Licensing the technology costs apple money. Do you think communicating changes and supporting licenses is free?
If you think that the cost of supporting licenses is anywhere near the cost of R&D, you're crazy.
Do you think it would be ok for Real to do what they did if Apple's price was to high for them?
Uh. Yes? Because if they could afford the reverse engineering, but could not afford Apple's price, then Apple is charging too much.
I think your crazy if you think I wouldn't get slapped with a cease and desist if I published an unlicensed program that plays DRM real media files. Just because I want to do it (like real wants to be on an iPod) gives me a right to do it.
Sigh. Just learn the law. Reverse engineering is legal. It happens all the time. It's faced Real (with Oracle), it's faced IBM (with a PC BIOS), it's faced Microsoft (with Novell). You wouldn't get slapped with a cease and desist if you had done the action legally. It's black letter law.
[R]eaching into one's own pocket to assist his fellow man is noble and worthy of praise. Reaching into another person's pocket to assist one's fellow man is despicable and worthy of condemnation.
What an idiotic statement this guy's making. He's neglecting the fundamental facet of "government" - governments exist to provide order. We gain order by sacrificing some of our freedoms. Democracy guarantees that the freedoms we give up are the freedoms that the majority want to give up, and the order that we gain is the order that the majority want. The government cannot be immoral if the people are free to choose the order to gain the freedoms. In other words, it's only immoral if they can't leave the country.
No one is forcing people to remain in the US. They can leave, and stop paying Social Security if they want to. The point is that the majority of the people have decided "if you want to live with us, you must agree to pay into Social Security if you work."
To call this stealing is moronic. By that logic, all taxation is stealing, and is sinful. How is social security any different than a publicly funded fire department? Most people never see the benefits of a fire department. Shouldn't the people whose houses burn down have to pay the fire department for their services, and then, if everyone else in the community wants to, they can help and give donations to those people? Can't I make the same argument for the police as well?
Laws that don't force actions upon people can't be sinful, because you can always choose to not do said actions. And you're not forced to pay into Social Security. You can still leave the country. But that's the price of living in the US with the rest of us.
It can't be stealing if you agreed to it. And since you can leave, you did agree.
Actually, I guess it's my fault for not framing the question more restrictively.
Yah, I'd have to agree. But to be honest, the more restrictive version would've been boring, because he would've said "yes, reverse engineering is legal." He just did it. He can't say that it's not legal. Presumedly he's got enough lawyers to consult that would've told him he's an idiot if he had.
But I didn't ask whether he'd like to cross-license with Apple. We all know the answer to that question.
Do we? If you had asked the same question to Apple, substituting for Real's situation, apparently they would've said "No, we're not going to bother with Real."
I'm not talking about whether he'd like to see that kind of interoperability. I'm asking what he'd do if Apple reverse-engineered Real's product like Real did to Apple. Because I want him to say, "Nothing. That's ok." If he can say that, he'd win a point or two with me. But he can't say it.
What he said was the corporate-speak equivalent: because if Real's willing to license it (and by 'willing' I mean 'cost-effectively willing') then Apple wouldn't ever reverse-engineer it. So the situation would never arise.
Imagine if you asked him "if you were a woman, would you wear women's underwear?" and he had said "I'm not a woman, and will never be a woman." Is that dodging the question? Given the fact that he's stated that the premise to your question will likely never occur, then answering it is pointless. It may 'technically' be dodging, but it's not dodging in the sense of
but when asked whether it would be alright for Apple to create software that deals with Real's DRM without a license, he says that they'd be happy to discuss licensing with Apple.
The difference is that the original question could've been taken two ways: first - do you think it would be legal if QuickTime suddenly became able to play.rm files? He didn't answer that - because, to be honest, it's somewhat silly. Of course it's legal, if it's done legally. There are ways to reverse engineer legally, which is (hopefully) what Real's done. But the second way could be, if you read the tone in the original, "Why shouldn't Apple reverse engineer your file formats in a QuickTime player? After all, you did it to them" and his answer to that question is spot on - "because we're not being a dick about it."
Truth is, if Apple needed QuickTime to play.rm files, it'd be cheaper for them to just license the format from RealMedia, and unless they hate Real and want to throw away money, they would. The only reason Compaq reverse engineered the original BIOS was because IBM said screw off. So while it sounded like he didn't answer the question, he did. If Real was willing to license the technology to Apple, then Apple wouldn't bother reverse engineering Real's DRM. So by saying what he said, he essentially said "there's no need for them to."
Yah, Slashdot might want him to come out and say "yes, reverse engineering is legal" but in the corporate world, reverse engineering is a last resort. If a company's willing, then reverse engineering is a moot point.
Does it really seem right to you that Apple pays real to use Real's DRM if Apple takes the offer Glaser implied.
Uh, yah? It also seems right to me if Apple declines, and reverse engineers Real's DRM. It'd be more expensive, but it depends what it wants it for.
And other companies pay *Real* to use *Apple's* DRM, if Real follows through with it's previous threat to sell Harmony to third parties.
Once Real reverse engineers it for interoperability, the property that they create out of it is not Apple's. They can sell it to whoever they want. They paid the money to develop it. Keep in mind that reverse engineering is usually harder and more expensive than developing the original. Therefore Real has every right to sell Harmony to other people.
And yet no one pays Apple to use Apple's DRM?
Beauty of the free market, isn't it? Apple was a jerk, and refused to license a technology. Real spent probably more than Apple did to develop it to reverse engineer it, and now they're willing to sell it. And people will buy it, because Apple's not willing to sell it.
By your argument I should feel sorry for IBM because clone PCs came out. I don't, and amazingly enough, the law agrees with me. Real worked harder than Apple - they developed their own DRM, then they reverse engineered Apple's DRM and made it work with their own - and you want to protect Apple in the marketplace? Why?
