(a) Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without
authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented
invention, within the United States or imports into the United
States any patented invention during the term of the patent
therefor, infringes the patent.
You people seem to be missing the point that FFmpeg and ilk are completely illegal to a large portion of the Linux-using public, many of whom don't harbor deep-rooted feelings about the legitimacy of software/algorithm patents, and would prefer enjoying their media without legal ambivalence.
I've given this a bit of thought over the past year or so. The best alternative is probably Ogg/Theora/Vorbis, so your main problem is simply to boost the accessibility of those codecs and make them popular to use. There are a few usable Theora encoders for *nix and Windows, but I don't know of a real (legal; ffmpeg2theora, you're out) drag-and-drop converter.
Either way, the demand simply isn't there. This could be fixed by creating a site like YouTube called OggTube or something, and using the Cortado plugin, but good luck with the bandwidth bills. Plus, YouTube has essentially cornered the market on user-created video. Another alternative is to create a site whose sole job it is to amass video from across the web and convert it to Theora for people to download (like a FilePlanet clone, but doing your own conversions). Again, the bandwidth and labor would be killer, unless you used BitTorrent.
I think the real winning situation would be to hit it at a higher level, by trying to convince a major producer of online video (EA perhaps) to offer their stuff in Theora alongside the standard offerings. Or by getting Adobe to include Theora in Flash.
That said, if anyone wants to help me out with the Theora conversion/BitTorrent site, let me know.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. When the MESSENGER spacecraft enters safe mode, it'll turn itself so the antenna's toward Earth and its heat shield is toward the sun. It'll even rotate itself during its orbit to keep itself in that position.
Different design decisions, I guess, but it still sounds kind of fishy...
As this story is about devices requiring proprietary firmware to run, it seems prudent to point out that anything using the rt73 driver also needs to load firmware before it's usable.
Well, my reply was to the parent comment, not the summary title.
Also, the fact that they are RIAA members isn't really an issue in this case. You could just have easily (and misleadingly) titled it "BBB Members Sue Allofmp3.com Over Infringement", or "Red Cross Donors Sue Allofmp3.com Over Infringement".
The RIAA is (deservedly) hated by the Slashdot crowd, but let's not bring them in to things they're not involved with.
Yes, but what if China went one step further, and created its own SACD or DVD-A standard, sans DRM? Or its own HD-DVD/BluRay? That's when things will become interesting.
Are you sure they weren't talking about "theft"? Theft is a legal term, and does not include copyright infringement. "Stealing" is a colloquial phrase that people use to refer to lots of things, including, in large numbers, copyright infringement.
The problem is that everyone cannot reasonably "look to peer-reviewed scientific journals." First off, everyone doesn't have access to them, except perhaps through a local university library. Once they've found a journal (which one? Science? Something with a glacier on the cover?), they need to know which articles to look for, which requires some background knowledge of the field itself. Then, they need to find many other articles that treat different aspects of the problem before they can piece together a cohesive picture of the situation (not to mention background scientific knowledge that goes beyond the average high school education).
The solution is clearly survey papers written in an understandable manner by trusted sources, whether it's a "Does Global Warming Exist?" article in National Geographic, or a bit in USA Today. Which brings us to the survey article at hand, about which the submitter is querying its accuracy and trustworthiness, and to the reason your scolding line about looking in newspapers is completely missing the point.
Is there a site anywhere that has a database of which voting machines different counties use? How do I find out if my county is using a bad one before the election? If all I see are security warnings for Machine X or Machine Y every week or so, how do I know what to pay attention to?
In other words, I and others like me who aren't security experts are completely overwhelmed by this whole voting machine thing, and need some sort of clear-cut breakdown. Which machines are good and which are bad? Am I affected by the bad ones? Help!
"If you choose a free format such as Ogg Vorbis+Theora, then again you force the user to waste their time hunting for the plugin software, but in addition there are about five hundred sites that all distribute slightly different versions; the correct (blessed?) site is impossible to find unless the user is a computer expert."
This is why the existence of Cortado would be such a great thing, if anybody actually used it. It's still Java, but at least it lets people view Ogg without having to dig around looking for an Ogg codec. And with Java on the road toward freedom, this may eventually become an all-free option.
Just one suggestion: can you make an Ogg Vorbis/Theora version? It would be a shame to create a documentary, then leave the format subject to patents, etc.
