Open letter to the MPAA: I hope a true "CSS" style hack is found. Otherwise, I'm remaining on the sidelines and I won't be buying any HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs.
Hear that, MPAA!?!?! I said BUYING. You claim piracy costs sales, but you MUST then subtract the lost sales due to your overbearing copy protection. I have about 2000 CDs and about 600 DVDs in my collection. I have no HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs. And I don't plan on it either unless things change.
It's a new world. And in this new world, I have an expectation of device portability. That means when I buy a 5" media-containing silver platter, I expect to be able to store it on a server in my house to stream it to my living room or my computer or my bedroom. I expect to be able to re-compress it for my laptop or my ipod (or -like device) for watching when traveling. I have no desire to be tied to a specific (and expensive) playback device in a specific location. You're terrified of future storage capacity that will reach into the terrabytes on small devices, but to me, that's the thing that's keeping me interested at the moment in the stuff you have to sell... the knowledge that I can have that portability in movies and TV the same way I have it for the music that I've collected over the years. The RIAA freaked out when MP3's came along, but to be honest, my interest in music had waned significantly. But now, with so much available at my fingertips, I'm VERY interested in hearing new things and I'm buying probably more than ever before (though none through the DRM-crippled iTunes store).
I will gladly buy the media, but I expect that at that point, our relationship is OVER. Thanks, goodbye. Now if I want to extract images from the movie, print them out, and wall-paper my room with them, that's MY business, not yours.
Because they (Apple) have a virtual monopoly on content delivery and hardware, and the two are unbreakablly linked. Unbreakable in the sense that 99% of the people who use iTunes and/or iPods would have no idea how to get the music they bought onto another device other than an iPod. Many many people are building libraries that will forever be tied to Apple. Imagine if all of those CDs you bought in the 90's would ONLY work on the brand of CD player that was popular at the time, say Sony.
Of course, most of the people using iTunes aren't goign to realize it until it's too late.
What a great country I live in. Here we have legislators in the pockets of media companies proposing laws that would require DRM, but in Europe, the legislators (apparantly acting on behalf of the populus, which is what I thought the "of the people, by the people, and for the people" US government is SUPPOSED to do) are rightly saying that DRM is unfair to the people.
I've been avoiding buying an HD player and here's why. I have a media server in the house. I rip DVDs and CDs and I can stream them to my HDTV (or to other TVs in the house). I haven't made the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray jump yet because there's been no way to get the content into my media server. I won't allow them to dictate how I use the media, that I legally purchase, in my own home.
The irony here is that my having had someone break the DRM, they will actually GAIN SALES, at least from me. If these things had been DRM free from the start, I can guarantee that I would already be building a collection (ie, buying).
I'll be getting one of these formats when it's truly cracked (like DVD CSS is cracked). I have a home media server and the most-watched DVDs in my house are on there. The video quality of DVD leaves something to be desired on my 50" DLP (it's OK, but the quality of the mastering job truly does matter, and HD is certainly much better). I'm interested in getting an HD format... but it's been the lack of a simple, reliable method of ripping the discs that's kept me from jumping in.
I simply refuse to bend over to the movie industry. I WILL be able to do what I want with the content that I BUY. I'm not averse to handing over cash for the shinny silver disc. But when I get it home, I want the ability to put it on my media server and stream it around the house if I want. End or story. Until that crack is real and trivial to use (see software like DVDshrink or DVD Decrypter), I'm out. No blu-ray or HD-DVD for me.
Companies that make their business on selling virus checking software will almost always over-exaggerate the threat. I'd be shocked to see Symantec and McAfee show anything much lower than their showing (yellow). It is in their best interest to keep the perception of impending doom alive and well.
I thought I read about this somewhere, or maybe it just came up in conversation, but I can't find the reference...
Anyway, the idea is this: If you have a laptop with a jolt/bump sensor (I have an IBM at work that does this, I'm sure others do to), you voluntarily run some software that knows where your laptop is by its IP address and when a shock hits it, it sends that info to a central server. Normally, it will just be noise... random shocks and drops coming from all over... but when all of a sudden the server receives reports from hundreds/thousands of laptops in one area and that area grows larger quickly, that data could be used to detect an earthquake.
