Do you want to install and run "Microsoft DRM" signed on 6/1/2005 3:40 PM and distributed by
Microsoft Corporation
Publisher authenticity verified by Microsoft Windows Verification Intermediate PCA
Caution: Microsoft Coperation asserts that this content is safe. You should only install/view this content if you trust Microsoft Corporation to make that assertion.
[ ] Always trust content from Microsoft Corporation
NO
Pssssssssssssssssssssss! (hey, what's that coming out of the computer?)
(Something smells funny).
(10 minutes later)
[x] Always trust content from Microsoft Corporation
YES.
(boy, am I ever glad I bought one of those new Pentium 4s!!! The chip has everything!!!)
I was thinking along the same lines when I read this. It appears that higher-up feds have been generally interested in stopping computer crimes which have been committed against large companies, as opposed to crimes committed against individual citizens, and that always bothered me.
A hacker that does little more then break into a multi-national corporation's computer for the sake of curiosity and adventure is somehow public enemy #1. On the other hand, an organized group of thieves who steal the money and identities of thousands of innocent people and cause them incredible amounts of difficulty rebuilding their credit is something "we'd like to handle, but we really don't have the resources".
I can't say for sure, but I suspect operations like the one mentioned in the article are more likely motivated by pressure from credit card companies losing money on fraud and identify theft protection "insurance", not the pleas of hundreds of thousands of individual citizens who are actually victims of those crimes.
It amuses me when they talk about "damage" in dollar amounts of a worm or virus. Let's say virus A hits millions of home users destroying their individual work, financial records, and costs them time and money to get their computer running right again, while Virus B hits a few thousand machines at a select few large corporations. The dollar amount of "damage" virus A is calculated to be very small, and may only consider an increase in an ISPs or computer manufacturer's queues for telephone tech support. Virus B's damage is calculated to be some unrealistic number in the billions based not only in the real costs of repairing the damaged machines, but on subjective estimates in "loss of productivity" which always make it sound much worse then it really is.
While virus A does far more damage in the aggregate, Virus B is given a higher priority due to companies claiming outrageously over inflated "damages" based on vague and misleading estimates. Or, to put it more cynically, tracking down the perpetrators of Virus B is more important to law enforcement because it hurt big business, while Virus A really isn't a big deal because it only hurt regular people.
I realize this line of thought treads dangerously close to the "tin-foil hat wearing big business controls the government" camp. But consider this: How many individuals have been investigated, arrested and convicted for gaining unauthorized access to a corporation's computer, obtaing private or confidential information without the willing consent of that corporation? I don't know the exact number, but I'm sure there's been more then a few.
On the other hand, how many companies out there have been fined, or their corporate officers jailed for producing software which covertly installs on millions of private individual's machines without explicit permission from the user? Software like spyware which operates 'behind the scenes', is nearly impossible to remove, causes computer performance to suffer, and sends private or confidential information back to the company. None that I know of, despite the fact that many of these companies operate in the United States with offices and mailing addresses.
My guess this is because for the most part what these companies are doing is not illegal. Our laws are written in such a way where what an individual does to a single company is a criminal offense while the same action by a company against millions of innocent people is alright. In my opinion, burying a sentence littered with legalese, but which says something to the effect of "User also agrees that in using this software, certain third party software may be installed on the user's computer which may send information to various third parties" deep within the text of a EULA does not mean the end user is really making an informed decision in allowing the spyware to be installed when they click 'yes'.
So far, there have been no laws passed which require companies that produce spyware to accurately inform
Bank: Hello, Ms. Hilton? This is megabank. I'm calling because of some very unusual credit card activity. I see a $1,400 purchase from something called "thinkgeek". According to our records, for the last five years all of your purchases have been from liquor stores and trashy lingerie shops. Did you make the purchase from this "thinkgeek"?
Paris: Wha f*ck b*tch motherf*cker who? I can buy (hic) and sell you b*tch
Bank: Thank you Ms. Hilton. We'll cancel the charge immediatly.
I have admit that when I hear about the broadcast flag, it irks me. I have a single HDTV receiver (integrated radio and satellite), but it's likely I won't really get into digital TV until it's much cheaper and there's more content, meaning I won't start converting the entire house over to HDTV until after this broadcast flag is mandated (if they MPAA and others get their way).
Rather then lambasting the FCC and the MPAA, I have one question I'd like to see someone give an acceptable answer to: Why? Why do they need to stop people from being able to record a high quality digital signal from a broadcast? The easy answer is, they don't want people to be able to copy and distribute the programming they own.
Fine, but they said the same thing in the 1980s when the VCR became popular. "If people are able to make video tapes of movies and programs using a set top box and an inexpensive cassette tape, it will ruin us and take our profits away!" they cried.
Of course, that didn't happen. Yes, there were people with giant video cassette libraries of pirated movies dubbed from rentals or recorded off HBO (I had a neighbor with several hundred of these movies). In the end, we discovered that the ability to easily record programs actually ended up helping the movie and television industry far more then it hurt them.
So why is this different? Because it's a higher quality broadcast? In the 80s the quality of a VHS recording, if done right, was not too much different then the quality you'd find in broadcast or in tapes rented or purchased from the video shop. Today, a digital recording, if done right, is not much different the quality you'd find on an HD broadcast or next generation video discs you'll soon find for sale or rent at the video shop. Considering the quality of VHS recordings back in the 80s were not too much different then the commercially available media, and today's digital recordings aren't too much different then commercially available media, I just don't see that as a valid argument.
The folks at the FCC and MPAA aren't stupid people, and I can't for the life of me understand why they would spend time and resources trying to put in a broadcast flag when history has shown that when end users have versatility available to them, it ultimately helps the MPAA and others. There has to be a good reason, right?