Of course, you can't just say "Oh, well let's just send up some inflatable space stations and call it a day!" These things are an interesting idea, but they haven't been flown, tested, validated, etc. It was only this year that Bigelow sent up its first test modules, while the ISS was conceived in the late 80s-early 90s, in the age of Mir. The ISS attempted to improve and extend upon traditional space station ideas, not create a revolutionary breakthrough in station technology or design.
So in conclusion, inflatable stations are cool, and may be more useful than the ISS for the current space policy, but they have a long way to go before people are living in them.
On the other hand, the shuffle function on my Nomad Jukebox is definitely not random. On more than one occasion, among a full 6GB of average-sized MP3s, it would backtrack across the exact same songs it played the last time it was on, in the exact reverse order. And on the order of 5 songs, not just the last 2. I'd have to clear my playlist and re-add everything to get it to randomize again.
For one girl I know (late teens), it's The Sims and Heroes of Might and Magic (the original). For another (early 20s), it's Bejeweled and Spyro 3. There's one thing in common between the three non-casual-online games I listed: they were all introduced to the person a long time ago, somehow caught her imagination, and suddenly became her go-to game of choice for mindless entertainment. Neither of them actively seeks out new games to play, and neither would be caught buying a new game from a store. But for whatever reason, these games caught their imaginations, and they stick with them to this day.
No, it means I'll reject any link that points to a (perhaps true) allegations of x ballots lost and uses that as proof that the election was stolen, without first pointing out other facts, such as the numbers of ballots lost in previous elections, the margins of error on the processes, the backgrounds of the people making the claims, and other facts that give a more full picture of the situation. Facts are only meaningful when given in context, and reality is a consensus of interpretation.
Slashdot Mirror
M$ is 'intelligent design', and FLOSS is punctuated equilibrium.
I saw a bumper sticker once: "Honk if you understand punctuated equilibria!"
http://www.mpegla.com/m2/m2-patentlist.cfm
http://www.mpegla.com/m2s/m2s-patentlist.cfm
http://www.mpegla.com/m4v/m4v-patentlist.cfm
http://www.mpegla.com/m4s/m4s-patentlist.cfm
http://www.mpegla.com/avc/avc-patentlist.cfm
combined with USC 35 Sec. 271:
I'm not familiar with other jurisdictions.
You people seem to be missing the point that FFmpeg and ilk are completely illegal to a large portion of the Linux-using public, many of whom don't harbor deep-rooted feelings about the legitimacy of software/algorithm patents, and would prefer enjoying their media without legal ambivalence.
Also, businesses, commercial distributions...
I've given this a bit of thought over the past year or so. The best alternative is probably Ogg/Theora/Vorbis, so your main problem is simply to boost the accessibility of those codecs and make them popular to use. There are a few usable Theora encoders for *nix and Windows, but I don't know of a real (legal; ffmpeg2theora, you're out) drag-and-drop converter.
Either way, the demand simply isn't there. This could be fixed by creating a site like YouTube called OggTube or something, and using the Cortado plugin, but good luck with the bandwidth bills. Plus, YouTube has essentially cornered the market on user-created video. Another alternative is to create a site whose sole job it is to amass video from across the web and convert it to Theora for people to download (like a FilePlanet clone, but doing your own conversions). Again, the bandwidth and labor would be killer, unless you used BitTorrent.
I think the real winning situation would be to hit it at a higher level, by trying to convince a major producer of online video (EA perhaps) to offer their stuff in Theora alongside the standard offerings. Or by getting Adobe to include Theora in Flash.
That said, if anyone wants to help me out with the Theora conversion/BitTorrent site, let me know.
I did it, and I'm not a business. It expired pretty quickly, but it did last a couple days (long enough for me to get in there and register).
Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. When the MESSENGER spacecraft enters safe mode, it'll turn itself so the antenna's toward Earth and its heat shield is toward the sun. It'll even rotate itself during its orbit to keep itself in that position.
Different design decisions, I guess, but it still sounds kind of fishy...
As this story is about devices requiring proprietary firmware to run, it seems prudent to point out that anything using the rt73 driver also needs to load firmware before it's usable.
Well, my reply was to the parent comment, not the summary title.
Also, the fact that they are RIAA members isn't really an issue in this case. You could just have easily (and misleadingly) titled it "BBB Members Sue Allofmp3.com Over Infringement", or "Red Cross Donors Sue Allofmp3.com Over Infringement".
The RIAA is (deservedly) hated by the Slashdot crowd, but let's not bring them in to things they're not involved with.
