Distribution of DeCSS is a criminal offense in the US, or so Judge Elfving has ruled. Not sure about possession, though those willing to prosecute have a lot of money to spend on crucifying anyone who gets in their path; These days, it wouldn't surprise me if they introduced civil forfeiture on suspicion of possession, just like in drug cases.
Spielberg is a great marketing man; he knows intimately the archetypes of the 20th-century American collective unconscious, and how to exploit them to move the masses. Nobody else can quite put bums on seats the way Spielberg can.
However, that is not what makes a great director in my opinion. Knowing how to make up the numbers, to sell to the majority, does not make art. Spielberg's stories tend to be facile and simplistic; rather than making people think (and alienating those who prefer not to), he moves them with sentiment and emotion down a broad path. Whether it's the wisdom of children or the evil of the Nazis, his treatments aren't something you can find much in to inspire thought or ask questions. Spielberg's films are reassuring, never challenging.
I already have an idea of his version of AI: spectacular special effects, heartwarming sentiment and Tom Hanks or Robin Williams in a starring role, over a simple-minded, unambiguous plot.
In Windows, the kernel is controlled by Microsoft, a company sympathetic to the IP lords' interests. It is conceivable that, if requested, they could add an API call to guarantee that output is not redirected, or return a false value if not possible. Players could then call this and refuse to work if integrity cannot be guaranteed.
Of course, this is impossible under Linux, as an Evil Pirate could just rewrite the function to say that everything's OK no matter what.
Then there is reverse engineering. Under Linux it's easier to debug binaries; under Windows it's possible to make binaries impossible to reverse engineer without an ICE debugger (which are expensive and, a few court cases from now, may require locksmith-type licenses to possess under the DMCA, but that's another story).
The question is will the codec be ported to Linux? Windows Media is touted as a copyright-enforcement technology as well as a format. Many proprietors of copyright-enforcing closed formats refuse to release software decoders for platforms with open-source kernels, as it is possible to modify the kernel to capture audio to a file (in a way that the player cannot reasonably defend against). For example, Liquid Audio does not support Linux, and neither do any software DVD decoders (well, any aboveground ones). If MS allows a Linux port of its technology, it could face content companies withdrawing licenses to release their content in its format, in favour of more restricted players. Remember, these companies are paranoid and scared, and not exactly the most trusting of the Net. (I believe Universal, for one, has its own format under development, and Sony is doing something with ATRAC and its own copyright-enforcement mechanisms; and that alone is almost half the music market.)
In the future I'd be more concerned with the EU when they finally get their act together.
Which, given the differences between Eurostates the EU's culture of glacial bureaucracy, and the culture of huge, inefficient socialist institutions predominant on the continent. will probably be when Hell freezes over.
Maybe if the US didn't throw its weight around quite so much, there would be fewer groups with grudges against it, and it would have less to worry about in the way of terrorism.
If there's one IDE connector, and there is a memory device on it (as the master, presumably), would there be anything preventing one from rigging up a cable and attaching a hard disk as a slave device?
If you don't care about Linux, and you don't know what XFree86 is, then what kind of nerd are you supposed to be? Tell us WHAT YOU would want to see on Slashdot.
I also believe that posessing cryptographic software is a criminal offense in some countries. Is China one of them?
China recently enacted a law requiring users of cryptography to register with a government office. The office itself was a small one in a back alley in Beijing, and it is doubtful whether they'd be able to handle millions of registrations (especially over the few days amnesty they gave).
It's more likely that this law is to give the police something else to arrest people for: unregistered use of cryptography. The Chinese government loves such open-ended, selectively enforceable laws. (Take for example the crime of revealing "state secrets", which could be anything, including the weather in Beijing or what's on TV.)
I don't get what market the X-Box is going for. Nintendo and Sega pretty much exist thanks to their in-house development teams, and Sony has done well because it has been able to court 3rd parties very effectively (particularly that little company called Squaresoft). It seems that the X-Box's primary games will be ports, either from other consoles or from a PC.
