NesterDC (NES emulator) is my favorite Dreamcast game; it was one of the
main reasons I bought the thing in the first place. It would be nice to play
Dr. Mario over a network though... one of the two games in which I was ever
dominant (the other being Mario Tennis on N64); generally I suck at video
games. Ah nostalgia.
The one where customers research and don't buy things from companies that do
things like discriminate, pollute, spam, etc; forcing those to become bad
business decisions. Of course, pigs fly in that world too.
Indeed. What was the reasoning behind the decision to ditch the public
charter and switch to "maximize profits or jail" model. Does anyone have any
good book material or references that discuss this? I don't know too much
about it but it seems to be a big problem. And how exactly do they define
"maximize profits"? Clearly, corporations make donations to, say, the Red
Cross which I assume bolsters the corp.'s image. But it seems there would be
many grey areas between "this will boost profits NOW" and "this will be good
for our business and profits in the long run".
For me, the only reason eBay is successful is that it's successful... It's the biggest; you can find most things there; yada yada. But the interface is god-awful. Give me some clean HTML, make an attempt to reduce "SUPER COOL PRODUCT!!! NO RESERVE!!! L@@K!!", clean up the actual product pages to be somewhat consistent, and it would be no contest. Except that everyone still uses eBay. Chicken and egg.
I haven't personally experienced the pain of selling items, but I've heard several people complain about the interface and high fees as well.
Sorry, it's illegal to manufacture or import a VHS deck in the US without
"automatic gain control"; I confused that with auto tracking, but it's the part
that makes Macrovision work. See chapter 12 of the US
copyright law. Section 1201(k), or Section 1202(k)(1)(A)(i).. not quite
sure how to cite law. Just search for "automatic gain control".
"Effective 18 months after the date of the enactment of this chapter [1998
DMCA], no person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or
otherwise traffic in any -... (i) VHS format analog video cassette recorder
unless such recorder conforms to the automatic gain control copy control
technology;
Presumably a VHS playback-only deck (no record function) without automatic
gain control would be legal. Of course, I doubt such a thing exists. There
also appears to be an exemption for "any professional analog video cassette
recorder" which is later defined as "an analog video cassette recorder that is
designed, manufactured, marketed, and intended for use by a person who
regularly employs such a device for lawful business or industrial use...".
I assume you are playing devil's advocate but... I have a DVD player. It
applies Macrovision to the output analog signal. My TV only has a coax input.
I run the DVD player output to the VHS deck's composite inputs and then to the
TV's coax. This does not work as the VHS's autotracking is confused by the
Macrovision. It is illegal to sell new VHS decks without autotracking in the
United States. Thankfully, I also have an older VHS deck that lacks
autotracking. When it breaks, what should I do? Buy a new TV? I already have
a TV that works perfectly.
My sister lived in Spain for a year. She acquired several DVDs from
magazines that include them. She can't play them in the US due to region
locked DVD players.
I rented a DVD. My DVD player would not fast forward through the
advertisement at the beginning of the DVD.
Now, as far as I know, only the solution to the first problem skirts around
the law. The solution to all the problems is, of course, to buy a real DVD
player from Asia that won't apply Macrovision, ignores "user prohibited
actions", and can be set to region 0 or any region for those discs that won't
play on region 0.
From what I've heard about the newer formats, things will only get worse.
In short, take your copyright and stuff it. I don't need your precious
"content".
I've long thought I'd be more, or at least no less, productive in a 30 hour
work week than my current 40. Perhaps it's different for people who love their
job enough to dedicate their life to it. I don't particularly love my job nor
do I hate it. I come home and try to spend some time on my various other
interests before I get too tired to stay awake. It's very frustrating to force
myself to go to bed so I won't be dead tired at work the next day knowing I'm
cutting off the only time I have to move my other projects forward. And they
move forward so slowly. Depressing.
The article is very clear, it's your comprehension that's the
problem here.
