Why would I circumvent DRM? To steal? Maybe not, and let's take the T-shirt analogy further..
Yes, let's...
The new DRM T-Shirt has a small hologram on the corner. If this hologram is not present, the T-Shirt heats to a temperature of 160 degrees and the user is forced to take it off or suffer 2nd/3rd degree burns.
Obviously, this is a great way to keep the conterfeits off the street and out of the closets. So the TIAA (T-shirt Industry Ass. of America) pays for a few congressmen's whores, and we have a new law passed that ALL T-Shirts must be made of DRM cloth (the company that holds the HeatShield(tm) patent is incidentally quite pleased).
No one complains, except for a bunch of geeks that probably steal everything anyway (I hear some of them downloaded their operating systems without paying anybody a dime, what thieves!). A few small T-shirt makers also complain about the extra burden to their business and go out of business. Congress talks about how great this law is for "free" markets. Richard Stallman writes an essay from his undisclosed location (by this time, free software has long been outlawed).
The day after the law is passed, a 7-year old girl playing with her mom's sewing kit discovers that any HeatShield T-shirt can be turned off (that's "circumvented" to you lawyers out there) by sewing a piece of silk to the spot the hologram goes on.
She tells her parents, who say "that's nice dear, did you drink all your Coke(tm)?". Then she posts the story on her weblog and IM's her friends.
Somehow the story makes it to/. and the word gets out. Geeks everywhere laugh and the lawsuits start flying. Sweatshirts (T-shirts require the special cloth, remember) are printed with the words "sew a piece of silk here" and an arrow pointing to the hologram location.
T-Shirt counterfeiters in China who discovered the trick long ago chuckle to themselves: "actually you can do it with the right piece of tape, cheaper than silk".
At 5:56 AM exactly two days after the story hits the FBI breaks down the girl's front door. Luckily, the FBI had a full log of the girl's IM conversations (she had mentioned that she thought something was "the bomb", which triggered the 7-day automatic logging period). And luckily again, due to recent anti-terrorism legislation, the FBI didn't need to waste time with a judge.
The parents are charged with several counts of "hacking" (max. 20 years), several counts of "failing to prevent textile theft" (max. life), and several counts of "electronic fraud" (max. 10 years). The girl is placed in a juvenile prison. Her computer is seized. Slashdot and other websites are forced to sensor the posts and take down the articles.
The T-shirt lobbies for tougher legislation, siting this example. Pockets are lined, the law passes.........
Until then I was using some of the built-in, pre-composed responses. Needless to say one co-worker was confused when I sent him a message saying "I love you"!
But the confusion quickly turned into shared delight as Gary and Tom discovered the vibrating silent-ring feature and sent each other instant messages long into the night.*
In his June letter, Hamilton said that while the United States doesn't oppose the development of open-source software, it prefers to support a free market where the quality of the product can determine the issue.
This makes no sense, on many levels! First of all, any company can supply open-source software. In no way does this create any barrier to any company. Even Microsoft can submit software for this purpose.
To me this quote is the same as: "Hamilton said that while the United States doesn't oppose the development of green army tanks, it prefers to support a free market where the quality of the product can determine the color." Makes no sense! Anyone can write open-source software.
Microsoft is a monopoly, an illegal one at that, so hearing them talk about free markets is damn funny.
On another level, open-source software is closer to a situation where there are no copyrights, in other words, a true free market. Copyright monopolies are exactly that, monopolies. If you need your software serviced, you have to call exactly one company for permission (or even to have the work done). You have more freedom with open-source than proprietary software. Governments should be supporting freedom!
Of course, I'm not surprised. Microsoft did the same thing in Mexico. Free markets, my ass. Microsoft is just buying their way in and taking advantage of poorer countries.
Like the poster above said, a guy who plays one song after another is not a "DJ", he's a "Dude that plays music at your bar mitzvah/wedding/party". The difference between "DJ" and "Dude" is that you might pay money to hear a DJ spin and create a continuous musical experience, while Dude is just there filling the time with whatever crap he's got on his iPod. I'm sure he can keep the folks entertained, but a DJ has to be able to touch and manipulate his music, not just play it.
Though I don't see MP3's as a real problem, I mean the guys chopping up the music, adjusting the EQ and pitch and speed, so what if the music has a little barely-detectable MP3 sound.
(flamebait)Besides, vinyl is so shitty anyway, MP3 is probably an improvement.(/flamebait)
;-)
Surprised more folks haven't mentioned Traktor amd similar software, which lets you do real DJ stuff with the tracks, besides just playing one after the other. Another cool thing about Traktor is you can record a mix and save it independently of the MP3 files, which would be a cool way to distribute mixes (if everybody has the same MP3 files).
What'll really be cool is when the DJs go beyond just emulating the vinyl tricks, and create new MP3-only tricks, like resample the sound or combining it with another track in a unique way. That's what I"m waiting to hear. It'll really blur the lines between DJing, live improvisation, and sampling. Or maybe an artist that continuously combines other people's songs into his own in some funky way. The RIAA will love that guy.....
And please ignore the "gee whiz, them computers is nifty" CNN/Yahoo/AP articles.
You absolutely need the book on Design Patterns by Gamma et al.
Also you should check out the Antipatterns book by Brown et al. A book on "common pitfalls" and more importantly, possible resolutions.