Real is offering to sell the rights to use their DRM, while effectively undercutting Apple from making that same offer by selling the rights to use their hack on Apple's DRM.
Undercutting? Undercutting??? How are they undercutting anything? Both Apple and Real developed the same technology! If Real licenses it for cheaper, maybe Apple should consider doing so as well! No one is preventing Apple from making the offer.
Free market - Apple can make whatever offer they want. Why do you want Apple to have a monopoly?
Apple made a practical descission Real was a small player and did not want to license, and you thought it was ok to reverse engineer their product and still use it. So you think it's ok that I reverse engineer your DRM so I can use it on my Mac right!
What an idiotic argument. You're comparing Apple refusing to license technology to Real (which would give money to Apple and take virtually no effort on Apple's part) with Real not developing software for a niche desktop market (which would cost Real a significant amount of development money and yield little return to Real due to the installed base). Just doesn't fly.
And they've stated that they are willing to license it to Apple, if Apple wants it. Apple hasn't said anything. Keep in mind that for a large company, reverse engineering is probably more expensive than licensing. Being willing to license makes it cheap. I doubt they'd care if you reverse engineered their technology for interoperability's sake. They do know the law.
Translation: Apple should pay us for the right to do the same thing we're done to them without paying (and are threatening to sell to others the means to do). Hello Hipocracy!
First - it's "hypocrisy", not hipocracy. Google is your friend when it comes to spelling questions...
Second - Real did pay money. To the workers who came up with the technology and did the reverse engineering. It was not free - they just didn't pay Apple. This is completely legal - welcome to the world of interoperability. If Apple did exactly the same thing with Real's formats, I'm absolutely sure that Real would say "cool, good job!" Hell, I'm sure Real would've preferred to pay Apple! It probably would've been cheaper!
All Real is saying is that "we can make this happen, right now, if Apple wants to." When you consider that Apple refused to license the technology to them in the first place, thus forcing them down the reverse engineering road, this is them being far, far nicer than Apple was to them.
Real's not saying "Apple has to pay us!" Real's saying "We're willing to save Apple the time and money, if they want to." Apple's being the jerk here, not Real.
If you still think it's hypocrisy, maybe you should check up on the definition of it, as well as the spelling.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but it's not a lease.
Dorm contracts are leases as far as the vast majority of "tenant/landlord" law is concerned. They're specifically mentioned in most laws on the subject, actually.
They can enter your dorm room at any time
No, they can't. The police can thanks to the PATRIOT act, but Universities can't enter dorm rooms except via the exceptions that allow landlords to enter your apartment/dorm/home. Keep in mind that landlords can enter tenant's residences for quite a few reasons, and those same reasons are what allow the staff at dorms to enter as well.
And yes, they can ban all kinds of FCC allowed devices if they want to, just like I can do the same if you visit my house.
I don't have a legal right to be in your house. If I did, you would not be able to ban those devices. Students do have a legal right to be in their dorms.
It is for example perfectly OK for theater owners to make you check in all electronics devices at the door.
No, it's not. It is perfectly okay for them to restrict entrance to those who don't, however. There's a difference.
By the way, I also have that right to require these things when you're in my house.
Actually, no, you don't.
You have the right to ask me to leave, sure. But there's a difference. You do not have the authority to tell me to stop using any unlicensed portion of the spectrum. Only the FCC does.
How is this different? You can't call a police officer and force me to stop using an unlicensed portion of the spectrum. But you COULD have the police officer remove me from your house. Note the difference.
The only authority anyone has in this country is that which is backed up by law. Since the students have signed a legal agreement to be allowed to live in that location, they have a legal right to be there.
People here are saying "well, sure they can say that!" That's ludicrous. Ask the question - what is the University going to do if they don't agree? The police can't stop the students from doing it. They can't fine them. They can't kick them out of the apartments. Maybe they could expel them, but given the fact that it's something that's occuring within someone's living space that has nothing to do with the University, I'm pretty sure that the student (while expelled) would be able to sue the University for a whole lot of money.
I was referring to contractual restrictions that are not explicitly prohibited by existing legislation.
Which is what we're talking about here.
You can't ban people from using wireless AP's, nor satellite dishes - if you read the memo linked in the article, it's quite clear about that. All of that is quite clearly covered in current legislation.
With regard to satellite dishes, they actually quite clearly state what is a reasonable restriction, and what is not. It's not your whim. It's codified very well.
I can tell you if you think that law gives you the right to throw a crazy party in your apartment, you will be sadly mistaken.
Actually, you would be. So long as you satisfy your obligations as a tenant from the rest of the article (which means in the context of the situation 'don't destroy the property') and you're not doing anything illegal (disturbing the peace), I can have 50 guests over if I want.
End up in housing court anywhere in the country and you will be blacklisted from renting an apartment forever.
Which is why if I would ever go to housing court, I'd make sure I'm suing for enough money that I'd buy my next place to live. Thankfully the very existence of a blacklist (or even of general practice of people checking housing court lists) would be enough to claim special damages for even having to go to housing court.
Given the fact that most moving costs from companies are usually in the thousands of dollars, I think it'd cover it.
I also take great pleasure in the aforementioned blacklisting.
I'm sure your opponents in court take greater pleasure in taking your money. It is quite sick that you take pleasure in exacting revenge for people who are asserting their rights under the law.
Yes, I actually own property and I put all sorts of restrictions on my tenants that would piss a character like you off to no end.
Can't wait till you get sent to court!
Fine, name one (that does not involve the FCC).
Restriction of guests, at least for a Pennsylvania landlord.