I don't refuse to not disbelieve that the article wasn't factually
inaccurate, nor do I fail to forget that logical precision without a lack of
disorientation may not rarely be misleading.
When presenting data, it's not only curteous but absolutely critical to
present it in a way that's easily understandable. In some cases, such as the
Space
Shuttle Columbia disaster, lives may be at stake. (quick summary: Boeing
had no data on the probable effects of a piece of foam of the observed size
hitting the shuttle as it did.)
I'm mostly in agreement with what you say, but I'd just like to clarify that
there is a huge difference between licenses like BSD, GPL, etc. (free and open
source software licenses) and the typical commercial EULA: the GPL need not be
agreed to in order to use the software. At worst, you don't abide by the GPL
and are bound by the copyright law of your land. If you do abide by the terms
of the GPL, then you are granted permission to do things (probably) forbidden
by copyright law such as copying and redistribution. The EULA on the other
hand, attempts to force you (legally dubiously) to agree to it as a
precondition to using the software. It attempts to impose restrictions over
and above those imposed by copyright law. Like you, I find this practice
heinous. A pack of lawyers vs. the average Joe who has already bought and
paid for the software does not seem a fair negotiation.
Two questions: When copyright expires on a piece of software, am I still
bound by the EULA (assume for a moment that the EULA is a valid contract)? I
suppose I could read the EULA to search for an expiration... And second, is
there any commercially available proprietary software that does not include a
EULA (other than the default copyright restrictions)? I think I would buy it
just on principle.
If the resolution is really as good as a laser printer, why not a full size
display of this stuff? Under $1000 for a monitor isn't too bad. And a
monochrome high resolution display might rival a traditional low-res monitor if
you don't need color. Well, it would rival it for me... Especially if it's
passively lit like paper. What sort of refresh rate is possible? I guess I
could read the article...
I've always been able to get games to work by using Game Genie (and not entering any codes). Much better than blowing on it. I've heard others say they can get games to work by inserting them just enough to fit and no further. But I no longer have an NES to try that. Viva NesterDC!
My personal preference is a word, made up or no, followed by a descriptive
subtitle. So, Ekiga Softphone, GIMP Image Editor (ignore the redundancy),
Sabayon Administration Tools (or whatever it is), and so on. I really dislike
the coopting of generic terms like "Windows" or "Word". Granted, they have the
adjective "Microsoft" in front, but Microsoft also claims a trademark on
"Windows" (and "Word" too?). I would prefer something like Microsoft So-and-so
(or just so-so) Word Processor as the full name.
That said, "weird" sounding names are very off-putting, such as "kubuntu"
(even though it's an actual word), "GIMP", KDE's "keverything", and other
prefixes such as "x", "g", and "gtk", and many others I can't think of at the
moment. Strangely enough, I don't dislike "Ogg Vorbis" in the least. I guess
it's a matter of taste. The post mentioning trademark clashes had a good point
though in favor of "weird" names.
So what to do? Well, not much but be an armchair program-name disapprover.
Doesn't horse racing have a committe that approves names of horses? Not that
I'd ever suggest that, but it's an interesting thought.
That's why I don't push Ubuntu or Kubuntu; I use the specific releases like
Warty Warthog, Hoary Hedgehog, Breezy Badger or Dapper Drake. Oops, that's
The Dapper Drake.
I envy you if your devices fall into three major categories. I've been
toying with the idea of building an equiptment rack with a few DC power buses
for things like my DSL modem, TV antenna amplifier, mic preamp, router, various
chargeable devices, etc. In addition to power, the rack would provide real
power switches; many of my devices lack power switches. Since all the
equipment will be in the same rack, transmission losses should not be great.
Now, it may be the case that most of these devices can handle a fairly wide
range of voltage input, but the provided adapters I've checked thus far include
(DC unless otherwise noted): 16V AC (DSL modem and mic preamp), 16V (laptop),
15V (speakers), 12V (router), 7.8V (camcorder), 5V (TV antenna amp), and 4.3V
(camera). My goal now is to have 120V AC, 16V AC, 16, 5, and one or two
adjustable voltage sources. This isn't much better than individual
transformers unplugged when not in use.