I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what that reason is. The only argument I could come up with is that they don't want people to be able to record high quality television programs which *might* end up hurting the growing DVD market for TV boxed sets where an entire season of a particular program can be purchased. But we're still not sure if that would happen. Heck, on my computer and burned to VCDs I have the entire collection of every episode of a particular TV show, and each of those episodes I downloaded off the Internet. I also purchased the DVD box sets for the entire series. It was not because I wanted better quality, but because I wanted to own something physical, I wanted the liner notes, I wanted the "special features". The recordings I found "illegally" lacked those things.
In light of all this, does anyone know why they're putting up such a fight?
There are many things I don't like about Bush but I think this administration has the right space policy.
The best part is, when the naysayers start going on about how "This is costing too much money" or "it's not worth it", the Bush administration has a way of getting around them:
"We have received recent intelligence that there are terrorist cells on the moon and on Mars that are developing weapons of mass destruction. In addition, our information shows that the Martians have direct links to Osama Bin Laden, and may be in part responsible for the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The Martians hate freedom. They are jelous of the American way of life on Earth. We must give NASA funding so they can send weapons inspectors to Mars, and if the weapons inspectors don't find any WMDs, then we need to be ready to invade."
Of course a company should be able to make money, and that's hard to do when the major services are provided for "free". So far, the best known (legitimate) way to make money from an otherwise "free" service is advertising.
Again, Google is following the simple rule of Don't make it a hassle for your customers to do business with you. Google's advertisements are the best out there that I've seen. They don't try to jump out at you, they don't annoy you with flashing pictures or insipid audio, and a real attempt is made to make the advertisements relevant to the person viewing them.
I know personally I've clicked on more of these non obtrusive, non abrasive and (mostly) relevant ads in Gmail in the last three months then all the total ads I've clicked on since I first started seeing them around 93/94. (Not saying much, since I've clicked on non-Google ads three times in the past decade, and Google ads four times, but I think you see my point).
For those of you who pooh-paw what you see as "idol-worship" with Google, let me explain something: If a company is doing everything right, people are going to like that company. So far there is very little that Google has done that's "wrong". They have built a reputation, and continue to build a reputation of being "one of the good ones".
If they stay that course, I think in the long run there's a company that's going to end up the first "blue chip" dot-com, lasting for decades. That doesn't mean they can do no wrong; if they start producing low quality products or pissing off their customers, they can start going down hill fast. It could be argued that this is what happened to Netscape in the late 90s when they were bought out. New management screwed with the employees, so many of the good ones quit. Their main product went way down hill, and now they're doing their best . . . as a company to recover from that (don't know if that's going to happen). It could happen to Google too, if they don't stay their current course.
I think it's wonderful Google is doing something like this. Then again, I don't think Google has done much that could be considered wrong as of late. There are two good rules of business that so many modern industries seem to forget. 1) Make a good product, which so far Google seems to be doing well, and 2) Don't make it a hassle for your customers to do business with you. If only other tech companies followed those two simple rules, they probably would be faring much better. If the recording industry followed these rules, they would . . . well, that's not going to happen any time soon.
The one question I have is this: Why just students? Sure, it's always good to help out students (especially with money), but there are a lot of people out there who are doing this stuff on their own. You don't have to be in school to be trying to learn coding or work in open source (some of us do it as a hobby). This really isn't meant to be a complaint, it's a serious question, and I'm sure there is a good answer out there I just don't happen to know what it is.
Good points. But I'm still not sure how random error+systematic error balance things out. If anything, I would expect the effects of their deviance to compound, instead of equalize.
As for election polls: I'd like to see an experiment for just one election where the results of polls were never released to the public. I've always had the suspicion that poll results effect the public's choices, rather then reflect them. If a poll is released that indicate Candidate A is going to win by a landslide, then the supports of Candidate B are far more likely to stay home, since they figure their vote won't count, turning the pools into a sort of self fulfilling prophecy.
But I really do wonder how people's voting behavior would change if they went to the polls having no idea who is expected to win.
And your spot on about the order of the quesitons.
Star Trek is a beloved franchise. I love it, and I'm not alone.
I was digging around the IMDB, and comparing what I think to be the best Star Trek movie (Khan), and what I think is the worst Star Trek movie (Nemesis).
Something struck me about the two. Khan was written and directed by individuals with experience in the science fiction genre. Moreover, experience in making more cerebral type sci-fi, as opposed to big explosion aliens with lasers sci-fi.
Nemesis was put together by people who had no experience with sci-fi. Now, this Brand of Brothers guy has proven that he can write at a better then average level, but has zero experience with the science fiction genre. If they are going to continue this "let's not have experienced sci-fi writers and directors", the chances of them putting together a good film is low.
In addition, Star Trek has three television series with characters that have never seen the big screen. Why break with tradition? Why use some completely new cast, then add them to a writer and (probably) a director combination with no real experience in sci-fi?
It's as if they are constructing this movie from the ground up to be bad. There are plenty of decent sci-fi writers out there (heck, just look to some of the better episodes of TNG... I'm sure the writers of those episodes wouldn't mind seeing work). Find a decent director with sci-fi experience (off hand I think somebody like Andrew Niccol could probably do a good job).
Realistically, though, I think that under the direction of Rick Berman, Star Trek isn't going to put out anything that approaches what it had in the past. Berman just doesn't seem to "get it".
I've thought about this for a while, and my best theory is: Deal with the devil. Berman sold his soul to the devil in exchange for fame and fortune. Of course, true to the devil's plan of causing pain and torture as a side to his deals, he decided the fame and fortune Berman would receive would be with the Star Trek franchise.