But, if you want to deviate a bit from the technical books, and if you want to expand your understanding of design and design patterns in software, and the philosophy behind it, you might be interested in Christopher Alexander's books and writings. His books are quite old, published in the 70s.
He's an architect (of actual buildings), but his ideas apply to anything that is designed. He developed the concept of "design patterns" and the computer science world has been applying his ideas. Here is a little article about him. It's because of him that we have the following definition of pattern: a solution (set of forms or rules), which solves a problem (resolves a set of forces), in a given context (a recurring sitution). A very general idea.
Basically he was trying to come up what he calls a "Pattern Language", a high-level way to describe design patterns in urban architecture, so that people could basically design their own homes and buildings. But the end result was something more profound and philosophical. Very interesting stuff but rather touchy-feely at times. For instance when he talks about the QWAN (quality without a name, the mystical sort of "beauty" that a good design has).
He also has (or he's still working on, I'm not sure) a recent multi-volume work called "The Nature of Order". I want to read it and I bet it's a much more interesting and insightful book than Wolfram's recent giant tome about a "new kind of science", and without the hype.
Disclaimer: I'm just getting into this type of stuff so I'm not 100% aware of all the history, etc., but Alexander's the name I see everywhere.
the hype-o-meter is going wild
on
.NET for Apache
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· Score: 3, Informative
Covalent Technologies will be holding a press conference at the O'Reilly Conference on Wednesday at 3:15 in suite 415 (during the afternoon break).
How is that a joint press conference? My guess is the Covalent folks have an Apache application server targeted to the.NET runtime, that integrates well with.NET and web services. Just like Apache Tomcat, etc., does for Java. Probably open-source.
Should I be scared, or concerned? I don't see why. It'll be another interesting technology to play with.
"10.1% of 12-17-year-olds who actively download music from the Internet did not purchase a single CD or cassette in the last 12 months"
That's still open to interpretation. Let's assume that 12-17 year olds make up 40% of the music buying public (meaning, people who can afford to buy music and who like to listen to music, not necessarily buying it). Of those, let's say 75% "actively download", whatever that means. Of those, let's assume 50% would've bought a CD or cassette in the past 12 months. And of those, let's assume 80% would not buy non-CD or non-cassette music (MP3 downloads for instance). Because they limited the question to "CD or cassette". So of this group (so far we're down to 12% of the potential music-buying public), only 10.1% (love that decimal point, implying accuracy) are lost sales for the record companies. That's 1% of the potential market for music-buying. Well within the margin of error, perhaps?
Of course I just made all those other numbers up but that's the problem with these statistical "text bites" thrown out without any rigorous analysis.
Then again I didn't read any of the articles (shock, surprise). Then again, I bet the RIAA won't either, they'll just use the text bite!
Ah, such beautiful doublespeak. Would you like to hear the sad tale about the twenty-something who is actively not purchasing a new Lexus? In fact, said twentysomething actively doesn't purchase a new Lexus every single day of the year. Assuming a new Lexus costs $40,000, that adds up to nearly $15million per annum, which is a lot of lost revenue for the high-end car industry.
When questioned, this twentysmoething admits he feels no moral misgivings about accepting rides to work in his neighbor's Lexus without the company's express permission, and will probably continue to get free Lexus rides without paying in the foreseeable future.
Something needs to be done about this not-buying Lexus problem!
exactly, I was pointing out that he really does compete directly with p2p even though he asserts otherwise..and there are plenty of things they can do beyond what p2p gives you now, such as reliable downloading and giving new recommendations based on what you're downloading so you can find new music.
But instead it seems they want to destroy all existing p2p and start from scratch, with less functionality than what p2p has now, instead of building on it.
Why did/. even both with this one? The guy's just repeating the party line. Check some quotes:
Just like it wouldn't be hard to run a store where you just put everything on the shelves and people could just take what they want. You wouldn't stay in business very long, but it wouldn't be hard to do.
Confusing tangible property with music? That's the same mistake the record companies are making. You won't come up with any creative business models like that. In fact you'll come up with some pretty bad ones.
If somebody comes to our service and is looking for a song and they can't find it [...] they will now be forced off to a peer-to-peer site.
Forced to a peer-to-peer site? They are ALREADY on the peer-to-peer sites! What can you offer to "force" them to your site?
Well, I don't think you compete [with p2p], but you do create a service that has its own value.
Err, that's called "competing"..? I guess he assumes the p2p sites will all be shut down by the RIAA at some point.
What's the business model of Kazaa or Morpheus? How will they make money to support being around long term if the idea is to steal it and give it away for free?
If these guys can't make money, someone else will fill their shoes. Same as you, bucko. Better figure out how! And it's not "stealing" it's "copying".
[Everything MP3 already does just fine] are all things we have to do. But like I said, it's an evolution. You have to be able to download files permanently, burn them to CDs, transfer them to devices, use them on several computers, or else transfer them to other devices that can store and play back music. All those things will have to be part of that process.
Man, what is it with these guys. They think they are just wiping the slate clean and starting from scratch. What's the "evolution"? MP3 ALREADY DOES WHAT PEOPLE WANT. Do you understand?
MP3 files can be easily copied if they're not wrapped with any digital rights management. But if you have a DRM wrapper on an MP3 file, it wouldn't be readily accessible. It would have some restrictions in its use. You have streaming [...] which do have a DRM wrapper. So while you can download a file and listen to it, you'll be able to do various things with it.