By the way, if anyone knows a supplier of small quantity panel mount
voltmeters and ammeters of so-so or better quality that don't look like ass,
please speak up.
Why is capitalism (well, excluding public schools) so slow to punish idiocy? In every place I've worked, I've seen these inefficiencies from lack of communication, etc. I assumed, apparently incorrectly, that a company that behaved sanely would easily trounce such mismanaged competition. Is the mismanagement actually good management? Or is it simply impossible to have a company free of gross stupidity? The school system is a different and more depressing situation because there is little chance of competition. My mother and friends work in public schools and have many horror stories about administration mandating the latest and greatest "programs".
Copyright law already governs the legality of using one piece of software on
multiple machines. I am personally strongly against any license agreement that
is essentially non-negotiable and is agreed to with a click or less (I'm only
assuming Apple's licenses are similar to others that I have seen; correct me if
I am wrong). I believe it's misleading to sell a product retail and yet claim
that nothing was sold, merely licensed.
Exactly. Text is also superior in areas of poor signal reception (read:
anywhere I am*), though the typing interface on a cell phone reduces this to
some extent. "Hello." "what?" "hello" "what?" "HELLO" "what?".. is not a
very efficient conversation.
* Is it just me, or do cell providers track you to determine your place of
residence and then ensure that service sucks there, getting a kickback from the
local phone company?
It's not that a compromised PGP key isn't a problem; it is. During the conversation, you've got the same security as PGP: if your keys are secure, the conversation is secure. The advantage comes *after* the conversation. With PGP, a compromised key will reveal past conversations. With OTR, a compromised PGP key will not reveal past OTR conversations because they were encrypted with a temporary key. A compromised temporary key (which is normally destroyed) will reveal the conversation, but there is no guarantee that what you've got is the actual conversation due to the publishing of something (the shared secret I believe) which allows any third party to create a message "belonging" to the conversation.
Yes, I explain it poorly due to my lack of understanding. But it is different from PGP, having certain features that PGP lacks ("forward security" as the OTR folks call it; past conversations are not compromised by future PGP key compromises). Read the OTR website for more info.
Um... OTR is not PGP for a reason. I'm no crypto expert, but with PGP, Alice and Bob know each others public keys. They encrypt messages to each other, and anyone with the secret key, hopefully only Alice or Bob, can decrypt or forge a message. If these messages are stored, any breach due to a trojan, subpoena, etc. will be able to recover the messages.
OTR uses PGP to create a "shared secret" which is used to generate temporary encryption keys for each conversation. During the conversation, the security is the same as in the PGP case. After the conversation, the temporary encryption keys are discarded, so that no one may now decrypt the conversation (at least, they should be discarded). I'm a bit confused on the final step, but I think the shared secret is then published which allows anyone to create new temporary encryption keys which may be used to generate messages that belong to the conversation. This fact may be used to deny the validity of any claimed transcript of the conversation (and this way you don't need to trust that Bob has really discarded the temporary keys).
From what I understand, MPEG-LA doesn't even pretend to guarantee that a
license from them covers all applicable patents. From the MPEG-LA: "Any party that
believes it has patents which are essential to the MPEG-4 Systems Standard, and
wishes to participate in the MPEG-4 Systems Patent Portfolio License upon
successful evaluation, is invited to submit them for evaluation and inclusion."
This statement is repeated in a number of locations including the FAQs for both
MPEG-4 Systems and MPEG-4 Visual. The MPEG-LA licensing is more of a "We know
these patents all apply, and you can conveniently license them all in one
place. You're on your own with anything else." Also, the patent pool for the
audio portions of MPEG-4 is administrated separately by Via Licensing.
I often wonder if MPEG is more about good technology, or more about getting
everyone's patents included.
