Doesn't Sony realize that I'm not going to buy DRM -restricted media. [...] How do you expect to make money selling a product that nobody wants?
Unfortunately not everyone feels the same way that you or I do about copy protection. Hell, it's probably only 3 or 4 percent of people that even understand the issue, and the number of people boycotting media they care about is going to be a fraction of that. How many people do you know that don't rent movies because of MacroVision?
The sad truth is that if 90% (or more) of the population doesn't care about copy protection, the media conglomerates can pretty much implement whatever DRM they want and the consumers will eat it up. And Sony, as a hardware manufacturer and a media outlet, is in a perfect position to do so.
However, [determining the factors of a number] is MUCH harder, and that is the one which will break cryptography as we know it.
Not all public-key cryptography is based on the difficulty of factoring numbers. There are a number of other one-way functions (such as elliptic curves) that are being used in cryptography. So I wouldn't say it'll break crypto "as we know it", but it would certainly freak some people out.
It gives legal legroom for full admin rights since vague words like "upgrades or fixes" are a lawyer's wet dream. DRM is an upgrade in MS's view, deleting unauthorised mpegs is a fix to the MPAA. Are you going to argue?
Yes, I'll argue that. You're trying to tell me that the phrase "may provide upgrades or fixes to the OS Product" means MS can delete your files? Give me a fuckin' break.
Do you guys ever stop to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the world isn't out to get you? Maybe MS just wants to fix the security problems everyone is always screaming at them about.
Seriously, I'm surprised that you don't see any tin foil banner ads on Slashdot.
Script kiddies' wet dream
on
More MS EULA Fun
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I think I'll be leaving my Win2k box at SP2, thank you very much.
I don't think the mainstream public really cares about what's in a EULA. Hell, I generally don't either. But just think of the implications of people refusing to install patches and security updates because they're accompanied by EULAs with bizarre "big brother" clauses.
Now, with that said did any of you bother to read the article? Here is the offending text:
"You acknowledge and agree that Microsoft may automatically check the version of the OS Product and/or its components that you are utilizing and may provide upgrades or fixes to the OS Product that will be automatically downloaded to your computer,"
A little sensationalistic to call this "remote admin rights" isn't it? Basically, this just gives them the legal legroom required to make their automatic updates feature work, which is a good thing. It means more patched machines out there - less of that Nimda shit.
Nobody's spying on your MP3 collection. There's nothing to see here, folks.
Am I the only one left wondering if these questions were actually answered by Alicebot?
Question: Do you feel that the types of developments that the Loebner prize supports(intentional, hard-coded spelling mistakes, etc.) are actually productive in terms of the AI research project?
Answer: [blah, blah, blah] Take LSD for example. Discovered by Albert Hoffmann in 1945, LSD is the most powerful drug ever developed. If you have ever gotten a prescription for any drug, you may have noticed that the dosage is usally given in "milligrams". But the dosage of LSD is "micrograms". It has the lowest ED50 of any known drug. [blah, blah, blah]
Well, it wasn't a government authority, it was a capitalist one. Which I suppose says more about his convictions than we'd like to know.
Oh bullshit. That's easy for you to say while you sit around on an obscure web forum and anonymously denounce "the Man". Let's see you risk your personal freedom and familiy's well-being so that geeks everywhere can download free music.
I think the DMCA is a dangerous law too, but I don't have the balls to publicly (and illegally) flout it. And since you don't either, you should probably keep the snide comments to yourself.
His point was that he knew people on the Java and.NET development teams. I think it's safe to say that Java was in development for at least 3 years before being released.
Of course, whether he is full of shit or not is a different matter.
He was the fifth employee of Sun Microsystems, an early author of open source software, and co-creator of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Cypherpunks, the DES Cracker, and the Internet's "alt" newsgroups.
Wow - this guy is probably going to become the Patron Saint of Internet pr0n.
Patents may be defended at the owners choice. They don't expire due to lack of use. Trademarks do if they aren't defended.
Not exactly. A patent holder can lose the ability to sue infringers if the patent holder takes an unnecessarily long time to bring suit. It's called the doctrine of laches.
That is not correct. You are thinking of trademark law.
You are wrong - the original poster is correct.
In patent law, there is something known as the doctine of laches. Essentially it states that if a patent holder delays litigation for an unnecessarily long time, they lose the right to sue those who have infringed.
Wow - that has to be the most pathetic rant I've ever witnessed. I hope you find your other forum, because we certainly don't need elitist, grammar nazis like you trolling around here.
They have pissed off so many companies (IBM with Windows, Sony with XBox and AOL/TM with MSN, plus tens of others) that they are the underdog.