Those sentences make absolutely no sense.. is he drunk??
And then you have what we call permanent downloads. In that case, you've actually purchased a track. Even if you no longer are a subscriber you can continue to use the music as you want because you purchased it.
Cool! Your service offers the same functionality as wax cylinders from 1895. Sign me up!
Second that... Safari completely rocks, especially for stuff you don't really want the physical book for. For example, a second book on a topic you're learning, or if you know O'Reilly's coming out with a new edition in July but you want to read the old one in June. Also if you want to just skim over a certain topic.
Forinstance, on one of my KDE desktops, I have a couple Safari books on Java sitting in a tabbed Mozilla window, constantly available at my fingertips, along with an open emacs window to cut and paste code.
The price increases as you go above 5 books, and drops again when you go below (they actually have several subscription levels and I think deals for companies, etc.).
It's not all O'Reilly books, they have PLENTY of other books too.
And the pages are just HTML, easy to print, copy source code from, etc. They even work in Lynx. They have a good search engine too, that shows results in context, and you can search all books, not just the ones you've paid for.
Great deal, I wish O'Reilly would push it more... though I could see how they might not want to cannibalize their regular book sales.
Give that a go, they have a free try before you buy offer.
Well, as Stallman has expressed on occasion, the best thing is to see what's natural and useful to people. Seems that changing music around is not something people like to do. Few are demanding an artist's Pro Tools files or other "source code". They like to keep it prestine and self-contained, though occasionally people like to make parodies or "collages" out of other people's music. People like to share music with each other, not because it solves some kind of problem, but because it makes them feel like they are part of something (emotions, as you said).
So it seems to me the best way to distribute music is to ask 1) don't change the music or the artist's name, and 2) don't profit from it without the artist's permission. This would match the usual way people consume and share music. When I was young, I thought copyright law meant that you couldn't make money from someone else's work, but you could share copies with your friends. I think a lot of people think this myth is true.
So basically, music and art can exist with a more restrictive "license" than software.
Everytime a DRM scheme is cracked (DeCSS, ebook thingy, satellite cards, the HDTV thing, watermarks) I enjoy reading the papers that come out, describing in gory detail what the companies thought was "hacker proof". They have been quite educational.
Though if any representatives from the content industry are here, I would kindly request, please, no more schemes based on linear feedback shift registers, or XORing with constant keys. I really have those mastered at this point, and am looking forward to some more challenging material. Also, I'm pretty comfortable with frequency-domain watermarking based on pseudorandom sequences. Even Dr. Dobbs wrote about a more sophisticated scheme once.
So in short, keep the DRM coming, and I'll avoid the products religiously of course (or get my own copy out of the "analog hole" [is that like the "digital divide" heh heh]). But I love those DMCA-chilled papers.
Some decent comparisons there, but then, along comes the FUD, I guess they couldn't resist:
Advantage of going Microsoft: Better business alignment with straightforward licensing and
clarity of intellectual property ownership.
Let's skip the meaningless "Better business alignment" and skip straight to the part that keeps the bullshit detector pegged at 10.
I think the GPL is pretty damn clear. If you redistribute the code, you have to license under the GPL. And if you don't like it, you can choose to completely ignore the GPL (thus falling back to copyright law).
Microsoft's "licenses" (which may change during the next upgrade, and even change randomly depending on the version of the product or where you bought it from, and may someday change AT ANY TIME), these licenses DO NOT allow ANY kind of re-distribution. They do not allow you to use the product you bought any way you like (even though this may not be enforcable, they assert it anyway). And you MUST accept the license, it's not optional. You could be sued by Microsoft for doing something in the privacy of your own home. Like using the wrong kind of remote access software (or whatever that one was). Or maybe this week the license will forbid copying MP3s. Or maybe next week it will allow Microsoft unilateral access to your pr0n collection. Who knows?
The GPL is straightforward, written in straightforward English, and most importantly of all, is exactly the same in all GPL'd software. You know exactly what you're getting and can reject it up front, if you want.
C'mon Microsoft, nobody except a few PHB's are buying this intellectual property cancer unAmerican anti-GPL crap, so GIVE UP!
I guess I have to make my obligitory post on this subject:
As a technology person, I like the.NET framework, the web services aspects, the runtime, and I think C# is infinitely better than C++ (then again, what isn't...). I'm looking forward to playing with C# on my Linux machine.
But I'm just a little creeped out by the idea of using Mono for anything important (business-related), such as deploying services or products. I really have trouble figuring out what Microsoft has to gain from allowing Mono to exist indefinitely. They have plenty to gain from a sweeping, cross-plaform, bait-and-switch ploy.. they can just wait until Mono is somewhat established, apps are built and deployed... then break it and wait patiently for the inevitable migration back to Windows.
I would like to hear from Microsoft that they won't sue any Mono developer (or user) for patent infringement. I'd like to hear that all relevant APIs and specification are public and open and will stay that way. Miguel's attitude seems to be one of "hope", quote:
So I think the APIs will remain fairly stable, and I hope that Microsoft won't go into proprietary protocols or protocols that would make it really hard for us to implement Mono. There's is always the possibility it will do so. Microsoft has some strange patterns in terms of how it competes. I really hope it will "behave like a good citizen," as Steve Ballmer said recently it would.
