Copy protection. Its a word that's around everywhere now, from digital music to DVD movies, and comming soon to a licensed software package near you.
Firstly, as players like Microsoft move towards, the leased software.NET model of distribution, there will be a decreasing need for copy protection as there will be less software to copy.
Additionally I am sick and tired of intellectual property. Sure we all need to get ours but... if half the ancient texts were "copyrighted" and guarded as intellectual property (and I'm talking mostly philosophers here), then we would be missing critical portions of our fundamental knowledge base, like the Pythagoran theorums, and many of our claims about the universe, which began with Plato and his fellow thinkers.
This illustrates yet another reason why the open source software community is such an amazing addition to the all the sub-groups of software developers out there. It's not that they are against intellectual property, far from it, but they are willing to share. A amazing example ot a simple childhood concept comming back to change the world. "Now Johnny, share your Quake 3 game with little Debbie, she wants to kill and main too!"
And for an additional quick stab at Microsoft, because that's the order of the day here at Slashdot anyway, I haven't upgraded MS-Word to the 2K edition because there's just no need. It already does word processing, web pages, document summaries, cooks breakfast and dusts around the house, do I really need the next version to make my bed and wipes my ass?
All joking aside, its nice to see one of the better technology schools out there seriously consider sharing, at no cost, what it has to offer. MIT has always been in the forefront of many information-sharing developments, like their Classics archives, which has been around for quite some time, providing easy access to ancient texts at no cost.
There also seems to be something different about the MIT attitude with respect to education. The process seems more communal than at other higher education service providers (just a little joke.) Regardless, I think we're comming to a time where sharing will be the key. The open source software movement has been instrumental with widening the public's perspective on sharing and the advantages it has to development concerning both production considerations as well as knowledge aquisition, and distribution.
Today's Linux Desktops are getting more and more user friendly all the time. KDE2 and Gnome have the equivalent of a start button, and with many office suites in development there are a plethora of options for all those MS-Word mongers who happen to need Office Premium edition with the free spa day.
Seriously though, there will always be a transition period, we can't really help that, but it's worth it. I'm not just advocating Linux here, but all alternatives, Linux just happens to be a nice example. Sure, we'll see a learning curve, a learning curve softened by the millions of dollars people save with free software. There are so many advantages to using other OSs and apps in workplaces I can't even begin to list them. People are scared of change, I'm scared of change. It took me two years to move to Linux; ie. to feel comfortable that I didn't need anything else. It's to be expected. But just because we're going to need to relearn a few things doesn't mean we can't start right now!
I am continually and consistently impressed with the linux community and their development scheme. I recall early last spring when Helixcode was distributing the update to Gnome and how wonderful it was. What I find really funny is that other companies, hint the BIG Guy, would designate whole new version numbers as in 2.0, 3.0, just to give the software buying public something to clearly define one from the other.
Instead we have version 1.4 and people are going to love it because its hopefully more stable and user friendly. I was so impressed with KDE2 when it came out that I stopped using anything else, but made sure the other libraries were installed in case I wanted to run anything. I'm still impressed every day when I sit down and in front of a linux machine and find the interface more intuitive than those of other operating systems.
We're at a wonderful crossroads it seems. The desktops GUIs of opensource software are really beginning to shine, and will increasingly provide an alternative to costly, closed-source, operating systems and software in the near future; something that clearly benefits everyone.
I think we're beginning to see the reality that is becomming apparent. As web access and online services, businesses, and communities, begin to flourish, we are becomming increasingly dependant on providers. Schools all have access to the web, and my own provincial government is spending $1000 CND on each family to help them get a computer and online.
But if we are going to make access to the web available to all, under certain conditions, we don't want to have it regulated right? Well, I think that's becomming less and less of a possibility. Just as governments control radio and television, it seems that the only way to gurantee the infrastructure related to high-bandwidth connections at home is to have the industry responsible to a body of some sort. Now the industry can't exactly police itself can it? Does it need policing at all? The questions will only come in time.