I wouldn't say they're the underdog - at least not yet. Microsoft's current desktop dominance is incredibly alluring for the media giants (AOL/TW, Sony, RIAA, MPAA, etc.). The potential for secure media distribution is more than enough to make up for any toes they've stepped on. As long as they're moving towards DRM I wouldn't count on any media companies to try to take them down.
Mac users may be smarter than PC users on average, but I'd wager that the smartest computer users of all do not use Macs.
PCs have the advantage of being cheap and plentiful. This obviously places them square in the hands of the common (and generally less educated) folk as the poster correctly points out. But because PCs are cheap, configurable, and use commodity parts they are also perfect for the hobbiest geek. And some of these guys are extremely bright.
Just do a survey of how many people on the Linux kernel (or Apache, *BSD, etc.) mailing list use PCs vs. Macs and stick that on your front page.
in a rocket you certainly hope you can get out before those 3GS of falling back to earth hopelessly pin you inside.
Freefall feels like weightlessness, not 3Gs. Of course that's until your craft reached terminal velocity - then it would feel like 1G. Now, this is disregarding any spin that the craft may develop, but I don't think that's what you were talking about.
Otherwise I will have to make do with lots of smaller devices from surplus shops and build it multi-stage with messy triggering.
For all the effort you're going through, I'm surprised you're only planning on a single-stage. I looked into gauss guns a few months ago and came to the conclusion that multi-stage is definately the way to go. Triggering isn't that bad, just a few pulsed LEDs and photo-receptors along the barrel. I gave up when I realized I couldn't afford the SCRs and capacitors (the lingering feeling that I was going to kill myself probably didn't help either). Good luck.
This isn't stealing bandwidth, the people sharing the bandwidth are paying for it. [...] Provided they remain within their contract, nobody should care what they do.
Just don't bitch when your cable company decides to implement data transfer limits, because that is the ONLY solution. These morons are going to ruin it for everyone else.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure the creditors would give your company a loan if your only assett was a pencil though.
I don't know - it is a $100,000 pencil.
Doesn't Sony realize that I'm not going to buy DRM -restricted media. [...] How do you expect to make money selling a product that nobody wants?
Unfortunately not everyone feels the same way that you or I do about copy protection. Hell, it's probably only 3 or 4 percent of people that even understand the issue, and the number of people boycotting media they care about is going to be a fraction of that. How many people do you know that don't rent movies because of MacroVision?
The sad truth is that if 90% (or more) of the population doesn't care about copy protection, the media conglomerates can pretty much implement whatever DRM they want and the consumers will eat it up. And Sony, as a hardware manufacturer and a media outlet, is in a perfect position to do so.
Neat idea - but I've got one nitpicking question:
How the hell does DMR stand for "Digital Re-Mastering"?
However, [determining the factors of a number] is MUCH harder, and that is the one which will break cryptography as we know it.
Not all public-key cryptography is based on the difficulty of factoring numbers. There are a number of other one-way functions (such as elliptic curves) that are being used in cryptography. So I wouldn't say it'll break crypto "as we know it", but it would certainly freak some people out.
It gives legal legroom for full admin rights since vague words like "upgrades or fixes" are a lawyer's wet dream. DRM is an upgrade in MS's view, deleting unauthorised mpegs is a fix to the MPAA. Are you going to argue?
Yes, I'll argue that. You're trying to tell me that the phrase "may provide upgrades or fixes to the OS Product" means MS can delete your files? Give me a fuckin' break.
Do you guys ever stop to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the world isn't out to get you? Maybe MS just wants to fix the security problems everyone is always screaming at them about.
Seriously, I'm surprised that you don't see any tin foil banner ads on Slashdot.
I think I'll be leaving my Win2k box at SP2, thank you very much.
I don't think the mainstream public really cares about what's in a EULA. Hell, I generally don't either. But just think of the implications of people refusing to install patches and security updates because they're accompanied by EULAs with bizarre "big brother" clauses.
Now, with that said did any of you bother to read the article? Here is the offending text:
"You acknowledge and agree that Microsoft may automatically check the version of the OS Product and/or its components that you are utilizing and may provide upgrades or fixes to the OS Product that will be automatically downloaded to your computer,"
A little sensationalistic to call this "remote admin rights" isn't it? Basically, this just gives them the legal legroom required to make their automatic updates feature work, which is a good thing. It means more patched machines out there - less of that Nimda shit.
Nobody's spying on your MP3 collection. There's nothing to see here, folks.
Why would they want to repel cockroaches and rats? I thought they ate that shit in Thailand.
