The Australian Consumer and etc commission is actually an *independent* body, seperate from the Government (although funded by). It is set up to challenge actions *it* regards as damaging to competition. You have to realise that this body takes its job *very* seriously, and does actually have huge powers (defined by Australian law - so actually anyone could make this claim, but the ACCC just has the nouse to do it). If it decides that DVD zoning is harming competition, then it will use the courts to made it illigal in Aus. It should also be noted that it wasn't so long ago they broke the music industry's monoploly by allowing cheap asian imports. This could turn into a very good thing
This whole punishing people for breaking *secure* systems is very weird, misunderstood, and a little bit frightening. It really needs a bit more thought than the 100 odd posts to the thread, but I guess we need to talk about it.
I find it really disturbing that there is even the remotest possibility of someone recieving a criminal charge for by-passing what seems to be - from our perspective - a totally inadequate security system, especially when the intent was not malicious. It is very disturbing that when people - re: ludites - move into a system which was originally based around trusts and sharing, the only public way they can think to secure it is by "cracking down hard" on those scary hackers (who, lets face it, are seen to have "magical" abilities). Articles like this make me very afraid of an upcomming witch-hunt, in which hackers - even this kid - could be targets for persecution.
I don't know, i'm just rambling now. I'm pretty disturbed. Maybe I'll post again after i've thought about it a bit. Maybe some one else will be a bit more insightful.
This is pretty serious, you should treat it as such.
They didn't say that serial ata would be more expensive that scsi, they just suggested that it would be more expensive than ata100. But you're right in a way - how will they get it implemented on high end workstations when SCSI is so much better? Who will they aim the inital tech uptake at? It certainly won't get cheap enough if no-one takes it up. But it's looking like no-one will have a good enough reason to take it up if it can't compete with scsi and raid.
What's the deal with serial anyway? I thought parallel was better just on principle?
The Europa project sounds a good deal more exciting and useful. I'm not suprised that the Pluto trip might be cut - compared to checking out Io, Europa, other moon, manned missions to mars, orbital space defence platforms, and a moon base it's gotta be a long way down the list of priorities.
I can also think of a funny situation. We send a probe to Pluto. Earth gets hit by comet because we spent money on probe, not orbital defence platform. Probe transmits boring data on Pluto back to cockroaches on earth.
It's got to be talked about!
You're right about the mac and amiga menu's though. This is a really underestimated part of interface usability.
Anyway - I don't think this stuff a step in any direcrtion really - maybe sideways...hmmm.
Re:Sounds really intuitive, no no, really.
on
3D GUI Project
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· Score: 3
Although you can do alot of stuff quickly in the corners of the sceen - the simple fact of life is that most of the real work - the important stuff - happens in the middle. This is one this that seems to be ignored time and time again by interface designers. How to you do the work (in the certre of the screen) without having to move back and forth constantly to change tool, which is really painful.
What is really nice are context sensitive tools and menus. The best one i've seen in a while is in a cad program called Archicad. Dependeing on which bit of the model the pointer is over, you can access a pop up floating menu, giving access to tools to modify that particulr section. The menu will float around with the mouse movements while you need it, and when you don't it pops down again.Really simple - really powerful. We really need more creative/contextual tools. Not pretty pretty icons or concentrated tools in the corner of the screen.
Horray for amiga - or imagination not photoshop
on
3D GUI Project
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· Score: 1
Remember that Workbench had another level of navigation - you could run apps in full size on their own unique screen. You could flip between screens, and even have portions of 2 screens displayed at the same time in different resolutions. I found it really useful (for running Real3d and some script editors at the same time for example). I found the concept of the Windoze single sceen and one resolution thing really limiting at first. Maybe 3d GUI's could explore this kind of idea, layers of full screen modes, or something. For fucks sake - use imagination not Photoshop!
I like your old stuff better than your new stuff
on
3D GUI Project
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· Score: 3
Why?
Well I guess the answer is because he can, but what I really mean is why put all ths effort into an interface that, although looks 3d, is really just some pretty pictures pasted onto the same old buttons. All it does is add another level to the Mac v Windoze war ("but I can make better icons in windoze!" - "fuck that - i just boot up a c64 when I get the URGE to edit icons")
What about thinking about truely new interfaces that allow people to do/create totally new things? To think in different ways, create new and insightful ideas buy linking infomation in previous unthought of ways. That is what GUI design should be about. If you want to edit icons, stick with the c64.