The RIAA doesn't have anything to do with this. It's just the four record companies listed in the summary.
Yes, but what if China went one step further, and created its own SACD or DVD-A standard, sans DRM? Or its own HD-DVD/BluRay? That's when things will become interesting.
Let's not forget that our entire legal system is based on dueling fanboys (fanpersons?).
This is false. Read the sourced Wikipedia entry.
Are you sure they weren't talking about "theft"? Theft is a legal term, and does not include copyright infringement. "Stealing" is a colloquial phrase that people use to refer to lots of things, including, in large numbers, copyright infringement.
The problem is that everyone cannot reasonably "look to peer-reviewed scientific journals." First off, everyone doesn't have access to them, except perhaps through a local university library. Once they've found a journal (which one? Science? Something with a glacier on the cover?), they need to know which articles to look for, which requires some background knowledge of the field itself. Then, they need to find many other articles that treat different aspects of the problem before they can piece together a cohesive picture of the situation (not to mention background scientific knowledge that goes beyond the average high school education).
The solution is clearly survey papers written in an understandable manner by trusted sources, whether it's a "Does Global Warming Exist?" article in National Geographic, or a bit in USA Today. Which brings us to the survey article at hand, about which the submitter is querying its accuracy and trustworthiness, and to the reason your scolding line about looking in newspapers is completely missing the point.
What's wrong with his "tubes" analogy? It's the same thing as bragging about your "fat pipe".
Anyone try GameTap with WINE? How's it work? It'd be great to get this going on Linux.
There is one: SDL. Now to get people to use it...
I agree with your point, but let's not forget Darwinia, DEFCON, Doom 3, Quake 4, and the upcoming UT2007 and Savage 2.
There's a few big producers out there, and they deserve our support.
Is there a site anywhere that has a database of which voting machines different counties use? How do I find out if my county is using a bad one before the election? If all I see are security warnings for Machine X or Machine Y every week or so, how do I know what to pay attention to?
In other words, I and others like me who aren't security experts are completely overwhelmed by this whole voting machine thing, and need some sort of clear-cut breakdown. Which machines are good and which are bad? Am I affected by the bad ones? Help!
"If you choose a free format such as Ogg Vorbis+Theora, then again you force the user to waste their time hunting for the plugin software, but in addition there are about five hundred sites that all distribute slightly different versions; the correct (blessed?) site is impossible to find unless the user is a computer expert."
This is why the existence of Cortado would be such a great thing, if anybody actually used it. It's still Java, but at least it lets people view Ogg without having to dig around looking for an Ogg codec. And with Java on the road toward freedom, this may eventually become an all-free option.
Just one suggestion: can you make an Ogg Vorbis/Theora version? It would be a shame to create a documentary, then leave the format subject to patents, etc.
Of course, you can't just say "Oh, well let's just send up some inflatable space stations and call it a day!" These things are an interesting idea, but they haven't been flown, tested, validated, etc. It was only this year that Bigelow sent up its first test modules, while the ISS was conceived in the late 80s-early 90s, in the age of Mir. The ISS attempted to improve and extend upon traditional space station ideas, not create a revolutionary breakthrough in station technology or design.
So in conclusion, inflatable stations are cool, and may be more useful than the ISS for the current space policy, but they have a long way to go before people are living in them.
On the other hand, the shuffle function on my Nomad Jukebox is definitely not random. On more than one occasion, among a full 6GB of average-sized MP3s, it would backtrack across the exact same songs it played the last time it was on, in the exact reverse order. And on the order of 5 songs, not just the last 2. I'd have to clear my playlist and re-add everything to get it to randomize again.
For one girl I know (late teens), it's The Sims and Heroes of Might and Magic (the original). For another (early 20s), it's Bejeweled and Spyro 3. There's one thing in common between the three non-casual-online games I listed: they were all introduced to the person a long time ago, somehow caught her imagination, and suddenly became her go-to game of choice for mindless entertainment. Neither of them actively seeks out new games to play, and neither would be caught buying a new game from a store. But for whatever reason, these games caught their imaginations, and they stick with them to this day.
No, it means I'll reject any link that points to a (perhaps true) allegations of x ballots lost and uses that as proof that the election was stolen, without first pointing out other facts, such as the numbers of ballots lost in previous elections, the margins of error on the processes, the backgrounds of the people making the claims, and other facts that give a more full picture of the situation. Facts are only meaningful when given in context, and reality is a consensus of interpretation.
Thank you for the link, I'll look into it.