Well it cetainly is something to think about, regardless of whether this story is true or not. It's well known that the US government has had a stranglehold on the media since Nixon, and there are some wonderful Canadian documentaries about the gulf war and the media circus that surrounded America's decision to get involved. On that note one of Canada's own news-spoofs asked George W. Bush what he thought of Prime Minister Poutine (The name of a popular meal here involving grease, french fries, grease, cheese, and grease), and George proved he didn't even know the name of Canada's prime minister!
I think that satire offers an outlet for all the truth that the media can't handle. And whether you think you media is protected by this and that amendment, well think again. It's about a buck guys and gals, and not about the truth. Face it, news had become as sensational as ever and satire provides the proper guise of falsity so that serious issues (and not so serious issues in their own right) can be discussed without having to worry about the next payment from advertisers.
I stopped watching the television news. It's all cut up wrong anyway. There are my seven dollars (that's two cents american).
One of the most amazing Multimedia productions I've seen in the last few years was some work done by a group of french coders and musicians. You can download some of their work at http://www.nomad-medialab.com . Very nice to see people work on compact 3d engines and music processors in order to make works of art.
My best advice is to first see what the students are interested in. See what gets to them and look at why they think it is interesting. Kids are bombarded with media stimulus these days and there's no reason why many of them won't have a good and wide appreciation of what's out there for their senses.
You might also want to make a small project where they can use their own combination of media and let them explore it that way. Hands on is also hearts in, don't just have them sit there and watch. Those days are over.
As a musician I find this very hard to believe and if such a decision could be made, as to allow a body to govern what is allowed instead of what is not allowed, is a very fundamental distinction that will indicate the direction that online civil liberties are taking.
I, for one, have been pleased with Napster's current filtering system. It has allowed more people to find and download our own music, which is free of copyright, recorded and distributed from our basement, for the love of music.
I understand that napster did take advantage of file sharing using material that was not ours to share ( I will take part of the blame, having been an avid napster user some time ago) yet the way this has been delt with has shown, more clearly than ever, that democracy can be bought and that music is no less of an industry than porn, or investing, with no thought to the beauty of the artform. What we need is very clear assessment of social values, what matters, what doesn't, as well as whose responsibility it is to decided such matters.
In fact, this has always been the issue and I don't think we can solve it now, but it's painful to see how the "little guys" always take one for the team while the big guys continue their rape of anything that can be controlled by the almighty dollar.
The one thing that concerns me, and this should be seperate from the issue of electronic schooling for disabled children, is the lack of interaction that goes on between students if a digital curriculum loses focus on the social nature of human existence.
Children need to run and play and not spend too much time in front of devices that don't help their neurons expand and create new connections. How come we don't see more music training in schools, which is one of the great neuron stimulators and has effects on mathematical ability for starters. I think a lot of questions need to be asked, and when education becomes cause for profit... who are we selling? Our children?
Mouseless Surfing (Patent Pending) Because we already know what you want to see.
Introducing Mouseless Surfing. No more clicking and waiting. No more sore wrists and tired fingers. Just sit back and we'll feed you the content you need. No advertising*, no waiting, no effort.
This amazing technology is designed to be pre-controlled by your habits: using the databases of material that you've already left all over the internet.
* We gurantee that there will be no direct advertising. Your viewing will consist of high quality commercial material, paid for by the highest bidder and not-so subtly disguised as valuable information.
So. You download some MP3's from a band you like. Burn them onto CD and voila, you have exact copies of the original track.
*Insert sound of a Super Mario game over, on 8 bit NES, here*
A lot of the files I've found using the Napster service have a lot of digital noise, or, in other cases, have errors in the MP3's which makes music difficult to listen to. (At least for myself). Many of the songs have erroneous fades in channels due to bad source files or improper encoding.
Sure MP3's are *good enough*, but I think it's clear that they are not the prime target they have been made out to be.
I tend to agree with the idea that it's up to the artist to decide. That being said, I don't think it's wise to feel that every artist can be traded until they opt out.