For an example try a piece of software called Revamp. It runs ontop of Propellorhead's Rebirth. If you've got a winbox or a mac and some spare time and an liking of electronic music, give it a go.
www.revamp.org
Section 310, the bit about encyption, needs some thinking about. If you encypt data as a matter of habit, then you are probably going to be suspect under this section. There have been numerous recent cases of hackers brought before courts for, umm...let's say, suspect reasons (see 2600.org). If goverments are going to attempt to prosecute on as little eveidence as some of these exapmles, 310 will be a massive boost to their ammunition. What this could possibly amount to is any data you encrypt being used against you as evidence. Or to put it another way, "you'd better decrypt that data for us sonny, or we're going to roast your butt in court." (why else would you want to encryt stuff but to do illigal things, hey?)
Don't be so simple to think it won't happen.
isn't strange that they obviously spent time getting exciting about the spikes before they realised that their gear was broken? Makes me think of all those people who flood police switch boards with UFO reports after seeing the local nightclub's lights shinning in the sky.
Why don't people assume *mundane* possibilities first? (This is a question for you headfreakphycology people out there - i'd really like to know.)
This is not an uncommon technology. I don't know the specifics off the top of my head, but maybe about 15 years ago some bright spark phd students were plugging electodes onto peoples heads to race slot cars. The idea was that the 'rodes (not anything really hifi - just your average suction cap-wire jobby) would pickup changes in brainwaves (i.e. electrical current). These would be run through an amplifier and fed into the power socket of some slot cars. If you relaxed real hard you could power your car to beat the other guy's.
I think the idea was supposed to be some sort of metal training, but it was pretty obvious that all these guys wanted to do was race slot cars. More effort was put into track design than measuring results. Amen to that.
Anyone remember the old Amiga game Moria? Ancient now - and considering it was amiga - real crappy graphics (mind you the PC port was ascii based).
And whatever anyone else tells you, this was the most addictive game of all time. It was so good that when I only recently played Diablo for the first time I was pissed off - because D is a direct rip of Moria, and they'd killed it with some crappy game play, slick sound/graphics and 3d view! Moria might have been lofi, but the amount of terror that a tiny block of 20-odd pixels can instill in a person has to be experienced. Mind you, the one thing everyone was longing for in Moria was multiplayer support, so there you go. Diablo was certainly not ground-breaking, etc, etc, etc. Moria was the instigator of countless high-school relationship problems.
Some dinosaur out there will probably remember the name of the original unix version of Moria. Just letting all you kiddies know that there was life before 386-era humans. And gameplay:)
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The Australian Consumer and etc commission is actually an *independent* body, seperate from the Government (although funded by). It is set up to challenge actions *it* regards as damaging to competition. You have to realise that this body takes its job *very* seriously, and does actually have huge powers (defined by Australian law - so actually anyone could make this claim, but the ACCC just has the nouse to do it). If it decides that DVD zoning is harming competition, then it will use the courts to made it illigal in Aus. It should also be noted that it wasn't so long ago they broke the music industry's monoploly by allowing cheap asian imports. This could turn into a very good thing
This whole punishing people for breaking *secure* systems is very weird, misunderstood, and a little bit frightening. It really needs a bit more thought than the 100 odd posts to the thread, but I guess we need to talk about it. I find it really disturbing that there is even the remotest possibility of someone recieving a criminal charge for by-passing what seems to be - from our perspective - a totally inadequate security system, especially when the intent was not malicious. It is very disturbing that when people - re: ludites - move into a system which was originally based around trusts and sharing, the only public way they can think to secure it is by "cracking down hard" on those scary hackers (who, lets face it, are seen to have "magical" abilities). Articles like this make me very afraid of an upcomming witch-hunt, in which hackers - even this kid - could be targets for persecution. I don't know, i'm just rambling now. I'm pretty disturbed. Maybe I'll post again after i've thought about it a bit. Maybe some one else will be a bit more insightful. This is pretty serious, you should treat it as such.
They didn't say that serial ata would be more expensive that scsi, they just suggested that it would be more expensive than ata100. But you're right in a way - how will they get it implemented on high end workstations when SCSI is so much better? Who will they aim the inital tech uptake at? It certainly won't get cheap enough if no-one takes it up. But it's looking like no-one will have a good enough reason to take it up if it can't compete with scsi and raid. What's the deal with serial anyway? I thought parallel was better just on principle?
The Europa project sounds a good deal more exciting and useful. I'm not suprised that the Pluto trip might be cut - compared to checking out Io, Europa, other moon, manned missions to mars, orbital space defence platforms, and a moon base it's gotta be a long way down the list of priorities. I can also think of a funny situation. We send a probe to Pluto. Earth gets hit by comet because we spent money on probe, not orbital defence platform. Probe transmits boring data on Pluto back to cockroaches on earth.