Sony also owns Psygnosis (formerly an Amiga game developer). Psygnosis have been instrumental in making the PSX into a viable platform, by providing a steady flow of games early on and not supporting rivals.
If MS go through with this, expect them to buy out some game developers to support it; perhaps Electronic Arts or Infogrames or GT Interactive will fall to MS and cease supporting non-MS platforms.
Yes, but the PSX2 CPU is a customised high-performance CPU of RISC (or was it VLIW?) architecture, and not burdened by x86 legacy crud. Putting in a top-heavy Intel-clone CPU, one whose overly complex internal architecture and baroque instruction format bear witness to layers of backward compatibility going all the way back to the 8086, will be another matter.
There is a reason why non-Intel chips (Alpha, ARM, PowerPC) get superior performance at lower clock speeds (usually whilst using a lot less power as well); it's because they don't spend large amounts of time and energy dealing with the requirements of Intel compatibility.
The obvious solution would be to use WINE in toolkit mode. Not sure how native it looks under Linux (i.e., whether it complies fully with the ICCCM, handles WM hints, and plays nice with KDE/GNOME where appropriate), but since it's open-source, Borland could merge VCL with it, and build from there.
Given that Corel have done a lot of work with WINE, and have now merged with Borland, that seems like quite a sensible solution.
The best Australian beer I've tried is probably Boag's. It's a small Tasmanian brewery, costs a bit more than the mass-market swill, though has more flavour.
I'm no expert on beer, mind you; though I won't buy the regular stuff these days.
From what I've heard, London has metamorphosed into a sort of Cool Britannia theme park, a themed city owned and operated by multinational corporations, with the main market being tourists looking for that "authentic" London experience, as seen in the latest Working Title comedy.
London is rapidly becoming Disneyland, replete with 97% surveillance camera coverage and conveniently-placed international-standard fast-food franchises; any sort of genuine grass-roots culture is being replaced by themed simulacra. (For example, go to Carnaby Street and witness all the superficial elements of the "swinging sixties" out in force.)
A technical question: will these OSes run under dosemu? AFAIK, they're real-mode OSes, and thus should run in a hardware 'virtual x86' on a 386 or higher. Has anybody tried them? What about Xenix or other ancient real-mode Unices?
Microsoft have a policy of only supporting UNIX platforms that run on non-Intel architectures. It is Microsoft doctrine that its OSes are the only official OSes on Intel platforms (hence the way their OSes clobber the MBR without asking, and sabotaged OS/2 file attributes).
It would take a drastically changed environment for MS to support Linux.
Now that ksh is released, is there any reason to choose it over zsh? Does it have any compelling features that may differentiate it from the open-source products that arose in its absence, or is it just a curious historical document?
Everywhere I've seen that's not an ancient all-commercial SVR4 UNIX or somesuch, tcsh has been installed. In most cases it is the default shell (though bash is making inroads). By comparison, zsh is usually not installed and seldom one of the standard shells (which is a pity, as it's much more capable than the others).
My guess would be that the PSX2 uses Memory Sticks as memory cards. Memory Stick technology uses Magic Gate to control access to MP3s and the like, which would account for the article.
Does this mean that Magic Gate devices (such as Sony MP3 players and the like) are illegal to export from Japan without a licence, or is the PSX issue something to do with geographic zoning and international IP treaties or somesuch?
The postwar Japanese constitution enshrines privacy as a right to the point of ruling out restrictions on cryptography. Given the title of this law (International Foreign Exchange and Trade Law), I'd guess it's a WTO or WIPO thing, which possibly overrides the local laws of signatory nations.
Doesn't the DMCA, especially when interpreted with the precedent of the DeCSS case, make provisions for regulating the possession of ICE debuggers and certain tools that could contravene protection? (The judge in said case stated that the DMCA's provisions allowing reverse engineering apply only to specially authorised personnel, or something like that.)