And let's not even begin proding some other piles of manure that have been mixed into this seemingly homogeneous issue.
Napster... it might stay, it might go. But whatever happens it will have been one heck of a ride. -Yoink!
*Warning - I am accepting all flame mail* =D In the article it said "filmmakers" I think there is a clear distinction between mediums that hasn't been discussed (although I read none of the other comments - just shoot the shit). Video, DV, Film, CG, these are all very different. Filmmaker, to me, involves celluloid negatives that run at 24 frames per second, and are projected (in an analog fashion) on a screen. You see there is a huge difference, both in construction, conception, and in experiencing a 24 fps film, vs the other "cost effective" (which is in itself a total myth) methods of moving picture reproduction. I neither like nor care about the Oscars or the American blah blah film blah society. There have been some great Big Budget Films, and there have been some horrible Bigeer Budget Movies (another distinction which I will rant about some other time). The Oscars is the night Hollywood (the social club not the geographical location) gets to celebrate being Hollywood. lol. Think about it. Those were my two cents, Cheers, Petros -Yoink!
ASP is helpful for immediate server side, site development. In fact, much of Microsoft's own wizard (read regurgitated) code in Visual Interdev 6 uses JScript, Microsoft's implementation of JavaScript, as the server side scripting language. It seems quite clear that Microsoft has realized that VB was never a great language to begin with, especially not for the web where other languages had already gained strong followings, not to mention support.
I've never used or seen JSP code, and I think it's safe to say that PHP is definitely on a path that puts it in the ruuning for the lead in the future. It justs needs some more data handling abilities and we're all set. The future looks bright. Cheers!
Slashdot Mirror
Copy protection. Its a word that's around everywhere now, from digital music to DVD movies, and comming soon to a licensed software package near you.
.NET model of distribution, there will be a decreasing need for copy protection as there will be less software to copy.
Firstly, as players like Microsoft move towards, the leased software
Additionally I am sick and tired of intellectual property. Sure we all need to get ours but... if half the ancient texts were "copyrighted" and guarded as intellectual property (and I'm talking mostly philosophers here), then we would be missing critical portions of our fundamental knowledge base, like the Pythagoran theorums, and many of our claims about the universe, which began with Plato and his fellow thinkers.
This illustrates yet another reason why the open source software community is such an amazing addition to the all the sub-groups of software developers out there. It's not that they are against intellectual property, far from it, but they are willing to share. A amazing example ot a simple childhood concept comming back to change the world. "Now Johnny, share your Quake 3 game with little Debbie, she wants to kill and main too!"
And for an additional quick stab at Microsoft, because that's the order of the day here at Slashdot anyway, I haven't upgraded MS-Word to the 2K edition because there's just no need. It already does word processing, web pages, document summaries, cooks breakfast and dusts around the house, do I really need the next version to make my bed and wipes my ass?
yoink
All joking aside, its nice to see one of the better technology schools out there seriously consider sharing, at no cost, what it has to offer. MIT has always been in the forefront of many information-sharing developments, like their Classics archives, which has been around for quite some time, providing easy access to ancient texts at no cost.
There also seems to be something different about the MIT attitude with respect to education. The process seems more communal than at other higher education service providers (just a little joke.) Regardless, I think we're comming to a time where sharing will be the key. The open source software movement has been instrumental with widening the public's perspective on sharing and the advantages it has to development concerning both production considerations as well as knowledge aquisition, and distribution.
yoink
Today's Linux Desktops are getting more and more user friendly all the time. KDE2 and Gnome have the equivalent of a start button, and with many office suites in development there are a plethora of options for all those MS-Word mongers who happen to need Office Premium edition with the free spa day.