Slashdot Mirror
NesterDC (NES emulator) is my favorite Dreamcast game; it was one of the main reasons I bought the thing in the first place. It would be nice to play Dr. Mario over a network though... one of the two games in which I was ever dominant (the other being Mario Tennis on N64); generally I suck at video games. Ah nostalgia.
The one where customers research and don't buy things from companies that do things like discriminate, pollute, spam, etc; forcing those to become bad business decisions. Of course, pigs fly in that world too.
Indeed. What was the reasoning behind the decision to ditch the public charter and switch to "maximize profits or jail" model. Does anyone have any good book material or references that discuss this? I don't know too much about it but it seems to be a big problem. And how exactly do they define "maximize profits"? Clearly, corporations make donations to, say, the Red Cross which I assume bolsters the corp.'s image. But it seems there would be many grey areas between "this will boost profits NOW" and "this will be good for our business and profits in the long run".
Nevermind... NBC owns SNL...
Seriously? On what grounds? Trademark? For what it's worth, I saw it on YouTube
For me, the only reason eBay is successful is that it's successful... It's the biggest; you can find most things there; yada yada. But the interface is god-awful. Give me some clean HTML, make an attempt to reduce "SUPER COOL PRODUCT!!! NO RESERVE!!! L@@K!!", clean up the actual product pages to be somewhat consistent, and it would be no contest. Except that everyone still uses eBay. Chicken and egg.
I haven't personally experienced the pain of selling items, but I've heard several people complain about the interface and high fees as well.
Sorry, it's illegal to manufacture or import a VHS deck in the US without "automatic gain control"; I confused that with auto tracking, but it's the part that makes Macrovision work. See chapter 12 of the US copyright law. Section 1201(k), or Section 1202(k)(1)(A)(i).. not quite sure how to cite law. Just search for "automatic gain control".
"Effective 18 months after the date of the enactment of this chapter [1998 DMCA], no person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any - ... (i) VHS format analog video cassette recorder
unless such recorder conforms to the automatic gain control copy control
technology;
Presumably a VHS playback-only deck (no record function) without automatic gain control would be legal. Of course, I doubt such a thing exists. There also appears to be an exemption for "any professional analog video cassette recorder" which is later defined as "an analog video cassette recorder that is designed, manufactured, marketed, and intended for use by a person who regularly employs such a device for lawful business or industrial use ...".
I assume you are playing devil's advocate but... I have a DVD player. It applies Macrovision to the output analog signal. My TV only has a coax input. I run the DVD player output to the VHS deck's composite inputs and then to the TV's coax. This does not work as the VHS's autotracking is confused by the Macrovision. It is illegal to sell new VHS decks without autotracking in the United States. Thankfully, I also have an older VHS deck that lacks autotracking. When it breaks, what should I do? Buy a new TV? I already have a TV that works perfectly.
My sister lived in Spain for a year. She acquired several DVDs from magazines that include them. She can't play them in the US due to region locked DVD players.
I rented a DVD. My DVD player would not fast forward through the advertisement at the beginning of the DVD.
Now, as far as I know, only the solution to the first problem skirts around the law. The solution to all the problems is, of course, to buy a real DVD player from Asia that won't apply Macrovision, ignores "user prohibited actions", and can be set to region 0 or any region for those discs that won't play on region 0.
From what I've heard about the newer formats, things will only get worse.
In short, take your copyright and stuff it. I don't need your precious "content".
I've long thought I'd be more, or at least no less, productive in a 30 hour work week than my current 40. Perhaps it's different for people who love their job enough to dedicate their life to it. I don't particularly love my job nor do I hate it. I come home and try to spend some time on my various other interests before I get too tired to stay awake. It's very frustrating to force myself to go to bed so I won't be dead tired at work the next day knowing I'm cutting off the only time I have to move my other projects forward. And they move forward so slowly. Depressing.
Would you rather accomplish more and feel scatterbrained and frustrated or accomplish less and feel satisfied and useful?