The tenant shall have a right to invite to his apartment or dwelling unit such employees, business visitors, tradesmen, deliverymen, suppliers of goods and services, and the like as he wishes so long as his obligations as a tenant under this article are observed. The tenant also shall have right to invite to his apartment or dwelling unit, for a reasonable period of time, such social guest, family or visitors as he wishes so long as his obligations as a tenant under this article are observed. These rights may not be waived by any provisions of a written rental agreement and the landlord and/or owner may not charge any fee, service charge or additional rent to the tenant for exercising his rights under this act. It is the intent of this article to insure that the landlord may in no way restrict the tenant s right to purchase goods, services and the like from a source of the tenant s choosing and as a consequence any provision in a written agreement attempting to limit this right shall be void and unenforceable in the courts of this Commonwealth.
No, you didn't apparently read the article - that is, the PDF linked in the summary header. Let me give you a hand : It's on the bottom of Page 2.
In my parents neighborhood, you can't have a ham radio antenna or a satellite dish visible - these things are regulated by the FCC, yet the neighborhood association can limit their use, hmmm.
Your parents apparently have not read the relevant FCC memo, which specifically says that the neighborhood association is talking out its ass. (Unless they live in a historic neighborhood) It might as well specifically give the example you're talking about!
To quote!
The rules prohibit homeowner associations, landlords, state and local governments, or any other third parties from placing restrictions that impair a customer antenna user's ability to install, maintain, or use such customer antennas transmitting and/or receiving commercial nonbroadcast communications signals when the antenna is located on property within the exclusive use or control of the user where the user has a direct or indirect ownership or leasehold interest in the property, except under certain exceptions for safety and historic preservation."
If in order to use the airwaves, your parents need to install a visible satellite dish, the neighborhood association can go shove it.
This makes sense. Everyone owns the airwaves, and therefore everyone has a right to access it. Limiting my right - for whatever reason - means that I am paying money for something - the FCC - for which I cannot reap the benefits.
You can contract away all kinds of freedoms
Hell no! Many rights and freedoms guaranteed by law cannot be contracted away! You can't sell yourself into slavery, for instance - the contract is void and unenforcable. Likewise a lease that says that my security deposit is non-refundable in PA is also unenforcable (that clause only) - I can then take them to small claims court, the judge will laugh at the defense, and promptly order the money handed over. Most people think that most rights and freedoms can be contracted away, but of course they can't. Otherwise businesses would just start including those clauses in all of their contracts.
So wait.. If a pipebomb used 2.4GHz unlicensed, only the FCC has regulatory power over that pipebomb?
Only the FCC would have regulatory power over the pipebomb's use of 2.4GHz, and whether or not people are allowed to use the pipebomb to access and utilize the 2.4GHz band.
Obviously pipe bombs have other purposes, and the FCC doesn't have regulatory power over those uses.
The same argument can't be made for Wireless APs, and in any case, the university *is specifically attempting* to exert regulatory power over the ability of the Wireless APs to use the 2.4GHz band.
Example: Universities can't prevent you from having a candle in your room. They can only prevent you from having a *lit* candle, for safety reasons. Ditto for animals - only for safety/health reasons.
There's no such argument against owning a wireless AP, so the University can't prevent you from simply *having* a wireless AP, and they're not trying to. Just if you're *using* one. Therefore they're attempting to control the *use* of it to access the band, which is the FCC's domain.
Really. Can you excercise your "fundamental right" to have a cat in the dorm? Can you excercise your "fundamental right" to have a toaster oven? To burn candles?
Read the damned article.
There is no Federal Cat Administration that is the sole regulator of cat use in the US.
There is no Federal Toaster Oven Administration that is the sole regulator of toaster oven use in the US.
There is no Federal Candle Administration that is the sole regulator of candle use in the US.
There is the FCC, which is the sole regulator of spectrum use in the US. The University is attempting to usurp their authority, which they cannot do.
I doubt the FCC would accept that "loophole" - it erodes their authority. The university could simply progressively ban more and more things that use the 2.4GHz spectrum.
not ban having heat in your apartment
There is no federal law allowing everyone to use heat and saying that the Federal Heat Authority is the only organization allowed to regulate the use of the spectrum.
banning Wireless APs does not ban the use of the 2.4 range
It bans the use of the 2.4GHz range for Wireless APs - which is the same as regulating it. They could try banning antennas which broadcast at 2.4GHz as well, saying "we're not banning the use of the spectrum!" but I'd still say they're full of it.
And also!
Remember that you can use certain wireless cards as APs, using the "hostap" driver. The university can't ban wireless cards, obviously, as they need the students to be able to use them! And if it tries to say "You can't use the wireless cards as APs" that is clearly them attempting to regulate the unlicensed portion of the spectrum. They can't do this - they overstepped their authority.
Re:Actually that would be "how" we fall apart
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Why We Fall Apart
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· Score: 1
Yah, you just need to know how to fix them. The problem is caused by the contacts corroding on the connector, coupled with the fact that there's nothing that "fixes" the insertion to a specific point, and the fact that the contacts themselves (being contact springs) wear over time and become less "springy" as they permanently deform.
Just take the thing apart, use a lot of rubbing alcohol with a q-tip, and if you can, pry up the contacts to restore their original shape. Then it'll work just as good as new. If you can't fix the connector, you can also put alcohol on the cartridge connector, insert it, remove it, lather, rinse, repeat about 10 times or so. Then try to find an orientation that makes it work, and mark that orientation with a Sharpie on the inside of the NES. Takes five seconds. But fixing the original connector is best.:)
NES's are much more likely to survive long-term than the newer disc-based systems - no moving parts. I'd like to see emulation focus on Saturns, PlayStations, etc. rather than the NES. Those systems will die much faster.
(I'd also like to see someone take apart one of the battery-backed cartridges and write up instructions on how to replace the battery. Those'll die eventually too...)
Re:Actually that would be "how" we fall apart
on
Why We Fall Apart
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· Score: 4, Informative
If we reproduced by mitosis, we'd be effectively immortal, even better, we'd get up to 2^n chances to survive in the nth generation of offspring.
Um. No.