Now, I could be all wrong, Microsoft actually might not mind that we will use their technology and not their products...but...this is Microsoft we're talking about here.
Sure this sounds like fear, uncertainty, and doubt, but that's exactly what I feel whenever I think about Mono......
Ah I wish I could find the earlier comment were I said this is exactly what would happen in Peru. Well, no matter, this the usual Microsoft tactic. It worked in Mexico, now Peru. Will it work in Norway, a wealthier nation?
Must be nice to be able to print your own money like that: here's 1,000 CD copies of MS Foobar Pro, each worth $5,000 !! So we just made a donation of $5,000,000 and it's tax deductible (not that we pay taxes). And they'll still have to pay for upgrades. Beautiful! Let's see Open Source beat that!!
The difference between TV and books is that you can buy a single book on what you're interested in. With broadcast/cable TV you get 5 pounds of honey and 600 pounds of raw sewage delivered to your house every day, no matter what. It's not worth the cost of cable.
There needs to be more "on-demand" TV with a menu of choices. Of course this would imply that TV watchers can think and choose for themselves and the media companies would rather just not address that tricky issue. And of course there's this whole "internet" thing that could be used somehow, but again, that's outside their scope.
So, anything out there besides Snort? I just installed 1.8.7 on my Linux machine and was (un)pleasantly surprised to find that my (un)favorite Snort feature was brought back: random mysterious death of the snort daemon, with no logging or other diagnostic. But only in daemon mode, mind you, making the problem fun to debug.
Luckily it doesn't do it on FreeBSD which is where I really need it running, but it is really frustrating and doesn't instill a lot of confidence. Grumble grumble, bitch, moan, etc.
how to attack and neutralize the wild XML document
on
Perl & XML
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· Score: 5, Funny
...know where to begin to attack an XML document...
I can tell you from personal experience, you want to attack the soft, weak center of each element, or, even better, any undefended #PCDATA.
You'll want to avoid attacking the sharp angle brackets present on every element. Your sword blows will simply glance off, and then the XML document will jab you with the sharp corner.
Entities are another hidden danger. The ampersand prefix character is very quick and wiley, and even though it appears smooth and undefended, it can quickly turn on you, showing its offensive nature and bristling an array of pointy teeth. (Note, this depends on your screen font).
In short, attacking XML documents is risky, but with the proper strategy, can yield a nearly limitless supply of delicious data.
Ahem.
Does anybody know of any Perl XSLT module that allows Perl functions to be called from the templates? I.e., to format dates or stuff like that.
Let's see, I have $50 burning a hole in my pocket, let's choose between Gnome or Perl.
Gnome (and KDE for that matter) crashes a little too much for my tastes. The UI design could use a little more simplification and consistency. So maybe they need the money, to help improve these things. That would be good.
Perl, on the other hand, is a language that makes me money. I program in Perl and people pay the big dollar. So maybe I owe Perl a little.
Gnome has this guy that likes.NET. In fact, he likes.NET so much it's a little creepy.
Perl has this guy that looks like Weird Al, who's pretty cool. And this other guy that writes packages based on quantum mechanics and other mind-twisting stuff.
Gnome might be moving to the.NET runtime someday, which means Microsoft could possibly have a little more legal power over the project than I'd like. That could be dangerous, maybe I shouldn't give them any money.
Perl 6, though, looks like it has lost all touch with reality (I think it's pretty cool, but then again, that says more about my grip on reality than anything else). In fact I believe programming in Perl 6 will be like taking a hit of LSD. LSD is bad (the flashbacks man) so maybe they don't need my money either.
Tough one... I think I'll just keep my $50 for now.............
Ahh, how appropriate, I was just going to make a post on the "donate to Gnome" thread about how this whole Mono thing is a disaster waiting to happen (i.e., Microsoft will activate the.NET "poison pill" as soon as Mono becomes a threat, through patents or other means, and Mono users will have no place to go but genuine.NET).
Perhaps this OpenGL bit will blow over, or perhaps we should keep an eye on it as a sort of model for future Microsoft attacks on "open xyz".
Let's check the link, there are some quotes:
They're offering to license their IP under reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms; will license rights to the extent necessary, provided a reciprocal license is granted to MS. Granted on 1:1 basis for OpenGL 1.3, 1.4, and earlier versions.
Ahh, there's the magic "reasonable" (to Microsoft) and "non-discriminatory" (except if you don't agree to the terms). How would this cross-licensing apply to implementations other than the official OpenGL?
Microsoft suggests that other bodies have licensing terms that are more effective in a corporate sense, and we should look at adopting some of those terms.
Uh huh..what does "more effective in a corporate sense" mean exactly....
Well I don't know much about OpenGL licensing, or how much of this extension stuff is implemented in non-OpenGL implementations (like Mesa?) so I'll just watch and see what happens.
I wonder, why hasn't the FSF, with their decent cash hoard, done something like this?
What if Microsoft comes out with a shared source license called "The GPL"(tm) or something? Yeah that's improbable but still I'm sure there is "branding" value in having a recognizable mark (and not just a recognizable hippy with a beard)...
Well, the anti-virus companies won't tell you how to block Klez (except by buying their products) but I funnel all my mail through a custom filter and this is the algorithm I use to get rid of Klez-like messages, once and for all:
If message contains multipart/alternative entity, and entity has a part with a filename, and the filename's extension doesn't match the entry in/etc/mime.types, then drop the message.
