The most obvious ending for this is a military attack on Sealand. Egregious copyright violation like this will invite lots of pressure, up to the point where the right government officials are brought on board, money and power change hands, and eventually, a RAF Harrier drops a laser-guided bomb on the server room. The press, of course, trumpet it as a coordinated offensive against an international child pornography ring or something. (It's not like anyone will sort through the debris and prove otherwise.) Only the conspiracy nuts will say otherwise, and they're usually barking about reptilian aliens in the Royal Family and black helicopters and such, so the truth will be buried under crackpot ravings.
It is said that who has the money sets the stsndards. Chances are such a key would also contain a mandatory digital signature/ID (issued by Verisign, and as hard to fake as a passport (not to mention illegal to have more than one of)), eyeball-tracking cookies and software/media keys. It would become a universal ID card/software dongle.
That's what those business-card-sized CD-Rs are for. Burn one with a copy of Putty, a Zip extractor and a few other essentials and carry it in your wallet.
<ASIDE>I wonder what proportion of Internet kiosks/cafes let you insert and access arbitrary CDs. It would be handy for securely checking your mail when on the road.</ASIDE>
Have you ever tried cooperating with the computer players? The AI in CivCTP can be described as a "belligerent idiot". Unless you play at the top level (or are spectacularly inept), you are going to be more powerful than the computer players, and they are not going to agree to cooperate with you, regardless of how much generosity and magnanimity you show. After a while they go hostile, start pirating your trade routes, menacing your cities. The only choice you have is of expending resources on defending against the moronic barbarians at the gates or of building up armies and wiping the floor with the computer players.
Were Kubrick alive and making it, I would look forward to it. Spielberg, however, does not have the talent that Kubrick had in his little finger.
The signs already are bad: Spielberg got one of his favourite cute, towheaded child actors to play the lead, no doubt tugging the heart-strings of the audience in the syrupy, shallowly emotive style that is Spielberg's trademark.
Spielberg is a master of marketing and mass entertainment, but he is not an artist. His films are throwaway schlock. Even his "serious" films, like Saving Private Ryan and Amistad, don't say anything challenging or thought-provoking, but just mouth simplistic platitudes.
There is no way that AI will be even one tenth of the film Kubrick had in mind. Chances are it will be as banal and dumbed-down as the rest of Spielberg's output.
Ask some people off the street who invented the automobile, and most of them will tell you it was Henry Ford. It's easier to remember this (false) factoid than to remember more obscure names and histories, which is why the Ford-invented-the-automobile meme is a fitter replicator than alternative memes representing accounts closer to reality.
By this principle, it's not unreasonable that in 50-100 years' time, most people will believe that Bill Gates invented the Internet (or whatever it's called then).
Old synths, however desirable or simple to make, tend not to come back. Take the Roland TB-303 for example (that's the squelchy acid bass-line synth/sequencer). It's made of transistors and possibly small-denomination ICs (nothing that would involve hard-to-find chips), yet is in short supply. Original units cost thousands from collectors, and nobody has made a 303 clone. (The rack-mounted MIDI bass synths don't count, as they don't have the tweakable step-sequencer interface, which makes the TB-303. A black box with a MIDI port that makes 303 sounds is not a 303.)
You'd think there'd be a market for it, with at least some entrepreneurs building 303s from the original schematics, if not someone devising a 303-on-a-chip that allows mobile phones with acid-squelchy ring tones and plastic My First 303 toys for ravers' kids; but no. (And ReBirth doesn't count, as it's software.)
In theory that makes sense; though in practice, there are areas where a collective effort is much more efficient than the sum of disparate individual efforts. For example, providing a collectively-funded police force and army make much more sense than letting everyone be totally responsible for their own defence. In similar terms, spending relatively small amounts of common money on alleviating grievious social problems can reduce the total costs (including flow-on costs from crime, health issues and so on) by many times the expenditure.
Your typical junky would not have the money to pay for their own detoxification program; if they did, they would probably spend it on drugs. If they happen to be wealthy, and can afford to maintain a habit without harming anyone else, by all means let them. If, however, they are turning to crime to finance their addiction, it makes sense for those potentially affected to finance their detoxification.
That's the problem with simple, clear, absolutist ideologies, like Libertarianism; they tend to simplify things more than they should be. To paraphrase Einstein, solutions should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.
(Having said that, I must say I agree with libertarian views on many issues. I still think, though, that Ayn Rand is only one notch or so above L. Ron Hubbard in the credibility stakes.)