Which causes Berman much suffering, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't like Star Trek, or the science fiction genre for that matter. Berman has likely adopted a life philosophy which states "If I have to be miserable, I'm going to make the fans of the series miserable too".
The worst part is, no matter how hard he tries, the devil (who has pre-existing relationships with just about every executive in Hollywood) has made it sure that he won't be fired, no matter how badly he destroys the franchise and alienates its fans. Then after a miserable life dealing with a series he hates, he's still going to have to spend all of eternity in hell.
That's just my theory though. It could just be that most of Paramount's execs are high on cocaine all the time. Either one provides an acceptable answer.
The use of Honda's unrelated Type-R performance label tells me they are appealing to quality by association to something they deserve no merit for.
Perhaps you could just take a regular power supply and put a "Type R" sticker on it. The kid down the street put a Type R sticker on his Toyota, and he claims the sticker alone makes it faster.
If you really wanted maximum performance from your power supply, you have to put a bunch of Japanese characters all over the power supply, as well as do a really bad job of placing it lower in your computer's case. Also, you'd have to solder a giant coffee can to the cooling fan, because that makes it goes faster too.
I was surprised to learn that I only needed 258 watts in my system as it currently stands. (And I was afraid I was overtaxing my 300watt supply). They even admit these are peak wattage numbers, and realisticlly you'll need less.
This is a great thing to hear. I've been waiting to see a bunch of artists compleatly buck the traditional system, band together and have a go at it on their own in any media. I'm sure there are quite a few in the music recording field who have tried this, but the recording industry is so entrenched right now that success would be difficult.
The comics industry (as I understand it) still harbors an envrionment where guys like this actually have a chance. I wish them good luck.
That rings true except for one thing: The Military's blind obediance to orders has limits.
I suspect most American soldiers would risk court martials if the orders started comming down to open fire on innocent American civilians. There's quite a bit of training even on the grunt level in BCT on what an illegal order is. Though chances are, most of the mid-level officers wouldn't let the orders go down that far.
I'm getting more and more convinced that polls can not be used as an accurate representation of a population's feelings towards something. And typically, I do my best to ignore them.
First, because I don't believe the very small sample sizes can really fully show an accurate picture of the entire population's feelings. 1,000 out of 250+ million with only a ~3% margin of error? I'm sorry, but no. (I should note that my failure to trust in the accuracy of small sample sizes, no matter how much math you throw at it, made statistics a difficult course for me).
Second, because I think polls are often constructed in such a way where questions manage to get worded so they don't really get after the original intent. I had the opportunity to work as an outside consultant a few years back for an IT build out imitative for a large public university system. As we were developing the guidelines for the build out, the powers that be brought in an polling firm. It turned out developing the questions for the survey became the most difficult and frustrating portion of the entire project. It also became very clear that the polling firm was "modifying" the intent of the questions to fit the agenda of the administration.
For example, the subject came up about putting new computers in computer labs, and the age old debate of "should we buy PCs or Macs" started up (these were non-CS labs, and it was decided by everyone against something like Linux for a number of reasons I don't want to get into).. "Aha, we'll find that out in the poll" says the administration. The question submitted to the polling company was "While in campus computer labs, would you prefer to work on a PC or a Macintosh?" By the time it went through the administration, the question became "While on campus, do you normally use a PC or a Macintosh?" A subtle difference, but important.
When the poll was finally administered, it turns out that the answer to that question reflected the percentage of PCs to Macintoshes currently on the school campuses (about 70% PC, 30% Mac). This is despite the fact that most students I spoke with would much prefer to use the PCs, but often just went to the Macs because the lines were always shorter in the Mac labs. Had the question been asked as it was written, most of us involved with the project expected we'd see more around an 85%-15%.
When I hear about polls that make statements like "60% of Americans believe there is life on other planets", I always wonder what, exactly the question they asked was. Most polls don't say this, but thankfully this one had a link where you could see what the questions actually are. The first question, the big one read:
Do you believe that there is life on other planets in the universe besides earth? With possible answers of "Yes, No, and I don't know".
Seems pretty straightforward, right? Well, not really. If I had been asked that question, I'd probably end up in the "I don't know" category. To me, the word "believe" implies certainty. I would say that it's highly likely that there is extraterrestrial life, but I really don't know for sure. Had there been an option of "Probably", or if the question was "Do you think it's likely that there is life on other planets in the universe besides Earth", I would have no problem saying yes, and I think the results would be different.
I mean, if someone asked me "Do you believe the 101 Freeway will be congested tomorrow morning during rush hour?" and only give "Yes", "No" and "I don't know" as options, I'd answer I don't know, despite the fact that unless something very major was going on that I didn't know about I'm pretty much sure that the 101 is going to have heavy traffic.
What gets me is I've been polled a few times by telephone, and ended up frustrating the pollsters because they often asked for "yes" or "no" answers to questions that needed better qualification. One I remember well was from a large alcohol company that made rum. After asking me about the fre
Actually, I'm not going to leave. This country was founded on the principals of equality, liberty, and freedom. Principals that were fought for at the cost of many lives. If you think for one second that I'd rather leave this country then stay and do what I can to keep those principals from the hands of men and women who would use their power to jeopardize our basic rights, your deeply mistaken.
If the ACLU can fight and win the good fights, then that's great. But if ACLU lawyers are silenced, I think you're going to see a backlash that's not going to be pretty.
If you're satisfied to live in a country where individual freedoms and liberties can be stripped from you at the whim of a government official, I would suggest you should move. There's lots of countries out there that operate like that by default.