You could also, I think, send a "you're an idiot" bounce message to the envelope MAIL FROM: address (not the header From:, it's wrong). That one usually looks correct. Not sure though, probably best to just drop them.
There are other clues in the message, such as IFRAME code, etc., but this seems foolproof, and I can't imagine any normal email program generating multipart/alternative sub-parts with a filename.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would I circumvent DRM? To steal? Maybe not, and let's take the T-shirt analogy further..
Yes, let's...
The new DRM T-Shirt has a small hologram on the corner. If this hologram is not present, the T-Shirt heats to a temperature of 160 degrees and the user is forced to take it off or suffer 2nd/3rd degree burns.
Obviously, this is a great way to keep the conterfeits off the street and out of the closets. So the TIAA (T-shirt Industry Ass. of America) pays for a few congressmen's whores, and we have a new law passed that ALL T-Shirts must be made of DRM cloth (the company that holds the HeatShield(tm) patent is incidentally quite pleased).
No one complains, except for a bunch of geeks that probably steal everything anyway (I hear some of them downloaded their operating systems without paying anybody a dime, what thieves!). A few small T-shirt makers also complain about the extra burden to their business and go out of business. Congress talks about how great this law is for "free" markets. Richard Stallman writes an essay from his undisclosed location (by this time, free software has long been outlawed).
The day after the law is passed, a 7-year old girl playing with her mom's sewing kit discovers that any HeatShield T-shirt can be turned off (that's "circumvented" to you lawyers out there) by sewing a piece of silk to the spot the hologram goes on.
She tells her parents, who say "that's nice dear, did you drink all your Coke(tm)?". Then she posts the story on her weblog and IM's her friends.
Somehow the story makes it to /. and the word gets out. Geeks everywhere laugh and the lawsuits start flying. Sweatshirts (T-shirts require the special cloth, remember) are printed with the words "sew a piece of silk here" and an arrow pointing to the hologram location.
T-Shirt counterfeiters in China who discovered the trick long ago chuckle to themselves: "actually you can do it with the right piece of tape, cheaper than silk".
At 5:56 AM exactly two days after the story hits the FBI breaks down the girl's front door. Luckily, the FBI had a full log of the girl's IM conversations (she had mentioned that she thought something was "the bomb", which triggered the 7-day automatic logging period). And luckily again, due to recent anti-terrorism legislation, the FBI didn't need to waste time with a judge.
The parents are charged with several counts of "hacking" (max. 20 years), several counts of "failing to prevent textile theft" (max. life), and several counts of "electronic fraud" (max. 10 years). The girl is placed in a juvenile prison. Her computer is seized. Slashdot and other websites are forced to sensor the posts and take down the articles.
The T-shirt lobbies for tougher legislation, siting this example. Pockets are lined, the law passes.........
Until then I was using some of the built-in, pre-composed responses. Needless to say one co-worker was confused when I sent him a message saying "I love you"!
But the confusion quickly turned into shared delight as Gary and Tom discovered the vibrating silent-ring feature and sent each other instant messages long into the night.*
Motorola.. bringing people together..
*optional waterproof cover required
In his June letter, Hamilton said that while the United States doesn't oppose the development of open-source software, it prefers to support a free market where the quality of the product can determine the issue.
This makes no sense, on many levels! First of all, any company can supply open-source software. In no way does this create any barrier to any company. Even Microsoft can submit software for this purpose.
To me this quote is the same as: "Hamilton said that while the United States doesn't oppose the development of green army tanks, it prefers to support a free market where the quality of the product can determine the color." Makes no sense! Anyone can write open-source software.
Microsoft is a monopoly, an illegal one at that, so hearing them talk about free markets is damn funny.
On another level, open-source software is closer to a situation where there are no copyrights, in other words, a true free market. Copyright monopolies are exactly that, monopolies. If you need your software serviced, you have to call exactly one company for permission (or even to have the work done). You have more freedom with open-source than proprietary software. Governments should be supporting freedom!
Of course, I'm not surprised. Microsoft did the same thing in Mexico. Free markets, my ass. Microsoft is just buying their way in and taking advantage of poorer countries.
Like the poster above said, a guy who plays one song after another is not a "DJ", he's a "Dude that plays music at your bar mitzvah/wedding/party". The difference between "DJ" and "Dude" is that you might pay money to hear a DJ spin and create a continuous musical experience, while Dude is just there filling the time with whatever crap he's got on his iPod. I'm sure he can keep the folks entertained, but a DJ has to be able to touch and manipulate his music, not just play it.
Though I don't see MP3's as a real problem, I mean the guys chopping up the music, adjusting the EQ and pitch and speed, so what if the music has a little barely-detectable MP3 sound.
(flamebait)Besides, vinyl is so shitty anyway, MP3 is probably an improvement.(/flamebait)
Surprised more folks haven't mentioned Traktor amd similar software, which lets you do real DJ stuff with the tracks, besides just playing one after the other. Another cool thing about Traktor is you can record a mix and save it independently of the MP3 files, which would be a cool way to distribute mixes (if everybody has the same MP3 files).