Is anyone doing this? Could it be a possible early warning system? That would seem to be a fairly trivial piece of software to write, at least on the client end... the shock sensor goes off, ping the home base. Making sense of the data at the other end might be harder, but seems possible.
If an ISP detects an inordinate amount of traffic that is clearly spam related, then the ISP should dump that customer off their network until they get it cleaned up. Call the customer. Or email. Give them a chance to explain (it's always possible that the traffic is legit, even though it might not be "ordinary", and that should be OK). If the answer is "I have no idea why so much traffic is being sent from my machine on port 3456... and what's a port?" then kick them off the network. Tell them to go get a virus checker and get their system cleaned up and they'll re-enable them in a couple of days. If the traffic persists when they get back on, then dump 'em off for a week.
The problem is that to an ISP, you're just a $50 check every month. I guess they figure it's better for business to have a bunch of zombies on their network than it is to be without the monthly check from those customers.
Seriously, if the only way to get people to act with some level of responsibility is to kick them off the network, then so be it.
OK... No DRM means (to me anyway) DRM that is trivially breakable. I do buy DVDs with... gasp... DRM. But it's trivial to rip them into a media server. That it is technically illegal to do so makes the law that restricts it utterly laughable. If I buy a DVD, rip the content, make still images from the video, print them on my printer, and wallpaper my wall with them... there should be no law that disallows that.
Now I could buy from iTunes as well... I don't, but not because of DRM because that too is easily removed. It's because of the crappy quality of the files.
The first major studio that sells CD quality songs and/or DVD quality movies without undue compression and without DRM is probably going to get a lot of my money.
1) I still believe in supporting artists. If I can, I try to buy non RIAA CDs and/or CDs from bands who have managed to secure contracts that don't screw them over too badly (though that is sometimes hard to find out).
2) No DRM
3) I can rip at any quality I want. FLAC for at-home streaming. Lame encoded MP3 for my ipod.
4) I was raised to believe that I shouldn't take what isn't mine. I don't take that totally literally. I have no qualms about downloading a bunch of CDs off of usenet, but I do that to listen to bands that I might not have heard yet (to listen to the whole albums at decent quality, not a couple of hyper-compressed tracks that the record company or the band wants you to listen to)... and then if I like something I hear, I go buy the CD. See #1. I try to support the bands that I like.
Are CDs dead? Yea, kind of. I don't often pop a silver disc into a player to listen to it very often anymore. But until the music industry gets off this sue everyone and DRM the heck out of everything mode, I don't have much choice.
You might as well just download off usenet or something because the legality is about the same. Don't kid yourself into thinking they're any more legit than the "free" sources.
The data is accessible by the public, but as far as I know, the whole database is not. "We" created it. The internet community at large are the ones who populated it with the data that now makes it worth something to someone. I hope the new caretakers of the database do something great with it, but I also would like them to make the whole damn thing accessible, if even for just a little while.
Hubble is and has been an amazing scientific instrument. While I do love the idea of sending people into space, I feel more and more that the money is far better spent on unmanned missions, including satellites like Hubble. Instead of figuring out how to send humans to Mars (and back to the moon), pour 25% of that budget into Hubble II and Hubble III (or whatever you'd want to call them) and the rest into unmanned probes/missions to Mars. It just feels to me like money well spent. Build two or three identical satellites. Yea, that's expensive, but if one goes south, you figure out why, fix it in the one sitting on the ground (if it's something that can be fixed/improved) and fire it up into orbit.
The Mars rovers and Hubble have been absolute bargains as far as new knowledge gained. That seems like the right model to follow.
Every time a new version has come out, there's an amazing number of "this messed up my computer/songs/database/etc." messages all over every apple/ipod/itunes forum around. But 7 takes the cake. And from what I'm reading, this new version seems to do very little for people who had major issues with the first 7 release. For now, I'm just waiting and running iTunes 4. With about 20K songs in my database, iTunes 4 seems fairly stable (with more than 30K, it was very very slow, so I pulled a bunch out that I just want to archive for posterity's sake).