At present, four companies (BMG, Seagram, AOL/TW and Sony) control about 90% of the music market. They constitute the RIAA and are committed to absolute intellectual property control, by all means necessary. They have monopolies on most of the artists whose CDs people want to buy (the only exceptions are those on small labels, and as soon as they get big they cross over to labels which offer them better marketing, as Nirvana and Sarah McLachlan did, for example).
If the Big Four talk amongst themselves (and they have plenty of opportunities to do so under the auspices of the RIAA), they could collude to phase out Red Book CDs over a period of time (say, 5-10 years to be cautious). They could hype DVD Audio, all the while cutting back CD manufacturing until it's easier to buy a DVD Audio player than to find a record shop that sells CDs. (Other than dance music, not much is sold on vinyl these days, and even that you have to go to specialist shops to find.) Ultimately, CD would be reduced to a legacy format and they'd be able to pull the plug without much protest.
What about the smaller labels? What about them. The "minnows" don't have much weight in the market, and will follow eventually. Once DVD Audio players are common, releasing CDs wouldn't offer them much advantage (other than saving on licensing fees or what have you). The discs would still play in the new players, but would lack DVD features.
1. We're all sick and tired of paying $200-$300 for a glorified bit pump.
The last video card I bought was a S3-based one from a Chinese brand of some sort. I picked it up at a computer swap meet a few years ago for under A$100 (that's about US$62). Surely such lowest-common-denominator (though still accelerated to some extent, I believe) cards still exist, don't they?
Once at the security office, Young and Coupland will release Jamie Zawinski, who will entice the guards to leave by offering them free passes to his nightclub (years of working at MS will ensure that they look angstful enough to get in).
The Dimension X people will probably be in the right uniform already. (Before MS bought them out to prevent them from enhancing Java too much, dnx.com was the alpha clique of alt.gothic.)
Slashdot Mirror
Distribution of DeCSS is a criminal offense in the US, or so Judge Elfving has ruled. Not sure about possession, though those willing to prosecute have a lot of money to spend on crucifying anyone who gets in their path; These days, it wouldn't surprise me if they introduced civil forfeiture on suspicion of possession, just like in drug cases.
Spielberg is a great marketing man; he knows intimately the archetypes of the 20th-century American collective unconscious, and how to exploit them to move the masses. Nobody else can quite put bums on seats the way Spielberg can.
However, that is not what makes a great director in my opinion. Knowing how to make up the numbers, to sell to the majority, does not make art. Spielberg's stories tend to be facile and simplistic; rather than making people think (and alienating those who prefer not to), he moves them with sentiment and emotion down a broad path. Whether it's the wisdom of children or the evil of the Nazis, his treatments aren't something you can find much in to inspire thought or ask questions. Spielberg's films are reassuring, never challenging.
I already have an idea of his version of AI: spectacular special effects, heartwarming sentiment and Tom Hanks or Robin Williams in a starring role, over a simple-minded, unambiguous plot.
In Windows, the kernel is controlled by Microsoft, a company sympathetic to the IP lords' interests. It is conceivable that, if requested, they could add an API call to guarantee that output is not redirected, or return a false value if not possible. Players could then call this and refuse to work if integrity cannot be guaranteed.
Of course, this is impossible under Linux, as an Evil Pirate could just rewrite the function to say that everything's OK no matter what.
Then there is reverse engineering. Under Linux it's easier to debug binaries; under Windows it's possible to make binaries impossible to reverse engineer without an ICE debugger (which are expensive and, a few court cases from now, may require locksmith-type licenses to possess under the DMCA, but that's another story).