What'll really be cool is when the DJs go beyond just emulating the vinyl tricks, and create new MP3-only tricks, like resample the sound or combining it with another track in a unique way. That's what I"m waiting to hear. It'll really blur the lines between DJing, live improvisation, and sampling. Or maybe an artist that continuously combines other people's songs into his own in some funky way. The RIAA will love that guy.....
And please ignore the "gee whiz, them computers is nifty" CNN/Yahoo/AP articles.
You absolutely need the book on Design Patterns by Gamma et al.
Also you should check out the Antipatterns book by Brown et al. A book on "common pitfalls" and more importantly, possible resolutions.
But, if you want to deviate a bit from the technical books, and if you want to expand your understanding of design and design patterns in software, and the philosophy behind it, you might be interested in Christopher Alexander's books and writings. His books are quite old, published in the 70s.
He's an architect (of actual buildings), but his ideas apply to anything that is designed. He developed the concept of "design patterns" and the computer science world has been applying his ideas. Here is a little article about him. It's because of him that we have the following definition of pattern: a solution (set of forms or rules), which solves a problem (resolves a set of forces), in a given context (a recurring sitution). A very general idea.
Basically he was trying to come up what he calls a "Pattern Language", a high-level way to describe design patterns in urban architecture, so that people could basically design their own homes and buildings. But the end result was something more profound and philosophical. Very interesting stuff but rather touchy-feely at times. For instance when he talks about the QWAN (quality without a name, the mystical sort of "beauty" that a good design has).
He also has (or he's still working on, I'm not sure) a recent multi-volume work called "The Nature of Order". I want to read it and I bet it's a much more interesting and insightful book than Wolfram's recent giant tome about a "new kind of science", and without the hype.
Disclaimer: I'm just getting into this type of stuff so I'm not 100% aware of all the history, etc., but Alexander's the name I see everywhere.
How is that a joint press conference? My guess is the Covalent folks have an Apache application server targeted to the .NET runtime, that integrates well with .NET and web services. Just like Apache Tomcat, etc., does for Java. Probably open-source.
Should I be scared, or concerned? I don't see why. It'll be another interesting technology to play with.
"10.1% of 12-17-year-olds who actively download music from the Internet did not purchase a single CD or cassette in the last 12 months"
That's still open to interpretation. Let's assume that 12-17 year olds make up 40% of the music buying public (meaning, people who can afford to buy music and who like to listen to music, not necessarily buying it). Of those, let's say 75% "actively download", whatever that means. Of those, let's assume 50% would've bought a CD or cassette in the past 12 months. And of those, let's assume 80% would not buy non-CD or non-cassette music (MP3 downloads for instance). Because they limited the question to "CD or cassette". So of this group (so far we're down to 12% of the potential music-buying public), only 10.1% (love that decimal point, implying accuracy) are lost sales for the record companies. That's 1% of the potential market for music-buying. Well within the margin of error, perhaps?
Of course I just made all those other numbers up but that's the problem with these statistical "text bites" thrown out without any rigorous analysis.
Then again I didn't read any of the articles (shock, surprise). Then again, I bet the RIAA won't either, they'll just use the text bite!
Ah, such beautiful doublespeak. Would you like to hear the sad tale about the twenty-something who is actively not purchasing a new Lexus? In fact, said twentysomething actively doesn't purchase a new Lexus every single day of the year. Assuming a new Lexus costs $40,000, that adds up to nearly $15million per annum, which is a lot of lost revenue for the high-end car industry.
When questioned, this twentysmoething admits he feels no moral misgivings about accepting rides to work in his neighbor's Lexus without the company's express permission, and will probably continue to get free Lexus rides without paying in the foreseeable future.
Something needs to be done about this not-buying Lexus problem!
exactly, I was pointing out that he really does compete directly with p2p even though he asserts otherwise..and there are plenty of things they can do beyond what p2p gives you now, such as reliable downloading and giving new recommendations based on what you're downloading so you can find new music.
But instead it seems they want to destroy all existing p2p and start from scratch, with less functionality than what p2p has now, instead of building on it.
Why did /. even both with this one? The guy's just repeating the party line. Check some quotes:
Just like it wouldn't be hard to run a store where you just put everything on the shelves and people could just take what they want. You wouldn't stay in business very long, but it wouldn't be hard to do.
Confusing tangible property with music? That's the same mistake the record companies are making. You won't come up with any creative business models like that. In fact you'll come up with some pretty bad ones.
If somebody comes to our service and is looking for a song and they can't find it [...] they will now be forced off to a peer-to-peer site.
Forced to a peer-to-peer site? They are ALREADY on the peer-to-peer sites! What can you offer to "force" them to your site?
Well, I don't think you compete [with p2p], but you do create a service that has its own value.
Err, that's called "competing"..? I guess he assumes the p2p sites will all be shut down by the RIAA at some point.
What's the business model of Kazaa or Morpheus? How will they make money to support being around long term if the idea is to steal it and give it away for free?
If these guys can't make money, someone else will fill their shoes. Same as you, bucko. Better figure out how! And it's not "stealing" it's "copying".
[Everything MP3 already does just fine] are all things we have to do. But like I said, it's an evolution. You have to be able to download files permanently, burn them to CDs, transfer them to devices, use them on several computers, or else transfer them to other devices that can store and play back music. All those things will have to be part of that process.
Man, what is it with these guys. They think they are just wiping the slate clean and starting from scratch. What's the "evolution"? MP3 ALREADY DOES WHAT PEOPLE WANT. Do you understand?