If Canada legalised drugs...
on
"Traffic"
·
· Score: 2
The US would use all necessary means to overturn any such law. This would include political and economic pressure (which could include boycotts, pressure on other countries to not do business with Canada or even a naval blockade of ports), or covert action to overthrow the Canadian government and replace it with one that toes the line. (CIA-backed coups don't just happen in Latin America; there was a documented CIA hand in the dismissal of Australia's leftist Whitlam government in 1975. If that can happen in an English-speaking country half a world away, think of what could do if a country that shares large stretches of border with the US betrays its cause in the One True War Against Evil.)
"Standard Gauge" in Australia is about 4ft8 (presumably that's the British standard which may or may not date back to Roman chariot axle widths), though Victoria uses 5ft3 or so.
Just take a good book or two (or a laptop and the latest Linux kernel sources, if you prefer). Though looking out the window and beholding the changing landscape can be interesting in itself.
(I took a train from Melbourne to Sydney (about 11 hours) recently, and found myself doing rather little reading, and a lot of looking out the window.)
I once heard a speech from a (now retired) academic who worked with CSIRAC. He said that the CSIRAC project was scrapped in 1964 because the British Foreign Office had a word with the authorities in Australia and sternly reminded them that Australia had no business doing research not related to mining or agriculture, and such projects belonged in the UK.
not much of a touristy idea tho (unless you like the coal trains of west virginia
I don't know about that; sure, the interior of the tunnel will be rather boring to look at, but put some tourists in comfortable carriages and it makes for quite a trip.. board a train in the US or Canada, and take a ride on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
According to the Academie Francaise and the various defenders of the French language, it is "Le Shuttle", a politic compromise. The press and public generally contract "Channel tunnel" to "Chunnel".
The French don't like "Chunnel" because they call the body of water la Manche, and not the English Channel.
I've heard of Zephyr, though never used it myself. The multiple-namespaces concept seemed pretty doovy.
An IM system I 'grew up' with (it has been around
since 1992 or so, possibly earlier) is goofey. UNIX command-line client (I think it was developed on ULTRIX originally), central server, unique user names, stored messages. No peer-to-peer file transfer capabilities, but it does have a large fortune database and a Jargon File lookup utility...
It was mostly used by people at or from Monash University, though there are users across the Net.
The cartel is international; it includes companies such as Sony (remember their hastily-retracted statement about how they will block file sharing at your telco/ISP/in your PC? Well, I'd bet that Sony's engineers have contributed to the copy-protected hard disk standard, or other things still under wraps). The elegant (from their POV) thing about this proposal is that it is independent of US laws, and can be imposed anywhere where PCs are in use.
Re:The point is, the Register wants to get us exci
on
Copy Protection Galore
·
· Score: 2
The way I understand it, the new-ATAPI hard drives will not be compatible with old-ATAPI drives. You will actually need an "trusted client" OS which has support for the encryption built in (i.e., licensed). And that excludes open-source OSes.
One day someone will tip the authorities off, the police will show up at your door with a warrant, and next thing you know, you're Bubba's new playmate.
The RIAA/MPAA would be hard pressed to argue that an entire operating system is a circumvention device. That would be political suicide for them because they would lose any popular support they have.
...from the penguinhead geeks who already have a rather low opinion of them, and make up 0.1% of the population. The general public, knowing that the PC2002 or whatever spec, along with the latest and greatest version of Windows, turns their computer into a kick-arse entertainment system, won't see the problem with that.
Though outlawing Linux is unlikely to be upheld; we could perhaps see the GPL overruled and binary-only "trusted Linux" becoming the standard, with source code to be available only to certified security professionals.
Future versions of Windows will only accept drivers which are cryptographically signed, in order to placate the MPAA/RIAA. This is already in the pipeline (if not in WinME) for audio device drivers, to ensure that drivers refuse to write protected content to a file when playing it.
This is another reason why there will never be legal software DVD/LiquidAudio/WindowsMedia for Linux; until somebody writes an API for letting a binary-only user process take over part of the kernel to ensure its integrity. After all, the basic assumption of copy protection is that the customer is a potential thief.
Welcome to the 21st century; your next computer will be less capable than your old one.
A few years ago, I heard that C-64s were still in production for sale in either Mexico or China, where PCs were too expensive for the general public. Not sure whether that's the case now, with the abundancy of cheap Pentioid PCs.
Slashdot Mirror
Or, in the reported words of Saddam Hussein, all your PS2 are belong to us.