Seriously though, there will always be a transition period, we can't really help that, but it's worth it. I'm not just advocating Linux here, but all alternatives, Linux just happens to be a nice example. Sure, we'll see a learning curve, a learning curve softened by the millions of dollars people save with free software. There are so many advantages to using other OSs and apps in workplaces I can't even begin to list them. People are scared of change, I'm scared of change. It took me two years to move to Linux; ie. to feel comfortable that I didn't need anything else. It's to be expected. But just because we're going to need to relearn a few things doesn't mean we can't start right now!
yoink
I am continually and consistently impressed with the linux community and their development scheme. I recall early last spring when Helixcode was distributing the update to Gnome and how wonderful it was. What I find really funny is that other companies, hint the BIG Guy, would designate whole new version numbers as in 2.0, 3.0, just to give the software buying public something to clearly define one from the other.
Instead we have version 1.4 and people are going to love it because its hopefully more stable and user friendly. I was so impressed with KDE2 when it came out that I stopped using anything else, but made sure the other libraries were installed in case I wanted to run anything. I'm still impressed every day when I sit down and in front of a linux machine and find the interface more intuitive than those of other operating systems.
We're at a wonderful crossroads it seems. The desktops GUIs of opensource software are really beginning to shine, and will increasingly provide an alternative to costly, closed-source, operating systems and software in the near future; something that clearly benefits everyone.
yoink
I think we're beginning to see the reality that is becomming apparent. As web access and online services, businesses, and communities, begin to flourish, we are becomming increasingly dependant on providers. Schools all have access to the web, and my own provincial government is spending $1000 CND on each family to help them get a computer and online.
But if we are going to make access to the web available to all, under certain conditions, we don't want to have it regulated right? Well, I think that's becomming less and less of a possibility. Just as governments control radio and television, it seems that the only way to gurantee the infrastructure related to high-bandwidth connections at home is to have the industry responsible to a body of some sort. Now the industry can't exactly police itself can it? Does it need policing at all? The questions will only come in time.
I think I thought I thought I think.
yoink
Well it cetainly is something to think about, regardless of whether this story is true or not. It's well known that the US government has had a stranglehold on the media since Nixon, and there are some wonderful Canadian documentaries about the gulf war and the media circus that surrounded America's decision to get involved. On that note one of Canada's own news-spoofs asked George W. Bush what he thought of Prime Minister Poutine (The name of a popular meal here involving grease, french fries, grease, cheese, and grease), and George proved he didn't even know the name of Canada's prime minister!
I think that satire offers an outlet for all the truth that the media can't handle. And whether you think you media is protected by this and that amendment, well think again. It's about a buck guys and gals, and not about the truth. Face it, news had become as sensational as ever and satire provides the proper guise of falsity so that serious issues (and not so serious issues in their own right) can be discussed without having to worry about the next payment from advertisers.
I stopped watching the television news. It's all cut up wrong anyway. There are my seven dollars (that's two cents american).
yoink
One of the most amazing Multimedia productions I've seen in the last few years was some work done by a group of french coders and musicians. You can download some of their work at http://www.nomad-medialab.com . Very nice to see people work on compact 3d engines and music processors in order to make works of art.
My best advice is to first see what the students are interested in. See what gets to them and look at why they think it is interesting. Kids are bombarded with media stimulus these days and there's no reason why many of them won't have a good and wide appreciation of what's out there for their senses.
You might also want to make a small project where they can use their own combination of media and let them explore it that way. Hands on is also hearts in, don't just have them sit there and watch. Those days are over.
yoink
As a musician I find this very hard to believe and if such a decision could be made, as to allow a body to govern what is allowed instead of what is not allowed, is a very fundamental distinction that will indicate the direction that online civil liberties are taking.
I, for one, have been pleased with Napster's current filtering system. It has allowed more people to find and download our own music, which is free of copyright, recorded and distributed from our basement, for the love of music.
I understand that napster did take advantage of file sharing using material that was not ours to share ( I will take part of the blame, having been an avid napster user some time ago) yet the way this has been delt with has shown, more clearly than ever, that democracy can be bought and that music is no less of an industry than porn, or investing, with no thought to the beauty of the artform. What we need is very clear assessment of social values, what matters, what doesn't, as well as whose responsibility it is to decided such matters.