It's got to be talked about! You're right about the mac and amiga menu's though. This is a really underestimated part of interface usability. Anyway - I don't think this stuff a step in any direcrtion really - maybe sideways...hmmm.
Although you can do alot of stuff quickly in the corners of the sceen - the simple fact of life is that most of the real work - the important stuff - happens in the middle. This is one this that seems to be ignored time and time again by interface designers. How to you do the work (in the certre of the screen) without having to move back and forth constantly to change tool, which is really painful. What is really nice are context sensitive tools and menus. The best one i've seen in a while is in a cad program called Archicad. Dependeing on which bit of the model the pointer is over, you can access a pop up floating menu, giving access to tools to modify that particulr section. The menu will float around with the mouse movements while you need it, and when you don't it pops down again.Really simple - really powerful. We really need more creative/contextual tools. Not pretty pretty icons or concentrated tools in the corner of the screen.
Remember that Workbench had another level of navigation - you could run apps in full size on their own unique screen. You could flip between screens, and even have portions of 2 screens displayed at the same time in different resolutions. I found it really useful (for running Real3d and some script editors at the same time for example). I found the concept of the Windoze single sceen and one resolution thing really limiting at first. Maybe 3d GUI's could explore this kind of idea, layers of full screen modes, or something. For fucks sake - use imagination not Photoshop!
Why? Well I guess the answer is because he can, but what I really mean is why put all ths effort into an interface that, although looks 3d, is really just some pretty pictures pasted onto the same old buttons. All it does is add another level to the Mac v Windoze war ("but I can make better icons in windoze!" - "fuck that - i just boot up a c64 when I get the URGE to edit icons") What about thinking about truely new interfaces that allow people to do/create totally new things? To think in different ways, create new and insightful ideas buy linking infomation in previous unthought of ways. That is what GUI design should be about. If you want to edit icons, stick with the c64. For an example try a piece of software called Revamp. It runs ontop of Propellorhead's Rebirth. If you've got a winbox or a mac and some spare time and an liking of electronic music, give it a go. www.revamp.org
Section 310, the bit about encyption, needs some thinking about. If you encypt data as a matter of habit, then you are probably going to be suspect under this section. There have been numerous recent cases of hackers brought before courts for, umm...let's say, suspect reasons (see 2600.org). If goverments are going to attempt to prosecute on as little eveidence as some of these exapmles, 310 will be a massive boost to their ammunition. What this could possibly amount to is any data you encrypt being used against you as evidence. Or to put it another way, "you'd better decrypt that data for us sonny, or we're going to roast your butt in court." (why else would you want to encryt stuff but to do illigal things, hey?) Don't be so simple to think it won't happen.
isn't strange that they obviously spent time getting exciting about the spikes before they realised that their gear was broken? Makes me think of all those people who flood police switch boards with UFO reports after seeing the local nightclub's lights shinning in the sky. Why don't people assume *mundane* possibilities first? (This is a question for you headfreakphycology people out there - i'd really like to know.)
This is not an uncommon technology. I don't know the specifics off the top of my head, but maybe about 15 years ago some bright spark phd students were plugging electodes onto peoples heads to race slot cars. The idea was that the 'rodes (not anything really hifi - just your average suction cap-wire jobby) would pickup changes in brainwaves (i.e. electrical current). These would be run through an amplifier and fed into the power socket of some slot cars. If you relaxed real hard you could power your car to beat the other guy's. I think the idea was supposed to be some sort of metal training, but it was pretty obvious that all these guys wanted to do was race slot cars. More effort was put into track design than measuring results. Amen to that.
Anyone remember the old Amiga game Moria? Ancient now - and considering it was amiga - real crappy graphics (mind you the PC port was ascii based). And whatever anyone else tells you, this was the most addictive game of all time. It was so good that when I only recently played Diablo for the first time I was pissed off - because D is a direct rip of Moria, and they'd killed it with some crappy game play, slick sound/graphics and 3d view! Moria might have been lofi, but the amount of terror that a tiny block of 20-odd pixels can instill in a person has to be experienced. Mind you, the one thing everyone was longing for in Moria was multiplayer support, so there you go. Diablo was certainly not ground-breaking, etc, etc, etc. Moria was the instigator of countless high-school relationship problems. Some dinosaur out there will probably remember the name of the original unix version of Moria. Just letting all you kiddies know that there was life before 386-era humans. And gameplay :)