Unlike past wars, this is one that isn't really going to end. The global war on terrorism's ultimate goal is to stop terrorist threats from attacking the United States.
No matter what we do, the threat will always be there, and as such, the war will continue to go on. Granted, a government should be granted special permissions during wartime, with the understanding that when the conflict is over the population can rest easy that things will return to normal.
Only now, any permissions granted to the government won't be temporary. We are setting ourselves up for a government that can violate the principals on which this nation was founded indefinitely.
I for one don't want to live in a country where the government can violate my privacy. I don't want to live in a country where at whim any action can redefined as "terrorist", and I could be labeled a criminal for doing nothing wrong. We've gone past the point where "only guilty people have to worry", and are approaching "innocent people have to worry too."
So kudos to the ACLU. Kudos to any person or group who wants to limit the powers of government. The war just isn't in Iraq, the war is here too. Like the war against terrorism, our domestic war is between those who value liberty and freedom above all else, and those who want to limit it.
The current administration may have the best of intentions, but I can see Bush saying "It is better that the rights of 1,000 innocent Americans should perish at the hands of their own government so that the rights of one American won't be taken by a terrorist."
I normally wouldn't reply to something like that, but the implied message your post has is awfully, well, wrong.
DRM will eliminate the cost to law enforcement and the justice system of enforcing the will of intellectual property rights holders and will probably save billions of dollars.
To date, law enforcement's contributions to "enforcing the will" of copywrite holders has been small. The majority of protection against IP theft for the various *IAAs comes from their 900lb legal gorillas in civil proceedings.
Billions saved? Perhaps in legal fees. But I have yet to see any significant evidence that poor record or movie sales can be attributed to IP theft. If piracy stopped tomorrow, the music industry would still be going down hill as a business; they simply wouldn't have Internet file sharers as a scapegoat for the very real fact that most of their product is pretty crummy.
Once again, I'm not saying pirating is okay, I'm simply saying that I don't like having something I own be modified in ways I can't control.
If you don't want to pay for software, movies, music, or what have you, you still aren't obligated to do so.
I own a lot of music and I own a lot of movies. I don't mind paying for it. At the same time I'm not going to buy something that watches me as if I was a thief for doing nothing illegal everytime I want to play the things I bought and paid for.
I could help, but I doubt he'd take it.
on
A Gamer's Manifesto
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The kid who wrote this (and I say kid, because typically adults are able to write criticism without using frantic, profanity filled pleas) really ought to spend a few minutes and think about the horrible hypocrisy he's showing. It seems apparent to me that the guy makes his games purchasing decisions based on what the cover the glossy fan boy gamer magazines and websites is showing.
There are actually quite a few games out there which are not FPS, racing games, or sports titles. He'll just have to look in a different part of the software store to find them.
Most of my favorite games (which I've collectively spent far too much time on) fall under none of these genres, and satisfy most of his complaints. At the end of the article, I thought "well, if this guy wants something that will satisfy most of his demands, he should head down to the store and pick up a copy of MS Flight simulator. It's challenging. The primary focus of its development is realism as opposed to graphics. It has online multi-player (for free). They're really aren't any restrictions in the game's world that would limit the immersion factor (the game does cap off the maximum altitude you can reach, but 95% of the aircraft you fly wouldn't be able to reach it due to physics modeling, so it's more or less a non-issue). In some of the default airplanes the pilots are drawn as women who are hardly "scantily clad". Granted, the AI is a little clunky, but in its current form it's more there for ambiance then game play.
Though I doubt he'll do it. I mean, there are no monsters to kill, nothing to blow up, and even though he says he wants games to be difficult at the start, the learning curve for most FS is pretty high. I mean, he'd probably have to read the manual and go through a number of tutorials before he could complete a short, successful flight in a Cessna without crashing. Oh, and he'd have to use a computer instead of a consul.
Would you tell us where these can be found? I'd be curious to know where to look for games that excahnge fancy CG for, you know, fun.
Being nostalgic
on
PHRACK Final
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I honestly didn't know Phrack was still around. I'd like to say it's sad to see them going, but then again I haven't seen or heard anything relating to Phrack in 15 years.
Phrack conjures up memories--now viewed through rose colored glasses--of a time when computing, as well as the culture surrounding computers, seemed far more interesting then it is today. Late at night watching text files stream across a black and green 80 column monitor, being pumped to my beloved Apple//e at 300 baud (When I finish school and get a job, someday I'll be able to afford a 1200 baud modem...I can't wait!!).
I remember sitting at my desk spitting Dr. Pepper through my nose reading text files on BBS systems from the likes of "The Cult of the Dead Cow", or the seminal "How to Have Fun in K-Mart", or viewing works of the Phrack variety on hacking, cracking, and security with immense curiosity. It was great, because this computer I had was giving me a window into a world populated with people who, in many respects, were just like me.
Then as the 80s turn to the 90s, I got my first shell account on the Internet, and traded love of BBS systems for IRC, Usenet and gopher. A few years later, hypertext markup hit, and com programs like Telemate, Procomm, or Qmodem quietly were replaced by Trumpet winsock.
It didn't take long for the Internet to catch on, and a few years later IRC and discussion boards turned from being meeting points for curious, likeminded nerds to massive bland playgrounds seemingly populated by the same kind of people I initially used computers for to help get away from.
Then again, maybe the olden days weren't really as great as I remember them.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you want to install and run "Microsoft DRM" signed on 6/1/2005 3:40 PM and distributed by
Microsoft Corporation
Publisher authenticity verified by Microsoft Windows Verification Intermediate PCA
Caution: Microsoft Coperation asserts that this content is safe. You should only install/view this content if you trust Microsoft Corporation to make that assertion.