In fact, this has always been the issue and I don't think we can solve it now, but it's painful to see how the "little guys" always take one for the team while the big guys continue their rape of anything that can be controlled by the almighty dollar.
yoink
The one thing that concerns me, and this should be seperate from the issue of electronic schooling for disabled children, is the lack of interaction that goes on between students if a digital curriculum loses focus on the social nature of human existence.
Children need to run and play and not spend too much time in front of devices that don't help their neurons expand and create new connections. How come we don't see more music training in schools, which is one of the great neuron stimulators and has effects on mathematical ability for starters. I think a lot of questions need to be asked, and when education becomes cause for profit... who are we selling? Our children?
Just thinking.
Yoink
Servers and infrastructure. Ok, but that's still only a piece (large and tasty as it is, it remains a piece) of the IT pie.
What about high perfomance, mobile, business computing?
Streamlined operating systems like QNX are not even mentioned, but if you've downloaded that little demo, it can do a whole lot with very little.
I'm not using QNX, but I think the growing use of connected, online cell phones, pda's and, hopefully, web pads, will require solid, tiny OSs.
Again, there's no reason it can't be done with Linux either!
-Yoink!
Mouseless Surfing (Patent Pending)
Because we already know what you want to see.
Introducing Mouseless Surfing. No more clicking and waiting. No more sore wrists and tired fingers. Just sit back and we'll feed you the content you need. No advertising*, no waiting, no effort.
This amazing technology is designed to be pre-controlled by your habits: using the databases of material that you've already left all over the internet.
* We gurantee that there will be no direct advertising. Your viewing will consist of high quality commercial material, paid for by the highest bidder and not-so subtly disguised as valuable information.
-Yoink!
So. You download some MP3's from a band you like. Burn them onto CD and voila, you have exact copies of the original track. *Insert sound of a Super Mario game over, on 8 bit NES, here* A lot of the files I've found using the Napster service have a lot of digital noise, or, in other cases, have errors in the MP3's which makes music difficult to listen to. (At least for myself). Many of the songs have erroneous fades in channels due to bad source files or improper encoding. Sure MP3's are *good enough*, but I think it's clear that they are not the prime target they have been made out to be. I tend to agree with the idea that it's up to the artist to decide. That being said, I don't think it's wise to feel that every artist can be traded until they opt out. And let's not even begin proding some other piles of manure that have been mixed into this seemingly homogeneous issue. Napster... it might stay, it might go. But whatever happens it will have been one heck of a ride.
-Yoink!
*Warning - I am accepting all flame mail* =D In the article it said "filmmakers" I think there is a clear distinction between mediums that hasn't been discussed (although I read none of the other comments - just shoot the shit). Video, DV, Film, CG, these are all very different. Filmmaker, to me, involves celluloid negatives that run at 24 frames per second, and are projected (in an analog fashion) on a screen. You see there is a huge difference, both in construction, conception, and in experiencing a 24 fps film, vs the other "cost effective" (which is in itself a total myth) methods of moving picture reproduction. I neither like nor care about the Oscars or the American blah blah film blah society. There have been some great Big Budget Films, and there have been some horrible Bigeer Budget Movies (another distinction which I will rant about some other time). The Oscars is the night Hollywood (the social club not the geographical location) gets to celebrate being Hollywood. lol. Think about it. Those were my two cents, Cheers, Petros
-Yoink!
ASP is helpful for immediate server side, site development. In fact, much of Microsoft's own wizard (read regurgitated) code in Visual Interdev 6 uses JScript, Microsoft's implementation of JavaScript, as the server side scripting language. It seems quite clear that Microsoft has realized that VB was never a great language to begin with, especially not for the web where other languages had already gained strong followings, not to mention support.
I've never used or seen JSP code, and I think it's safe to say that PHP is definitely on a path that puts it in the ruuning for the lead in the future. It justs needs some more data handling abilities and we're all set. The future looks bright. Cheers!
-Yoink!