I don't refuse to not disbelieve that the article wasn't factually inaccurate, nor do I fail to forget that logical precision without a lack of disorientation may not rarely be misleading.
When presenting data, it's not only curteous but absolutely critical to present it in a way that's easily understandable. In some cases, such as the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, lives may be at stake. (quick summary: Boeing had no data on the probable effects of a piece of foam of the observed size hitting the shuttle as it did.)
I'm mostly in agreement with what you say, but I'd just like to clarify that there is a huge difference between licenses like BSD, GPL, etc. (free and open source software licenses) and the typical commercial EULA: the GPL need not be agreed to in order to use the software. At worst, you don't abide by the GPL and are bound by the copyright law of your land. If you do abide by the terms of the GPL, then you are granted permission to do things (probably) forbidden by copyright law such as copying and redistribution. The EULA on the other hand, attempts to force you (legally dubiously) to agree to it as a precondition to using the software. It attempts to impose restrictions over and above those imposed by copyright law. Like you, I find this practice heinous. A pack of lawyers vs. the average Joe who has already bought and paid for the software does not seem a fair negotiation.
Two questions: When copyright expires on a piece of software, am I still bound by the EULA (assume for a moment that the EULA is a valid contract)? I suppose I could read the EULA to search for an expiration... And second, is there any commercially available proprietary software that does not include a EULA (other than the default copyright restrictions)? I think I would buy it just on principle.
If the resolution is really as good as a laser printer, why not a full size display of this stuff? Under $1000 for a monitor isn't too bad. And a monochrome high resolution display might rival a traditional low-res monitor if you don't need color. Well, it would rival it for me... Especially if it's passively lit like paper. What sort of refresh rate is possible? I guess I could read the article...
I've always been able to get games to work by using Game Genie (and not entering any codes). Much better than blowing on it. I've heard others say they can get games to work by inserting them just enough to fit and no further. But I no longer have an NES to try that. Viva NesterDC!
My personal preference is a word, made up or no, followed by a descriptive subtitle. So, Ekiga Softphone, GIMP Image Editor (ignore the redundancy), Sabayon Administration Tools (or whatever it is), and so on. I really dislike the coopting of generic terms like "Windows" or "Word". Granted, they have the adjective "Microsoft" in front, but Microsoft also claims a trademark on "Windows" (and "Word" too?). I would prefer something like Microsoft So-and-so (or just so-so) Word Processor as the full name.
That said, "weird" sounding names are very off-putting, such as "kubuntu" (even though it's an actual word), "GIMP", KDE's "keverything", and other prefixes such as "x", "g", and "gtk", and many others I can't think of at the moment. Strangely enough, I don't dislike "Ogg Vorbis" in the least. I guess it's a matter of taste. The post mentioning trademark clashes had a good point though in favor of "weird" names.
So what to do? Well, not much but be an armchair program-name disapprover. Doesn't horse racing have a committe that approves names of horses? Not that I'd ever suggest that, but it's an interesting thought.
That's why I don't push Ubuntu or Kubuntu; I use the specific releases like Warty Warthog, Hoary Hedgehog, Breezy Badger or Dapper Drake. Oops, that's The Dapper Drake.
Um, Ebola is a virus. Check the article. Or check google; you can even buy it on eBay...
I envy you if your devices fall into three major categories. I've been toying with the idea of building an equiptment rack with a few DC power buses for things like my DSL modem, TV antenna amplifier, mic preamp, router, various chargeable devices, etc. In addition to power, the rack would provide real power switches; many of my devices lack power switches. Since all the equipment will be in the same rack, transmission losses should not be great. Now, it may be the case that most of these devices can handle a fairly wide range of voltage input, but the provided adapters I've checked thus far include (DC unless otherwise noted): 16V AC (DSL modem and mic preamp), 16V (laptop), 15V (speakers), 12V (router), 7.8V (camcorder), 5V (TV antenna amp), and 4.3V (camera). My goal now is to have 120V AC, 16V AC, 16, 5, and one or two adjustable voltage sources. This isn't much better than individual transformers unplugged when not in use.