Identical twins reproduce by mitosis - once. The twins do not live the longer of their lifespans (nor do they get "two chances to live"). Their DNA does, but the longevity of their DNA is not the longevity of the organism.
but the offspring who you are making room for are arguably you.
Only in the twisted sci-fi worlds where a clone becomes you, with your memories, and everything else. In the real world, DNA does not define an organism. It doesn't even define how to build an organism. To paraphrase Alpha Centauri, "What we can do with genes is chemistry, because genes code for chemicals."
Sexual reproduction doesn't help nor hinder the longevity of an organism. It does reduce the genetic diversity of a population, making the population less responsive to changes. Hence the reason that sexual reproduction evolved at all.
and with 1 gibibyte of RAM non uncommon these days, why not save the original somewhere in upper memory? if the flash fails, copy it back just like you copied it back from the floppy.
You *should* have a copy of the original BIOS somewhere, in case the BIOS flash works, but the BIOS itself has some issues and you need to restore it.
Many motherboard manufacturers have the original BIOSes posted somewhere, but would you *really* want to find out later that the original BIOS you *thought* you had wasn't the original?
Don't forget that most commonwealth countries derive from the British democracy
Hence the reason that I said "one of", and not "the oldest". As far as I can tell, Britain is the oldest, but I don't understand the vagaries of the British government to know if you can really call the government the "same" all the way back to the Magna Carta.
I'd wager there's a lot of democracies with older roots than America's if you look at it in that context...
Just Britain, as far as I can tell. Both Canada (~1867) and Australia (~1901) are far newer. The question isn't where case law derives from (which simply describes how the courts should function), but when the documents that describe the functionings of the government itself were written. The first act of the government could be to instate all of the laws that a previous government enacted, but it would still be a new government if the Constitution (or something equivalent) were different.
With Britain, it's tough to tell, as it's uncodified. For an uncodified government, though, you could still say "From this date forward, the government has only changed through actions of the government itself, rather than by violent upheavals." I don't know enough about British history to give a rough guess as to a date where you would say "roughly, the government's been unchanged by violent upheaval since here", though. It's longer than the US, sure (though only if you ignore adding and losing land - losing southern Ireland didn't change the way that Parliament worked).
The only problem in America is that too many people can veto stuff. The president can veto congress and vv, and the senate can veto both... A whole lotta nothing going on if you ask me. That explains the sorry state of health care in America.
(Congress is the Senate plus the House. The only difference between the Senate and the House is what law they work with, and typically they both have to agree nowadays anyway. Your comment suggests that the Senate is different from Congress.)
The President can veto Congress, yet Congress can override the veto in extreme cases. The President can suggest Supreme Court members, but Congress approves them. The Supreme Court interprets law, thus allowing them to override Congress, but Congress can make the fundamental law of the land (the Constitution) and override the Supreme Court, though that's an extreme extreme case.
It's called "checks and balances". It's not a problem - it's the design. The whole system was designed to be stable. It's not quite able to react quickly to changes - like the massively spiraling cost of health care - but it's more able to prevent gross abuses of fundamental principles (like hopefully eventually overriding the PATRIOT Act and other abuses - but the Supreme Court has struck down several other abuses, so you can't fault them entirely) due to the "whim of the moment."
Given that the US has one of the oldest stable governments in the world (i.e.: France is an old country, but a young government as it only dates from the early 1900s, China is an old country but a young government as it only dates from the 1900s, etc.) the system obviously works moderately well.
Re:Interesting discussion on the radio...
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Did You VoteOrNot.org?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
The argument "they are all crap" is horseshit. They all stand for different things, and you pick the one closest.
It's not a bad argument at all. It's sad that the system has degraded to picking the "lesser of two evils" at all. If you do think "they are all crap", then vote for yourself, by write-in.
That's better than not voting, and it's better than insulting the system by voting for someone you don't want. It's not about winning, or preventing someone from winning. It's about selecting the candidate that most people want.
You should vote in respect for the people throughout the world who die fighting for their right to vote. It's disrepesctful of those who've died for the right to vote to spoil your ballot.
Spoil your ballot? You mean by voting for someone you don't actually want to win? How is this different than the "pre-rigged" elections that the Soviet Union and Iraq had, except for the fact that there is a possible outcome of more than one person?
Representative democracy means you vote for someone who represents you. If you vote for someone who doesn't represent you, just because you don't want to vote for someone else, that destroys democracy, or worse: it makes it into a farce.
If you vote for Bush because you don't want to vote for Kerry, you're crazy. Look at the third party candidates, and vote for them. Or write yourself in. Same goes for Kerry.
I wish someone would poll people and find out how many people are voting for each respective candidate because they don't like the other one. That's what frightens me. We might as well not even have a democracy if those numbers are high, because you'll end up getting someone who people didn't actually want, just because TV/radio/newspapers/Internet/DNC/RNC selected two people.
We have had several mainboards here that can boot from USB disks of all sorts (including those "Keychain" USB devices). Machspeed, ECS, and AOpen to name the few that we use. I hardly doubt this is limited to these vendors.
Just because the mainboards can boot off of them doesn't mean that the operating system can. You can make a bootable floppy disk with "format" under Windows or DOS. That won't work for a USB drive - no USB drivers.
And unfortunately, many BIOS flashers are DOS-based. Many vendors are putting out "make USB chain bootable in DOS" utilities, but they're not that common yet. "format" is a little more common.
I'm definitely not saying that USB devices wouldn't be better. Floppies do have legacy support, though, and it will take a long while for anything else to overcome that. I'm sure that time is swiftly approaching, though.
So just take that "floppy boot disk" and burn it on a CD and you're golden.
You won't be able to write to the CD. So you can't save the current BIOS image before writing the new one.
If the flash fails, with a floppy (or any writable medium), you'd still be able to attempt to flash the original again (BIOSes are memory resident except at boot). If not, you're in a lot of trouble.
