner at Fry's. Don't give these guys any reason to claim success in the marketplace.
sulli
Add it to the MAPS Realtime Blackhole List!
sulli
Yeah, Mosaic led to Netscape, which led to Mozilla...
sulli
Sigh.
sulli
p.s. The theater where (I think) Star Wars opened, the Coronet, is about to be smashed to bits. I guess nothing is sacred, but who expected it to be?
Yahoo is a different beast. When you post to Yahoo, they get lots of info that they can use to track you. Some work-arounds exist, but the clueless user will probably make the fatal error of providing his/her own email address to receive the password for the new account. Also, unlike /. they make no claims that they will attempt to preserve anonymity.
sulli
sulli
Just think what it must be like to be a Sony PR droid right now.... all that goodwill you built with the AIBO going down the drain.
sulli
By the way, you can contribute to a fund for the families of the crew at the Russian Embassy. Some of these folks scraped together the cash to pay for milk-run train tickets to get to the Kursk's home port, while Putin was on vacation. Only now are the authorities trying to help out, but in Russia as well private charity seems to be taking over where the bureaucrats can't seem to do the right thing.
sulli
I bet you could find someone who used Xterminal to access one or both of these pre-1992...
sulli
If I were a med student, for example, and had to KEEP PAYING for the same damn textbook I thought I'd already bought when I signed up for the course, I'd be hella pissed. I'd mention DIVX (the bad kind) to my prof, but do you think he'd listen?
Good news though: Windows has screenshots. Who'll be the first to create an automated screenshot-creation tool (general-purpose, not specific to this) and make it available to those wanting to keep what they have paid for?
sulli
sulli
Gotta love the quote, though: "TCP and IP, the DoD Standard Networking Protocols for the Eighties." How modern yet quaint!
sulli
In this case, the scientific community will probably benefit, but I do wonder what the opportunity cost is...
sulli
Sometimes the market is a nice thing to have around. It's a good thing MP3 players aren't bought by pointy-haired IT managers...
sulli
I'm going to build mine out of magnesium, with a balloon of water balanced on top. Saw blade hits H20 and kaboom!
sulli
sulli
sulli
But I too am highly skeptical of this one. Russian media are well-known for rumor-mongering, so I don't give it much credibility.
If I were Russian, though, I would be hella pissed. I know it's a little bit off-topic, but this Putin guy is a total incompetent.
sulli
torpedo 127.0.0.1
and kaboom!
sulli
sulli