By the way, if anyone knows a supplier of small quantity panel mount voltmeters and ammeters of so-so or better quality that don't look like ass, please speak up.
Why is capitalism (well, excluding public schools) so slow to punish idiocy? In every place I've worked, I've seen these inefficiencies from lack of communication, etc. I assumed, apparently incorrectly, that a company that behaved sanely would easily trounce such mismanaged competition. Is the mismanagement actually good management? Or is it simply impossible to have a company free of gross stupidity? The school system is a different and more depressing situation because there is little chance of competition. My mother and friends work in public schools and have many horror stories about administration mandating the latest and greatest "programs".
Unless I'm misinterpreting your post ... then their employer or other
powerful third party can demand proof that they voted in the required way.
Copyright law already governs the legality of using one piece of software on multiple machines. I am personally strongly against any license agreement that is essentially non-negotiable and is agreed to with a click or less (I'm only assuming Apple's licenses are similar to others that I have seen; correct me if I am wrong). I believe it's misleading to sell a product retail and yet claim that nothing was sold, merely licensed.
Exactly. Text is also superior in areas of poor signal reception (read: anywhere I am*), though the typing interface on a cell phone reduces this to some extent. "Hello." "what?" "hello" "what?" "HELLO" "what?" .. is not a
very efficient conversation.
* Is it just me, or do cell providers track you to determine your place of residence and then ensure that service sucks there, getting a kickback from the local phone company?
It's not that a compromised PGP key isn't a problem; it is. During the conversation, you've got the same security as PGP: if your keys are secure, the conversation is secure. The advantage comes *after* the conversation. With PGP, a compromised key will reveal past conversations. With OTR, a compromised PGP key will not reveal past OTR conversations because they were encrypted with a temporary key. A compromised temporary key (which is normally destroyed) will reveal the conversation, but there is no guarantee that what you've got is the actual conversation due to the publishing of something (the shared secret I believe) which allows any third party to create a message "belonging" to the conversation.
Yes, I explain it poorly due to my lack of understanding. But it is different from PGP, having certain features that PGP lacks ("forward security" as the OTR folks call it; past conversations are not compromised by future PGP key compromises). Read the OTR website for more info.
Um... OTR is not PGP for a reason. I'm no crypto expert, but with PGP, Alice and Bob know each others public keys. They encrypt messages to each other, and anyone with the secret key, hopefully only Alice or Bob, can decrypt or forge a message. If these messages are stored, any breach due to a trojan, subpoena, etc. will be able to recover the messages.
OTR uses PGP to create a "shared secret" which is used to generate temporary encryption keys for each conversation. During the conversation, the security is the same as in the PGP case. After the conversation, the temporary encryption keys are discarded, so that no one may now decrypt the conversation (at least, they should be discarded). I'm a bit confused on the final step, but I think the shared secret is then published which allows anyone to create new temporary encryption keys which may be used to generate messages that belong to the conversation. This fact may be used to deny the validity of any claimed transcript of the conversation (and this way you don't need to trust that Bob has really discarded the temporary keys).
From what I understand, MPEG-LA doesn't even pretend to guarantee that a license from them covers all applicable patents. From the MPEG-LA: "Any party that believes it has patents which are essential to the MPEG-4 Systems Standard, and wishes to participate in the MPEG-4 Systems Patent Portfolio License upon successful evaluation, is invited to submit them for evaluation and inclusion." This statement is repeated in a number of locations including the FAQs for both MPEG-4 Systems and MPEG-4 Visual. The MPEG-LA licensing is more of a "We know these patents all apply, and you can conveniently license them all in one place. You're on your own with anything else." Also, the patent pool for the audio portions of MPEG-4 is administrated separately by Via Licensing.
I often wonder if MPEG is more about good technology, or more about getting everyone's patents included.