I'm not sure you have answered my question about your characterization of the DRM as being 'restrictive'. If I have software that can play audio and video without interacting with the kernel support at all, then you need to do a little more than simply continue to claim that it is restrictive.
I'm not real sure how the windows media player stuff you are talking about works, but I have never had any difficulty doing anything with VLC, which has its own codec stack, or any other media playback application, so it might be more apt to describe it as the first version of windows that attempts to respect the goofy encryption present in some media files, rather than arguing it actually restricts anything.
I have problems with DRM as a consumer of media and as a constituent of several layers of government, but not as a consumer of hardware and software. That means that I don't buy a whole lot of media with DRM, I don't feel bad working around the DRM when I need to, and that I have written various representatives to point out that government mandated DRM is a horrible thing, but that I have no problem buying a media playback device that works with DRM files, as long as it works with those files in addition to working with unmanaged files.
I am happy to live in notebook land, and I don't feel awful about spending $100 for vendor support for hardware(which is an admittedly sideways way to look at the "recovery" edition OS that ships with most notebooks, but it works for me), so I haven't run into any activation headaches. I think it is silly, but then, I also think that it is targeted at shady resellers, not me. I guess it would be nice if it were possible to purchase a single license of Windows and use it for a decade, but I don't go into the transaction with that expectation, so it doesn't bother me all that much later.
What it amounts to is that while I appreciate the goals of Free Software(and Open Source and open source), and I understand the benefits of open standards and the like(and tend to store data in open formats), I am not convinced that Free Software NOW! is the only way that the various freedoms can be maintained at levels that I can live with, so the Linux decision isn't really an ideological one for me, and all the habits and other transition pain that I would have to go through(or at least, my perception of them) stack up pretty well against my estimated cost of ~$25 a year to stay locked into Microsoft.
From what I can tell, quite a bit of the trading in Verizon is playing on FiOS, which is doing pretty well, at least in the places they have managed(or bothered, depending on your POV) to make it available.
I think they realize that a great deal of their income comes from providing good search results and that SEO(especially the 'consulting' part of it) is largely based on actively making search results worse.
So it doesn't even have to be about keeping the search results clean, but about not executing conflicting strategies(or at least, having the sense not to sacrifice good revenue chasing after bad revenue, in the sense that SEO isn't a market if search goes away).
There is a negative correlation between intelligence and immediate reproductive success and there is a negative correlation between income and immediate reproductive success, so probably not, at least not in the way that you are thinking.
Following your lead and making an extreme, erratic statement of my own, it may just be that a good start towards getting everyone on the planet a good fuck and some cold beer is to establish a strong secular government in one of the Arab nations in the middle east.
(I'm not actually a fan of the war in Iraq, but it seems worth pointing out that some things are vastly easier said than they are done)
Many of the areas that show less than 10 people per square mile are federally owned land. No one lives there. Also, note that something like 80% of US citizens live in urban areas:
You can also burn the DRM music to CD in iTunes and then rip it into any format you want. It's a pain, but well worth doing. Not that I condone such behavior...
Why is it worth doing? I can see where it would be something I would do if I bought a lot of individual tracks, and something I might have done before the increased availability of DRM-free, downloadable albums, but buying used CD's and cheap stuff from CD Baby seems smarter, and now, why would you pay the same price for the DRM version?
It's perfectly valid to prefer the law to your own ethics, but I would argue it is also perfectly stupid.
There is of course the matter of deferring to the law vs your personal ethics, but that wasn't what the o.p. was talking about(or perhaps it was, but if so, it isn't done very clearly).
So I stand by what I was getting at, that it is entirely different to consider the law first than it is to consider your own ethics first, especially when deciding whether or not to do something. That doesn't mean you don't end up giving primacy to the law in the end, but you don't start out by giving it primacy.
I've never read either one, so I don't have any way of comparing them to Stephenson.
It's not actually a lame defensive posture though, it's a rejection of(what seems to be to me anyway) a tendency for people to reject things that they find themselves enjoying, as if they are afraid they will be caught and somehow punished for it. I admit that I don't actually know you are doing this, but your drawing of people as existing in large well defined groups is something that often accompanies it, so I went ahead and commented.
As much as anything, what it amounts to, is that Shakespeare was vulgar(which at least points to the danger of sorting works along that line).
(and really, it is not very nice to group Stephenson with Card)
No guy spends any time rating chicks that he won't do. So if there wasn't a 0, any chick that you wouldn't do would be a 1, and everything above that would be used to sort them into the order that you would do them if given the opportunity to choose.
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I'm not sure you have answered my question about your characterization of the DRM as being 'restrictive'. If I have software that can play audio and video without interacting with the kernel support at all, then you need to do a little more than simply continue to claim that it is restrictive.
I'm not real sure how the windows media player stuff you are talking about works, but I have never had any difficulty doing anything with VLC, which has its own codec stack, or any other media playback application, so it might be more apt to describe it as the first version of windows that attempts to respect the goofy encryption present in some media files, rather than arguing it actually restricts anything.
I have problems with DRM as a consumer of media and as a constituent of several layers of government, but not as a consumer of hardware and software. That means that I don't buy a whole lot of media with DRM, I don't feel bad working around the DRM when I need to, and that I have written various representatives to point out that government mandated DRM is a horrible thing, but that I have no problem buying a media playback device that works with DRM files, as long as it works with those files in addition to working with unmanaged files.