The most obvious ending for this is a military attack on Sealand. Egregious copyright violation like this will invite lots of pressure, up to the point where the right government officials are brought on board, money and power change hands, and eventually, a RAF Harrier drops a laser-guided bomb on the server room. The press, of course, trumpet it as a coordinated offensive against an international child pornography ring or something. (It's not like anyone will sort through the debris and prove otherwise.) Only the conspiracy nuts will say otherwise, and they're usually barking about reptilian aliens in the Royal Family and black helicopters and such, so the truth will be buried under crackpot ravings.
Possession of "contravention devices" such as DeCSS is a felony in the U.S., under the DMCA.
It is said that who has the money sets the stsndards. Chances are such a key would also contain a mandatory digital signature/ID (issued by Verisign, and as hard to fake as a passport (not to mention illegal to have more than one of)), eyeball-tracking cookies and software/media keys. It would become a universal ID card/software dongle.
Chances are your USB ports are uselessly located around the back of your machine anyway.
If you have one in the front of your case, it's probably not soldered to the board, and may be replaceable.
That's what those business-card-sized CD-Rs are for. Burn one with a copy of Putty, a Zip extractor and a few other essentials and carry it in your wallet.
<ASIDE>I wonder what proportion of Internet kiosks/cafes let you insert and access arbitrary CDs. It would be handy for securely checking your mail when on the road.</ASIDE>
Have you ever tried cooperating with the computer players? The AI in CivCTP can be described as a "belligerent idiot". Unless you play at the top level (or are spectacularly inept), you are going to be more powerful than the computer players, and they are not going to agree to cooperate with you, regardless of how much generosity and magnanimity you show. After a while they go hostile, start pirating your trade routes, menacing your cities. The only choice you have is of expending resources on defending against the moronic barbarians at the gates or of building up armies and wiping the floor with the computer players.
Were Kubrick alive and making it, I would look forward to it. Spielberg, however, does not have the talent that Kubrick had in his little finger.
The signs already are bad: Spielberg got one of his favourite cute, towheaded child actors to play the lead, no doubt tugging the heart-strings of the audience in the syrupy, shallowly emotive style that is Spielberg's trademark.
Spielberg is a master of marketing and mass entertainment, but he is not an artist. His films are throwaway schlock. Even his "serious" films, like Saving Private Ryan and Amistad, don't say anything challenging or thought-provoking, but just mouth simplistic platitudes.
There is no way that AI will be even one tenth of the film Kubrick had in mind. Chances are it will be as banal and dumbed-down as the rest of Spielberg's output.
Ask some people off the street who invented the automobile, and most of them will tell you it was Henry Ford. It's easier to remember this (false) factoid than to remember more obscure names and histories, which is why the Ford-invented-the-automobile meme is a fitter replicator than alternative memes representing accounts closer to reality.
By this principle, it's not unreasonable that in 50-100 years' time, most people will believe that Bill Gates invented the Internet (or whatever it's called then).
Old synths, however desirable or simple to make, tend not to come back. Take the Roland TB-303 for example (that's the squelchy acid bass-line synth/sequencer). It's made of transistors and possibly small-denomination ICs (nothing that would involve hard-to-find chips), yet is in short supply. Original units cost thousands from collectors, and nobody has made a 303 clone. (The rack-mounted MIDI bass synths don't count, as they don't have the tweakable step-sequencer interface, which makes the TB-303. A black box with a MIDI port that makes 303 sounds is not a 303.)
You'd think there'd be a market for it, with at least some entrepreneurs building 303s from the original schematics, if not someone devising a 303-on-a-chip that allows mobile phones with acid-squelchy ring tones and plastic My First 303 toys for ravers' kids; but no. (And ReBirth doesn't count, as it's software.)
In theory that makes sense; though in practice, there are areas where a collective effort is much more efficient than the sum of disparate individual efforts. For example, providing a collectively-funded police force and army make much more sense than letting everyone be totally responsible for their own defence. In similar terms, spending relatively small amounts of common money on alleviating grievious social problems can reduce the total costs (including flow-on costs from crime, health issues and so on) by many times the expenditure.
Your typical junky would not have the money to pay for their own detoxification program; if they did, they would probably spend it on drugs. If they happen to be wealthy, and can afford to maintain a habit without harming anyone else, by all means let them. If, however, they are turning to crime to finance their addiction, it makes sense for those potentially affected to finance their detoxification.
That's the problem with simple, clear, absolutist ideologies, like Libertarianism; they tend to simplify things more than they should be. To paraphrase Einstein, solutions should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.