The question is will the codec be ported to Linux? Windows Media is touted as a copyright-enforcement technology as well as a format. Many proprietors of copyright-enforcing closed formats refuse to release software decoders for platforms with open-source kernels, as it is possible to modify the kernel to capture audio to a file (in a way that the player cannot reasonably defend against). For example, Liquid Audio does not support Linux, and neither do any software DVD decoders (well, any aboveground ones). If MS allows a Linux port of its technology, it could face content companies withdrawing licenses to release their content in its format, in favour of more restricted players. Remember, these companies are paranoid and scared, and not exactly the most trusting of the Net. (I believe Universal, for one, has its own format under development, and Sony is doing something with ATRAC and its own copyright-enforcement mechanisms; and that alone is almost half the music market.)
In the future I'd be more concerned with the EU when they finally get their act together.
Which, given the differences between Eurostates the EU's culture of glacial bureaucracy, and the culture of huge, inefficient socialist institutions predominant on the continent. will probably be when Hell freezes over.
Maybe if the US didn't throw its weight around quite so much, there would be fewer groups with grudges against it, and it would have less to worry about in the way of terrorism.
If there's one IDE connector, and there is a memory device on it (as the master, presumably), would there be anything preventing one from rigging up a cable and attaching a hard disk as a slave device?
If you don't care about Linux, and you don't know what XFree86 is, then what kind of nerd are you supposed to be? Tell us WHAT YOU would want to see on Slashdot.
News on Star Trek.
I also believe that posessing cryptographic software is a criminal offense in some countries. Is China one of them?
China recently enacted a law requiring users of cryptography to register with a government office. The office itself was a small one in a back alley in Beijing, and it is doubtful whether they'd be able to handle millions of registrations (especially over the few days amnesty they gave).
It's more likely that this law is to give the police something else to arrest people for: unregistered use of cryptography. The Chinese government loves such open-ended, selectively enforceable laws. (Take for example the crime of revealing "state secrets", which could be anything, including the weather in Beijing or what's on TV.)
I don't get what market the X-Box is going for. Nintendo and Sega pretty much exist thanks to their in-house development teams, and Sony has done well because it has been able to court 3rd parties very effectively (particularly that little company called Squaresoft). It seems that the X-Box's primary games will be ports, either from other consoles or from a PC.
Sony also owns Psygnosis (formerly an Amiga game developer). Psygnosis have been instrumental in making the PSX into a viable platform, by providing a steady flow of games early on and not supporting rivals.
If MS go through with this, expect them to buy out some game developers to support it; perhaps Electronic Arts or Infogrames or GT Interactive will fall to MS and cease supporting non-MS platforms.
Yes, but the PSX2 CPU is a customised high-performance CPU of RISC (or was it VLIW?) architecture, and not burdened by x86 legacy crud. Putting in a top-heavy Intel-clone CPU, one whose overly complex internal architecture and baroque instruction format bear witness to layers of backward compatibility going all the way back to the 8086, will be another matter.
There is a reason why non-Intel chips (Alpha, ARM, PowerPC) get superior performance at lower clock speeds (usually whilst using a lot less power as well); it's because they don't spend large amounts of time and energy dealing with the requirements of Intel compatibility.
The obvious solution would be to use WINE in toolkit mode. Not sure how native it looks under Linux (i.e., whether it complies fully with the ICCCM, handles WM hints, and plays nice with KDE/GNOME where appropriate), but since it's open-source, Borland could merge VCL with it, and build from there.
Given that Corel have done a lot of work with WINE, and have now merged with Borland, that seems like quite a sensible solution.
The best Australian beer I've tried is probably Boag's. It's a small Tasmanian brewery, costs a bit more than the mass-market swill, though has more flavour.
I'm no expert on beer, mind you; though I won't buy the regular stuff these days.
From what I've heard, London has metamorphosed into a sort of Cool Britannia theme park, a themed city owned and operated by multinational corporations, with the main market being tourists looking for that "authentic" London experience, as seen in the latest Working Title comedy.