I am happy to live in notebook land, and I don't feel awful about spending $100 for vendor support for hardware(which is an admittedly sideways way to look at the "recovery" edition OS that ships with most notebooks, but it works for me), so I haven't run into any activation headaches. I think it is silly, but then, I also think that it is targeted at shady resellers, not me. I guess it would be nice if it were possible to purchase a single license of Windows and use it for a decade, but I don't go into the transaction with that expectation, so it doesn't bother me all that much later.
What it amounts to is that while I appreciate the goals of Free Software(and Open Source and open source), and I understand the benefits of open standards and the like(and tend to store data in open formats), I am not convinced that Free Software NOW! is the only way that the various freedoms can be maintained at levels that I can live with, so the Linux decision isn't really an ideological one for me, and all the habits and other transition pain that I would have to go through(or at least, my perception of them) stack up pretty well against my estimated cost of ~$25 a year to stay locked into Microsoft.
XP has restrictive DRM? Really?
I've never noticed any.
From what I can tell, quite a bit of the trading in Verizon is playing on FiOS, which is doing pretty well, at least in the places they have managed(or bothered, depending on your POV) to make it available.
I think they realize that a great deal of their income comes from providing good search results and that SEO(especially the 'consulting' part of it) is largely based on actively making search results worse.
So it doesn't even have to be about keeping the search results clean, but about not executing conflicting strategies(or at least, having the sense not to sacrifice good revenue chasing after bad revenue, in the sense that SEO isn't a market if search goes away).
There is a negative correlation between intelligence and immediate reproductive success and there is a negative correlation between income and immediate reproductive success, so probably not, at least not in the way that you are thinking.
Following your lead and making an extreme, erratic statement of my own, it may just be that a good start towards getting everyone on the planet a good fuck and some cold beer is to establish a strong secular government in one of the Arab nations in the middle east.
(I'm not actually a fan of the war in Iraq, but it seems worth pointing out that some things are vastly easier said than they are done)
I've never had someone go around me on the shoulder while I was waiting to turn left. I've only been driving for 12 years though.
The rumors are true, Bobby Joe redneck doesn't exist. Even 20 years ago, he didn't exist:
http://www.bus.wisc.edu/realestate/images/resources/us_density.gif
(from http://www.bus.wisc.edu/realestate/resources/resdownl.asp)
Many of the areas that show less than 10 people per square mile are federally owned land. No one lives there. Also, note that something like 80% of US citizens live in urban areas:
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-_box_head_nbr=GCT-P1&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&-format=US-1
Apparently, the problem is more related to people living in the little world that they made up in their heads.
It would be better if the weapons and equipment didn't have instructions?
Use Flashblock:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433
It's only a 94% solution, but that ends up going pretty far. It doesn't do anything about the flash plugin being a proprietary binary though.
I always thought people in Texas drove cattle.
Unrelated?
Why is it worth doing? I can see where it would be something I would do if I bought a lot of individual tracks, and something I might have done before the increased availability of DRM-free, downloadable albums, but buying used CD's and cheap stuff from CD Baby seems smarter, and now, why would you pay the same price for the DRM version?
That's a damn shame for those people. It's not something that can be done in any sort of practical way.
It's perfectly valid to prefer the law to your own ethics, but I would argue it is also perfectly stupid.
There is of course the matter of deferring to the law vs your personal ethics, but that wasn't what the o.p. was talking about(or perhaps it was, but if so, it isn't done very clearly).
So I stand by what I was getting at, that it is entirely different to consider the law first than it is to consider your own ethics first, especially when deciding whether or not to do something. That doesn't mean you don't end up giving primacy to the law in the end, but you don't start out by giving it primacy.
Maybe it was on purpose, but you got it backwards. Not only is it illegal, it is unethical and wrong. The difference is important.
(the other option would be that you don't find it unethical, in which case you should have said no only do some people find it unethical and wrong...)
Umm, he posted anonymously. Hence no karma. Not even the religious kind.
What, you missed out on the whole video-cameras-can-see-infrared frenzy of five years ago?
Stumble your way through a few of jwz's livejounal entries. He's very serious about the things that he doesn't take seriously.
It's not a joke, it's nostalgia.
Well thank you for being so patient with me.
Also, I appreciate you using Windows vs Linux/Unix as an example, as I can understand that quite well.
Are there any noble savage proponents left?
I've never read either one, so I don't have any way of comparing them to Stephenson.
It's not actually a lame defensive posture though, it's a rejection of(what seems to be to me anyway) a tendency for people to reject things that they find themselves enjoying, as if they are afraid they will be caught and somehow punished for it. I admit that I don't actually know you are doing this, but your drawing of people as existing in large well defined groups is something that often accompanies it, so I went ahead and commented.
As much as anything, what it amounts to, is that Shakespeare was vulgar(which at least points to the danger of sorting works along that line).
(and really, it is not very nice to group Stephenson with Card)
No guy spends any time rating chicks that he won't do. So if there wasn't a 0, any chick that you wouldn't do would be a 1, and everything above that would be used to sort them into the order that you would do them if given the opportunity to choose.