You could replace it with the following: a bootable CD that installs a ramdisk for temporary writing, and a copy of the original BIOS on the CD as well. This is still a little worrying, because...
what if the "original" you think you have is not the original, and the new flashed BIOS turns out to have some problems (but still allows you to boot)?
A bootable USB drive and a machine that can boot off of USB would be ideal, but most BIOS flashers are DOS based, and a bootable DOS USB disk is a difficult beast to generate.
Why? If it gets fried, it's not going to boot anyways.
A BIOS flasher saves the original first. This way if the flash fails, you can attempt again with the original. BIOS is read from flash on boot - after that, it's memory resident. If you misflash a BIOS, you're fine until you hit "reset".
You'd be a fool to flash a BIOS from a bootable CD-ROM.
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Licensing the technology costs apple money. Do you think communicating changes and supporting licenses is free?
If you think that the cost of supporting licenses is anywhere near the cost of R&D, you're crazy.
Do you think it would be ok for Real to do what they did if Apple's price was to high for them?
Uh. Yes? Because if they could afford the reverse engineering, but could not afford Apple's price, then Apple is charging too much.
I think your crazy if you think I wouldn't get slapped with a cease and desist if I published an unlicensed program that plays DRM real media files. Just because I want to do it (like real wants to be on an iPod) gives me a right to do it.
Sigh. Just learn the law. Reverse engineering is legal. It happens all the time. It's faced Real (with Oracle), it's faced IBM (with a PC BIOS), it's faced Microsoft (with Novell). You wouldn't get slapped with a cease and desist if you had done the action legally. It's black letter law.
[R]eaching into one's own pocket to assist his fellow man is noble and worthy of praise. Reaching into another person's pocket to assist one's fellow man is despicable and worthy of condemnation.
What an idiotic statement this guy's making. He's neglecting the fundamental facet of "government" - governments exist to provide order. We gain order by sacrificing some of our freedoms. Democracy guarantees that the freedoms we give up are the freedoms that the majority want to give up, and the order that we gain is the order that the majority want. The government cannot be immoral if the people are free to choose the order to gain the freedoms. In other words, it's only immoral if they can't leave the country.
No one is forcing people to remain in the US. They can leave, and stop paying Social Security if they want to. The point is that the majority of the people have decided "if you want to live with us, you must agree to pay into Social Security if you work."
To call this stealing is moronic. By that logic, all taxation is stealing, and is sinful. How is social security any different than a publicly funded fire department? Most people never see the benefits of a fire department. Shouldn't the people whose houses burn down have to pay the fire department for their services, and then, if everyone else in the community wants to, they can help and give donations to those people? Can't I make the same argument for the police as well?
Laws that don't force actions upon people can't be sinful, because you can always choose to not do said actions. And you're not forced to pay into Social Security. You can still leave the country. But that's the price of living in the US with the rest of us.
It can't be stealing if you agreed to it. And since you can leave, you did agree.
Actually, I guess it's my fault for not framing the question more restrictively.
Yah, I'd have to agree. But to be honest, the more restrictive version would've been boring, because he would've said "yes, reverse engineering is legal." He just did it. He can't say that it's not legal. Presumedly he's got enough lawyers to consult that would've told him he's an idiot if he had.
But I didn't ask whether he'd like to cross-license with Apple. We all know the answer to that question.
Do we? If you had asked the same question to Apple, substituting for Real's situation, apparently they would've said "No, we're not going to bother with Real."
I'm not talking about whether he'd like to see that kind of interoperability. I'm asking what he'd do if Apple reverse-engineered Real's product like Real did to Apple. Because I want him to say, "Nothing. That's ok." If he can say that, he'd win a point or two with me. But he can't say it.
What he said was the corporate-speak equivalent: because if Real's willing to license it (and by 'willing' I mean 'cost-effectively willing') then Apple wouldn't ever reverse-engineer it. So the situation would never arise.
Imagine if you asked him "if you were a woman, would you wear women's underwear?" and he had said "I'm not a woman, and will never be a woman." Is that dodging the question? Given the fact that he's stated that the premise to your question will likely never occur, then answering it is pointless. It may 'technically' be dodging, but it's not dodging in the sense of
Look! Shiny!
but when asked whether it would be alright for Apple to create software that deals with Real's DRM without a license, he says that they'd be happy to discuss licensing with Apple.
.rm files? He didn't answer that - because, to be honest, it's somewhat silly. Of course it's legal, if it's done legally. There are ways to reverse engineer legally, which is (hopefully) what Real's done. But the second way could be, if you read the tone in the original, "Why shouldn't Apple reverse engineer your file formats in a QuickTime player? After all, you did it to them" and his answer to that question is spot on - "because we're not being a dick about it."
.rm files, it'd be cheaper for them to just license the format from RealMedia, and unless they hate Real and want to throw away money, they would. The only reason Compaq reverse engineered the original BIOS was because IBM said screw off. So while it sounded like he didn't answer the question, he did. If Real was willing to license the technology to Apple, then Apple wouldn't bother reverse engineering Real's DRM. So by saying what he said, he essentially said "there's no need for them to."
The difference is that the original question could've been taken two ways: first - do you think it would be legal if QuickTime suddenly became able to play
Truth is, if Apple needed QuickTime to play
Yah, Slashdot might want him to come out and say "yes, reverse engineering is legal" but in the corporate world, reverse engineering is a last resort. If a company's willing, then reverse engineering is a moot point.
Does it really seem right to you that Apple pays real to use Real's DRM if Apple takes the offer Glaser implied.
Uh, yah? It also seems right to me if Apple declines, and reverse engineers Real's DRM. It'd be more expensive, but it depends what it wants it for.
And other companies pay *Real* to use *Apple's* DRM, if Real follows through with it's previous threat to sell Harmony to third parties.