Now here's the conspiracy theorist in me... the iTunes for Mac software (from what I've read) seems to be fairly problem free. iTunes for Windows... it can be a nightmare. Is this is subtle nudge from Apple to get more of the iPod/iTunes fans to move over to Macs? Are they saying (without saying it) "Hey kids... look what a mess your Windows PC can be..."?
I was going to phrase it a different way. I was shocked that there was ONLY 23,000 Segway's out there. They've been selling them for how many years now? And even at $6K a pop, that's really not enough money to keep a company like that afloat for too long.
-S
Pbase is another photo-hosting site. They're geared a bit more toward the serious photograper (not to say there isn't a mix, but sites like flickr seem to more "snapshot" type photos). They have a very nice camera database that is very helpful when looking at new cameras. The nice thing about it is that you can see random example photos throughout their database that were taken with each camera. It also tracks lenses too, though for the most part it's up to the user to enter the lens data when the upload the pictures (they make it easy to do, so most people do it).
What exactly do you expect when a huge percentage of people who have HDTVs either aren't using them with high-def sources and/or they aren't but they THINK they are? Yea, HD is great. I have a 50" first-generation DLP (720p). The picture is really good and regular DVDs can look great. But I have no desire to drop a grand (or even half that) on an HD video player right now, especially when I'd be buying movies for a second time (some a third time when I upgraded from VHS). Furthermore, the discs are locked down with DRM that isn't yet breakable. I'm not going to buy a new movie on an HD format if I can't down-convert it and burn it to DVD so I can watch on DVD players elsewhere in the house. Sorry. Those are my rules. If the content isn't portable, I'm not buying. Period.
Well, at 2.1 GHz (which is the low end of wireless), the wavelength is 14 cm. So you need to keep the largest orifice in the cage smaller than that, and in reality probably much smaller. A general rule of thumb that I've heard for real good EMI containment is something like 1/12 of the wavelength. OK, so somewhere between about 1 cm and 14 cm.
Not very practical for a building or even a room, except for a special EMI testing room.
Or maybe I'm completely missing something. Maybe it doesn't take that much containment to actually stop 2-way communications at those frequencies
Is it just me, or when someone types "please be gentle with my server" does it seem like an open invitation to see if it's still alive. I would never have though twice about clicking on that link except to see if your server was dead or not (seems to be OK).
Slashdot Mirror
Open letter to the MPAA: I hope a true "CSS" style hack is found. Otherwise, I'm remaining on the sidelines and I won't be buying any HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs.
Hear that, MPAA!?!?! I said BUYING. You claim piracy costs sales, but you MUST then subtract the lost sales due to your overbearing copy protection. I have about 2000 CDs and about 600 DVDs in my collection. I have no HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs. And I don't plan on it either unless things change.
It's a new world. And in this new world, I have an expectation of device portability. That means when I buy a 5" media-containing silver platter, I expect to be able to store it on a server in my house to stream it to my living room or my computer or my bedroom. I expect to be able to re-compress it for my laptop or my ipod (or -like device) for watching when traveling. I have no desire to be tied to a specific (and expensive) playback device in a specific location. You're terrified of future storage capacity that will reach into the terrabytes on small devices, but to me, that's the thing that's keeping me interested at the moment in the stuff you have to sell... the knowledge that I can have that portability in movies and TV the same way I have it for the music that I've collected over the years. The RIAA freaked out when MP3's came along, but to be honest, my interest in music had waned significantly. But now, with so much available at my fingertips, I'm VERY interested in hearing new things and I'm buying probably more than ever before (though none through the DRM-crippled iTunes store).
I will gladly buy the media, but I expect that at that point, our relationship is OVER. Thanks, goodbye. Now if I want to extract images from the movie, print them out, and wall-paper my room with them, that's MY business, not yours.