[ ] Always trust content from Microsoft Corporation
NO
Pssssssssssssssssssssss!
(hey, what's that coming out of the computer?)
(Something smells funny).
(10 minutes later)
[x] Always trust content from Microsoft Corporation
YES.
(boy, am I ever glad I bought one of those new Pentium 4s!!! The chip has everything!!!)
I was thinking along the same lines when I read this. It appears that higher-up feds have been generally interested in stopping computer crimes which have been committed against large companies, as opposed to crimes committed against individual citizens, and that always bothered me.
A hacker that does little more then break into a multi-national corporation's computer for the sake of curiosity and adventure is somehow public enemy #1. On the other hand, an organized group of thieves who steal the money and identities of thousands of innocent people and cause them incredible amounts of difficulty rebuilding their credit is something "we'd like to handle, but we really don't have the resources".
I can't say for sure, but I suspect operations like the one mentioned in the article are more likely motivated by pressure from credit card companies losing money on fraud and identify theft protection "insurance", not the pleas of hundreds of thousands of individual citizens who are actually victims of those crimes.
It amuses me when they talk about "damage" in dollar amounts of a worm or virus. Let's say virus A hits millions of home users destroying their individual work, financial records, and costs them time and money to get their computer running right again, while Virus B hits a few thousand machines at a select few large corporations. The dollar amount of "damage" virus A is calculated to be very small, and may only consider an increase in an ISPs or computer manufacturer's queues for telephone tech support. Virus B's damage is calculated to be some unrealistic number in the billions based not only in the real costs of repairing the damaged machines, but on subjective estimates in "loss of productivity" which always make it sound much worse then it really is.
While virus A does far more damage in the aggregate, Virus B is given a higher priority due to companies claiming outrageously over inflated "damages" based on vague and misleading estimates. Or, to put it more cynically, tracking down the perpetrators of Virus B is more important to law enforcement because it hurt big business, while Virus A really isn't a big deal because it only hurt regular people.
I realize this line of thought treads dangerously close to the "tin-foil hat wearing big business controls the government" camp. But consider this: How many individuals have been investigated, arrested and convicted for gaining unauthorized access to a corporation's computer, obtaing private or confidential information without the willing consent of that corporation? I don't know the exact number, but I'm sure there's been more then a few.
On the other hand, how many companies out there have been fined, or their corporate officers jailed for producing software which covertly installs on millions of private individual's machines without explicit permission from the user? Software like spyware which operates 'behind the scenes', is nearly impossible to remove, causes computer performance to suffer, and sends private or confidential information back to the company. None that I know of, despite the fact that many of these companies operate in the United States with offices and mailing addresses.
My guess this is because for the most part what these companies are doing is not illegal. Our laws are written in such a way where what an individual does to a single company is a criminal offense while the same action by a company against millions of innocent people is alright. In my opinion, burying a sentence littered with legalese, but which says something to the effect of "User also agrees that in using this software, certain third party software may be installed on the user's computer which may send information to various third parties" deep within the text of a EULA does not mean the end user is really making an informed decision in allowing the spyware to be installed when they click 'yes'.
So far, there have been no laws passed which require companies that produce spyware to accurately inform
Bank: Hello, Ms. Hilton? This is megabank. I'm calling because of some very unusual credit card activity. I see a $1,400 purchase from something called "thinkgeek". According to our records, for the last five years all of your purchases have been from liquor stores and trashy lingerie shops. Did you make the purchase from this "thinkgeek"?
Paris: Wha f*ck b*tch motherf*cker who? I can buy (hic) and sell you b*tch
Bank: Thank you Ms. Hilton. We'll cancel the charge immediatly.
I have admit that when I hear about the broadcast flag, it irks me. I have a single HDTV receiver (integrated radio and satellite), but it's likely I won't really get into digital TV until it's much cheaper and there's more content, meaning I won't start converting the entire house over to HDTV until after this broadcast flag is mandated (if they MPAA and others get their way).
Rather then lambasting the FCC and the MPAA, I have one question I'd like to see someone give an acceptable answer to: Why? Why do they need to stop people from being able to record a high quality digital signal from a broadcast? The easy answer is, they don't want people to be able to copy and distribute the programming they own.
Fine, but they said the same thing in the 1980s when the VCR became popular. "If people are able to make video tapes of movies and programs using a set top box and an inexpensive cassette tape, it will ruin us and take our profits away!" they cried.
Of course, that didn't happen. Yes, there were people with giant video cassette libraries of pirated movies dubbed from rentals or recorded off HBO (I had a neighbor with several hundred of these movies). In the end, we discovered that the ability to easily record programs actually ended up helping the movie and television industry far more then it hurt them.
So why is this different? Because it's a higher quality broadcast? In the 80s the quality of a VHS recording, if done right, was not too much different then the quality you'd find in broadcast or in tapes rented or purchased from the video shop. Today, a digital recording, if done right, is not much different the quality you'd find on an HD broadcast or next generation video discs you'll soon find for sale or rent at the video shop. Considering the quality of VHS recordings back in the 80s were not too much different then the commercially available media, and today's digital recordings aren't too much different then commercially available media, I just don't see that as a valid argument.
The folks at the FCC and MPAA aren't stupid people, and I can't for the life of me understand why they would spend time and resources trying to put in a broadcast flag when history has shown that when end users have versatility available to them, it ultimately helps the MPAA and others. There has to be a good reason, right?