Once Real reverse engineers it for interoperability, the property that they create out of it is not Apple's. They can sell it to whoever they want. They paid the money to develop it. Keep in mind that reverse engineering is usually harder and more expensive than developing the original. Therefore Real has every right to sell Harmony to other people.
And yet no one pays Apple to use Apple's DRM?
Beauty of the free market, isn't it? Apple was a jerk, and refused to license a technology. Real spent probably more than Apple did to develop it to reverse engineer it, and now they're willing to sell it. And people will buy it, because Apple's not willing to sell it.
By your argument I should feel sorry for IBM because clone PCs came out. I don't, and amazingly enough, the law agrees with me. Real worked harder than Apple - they developed their own DRM, then they reverse engineered Apple's DRM and made it work with their own - and you want to protect Apple in the marketplace? Why?
Real is offering to sell the rights to use their DRM, while effectively undercutting Apple from making that same offer by selling the rights to use their hack on Apple's DRM.
Undercutting? Undercutting??? How are they undercutting anything? Both Apple and Real developed the same technology! If Real licenses it for cheaper, maybe Apple should consider doing so as well! No one is preventing Apple from making the offer.
Free market - Apple can make whatever offer they want. Why do you want Apple to have a monopoly?
Apple made a practical descission Real was a small player and did not want to license, and you thought it was ok to reverse engineer their product and still use it. So you think it's ok that I reverse engineer your DRM so I can use it on my Mac right!
What an idiotic argument. You're comparing Apple refusing to license technology to Real (which would give money to Apple and take virtually no effort on Apple's part) with Real not developing software for a niche desktop market (which would cost Real a significant amount of development money and yield little return to Real due to the installed base). Just doesn't fly.
And they've stated that they are willing to license it to Apple, if Apple wants it. Apple hasn't said anything. Keep in mind that for a large company, reverse engineering is probably more expensive than licensing. Being willing to license makes it cheap. I doubt they'd care if you reverse engineered their technology for interoperability's sake. They do know the law.
Translation: Apple should pay us for the right to do the same thing we're done to them without paying (and are threatening to sell to others the means to do). Hello Hipocracy!
First - it's "hypocrisy", not hipocracy. Google is your friend when it comes to spelling questions...
Second - Real did pay money. To the workers who came up with the technology and did the reverse engineering. It was not free - they just didn't pay Apple. This is completely legal - welcome to the world of interoperability. If Apple did exactly the same thing with Real's formats, I'm absolutely sure that Real would say "cool, good job!" Hell, I'm sure Real would've preferred to pay Apple! It probably would've been cheaper!
All Real is saying is that "we can make this happen, right now, if Apple wants to." When you consider that Apple refused to license the technology to them in the first place, thus forcing them down the reverse engineering road, this is them being far, far nicer than Apple was to them.
Real's not saying "Apple has to pay us!" Real's saying "We're willing to save Apple the time and money, if they want to." Apple's being the jerk here, not Real.
If you still think it's hypocrisy, maybe you should check up on the definition of it, as well as the spelling.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but it's not a lease.
Dorm contracts are leases as far as the vast majority of "tenant/landlord" law is concerned. They're specifically mentioned in most laws on the subject, actually.
They can enter your dorm room at any time
No, they can't. The police can thanks to the PATRIOT act, but Universities can't enter dorm rooms except via the exceptions that allow landlords to enter your apartment/dorm/home. Keep in mind that landlords can enter tenant's residences for quite a few reasons, and those same reasons are what allow the staff at dorms to enter as well.
And yes, they can ban all kinds of FCC allowed devices if they want to, just like I can do the same if you visit my house.
I don't have a legal right to be in your house. If I did, you would not be able to ban those devices. Students do have a legal right to be in their dorms.
It is for example perfectly OK for theater owners to make you check in all electronics devices at the door.
No, it's not. It is perfectly okay for them to restrict entrance to those who don't, however. There's a difference.
By the way, I also have that right to require these things when you're in my house.
Actually, no, you don't.
You have the right to ask me to leave, sure. But there's a difference. You do not have the authority to tell me to stop using any unlicensed portion of the spectrum. Only the FCC does.
How is this different? You can't call a police officer and force me to stop using an unlicensed portion of the spectrum. But you COULD have the police officer remove me from your house. Note the difference.
The only authority anyone has in this country is that which is backed up by law. Since the students have signed a legal agreement to be allowed to live in that location, they have a legal right to be there.
People here are saying "well, sure they can say that!" That's ludicrous. Ask the question - what is the University going to do if they don't agree? The police can't stop the students from doing it. They can't fine them. They can't kick them out of the apartments. Maybe they could expel them, but given the fact that it's something that's occuring within someone's living space that has nothing to do with the University, I'm pretty sure that the student (while expelled) would be able to sue the University for a whole lot of money.
I was referring to contractual restrictions that are not explicitly prohibited by existing legislation.
Which is what we're talking about here.
You can't ban people from using wireless AP's, nor satellite dishes - if you read the memo linked in the article, it's quite clear about that. All of that is quite clearly covered in current legislation.
With regard to satellite dishes, they actually quite clearly state what is a reasonable restriction, and what is not. It's not your whim. It's codified very well.
I can tell you if you think that law gives you the right to throw a crazy party in your apartment, you will be sadly mistaken.
Actually, you would be. So long as you satisfy your obligations as a tenant from the rest of the article (which means in the context of the situation 'don't destroy the property') and you're not doing anything illegal (disturbing the peace), I can have 50 guests over if I want.
End up in housing court anywhere in the country and you will be blacklisted from renting an apartment forever.
Which is why if I would ever go to housing court, I'd make sure I'm suing for enough money that I'd buy my next place to live. Thankfully the very existence of a blacklist (or even of general practice of people checking housing court lists) would be enough to claim special damages for even having to go to housing court.
Given the fact that most moving costs from companies are usually in the thousands of dollars, I think it'd cover it.