-S
Because they (Apple) have a virtual monopoly on content delivery and hardware, and the two are unbreakablly linked. Unbreakable in the sense that 99% of the people who use iTunes and/or iPods would have no idea how to get the music they bought onto another device other than an iPod. Many many people are building libraries that will forever be tied to Apple. Imagine if all of those CDs you bought in the 90's would ONLY work on the brand of CD player that was popular at the time, say Sony.
Of course, most of the people using iTunes aren't goign to realize it until it's too late.
-S
Is this a great country, or what?
Sigh.
-S
I've been avoiding buying an HD player and here's why. I have a media server in the house. I rip DVDs and CDs and I can stream them to my HDTV (or to other TVs in the house). I haven't made the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray jump yet because there's been no way to get the content into my media server. I won't allow them to dictate how I use the media, that I legally purchase, in my own home.
The irony here is that my having had someone break the DRM, they will actually GAIN SALES, at least from me. If these things had been DRM free from the start, I can guarantee that I would already be building a collection (ie, buying).
-S
I'll be getting one of these formats when it's truly cracked (like DVD CSS is cracked). I have a home media server and the most-watched DVDs in my house are on there. The video quality of DVD leaves something to be desired on my 50" DLP (it's OK, but the quality of the mastering job truly does matter, and HD is certainly much better). I'm interested in getting an HD format... but it's been the lack of a simple, reliable method of ripping the discs that's kept me from jumping in.
I simply refuse to bend over to the movie industry. I WILL be able to do what I want with the content that I BUY. I'm not averse to handing over cash for the shinny silver disc. But when I get it home, I want the ability to put it on my media server and stream it around the house if I want. End or story. Until that crack is real and trivial to use (see software like DVDshrink or DVD Decrypter), I'm out. No blu-ray or HD-DVD for me.
-S
Companies that make their business on selling virus checking software will almost always over-exaggerate the threat. I'd be shocked to see Symantec and McAfee show anything much lower than their showing (yellow). It is in their best interest to keep the perception of impending doom alive and well.
-S
It's internal book keeping money. Funny money. No real cash changes hands like it does with between other advertisers and Google.
-S
I thought I read about this somewhere, or maybe it just came up in conversation, but I can't find the reference...
Anyway, the idea is this: If you have a laptop with a jolt/bump sensor (I have an IBM at work that does this, I'm sure others do to), you voluntarily run some software that knows where your laptop is by its IP address and when a shock hits it, it sends that info to a central server. Normally, it will just be noise... random shocks and drops coming from all over... but when all of a sudden the server receives reports from hundreds/thousands of laptops in one area and that area grows larger quickly, that data could be used to detect an earthquake.
Is anyone doing this? Could it be a possible early warning system? That would seem to be a fairly trivial piece of software to write, at least on the client end... the shock sensor goes off, ping the home base. Making sense of the data at the other end might be harder, but seems possible.
-S
If an ISP detects an inordinate amount of traffic that is clearly spam related, then the ISP should dump that customer off their network until they get it cleaned up. Call the customer. Or email. Give them a chance to explain (it's always possible that the traffic is legit, even though it might not be "ordinary", and that should be OK). If the answer is "I have no idea why so much traffic is being sent from my machine on port 3456... and what's a port?" then kick them off the network. Tell them to go get a virus checker and get their system cleaned up and they'll re-enable them in a couple of days. If the traffic persists when they get back on, then dump 'em off for a week.
The problem is that to an ISP, you're just a $50 check every month. I guess they figure it's better for business to have a bunch of zombies on their network than it is to be without the monthly check from those customers.
Seriously, if the only way to get people to act with some level of responsibility is to kick them off the network, then so be it.
-S
OK... No DRM means (to me anyway) DRM that is trivially breakable. I do buy DVDs with... gasp... DRM. But it's trivial to rip them into a media server. That it is technically illegal to do so makes the law that restricts it utterly laughable. If I buy a DVD, rip the content, make still images from the video, print them on my printer, and wallpaper my wall with them... there should be no law that disallows that.
Now I could buy from iTunes as well... I don't, but not because of DRM because that too is easily removed. It's because of the crappy quality of the files.
The first major studio that sells CD quality songs and/or DVD quality movies without undue compression and without DRM is probably going to get a lot of my money.