I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what that reason is. The only argument I could come up with is that they don't want people to be able to record high quality television programs which *might* end up hurting the growing DVD market for TV boxed sets where an entire season of a particular program can be purchased. But we're still not sure if that would happen. Heck, on my computer and burned to VCDs I have the entire collection of every episode of a particular TV show, and each of those episodes I downloaded off the Internet. I also purchased the DVD box sets for the entire series. It was not because I wanted better quality, but because I wanted to own something physical, I wanted the liner notes, I wanted the "special features". The recordings I found "illegally" lacked those things.
In light of all this, does anyone know why they're putting up such a fight?
There are many things I don't like about Bush but I think this administration has the right space policy.
The best part is, when the naysayers start going on about how "This is costing too much money" or "it's not worth it", the Bush administration has a way of getting around them:
"We have received recent intelligence that there are terrorist cells on the moon and on Mars that are developing weapons of mass destruction. In addition, our information shows that the Martians have direct links to Osama Bin Laden, and may be in part responsible for the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The Martians hate freedom. They are jelous of the American way of life on Earth. We must give NASA funding so they can send weapons inspectors to Mars, and if the weapons inspectors don't find any WMDs, then we need to be ready to invade."
Yeah. To paraphase.
Slashdot user: "Hi, I'm Pat. And I'm an email addict".
Group: "Email? Email's not an addiction. I used to suck dick for coke. Now that's an addiction. You ever suck dick for email?"
Slashdot user: "Well" (blushes) "Now that I think about it... I suppose that yes... yes I have".
Of course a company should be able to make money, and that's hard to do when the major services are provided for "free". So far, the best known (legitimate) way to make money from an otherwise "free" service is advertising.
Again, Google is following the simple rule of Don't make it a hassle for your customers to do business with you. Google's advertisements are the best out there that I've seen. They don't try to jump out at you, they don't annoy you with flashing pictures or insipid audio, and a real attempt is made to make the advertisements relevant to the person viewing them.
I know personally I've clicked on more of these non obtrusive, non abrasive and (mostly) relevant ads in Gmail in the last three months then all the total ads I've clicked on since I first started seeing them around 93/94. (Not saying much, since I've clicked on non-Google ads three times in the past decade, and Google ads four times, but I think you see my point).
For those of you who pooh-paw what you see as "idol-worship" with Google, let me explain something: If a company is doing everything right, people are going to like that company. So far there is very little that Google has done that's "wrong". They have built a reputation, and continue to build a reputation of being "one of the good ones".
If they stay that course, I think in the long run there's a company that's going to end up the first "blue chip" dot-com, lasting for decades. That doesn't mean they can do no wrong; if they start producing low quality products or pissing off their customers, they can start going down hill fast. It could be argued that this is what happened to Netscape in the late 90s when they were bought out. New management screwed with the employees, so many of the good ones quit. Their main product went way down hill, and now they're doing their best . . . as a company to recover from that (don't know if that's going to happen). It could happen to Google too, if they don't stay their current course.
I think it's wonderful Google is doing something like this. Then again, I don't think Google has done much that could be considered wrong as of late. There are two good rules of business that so many modern industries seem to forget. 1) Make a good product, which so far Google seems to be doing well, and 2) Don't make it a hassle for your customers to do business with you. If only other tech companies followed those two simple rules, they probably would be faring much better. If the recording industry followed these rules, they would . . . well, that's not going to happen any time soon.
The one question I have is this: Why just students? Sure, it's always good to help out students (especially with money), but there are a lot of people out there who are doing this stuff on their own. You don't have to be in school to be trying to learn coding or work in open source (some of us do it as a hobby). This really isn't meant to be a complaint, it's a serious question, and I'm sure there is a good answer out there I just don't happen to know what it is.
I'm still waiting on who actually uses Wikipedia as their primary source of information
That's alright. You can always start reading Wikipedia articles now to improve your knowledge. Then perhaps go back to school and get a degree.
In a few years you might be able to leave the resturant industry and join others who read Wikipedia at the table.
Good points. But I'm still not sure how random error+systematic error balance things out. If anything, I would expect the effects of their deviance to compound, instead of equalize.
As for election polls: I'd like to see an experiment for just one election where the results of polls were never released to the public. I've always had the suspicion that poll results effect the public's choices, rather then reflect them. If a poll is released that indicate Candidate A is going to win by a landslide, then the supports of Candidate B are far more likely to stay home, since they figure their vote won't count, turning the pools into a sort of self fulfilling prophecy.
But I really do wonder how people's voting behavior would change if they went to the polls having no idea who is expected to win.
And your spot on about the order of the quesitons.
Star Trek is a beloved franchise. I love it, and I'm not alone.
I was digging around the IMDB, and comparing what I think to be the best Star Trek movie (Khan), and what I think is the worst Star Trek movie (Nemesis).
Something struck me about the two. Khan was written and directed by individuals with experience in the science fiction genre. Moreover, experience in making more cerebral type sci-fi, as opposed to big explosion aliens with lasers sci-fi.
Nemesis was put together by people who had no experience with sci-fi. Now, this Brand of Brothers guy has proven that he can write at a better then average level, but has zero experience with the science fiction genre. If they are going to continue this "let's not have experienced sci-fi writers and directors", the chances of them putting together a good film is low.
In addition, Star Trek has three television series with characters that have never seen the big screen. Why break with tradition? Why use some completely new cast, then add them to a writer and (probably) a director combination with no real experience in sci-fi?
It's as if they are constructing this movie from the ground up to be bad. There are plenty of decent sci-fi writers out there (heck, just look to some of the better episodes of TNG... I'm sure the writers of those episodes wouldn't mind seeing work). Find a decent director with sci-fi experience (off hand I think somebody like Andrew Niccol could probably do a good job).
Realistically, though, I think that under the direction of Rick Berman, Star Trek isn't going to put out anything that approaches what it had in the past. Berman just doesn't seem to "get it".