(Having said that, I must say I agree with libertarian views on many issues. I still think, though, that Ayn Rand is only one notch or so above L. Ron Hubbard in the credibility stakes.)
The US would use all necessary means to overturn any such law. This would include political and economic pressure (which could include boycotts, pressure on other countries to not do business with Canada or even a naval blockade of ports), or covert action to overthrow the Canadian government and replace it with one that toes the line. (CIA-backed coups don't just happen in Latin America; there was a documented CIA hand in the dismissal of Australia's leftist Whitlam government in 1975. If that can happen in an English-speaking country half a world away, think of what could do if a country that shares large stretches of border with the US betrays its cause in the One True War Against Evil.)
"Standard Gauge" in Australia is about 4ft8 (presumably that's the British standard which may or may not date back to Roman chariot axle widths), though Victoria uses 5ft3 or so.
(This is just from memory, so it may be wrong.)
Just take a good book or two (or a laptop and the latest Linux kernel sources, if you prefer). Though looking out the window and beholding the changing landscape can be interesting in itself.
(I took a train from Melbourne to Sydney (about 11 hours) recently, and found myself doing rather little reading, and a lot of looking out the window.)
I once heard a speech from a (now retired) academic who worked with CSIRAC. He said that the CSIRAC project was scrapped in 1964 because the British Foreign Office had a word with the authorities in Australia and sternly reminded them that Australia had no business doing research not related to mining or agriculture, and such projects belonged in the UK.
not much of a touristy idea tho (unless you like the coal trains of west virginia
I don't know about that; sure, the interior of the tunnel will be rather boring to look at, but put some tourists in comfortable carriages and it makes for quite a trip.. board a train in the US or Canada, and take a ride on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
According to the Academie Francaise and the various defenders of the French language, it is "Le Shuttle", a politic compromise. The press and public generally contract "Channel tunnel" to "Chunnel".
The French don't like "Chunnel" because they call the body of water la Manche, and not the English Channel.
Incidentally, did anything ever come of
RFC1312, a distributed instant-messaging standard that used a simple user@host mechanism?
I've heard of Zephyr, though never used it myself. The multiple-namespaces concept seemed pretty doovy.
An IM system I 'grew up' with (it has been around
since 1992 or so, possibly earlier) is
goofey. UNIX command-line client (I think it was developed on ULTRIX originally), central server, unique user names, stored messages. No peer-to-peer file transfer capabilities, but it does have a large fortune database and a Jargon File lookup utility...
It was mostly used by people at or from Monash University, though there are users across the Net.
The cartel is international; it includes companies such as Sony (remember their hastily-retracted statement about how they will block file sharing at your telco/ISP/in your PC? Well, I'd bet that Sony's engineers have contributed to the copy-protected hard disk standard, or other things still under wraps). The elegant (from their POV) thing about this proposal is that it is independent of US laws, and can be imposed anywhere where PCs are in use.
The way I understand it, the new-ATAPI hard drives will not be compatible with old-ATAPI drives. You will actually need an "trusted client" OS which has support for the encryption built in (i.e., licensed). And that excludes open-source OSes.
One day someone will tip the authorities off, the police will show up at your door with a warrant, and next thing you know, you're Bubba's new playmate.
Welcome to the Digital Millennium.
The RIAA/MPAA would be hard pressed to argue that an entire operating system is a circumvention device. That would be political suicide for them because they would lose any popular support they have.
...from the penguinhead geeks who already have a rather low opinion of them, and make up 0.1% of the population. The general public, knowing that the PC2002 or whatever spec, along with the latest and greatest version of Windows, turns their computer into a kick-arse entertainment system, won't see the problem with that.
Though outlawing Linux is unlikely to be upheld; we could perhaps see the GPL overruled and binary-only "trusted Linux" becoming the standard, with source code to be available only to certified security professionals.
Future versions of Windows will only accept drivers which are cryptographically signed, in order to placate the MPAA/RIAA. This is already in the pipeline (if not in WinME) for audio device drivers, to ensure that drivers refuse to write protected content to a file when playing it.
This is another reason why there will never be legal software DVD/LiquidAudio/WindowsMedia for Linux; until somebody writes an API for letting a binary-only user process take over part of the kernel to ensure its integrity. After all, the basic assumption of copy protection is that the customer is a potential thief.
Welcome to the 21st century; your next computer will be less capable than your old one.
A few years ago, I heard that C-64s were still in production for sale in either Mexico or China, where PCs were too expensive for the general public. Not sure whether that's the case now, with the abundancy of cheap Pentioid PCs.