I also take great pleasure in the aforementioned blacklisting.
I'm sure your opponents in court take greater pleasure in taking your money. It is quite sick that you take pleasure in exacting revenge for people who are asserting their rights under the law.
Yes, I actually own property and I put all sorts of restrictions on my tenants that would piss a character like you off to no end.
Can't wait till you get sent to court!
Fine, name one (that does not involve the FCC).
Restriction of guests, at least for a Pennsylvania landlord.
In my parents neighborhood, you can't have a ham radio antenna or a satellite dish visible - these things are regulated by the FCC, yet the neighborhood association can limit their use, hmmm.
Your parents apparently have not read the relevant FCC memo, which specifically says that the neighborhood association is talking out its ass. (Unless they live in a historic neighborhood) It might as well specifically give the example you're talking about!
To quote!
If in order to use the airwaves, your parents need to install a visible satellite dish, the neighborhood association can go shove it.
This makes sense. Everyone owns the airwaves, and therefore everyone has a right to access it. Limiting my right - for whatever reason - means that I am paying money for something - the FCC - for which I cannot reap the benefits.
You can contract away all kinds of freedoms
Hell no! Many rights and freedoms guaranteed by law cannot be contracted away! You can't sell yourself into slavery, for instance - the contract is void and unenforcable. Likewise a lease that says that my security deposit is non-refundable in PA is also unenforcable (that clause only) - I can then take them to small claims court, the judge will laugh at the defense, and promptly order the money handed over. Most people think that most rights and freedoms can be contracted away, but of course they can't. Otherwise businesses would just start including those clauses in all of their contracts.
So wait.. If a pipebomb used 2.4GHz unlicensed, only the FCC has regulatory power over that pipebomb?
Only the FCC would have regulatory power over the pipebomb's use of 2.4GHz, and whether or not people are allowed to use the pipebomb to access and utilize the 2.4GHz band.
Obviously pipe bombs have other purposes, and the FCC doesn't have regulatory power over those uses.
The same argument can't be made for Wireless APs, and in any case, the university *is specifically attempting* to exert regulatory power over the ability of the Wireless APs to use the 2.4GHz band.
Example: Universities can't prevent you from having a candle in your room. They can only prevent you from having a *lit* candle, for safety reasons. Ditto for animals - only for safety/health reasons.
There's no such argument against owning a wireless AP, so the University can't prevent you from simply *having* a wireless AP, and they're not trying to. Just if you're *using* one. Therefore they're attempting to control the *use* of it to access the band, which is the FCC's domain.
Really. Can you excercise your "fundamental right" to have a cat in the dorm? Can you excercise your "fundamental right" to have a toaster oven? To burn candles?
Read the damned article.
There is no Federal Cat Administration that is the sole regulator of cat use in the US.
There is no Federal Toaster Oven Administration that is the sole regulator of toaster oven use in the US.
There is no Federal Candle Administration that is the sole regulator of candle use in the US.
There is the FCC, which is the sole regulator of spectrum use in the US. The University is attempting to usurp their authority, which they cannot do.
I doubt the FCC would accept that "loophole" - it erodes their authority. The university could simply progressively ban more and more things that use the 2.4GHz spectrum.
not ban having heat in your apartment
There is no federal law allowing everyone to use heat and saying that the Federal Heat Authority is the only organization allowed to regulate the use of the spectrum.
banning Wireless APs does not ban the use of the 2.4 range
It bans the use of the 2.4GHz range for Wireless APs - which is the same as regulating it. They could try banning antennas which broadcast at 2.4GHz as well, saying "we're not banning the use of the spectrum!" but I'd still say they're full of it.
And also!
Remember that you can use certain wireless cards as APs, using the "hostap" driver. The university can't ban wireless cards, obviously, as they need the students to be able to use them! And if it tries to say "You can't use the wireless cards as APs" that is clearly them attempting to regulate the unlicensed portion of the spectrum. They can't do this - they overstepped their authority.
Yah, yah, that was a typo.
Yah, you just need to know how to fix them. The problem is caused by the contacts corroding on the connector, coupled with the fact that there's nothing that "fixes" the insertion to a specific point, and the fact that the contacts themselves (being contact springs) wear over time and become less "springy" as they permanently deform.
:)
Just take the thing apart, use a lot of rubbing alcohol with a q-tip, and if you can, pry up the contacts to restore their original shape. Then it'll work just as good as new. If you can't fix the connector, you can also put alcohol on the cartridge connector, insert it, remove it, lather, rinse, repeat about 10 times or so. Then try to find an orientation that makes it work, and mark that orientation with a Sharpie on the inside of the NES. Takes five seconds. But fixing the original connector is best.
NES's are much more likely to survive long-term than the newer disc-based systems - no moving parts. I'd like to see emulation focus on Saturns, PlayStations, etc. rather than the NES. Those systems will die much faster.
(I'd also like to see someone take apart one of the battery-backed cartridges and write up instructions on how to replace the battery. Those'll die eventually too...)
If we reproduced by mitosis, we'd be effectively immortal, even better, we'd get up to 2^n chances to survive in the nth generation of offspring.
Um. No.
Identical twins reproduce by mitosis - once. The twins do not live the longer of their lifespans (nor do they get "two chances to live"). Their DNA does, but the longevity of their DNA is not the longevity of the organism.
but the offspring who you are making room for are arguably you.
Only in the twisted sci-fi worlds where a clone becomes you, with your memories, and everything else. In the real world, DNA does not define an organism. It doesn't even define how to build an organism. To paraphrase Alpha Centauri, "What we can do with genes is chemistry, because genes code for chemicals."
Sexual reproduction doesn't help nor hinder the longevity of an organism. It does reduce the genetic diversity of a population, making the population less responsive to changes. Hence the reason that sexual reproduction evolved at all.
and with 1 gibibyte of RAM non uncommon these days, why not save the original somewhere in upper memory? if the flash fails, copy it back just like you copied it back from the floppy.