MP3 files can be easily copied if they're not wrapped with any digital rights management. But if you have a DRM wrapper on an MP3 file, it wouldn't be readily accessible. It would have some restrictions in its use. You have streaming [...] which do have a DRM wrapper. So while you can download a file and listen to it, you'll be able to do various things with it.
Those sentences make absolutely no sense.. is he drunk??
And then you have what we call permanent downloads. In that case, you've actually purchased a track. Even if you no longer are a subscriber you can continue to use the music as you want because you purchased it.
Cool! Your service offers the same functionality as wax cylinders from 1895. Sign me up!
Second that... Safari completely rocks, especially for stuff you don't really want the physical book for. For example, a second book on a topic you're learning, or if you know O'Reilly's coming out with a new edition in July but you want to read the old one in June. Also if you want to just skim over a certain topic.
Forinstance, on one of my KDE desktops, I have a couple Safari books on Java sitting in a tabbed Mozilla window, constantly available at my fingertips, along with an open emacs window to cut and paste code.
The price increases as you go above 5 books, and drops again when you go below (they actually have several subscription levels and I think deals for companies, etc.).
It's not all O'Reilly books, they have PLENTY of other books too.
And the pages are just HTML, easy to print, copy source code from, etc. They even work in Lynx. They have a good search engine too, that shows results in context, and you can search all books, not just the ones you've paid for.
Great deal, I wish O'Reilly would push it more... though I could see how they might not want to cannibalize their regular book sales.
Give that a go, they have a free try before you buy offer.
duh, it's on a black background ;-)
Well, as Stallman has expressed on occasion, the best thing is to see what's natural and useful to people. Seems that changing music around is not something people like to do. Few are demanding an artist's Pro Tools files or other "source code". They like to keep it prestine and self-contained, though occasionally people like to make parodies or "collages" out of other people's music. People like to share music with each other, not because it solves some kind of problem, but because it makes them feel like they are part of something (emotions, as you said).
So it seems to me the best way to distribute music is to ask 1) don't change the music or the artist's name, and 2) don't profit from it without the artist's permission. This would match the usual way people consume and share music. When I was young, I thought copyright law meant that you couldn't make money from someone else's work, but you could share copies with your friends. I think a lot of people think this myth is true.
So basically, music and art can exist with a more restrictive "license" than software.
Everytime a DRM scheme is cracked (DeCSS, ebook thingy, satellite cards, the HDTV thing, watermarks) I enjoy reading the papers that come out, describing in gory detail what the companies thought was "hacker proof". They have been quite educational.
Though if any representatives from the content industry are here, I would kindly request, please, no more schemes based on linear feedback shift registers, or XORing with constant keys. I really have those mastered at this point, and am looking forward to some more challenging material. Also, I'm pretty comfortable with frequency-domain watermarking based on pseudorandom sequences. Even Dr. Dobbs wrote about a more sophisticated scheme once.
So in short, keep the DRM coming, and I'll avoid the products religiously of course (or get my own copy out of the "analog hole" [is that like the "digital divide" heh heh]). But I love those DMCA-chilled papers.
Some decent comparisons there, but then, along comes the FUD, I guess they couldn't resist:
Let's skip the meaningless "Better business alignment" and skip straight to the part that keeps the bullshit detector pegged at 10.
I think the GPL is pretty damn clear. If you redistribute the code, you have to license under the GPL. And if you don't like it, you can choose to completely ignore the GPL (thus falling back to copyright law).
Microsoft's "licenses" (which may change during the next upgrade, and even change randomly depending on the version of the product or where you bought it from, and may someday change AT ANY TIME), these licenses DO NOT allow ANY kind of re-distribution. They do not allow you to use the product you bought any way you like (even though this may not be enforcable, they assert it anyway). And you MUST accept the license, it's not optional. You could be sued by Microsoft for doing something in the privacy of your own home. Like using the wrong kind of remote access software (or whatever that one was). Or maybe this week the license will forbid copying MP3s. Or maybe next week it will allow Microsoft unilateral access to your pr0n collection. Who knows?
The GPL is straightforward, written in straightforward English, and most importantly of all, is exactly the same in all GPL'd software. You know exactly what you're getting and can reject it up front, if you want.
C'mon Microsoft, nobody except a few PHB's are buying this intellectual property cancer unAmerican anti-GPL crap, so GIVE UP!
I guess I have to make my obligitory post on this subject:
As a technology person, I like the .NET framework, the web services aspects, the runtime, and I think C# is infinitely better than C++ (then again, what isn't...). I'm looking forward to playing with C# on my Linux machine.
But I'm just a little creeped out by the idea of using Mono for anything important (business-related), such as deploying services or products. I really have trouble figuring out what Microsoft has to gain from allowing Mono to exist indefinitely. They have plenty to gain from a sweeping, cross-plaform, bait-and-switch ploy.. they can just wait until Mono is somewhat established, apps are built and deployed... then break it and wait patiently for the inevitable migration back to Windows.
I would like to hear from Microsoft that they won't sue any Mono developer (or user) for patent infringement. I'd like to hear that all relevant APIs and specification are public and open and will stay that way. Miguel's attitude seems to be one of "hope", quote:
Now, I could be all wrong, Microsoft actually might not mind that we will use their technology and not their products...but...this is Microsoft we're talking about here.