Anyone know?
I've thought about this for a while, and my best theory is: Deal with the devil. Berman sold his soul to the devil in exchange for fame and fortune. Of course, true to the devil's plan of causing pain and torture as a side to his deals, he decided the fame and fortune Berman would receive would be with the Star Trek franchise.
Which causes Berman much suffering, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't like Star Trek, or the science fiction genre for that matter. Berman has likely adopted a life philosophy which states "If I have to be miserable, I'm going to make the fans of the series miserable too".
The worst part is, no matter how hard he tries, the devil (who has pre-existing relationships with just about every executive in Hollywood) has made it sure that he won't be fired, no matter how badly he destroys the franchise and alienates its fans. Then after a miserable life dealing with a series he hates, he's still going to have to spend all of eternity in hell.
That's just my theory though. It could just be that most of Paramount's execs are high on cocaine all the time. Either one provides an acceptable answer.
The use of Honda's unrelated Type-R performance label tells me they are appealing to quality by association to something they deserve no merit for.
Perhaps you could just take a regular power supply and put a "Type R" sticker on it. The kid down the street put a Type R sticker on his Toyota, and he claims the sticker alone makes it faster.
If you really wanted maximum performance from your power supply, you have to put a bunch of Japanese characters all over the power supply, as well as do a really bad job of placing it lower in your computer's case. Also, you'd have to solder a giant coffee can to the cooling fan, because that makes it goes faster too.
That's a great link. Thanks.
I was surprised to learn that I only needed 258 watts in my system as it currently stands. (And I was afraid I was overtaxing my 300watt supply). They even admit these are peak wattage numbers, and realisticlly you'll need less.
This is a great thing to hear. I've been waiting to see a bunch of artists compleatly buck the traditional system, band together and have a go at it on their own in any media. I'm sure there are quite a few in the music recording field who have tried this, but the recording industry is so entrenched right now that success would be difficult.
The comics industry (as I understand it) still harbors an envrionment where guys like this actually have a chance. I wish them good luck.
That rings true except for one thing: The Military's blind obediance to orders has limits.
I suspect most American soldiers would risk court martials if the orders started comming down to open fire on innocent American civilians. There's quite a bit of training even on the grunt level in BCT on what an illegal order is. Though chances are, most of the mid-level officers wouldn't let the orders go down that far.
I'm getting more and more convinced that polls can not be used as an accurate representation of a population's feelings towards something. And typically, I do my best to ignore them.
First, because I don't believe the very small sample sizes can really fully show an accurate picture of the entire population's feelings. 1,000 out of 250+ million with only a ~3% margin of error? I'm sorry, but no. (I should note that my failure to trust in the accuracy of small sample sizes, no matter how much math you throw at it, made statistics a difficult course for me).
Second, because I think polls are often constructed in such a way where questions manage to get worded so they don't really get after the original intent. I had the opportunity to work as an outside consultant a few years back for an IT build out imitative for a large public university system. As we were developing the guidelines for the build out, the powers that be brought in an polling firm. It turned out developing the questions for the survey became the most difficult and frustrating portion of the entire project. It also became very clear that the polling firm was "modifying" the intent of the questions to fit the agenda of the administration.
For example, the subject came up about putting new computers in computer labs, and the age old debate of "should we buy PCs or Macs" started up (these were non-CS labs, and it was decided by everyone against something like Linux for a number of reasons I don't want to get into).. "Aha, we'll find that out in the poll" says the administration. The question submitted to the polling company was "While in campus computer labs, would you prefer to work on a PC or a Macintosh?" By the time it went through the administration, the question became "While on campus, do you normally use a PC or a Macintosh?" A subtle difference, but important.
When the poll was finally administered, it turns out that the answer to that question reflected the percentage of PCs to Macintoshes currently on the school campuses (about 70% PC, 30% Mac). This is despite the fact that most students I spoke with would much prefer to use the PCs, but often just went to the Macs because the lines were always shorter in the Mac labs. Had the question been asked as it was written, most of us involved with the project expected we'd see more around an 85%-15%.
When I hear about polls that make statements like "60% of Americans believe there is life on other planets", I always wonder what, exactly the question they asked was. Most polls don't say this, but thankfully this one had a link where you could see what the questions actually are. The first question, the big one read:
Do you believe that there is life on other planets in the universe besides earth?
With possible answers of "Yes, No, and I don't know".
Seems pretty straightforward, right? Well, not really. If I had been asked that question, I'd probably end up in the "I don't know" category. To me, the word "believe" implies certainty. I would say that it's highly likely that there is extraterrestrial life, but I really don't know for sure. Had there been an option of "Probably", or if the question was "Do you think it's likely that there is life on other planets in the universe besides Earth", I would have no problem saying yes, and I think the results would be different.
I mean, if someone asked me "Do you believe the 101 Freeway will be congested tomorrow morning during rush hour?" and only give "Yes", "No" and "I don't know" as options, I'd answer I don't know, despite the fact that unless something very major was going on that I didn't know about I'm pretty much sure that the 101 is going to have heavy traffic.
What gets me is I've been polled a few times by telephone, and ended up frustrating the pollsters because they often asked for "yes" or "no" answers to questions that needed better qualification. One I remember well was from a large alcohol company that made rum. After asking me about the fre
Actually, I'm not going to leave. This country was founded on the principals of equality, liberty, and freedom. Principals that were fought for at the cost of many lives. If you think for one second that I'd rather leave this country then stay and do what I can to keep those principals from the hands of men and women who would use their power to jeopardize our basic rights, your deeply mistaken.
If the ACLU can fight and win the good fights, then that's great. But if ACLU lawyers are silenced, I think you're going to see a backlash that's not going to be pretty.