London is rapidly becoming Disneyland, replete with 97% surveillance camera coverage and conveniently-placed international-standard fast-food franchises; any sort of genuine grass-roots culture is being replaced by themed simulacra. (For example, go to Carnaby Street and witness all the superficial elements of the "swinging sixties" out in force.)
A technical question: will these OSes run under dosemu? AFAIK, they're real-mode OSes, and thus should run in a hardware 'virtual x86' on a 386 or higher. Has anybody tried them? What about Xenix or other ancient real-mode Unices?
Microsoft have a policy of only supporting UNIX platforms that run on non-Intel architectures. It is Microsoft doctrine that its OSes are the only official OSes on Intel platforms (hence the way their OSes clobber the MBR without asking, and sabotaged OS/2 file attributes).
It would take a drastically changed environment for MS to support Linux.
Now that ksh is released, is there any reason to choose it over zsh? Does it have any compelling features that may differentiate it from the open-source products that arose in its absence, or is it just a curious historical document?
Everywhere I've seen that's not an ancient all-commercial SVR4 UNIX or somesuch, tcsh has been installed. In most cases it is the default shell (though bash is making inroads). By comparison, zsh is usually not installed and seldom one of the standard shells (which is a pity, as it's much more capable than the others).
My guess would be that the PSX2 uses Memory Sticks as memory cards. Memory Stick technology uses Magic Gate to control access to MP3s and the like, which would account for the article.
Does this mean that Magic Gate devices (such as Sony MP3 players and the like) are illegal to export from Japan without a licence, or is the PSX issue something to do with geographic zoning and international IP treaties or somesuch?
The postwar Japanese constitution enshrines privacy as a right to the point of ruling out restrictions on cryptography. Given the title of this law (International Foreign Exchange and Trade Law), I'd guess it's a WTO or WIPO thing, which possibly overrides the local laws of signatory nations.
Doesn't the DMCA, especially when interpreted with the precedent of the DeCSS case, make provisions for regulating the possession of ICE debuggers and certain tools that could contravene protection? (The judge in said case stated that the DMCA's provisions allowing reverse engineering apply only to specially authorised personnel, or something like that.)
Let me know when I can download nanoassembler source files for this kind of stuff.
At present, four companies (BMG, Seagram, AOL/TW and Sony) control about 90% of the music market. They constitute the RIAA and are committed to absolute intellectual property control, by all means necessary. They have monopolies on most of the artists whose CDs people want to buy (the only exceptions are those on small labels, and as soon as they get big they cross over to labels which offer them better marketing, as Nirvana and Sarah McLachlan did, for example).
If the Big Four talk amongst themselves (and they have plenty of opportunities to do so under the auspices of the RIAA), they could collude to phase out Red Book CDs over a period of time (say, 5-10 years to be cautious). They could hype DVD Audio, all the while cutting back CD manufacturing until it's easier to buy a DVD Audio player than to find a record shop that sells CDs. (Other than dance music, not much is sold on vinyl these days, and even that you have to go to specialist shops to find.) Ultimately, CD would be reduced to a legacy format and they'd be able to pull the plug without much protest.
What about the smaller labels? What about them. The "minnows" don't have much weight in the market, and will follow eventually. Once DVD Audio players are common, releasing CDs wouldn't offer them much advantage (other than saving on licensing fees or what have you). The discs would still play in the new players, but would lack DVD features.
1. We're all sick and tired of paying $200-$300 for a glorified bit pump.
The last video card I bought was a S3-based one from a Chinese brand of some sort. I picked it up at a computer swap meet a few years ago for under A$100 (that's about US$62). Surely such lowest-common-denominator (though still accelerated to some extent, I believe) cards still exist, don't they?
Once at the security office, Young and Coupland will release Jamie Zawinski, who will entice the guards to leave by offering them free passes to his nightclub (years of working at MS will ensure that they look angstful enough to get in).
The Dimension X people will probably be in the right uniform already. (Before MS bought them out to prevent them from enhancing Java too much, dnx.com was the alpha clique of alt.gothic.)