You *should* have a copy of the original BIOS somewhere, in case the BIOS flash works, but the BIOS itself has some issues and you need to restore it.
Many motherboard manufacturers have the original BIOSes posted somewhere, but would you *really* want to find out later that the original BIOS you *thought* you had wasn't the original?
Don't forget that most commonwealth countries derive from the British democracy
Hence the reason that I said "one of", and not "the oldest". As far as I can tell, Britain is the oldest, but I don't understand the vagaries of the British government to know if you can really call the government the "same" all the way back to the Magna Carta.
I'd wager there's a lot of democracies with older roots than America's if you look at it in that context...
Just Britain, as far as I can tell. Both Canada (~1867) and Australia (~1901) are far newer. The question isn't where case law derives from (which simply describes how the courts should function), but when the documents that describe the functionings of the government itself were written. The first act of the government could be to instate all of the laws that a previous government enacted, but it would still be a new government if the Constitution (or something equivalent) were different.
With Britain, it's tough to tell, as it's uncodified. For an uncodified government, though, you could still say "From this date forward, the government has only changed through actions of the government itself, rather than by violent upheavals." I don't know enough about British history to give a rough guess as to a date where you would say "roughly, the government's been unchanged by violent upheaval since here", though. It's longer than the US, sure (though only if you ignore adding and losing land - losing southern Ireland didn't change the way that Parliament worked).
The only problem in America is that too many people can veto stuff. The president can veto congress and vv, and the senate can veto both... A whole lotta nothing going on if you ask me. That explains the sorry state of health care in America.
(Congress is the Senate plus the House. The only difference between the Senate and the House is what law they work with, and typically they both have to agree nowadays anyway. Your comment suggests that the Senate is different from Congress.)
The President can veto Congress, yet Congress can override the veto in extreme cases. The President can suggest Supreme Court members, but Congress approves them. The Supreme Court interprets law, thus allowing them to override Congress, but Congress can make the fundamental law of the land (the Constitution) and override the Supreme Court, though that's an extreme extreme case.
It's called "checks and balances". It's not a problem - it's the design. The whole system was designed to be stable. It's not quite able to react quickly to changes - like the massively spiraling cost of health care - but it's more able to prevent gross abuses of fundamental principles (like hopefully eventually overriding the PATRIOT Act and other abuses - but the Supreme Court has struck down several other abuses, so you can't fault them entirely) due to the "whim of the moment."
Given that the US has one of the oldest stable governments in the world (i.e.: France is an old country, but a young government as it only dates from the early 1900s, China is an old country but a young government as it only dates from the 1900s, etc.) the system obviously works moderately well.
The argument "they are all crap" is horseshit. They all stand for different things, and you pick the one closest.
It's not a bad argument at all. It's sad that the system has degraded to picking the "lesser of two evils" at all. If you do think "they are all crap", then vote for yourself, by write-in.
That's better than not voting, and it's better than insulting the system by voting for someone you don't want. It's not about winning, or preventing someone from winning. It's about selecting the candidate that most people want.
You should vote in respect for the people throughout the world who die fighting for their right to vote. It's disrepesctful of those who've died for the right to vote to spoil your ballot.
Spoil your ballot? You mean by voting for someone you don't actually want to win? How is this different than the "pre-rigged" elections that the Soviet Union and Iraq had, except for the fact that there is a possible outcome of more than one person?
Representative democracy means you vote for someone who represents you. If you vote for someone who doesn't represent you, just because you don't want to vote for someone else, that destroys democracy, or worse: it makes it into a farce.
If you vote for Bush because you don't want to vote for Kerry, you're crazy. Look at the third party candidates, and vote for them. Or write yourself in. Same goes for Kerry.
I wish someone would poll people and find out how many people are voting for each respective candidate because they don't like the other one. That's what frightens me. We might as well not even have a democracy if those numbers are high, because you'll end up getting someone who people didn't actually want, just because TV/radio/newspapers/Internet/DNC/RNC selected two people.
We have had several mainboards here that can boot from USB disks of all sorts (including those "Keychain" USB devices). Machspeed, ECS, and AOpen to name the few that we use. I hardly doubt this is limited to these vendors.
Just because the mainboards can boot off of them doesn't mean that the operating system can. You can make a bootable floppy disk with "format" under Windows or DOS. That won't work for a USB drive - no USB drivers.
And unfortunately, many BIOS flashers are DOS-based. Many vendors are putting out "make USB chain bootable in DOS" utilities, but they're not that common yet. "format" is a little more common.
I'm definitely not saying that USB devices wouldn't be better. Floppies do have legacy support, though, and it will take a long while for anything else to overcome that. I'm sure that time is swiftly approaching, though.
So just take that "floppy boot disk" and burn it on a CD and you're golden.
You won't be able to write to the CD. So you can't save the current BIOS image before writing the new one.
If the flash fails, with a floppy (or any writable medium), you'd still be able to attempt to flash the original again (BIOSes are memory resident except at boot). If not, you're in a lot of trouble.
You could replace it with the following: a bootable CD that installs a ramdisk for temporary writing, and a copy of the original BIOS on the CD as well. This is still a little worrying, because...
what if the "original" you think you have is not the original, and the new flashed BIOS turns out to have some problems (but still allows you to boot)?
A bootable USB drive and a machine that can boot off of USB would be ideal, but most BIOS flashers are DOS based, and a bootable DOS USB disk is a difficult beast to generate.
Why? If it gets fried, it's not going to boot anyways.
A BIOS flasher saves the original first. This way if the flash fails, you can attempt again with the original. BIOS is read from flash on boot - after that, it's memory resident. If you misflash a BIOS, you're fine until you hit "reset".
You'd be a fool to flash a BIOS from a bootable CD-ROM.