If you're satisfied to live in a country where individual freedoms and liberties can be stripped from you at the whim of a government official, I would suggest you should move. There's lots of countries out there that operate like that by default.
Unlike past wars, this is one that isn't really going to end. The global war on terrorism's ultimate goal is to stop terrorist threats from attacking the United States.
No matter what we do, the threat will always be there, and as such, the war will continue to go on. Granted, a government should be granted special permissions during wartime, with the understanding that when the conflict is over the population can rest easy that things will return to normal.
Only now, any permissions granted to the government won't be temporary. We are setting ourselves up for a government that can violate the principals on which this nation was founded indefinitely.
I for one don't want to live in a country where the government can violate my privacy. I don't want to live in a country where at whim any action can redefined as "terrorist", and I could be labeled a criminal for doing nothing wrong. We've gone past the point where "only guilty people have to worry", and are approaching "innocent people have to worry too."
So kudos to the ACLU. Kudos to any person or group who wants to limit the powers of government. The war just isn't in Iraq, the war is here too. Like the war against terrorism, our domestic war is between those who value liberty and freedom above all else, and those who want to limit it.
The current administration may have the best of intentions, but I can see Bush saying "It is better that the rights of 1,000 innocent Americans should perish at the hands of their own government so that the rights of one American won't be taken by a terrorist."
Actually, I'm pretty sure all of the moving parts inside a Lexmark are K'nex.
I always thought real men used vi. They have a difficult time with it, but hey, if that's what it takes to be a real man.
I normally wouldn't reply to something like that, but the implied message your post has is awfully, well, wrong.
DRM will eliminate the cost to law enforcement and the justice system of enforcing the will of intellectual property rights holders and will probably save billions of dollars.
To date, law enforcement's contributions to "enforcing the will" of copywrite holders has been small. The majority of protection against IP theft for the various *IAAs comes from their 900lb legal gorillas in civil proceedings.
Billions saved? Perhaps in legal fees. But I have yet to see any significant evidence that poor record or movie sales can be attributed to IP theft. If piracy stopped tomorrow, the music industry would still be going down hill as a business; they simply wouldn't have Internet file sharers as a scapegoat for the very real fact that most of their product is pretty crummy.
Once again, I'm not saying pirating is okay, I'm simply saying that I don't like having something I own be modified in ways I can't control.
If you don't want to pay for software, movies, music, or what have you, you still aren't obligated to do so.
I own a lot of music and I own a lot of movies. I don't mind paying for it. At the same time I'm not going to buy something that watches me as if I was a thief for doing nothing illegal everytime I want to play the things I bought and paid for.
The kid who wrote this (and I say kid, because typically adults are able to write criticism without using frantic, profanity filled pleas) really ought to spend a few minutes and think about the horrible hypocrisy he's showing. It seems apparent to me that the guy makes his games purchasing decisions based on what the cover the glossy fan boy gamer magazines and websites is showing.
There are actually quite a few games out there which are not FPS, racing games, or sports titles. He'll just have to look in a different part of the software store to find them.
Most of my favorite games (which I've collectively spent far too much time on) fall under none of these genres, and satisfy most of his complaints. At the end of the article, I thought "well, if this guy wants something that will satisfy most of his demands, he should head down to the store and pick up a copy of MS Flight simulator. It's challenging. The primary focus of its development is realism as opposed to graphics. It has online multi-player (for free). They're really aren't any restrictions in the game's world that would limit the immersion factor (the game does cap off the maximum altitude you can reach, but 95% of the aircraft you fly wouldn't be able to reach it due to physics modeling, so it's more or less a non-issue). In some of the default airplanes the pilots are drawn as women who are hardly "scantily clad". Granted, the AI is a little clunky, but in its current form it's more there for ambiance then game play.
Though I doubt he'll do it. I mean, there are no monsters to kill, nothing to blow up, and even though he says he wants games to be difficult at the start, the learning curve for most FS is pretty high. I mean, he'd probably have to read the manual and go through a number of tutorials before he could complete a short, successful flight in a Cessna without crashing. Oh, and he'd have to use a computer instead of a consul.
Would you tell us where these can be found? I'd be curious to know where to look for games that excahnge fancy CG for, you know, fun.
I honestly didn't know Phrack was still around. I'd like to say it's sad to see them going, but then again I haven't seen or heard anything relating to Phrack in 15 years.
//e at 300 baud (When I finish school and get a job, someday I'll be able to afford a 1200 baud modem...I can't wait!!).
Phrack conjures up memories--now viewed through rose colored glasses--of a time when computing, as well as the culture surrounding computers, seemed far more interesting then it is today. Late at night watching text files stream across a black and green 80 column monitor, being pumped to my beloved Apple
I remember sitting at my desk spitting Dr. Pepper through my nose reading text files on BBS systems from the likes of "The Cult of the Dead Cow", or the seminal "How to Have Fun in K-Mart", or viewing works of the Phrack variety on hacking, cracking, and security with immense curiosity. It was great, because this computer I had was giving me a window into a world populated with people who, in many respects, were just like me.
Then as the 80s turn to the 90s, I got my first shell account on the Internet, and traded love of BBS systems for IRC, Usenet and gopher. A few years later, hypertext markup hit, and com programs like Telemate, Procomm, or Qmodem quietly were replaced by Trumpet winsock.
It didn't take long for the Internet to catch on, and a few years later IRC and discussion boards turned from being meeting points for curious, likeminded nerds to massive bland playgrounds seemingly populated by the same kind of people I initially used computers for to help get away from.
Then again, maybe the olden days weren't really as great as I remember them.