Sure this sounds like fear, uncertainty, and doubt, but that's exactly what I feel whenever I think about Mono......
Ah I wish I could find the earlier comment were I said this is exactly what would happen in Peru. Well, no matter, this the usual Microsoft tactic. It worked in Mexico, now Peru. Will it work in Norway, a wealthier nation?
Must be nice to be able to print your own money like that: here's 1,000 CD copies of MS Foobar Pro, each worth $5,000 !! So we just made a donation of $5,000,000 and it's tax deductible (not that we pay taxes). And they'll still have to pay for upgrades. Beautiful! Let's see Open Source beat that!!
The difference between TV and books is that you can buy a single book on what you're interested in. With broadcast/cable TV you get 5 pounds of honey and 600 pounds of raw sewage delivered to your house every day, no matter what. It's not worth the cost of cable.
There needs to be more "on-demand" TV with a menu of choices. Of course this would imply that TV watchers can think and choose for themselves and the media companies would rather just not address that tricky issue. And of course there's this whole "internet" thing that could be used somehow, but again, that's outside their scope.
So, anything out there besides Snort? I just installed 1.8.7 on my Linux machine and was (un)pleasantly surprised to find that my (un)favorite Snort feature was brought back: random mysterious death of the snort daemon, with no logging or other diagnostic. But only in daemon mode, mind you, making the problem fun to debug.
Luckily it doesn't do it on FreeBSD which is where I really need it running, but it is really frustrating and doesn't instill a lot of confidence. Grumble grumble, bitch, moan, etc.
I can tell you from personal experience, you want to attack the soft, weak center of each element, or, even better, any undefended #PCDATA.
You'll want to avoid attacking the sharp angle brackets present on every element. Your sword blows will simply glance off, and then the XML document will jab you with the sharp corner.
Entities are another hidden danger. The ampersand prefix character is very quick and wiley, and even though it appears smooth and undefended, it can quickly turn on you, showing its offensive nature and bristling an array of pointy teeth. (Note, this depends on your screen font).
In short, attacking XML documents is risky, but with the proper strategy, can yield a nearly limitless supply of delicious data.
Ahem.
Does anybody know of any Perl XSLT module that allows Perl functions to be called from the templates? I.e., to format dates or stuff like that.
How come /. still hasn't posted a single article about the passing of Gene Kan, but somehow a red stapler makes it to the front page???
????
Let's see, I have $50 burning a hole in my pocket, let's choose between Gnome or Perl.
Gnome (and KDE for that matter) crashes a little too much for my tastes. The UI design could use a little more simplification and consistency. So maybe they need the money, to help improve these things. That would be good.
Perl, on the other hand, is a language that makes me money. I program in Perl and people pay the big dollar. So maybe I owe Perl a little.
Gnome has this guy that likes .NET. In fact, he likes .NET so much it's a little creepy.
Perl has this guy that looks like Weird Al, who's pretty cool. And this other guy that writes packages based on quantum mechanics and other mind-twisting stuff.
Gnome might be moving to the .NET runtime someday, which means Microsoft could possibly have a little more legal power over the project than I'd like. That could be dangerous, maybe I shouldn't give them any money.
Perl 6, though, looks like it has lost all touch with reality (I think it's pretty cool, but then again, that says more about my grip on reality than anything else). In fact I believe programming in Perl 6 will be like taking a hit of LSD. LSD is bad (the flashbacks man) so maybe they don't need my money either.
Tough one... I think I'll just keep my $50 for now.............
Ahh, how appropriate, I was just going to make a post on the "donate to Gnome" thread about how this whole Mono thing is a disaster waiting to happen (i.e., Microsoft will activate the .NET "poison pill" as soon as Mono becomes a threat, through patents or other means, and Mono users will have no place to go but genuine .NET).
Perhaps this OpenGL bit will blow over, or perhaps we should keep an eye on it as a sort of model for future Microsoft attacks on "open xyz".
Let's check the link, there are some quotes:
Ahh, there's the magic "reasonable" (to Microsoft) and "non-discriminatory" (except if you don't agree to the terms). How would this cross-licensing apply to implementations other than the official OpenGL?
Uh huh..what does "more effective in a corporate sense" mean exactly....
Well I don't know much about OpenGL licensing, or how much of this extension stuff is implemented in non-OpenGL implementations (like Mesa?) so I'll just watch and see what happens.
I wonder, why hasn't the FSF, with their decent cash hoard, done something like this?
What if Microsoft comes out with a shared source license called "The GPL"(tm) or something? Yeah that's improbable but still I'm sure there is "branding" value in having a recognizable mark (and not just a recognizable hippy with a beard)...
Well, the anti-virus companies won't tell you how to block Klez (except by buying their products) but I funnel all my mail through a custom filter and this is the algorithm I use to get rid of Klez-like messages, once and for all:
If message contains multipart/alternative entity, /etc/mime.types,
and entity has a part with a filename,
and the filename's extension doesn't match the entry in
then drop the message.
You could also, I think, send a "you're an idiot" bounce message to the envelope MAIL FROM: address (not the header From:, it's wrong). That one usually looks correct. Not sure though, probably best to just drop them.
There are other clues in the message, such as IFRAME code, etc., but this seems foolproof, and I can't imagine any normal email program generating multipart/alternative sub-parts with a filename.