Again - what the fuck have you done, Ghandi?
Am I the only one left wondering if these questions were actually answered by Alicebot?
Question: Do you feel that the types of developments that the Loebner prize supports(intentional, hard-coded spelling mistakes, etc.) are actually productive in terms of the AI research project?
Answer: [blah, blah, blah] Take LSD for example. Discovered by Albert Hoffmann in 1945, LSD is the most powerful drug ever developed. If you have ever gotten a prescription for any drug, you may have noticed that the dosage is usally given in "milligrams". But the dosage of LSD is "micrograms". It has the lowest ED50 of any known drug. [blah, blah, blah]
Oh bullshit. What have you done?
Well, it wasn't a government authority, it was a capitalist one. Which I suppose says more about his convictions than we'd like to know.
Oh bullshit. That's easy for you to say while you sit around on an obscure web forum and anonymously denounce "the Man". Let's see you risk your personal freedom and familiy's well-being so that geeks everywhere can download free music.
I think the DMCA is a dangerous law too, but I don't have the balls to publicly (and illegally) flout it. And since you don't either, you should probably keep the snide comments to yourself.
His point was that he knew people on the Java and .NET development teams. I think it's safe to say that Java was in development for at least 3 years before being released.
Of course, whether he is full of shit or not is a different matter.
He was the fifth employee of Sun Microsystems, an early author of open source software, and co-creator of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Cypherpunks, the DES Cracker, and the Internet's "alt" newsgroups.
Wow - this guy is probably going to become the Patron Saint of Internet pr0n.
Patents may be defended at the owners choice. They don't expire due to lack of use. Trademarks
do if they aren't defended.
Not exactly. A patent holder can lose the ability to sue infringers if the patent holder takes an unnecessarily long time to bring suit. It's called the doctrine of laches.
That is not correct. You are thinking of trademark law.
You are wrong - the original poster is correct.
In patent law, there is something known as the doctine of laches. Essentially it states that if a patent holder delays litigation for an unnecessarily long time, they lose the right to sue those who have infringed.
Wow - that has to be the most pathetic rant I've ever witnessed. I hope you find your other forum, because we certainly don't need elitist, grammar nazis like you trolling around here.
They have pissed off so many companies (IBM with Windows, Sony with XBox and AOL/TM with MSN, plus tens of others) that they are the underdog.
I wouldn't say they're the underdog - at least not yet. Microsoft's current desktop dominance is incredibly alluring for the media giants (AOL/TW, Sony, RIAA, MPAA, etc.). The potential for secure media distribution is more than enough to make up for any toes they've stepped on. As long as they're moving towards DRM I wouldn't count on any media companies to try to take them down.
Wal-mart went through the trouble of setting up networking (hub, cabling, protocols, etc.) on their demo PCs? Why would they do that?
Mac users may be smarter than PC users on average, but I'd wager that the smartest computer users of all do not use Macs.
PCs have the advantage of being cheap and plentiful. This obviously places them square in the hands of the common (and generally less educated) folk as the poster correctly points out. But because PCs are cheap, configurable, and use commodity parts they are also perfect for the hobbiest geek. And some of these guys are extremely bright.
Just do a survey of how many people on the Linux kernel (or Apache, *BSD, etc.) mailing list use PCs vs. Macs and stick that on your front page.
in a rocket you certainly hope you can get out before those 3GS of falling back to earth hopelessly pin you inside.
Freefall feels like weightlessness, not 3Gs. Of course that's until your craft reached terminal velocity - then it would feel like 1G. Now, this is disregarding any spin that the craft may develop, but I don't think that's what you were talking about.
I *do* wish they'd posted sound samples...
I dunno, something tells me it looks better than it sounds.
which is more sexy... Brittany or a Ukelelie playing lego robot?
Or, a Ukulele playing robot Britney?
Otherwise I will have to make do with lots of smaller devices from surplus shops and build it multi-stage with messy triggering.
For all the effort you're going through, I'm surprised you're only planning on a single-stage. I looked into gauss guns a few months ago and came to the conclusion that multi-stage is definately the way to go. Triggering isn't that bad, just a few pulsed LEDs and photo-receptors along the barrel. I gave up when I realized I couldn't afford the SCRs and capacitors (the lingering feeling that I was going to kill myself probably didn't help either). Good luck.
Oh man, I have the perfect theme music (it's Wesley Willis).
This isn't stealing bandwidth, the people sharing the bandwidth are paying for it. [...] Provided they remain within their contract, nobody should care what they do.
Just don't bitch when your cable company decides to implement data transfer limits, because that is the ONLY solution. These morons are going to ruin it for everyone else.