-S
1) I still believe in supporting artists. If I can, I try to buy non RIAA CDs and/or CDs from bands who have managed to secure contracts that don't screw them over too badly (though that is sometimes hard to find out).
2) No DRM
3) I can rip at any quality I want. FLAC for at-home streaming. Lame encoded MP3 for my ipod.
4) I was raised to believe that I shouldn't take what isn't mine. I don't take that totally literally. I have no qualms about downloading a bunch of CDs off of usenet, but I do that to listen to bands that I might not have heard yet (to listen to the whole albums at decent quality, not a couple of hyper-compressed tracks that the record company or the band wants you to listen to)... and then if I like something I hear, I go buy the CD. See #1. I try to support the bands that I like.
Are CDs dead? Yea, kind of. I don't often pop a silver disc into a player to listen to it very often anymore. But until the music industry gets off this sue everyone and DRM the heck out of everything mode, I don't have much choice.
-S
Like gmail? Oddly, I get the mixed content error at work, but not at home (I've checked IE at home despite the fact that I use Firefox).
-S
If I can't rip the content and stick in on the hard drive in a library, then it isn't a media center... it's a fancy disc player.
You might as well just download off usenet or something because the legality is about the same. Don't kid yourself into thinking they're any more legit than the "free" sources.
-S
OK... public appology here. Me = moron.
m l
http://www.freedb.org/en/download__database.10.ht
I could have sworn that I'd loooked for that before and couldn't find it.
-S (feeling like a dipshit)
The data is accessible by the public, but as far as I know, the whole database is not. "We" created it. The internet community at large are the ones who populated it with the data that now makes it worth something to someone. I hope the new caretakers of the database do something great with it, but I also would like them to make the whole damn thing accessible, if even for just a little while.
-S
Seriously? Do you have any concept of what it takes to keep a medium sized corporation afloat for several years?
Hubble is and has been an amazing scientific instrument. While I do love the idea of sending people into space, I feel more and more that the money is far better spent on unmanned missions, including satellites like Hubble. Instead of figuring out how to send humans to Mars (and back to the moon), pour 25% of that budget into Hubble II and Hubble III (or whatever you'd want to call them) and the rest into unmanned probes/missions to Mars. It just feels to me like money well spent. Build two or three identical satellites. Yea, that's expensive, but if one goes south, you figure out why, fix it in the one sitting on the ground (if it's something that can be fixed/improved) and fire it up into orbit.
The Mars rovers and Hubble have been absolute bargains as far as new knowledge gained. That seems like the right model to follow.
-S
Every time a new version has come out, there's an amazing number of "this messed up my computer/songs/database/etc." messages all over every apple/ipod/itunes forum around. But 7 takes the cake. And from what I'm reading, this new version seems to do very little for people who had major issues with the first 7 release. For now, I'm just waiting and running iTunes 4. With about 20K songs in my database, iTunes 4 seems fairly stable (with more than 30K, it was very very slow, so I pulled a bunch out that I just want to archive for posterity's sake).
Now here's the conspiracy theorist in me... the iTunes for Mac software (from what I've read) seems to be fairly problem free. iTunes for Windows... it can be a nightmare. Is this is subtle nudge from Apple to get more of the iPod/iTunes fans to move over to Macs? Are they saying (without saying it) "Hey kids... look what a mess your Windows PC can be..."?
-S
I was going to phrase it a different way. I was shocked that there was ONLY 23,000 Segway's out there. They've been selling them for how many years now? And even at $6K a pop, that's really not enough money to keep a company like that afloat for too long. -S
-S
Linking to a 40 meg file hosted on TiVo's servers on the front page of Slashdot? Not nice.
-S
Not very practical for a building or even a room, except for a special EMI testing room.
Or maybe I'm completely missing something. Maybe it doesn't take that much containment to actually stop 2-way communications at those frequencies
-S
Is it just me, or when someone types "please be gentle with my server" does it seem like an open invitation to see if it's still alive. I would never have though twice about clicking on that link except to see if your server was dead or not (seems to be OK).
-S