unless every single step along the way from recording substrate to display device
Unless I am misunderstanding what you are saying, you are not paying attention:
we are talking about speakers requiring an encrypted digital signal, not the current analog signal
we are talking about monitors and televisions that require encrypted digital input signal and will not display anything else - broadcast, cable, or webcast "transmissions" will incorporate a "realtime" validation check so that even if you did record the digital signal, the playback would not be able to decrypt because a time signature would be part of the key
we are talking about hard drives and compact flash devices that function like the Sony Minidisk (they will not copy)
For those defiant souls who are going to put their microphones in front of their speakers, or camcorders in front of their monitor screens - the law isn't going to stop you from doing that, but it won't take too long before the codecs needed to digitize the analog recordings are as tightly controlled as mimeograph machines were in Soviet era Russia.
{rant "level=rabid"}All of you American developers working on A/V codecs - leave the US at once, and renounce your citizenship.
Look for the merger of the BSA, MPAA, and RIAA into a single organization with an armed security branch. Their enforcement actions will make the Pinkerton's role in labor relations with coal miners of the last century look positively smurf-errific.{/rant}
Hmm... the early onset Alzheimers hits in the late 30s/early 40s. The kids could die of neglect if they were too young to care for themselves and had no other adult parent/ older siblings, both conditions are possible but not highly probable. People back then had children earlier. It is highly unlikely that Mom or Dad would have waited till their mid to late thirties to start their families - it just wouldn't be natural:).
and secretly replaced by the Borg-resurrected clone of Gene Roddenberry (William Shatner expained this in his famous book cleverly disguised as fiction where he had the Borg resurrect Kirk) Needless to say, there is no danger of "the suits" ruining this series. It will be pronounced DOA.
Lets see: ST:TOS had an episode involving a killer virus that killed everyone when they hit puberty. Things were looking pretty grim for the survivors until the Enterprise showed up.
Jeremiah: A killer virus wipes out everyone who has gone through puberty. In the premiere episode, we find out that the killer virus may return. (After killing off all the adults, the virus nipped on down to the pub for a quick pint, was delayed brefly by a Vogon contruction crew, but as now returned to hit on all the newly nubile sorts - Hey wait maybe this is just an "edgier" remake of Jimmy Neutron - Boy Genius). It seems obvious that midway through the season Jeremiah will discover clues pointing to a secret hiding place of adult survivors in some form of suspended animation. So his original quest to "relocate" Valhalla will be replaced with his new "Search For (Dr) Spock", or perhaps it will be to find the mysterious "Jay Tee Kur Ok". We will eventually discover that the surviving adults are sleeping out the Apocalypse in orbit aboard the original space shuttle (the one that never flew under power - the one that only did glide tests - the one that was named "Enterprise". But someone forgot to wind their alarm clock so they are oversleeping...
One note about the cast series is set LESS THAN TEN YEARS after the virus did its thing. Now humanity is being led by thirtysomething actors playing at most 23 year old characters. Call me an old fuddy duddy, but why not hire real 20-somethings? They could also have a few former female gymnasts as they would have deliberately delayed the onset of puberty through their strict training regimens, but that would be the only real possibility for using older cast members.
I'd heard a rumor that JMS might be involved in a series adaption of David Weber's Honor Harrington books. I'd have much rather seen that. Oh well, maybe Weber can get someone decent to do it as an anime series or as all CGI animation...
As someone pointed out earlier, this has no impact on "natural selection" as the disease being screened for doesn't show up till long after the woman was capable of having offspring. Natural selection would mean each of her children would have a 50 percent chance of carrying the gene AND passing it on to their kids as well.
As was also pointed out, this happens BEFORE the eggs are fertilized. Unassisted (the old fashioned way) reproduction would not lend itself to this approach and would certainly leave no point of entry for your government intervention. If governments decide to get into the "species improvement" game, they don't need such a medically expensive method. Just consider the German eugenics programs of the 1930s, or the PRCs more recent "healthy birth" laws which may or may not be a eugenics program favoring the ethnic Hans.It certainly is an attempt by a government to eliminate babies with undesireable traits.
As to the adoption argument, well people are funny that way. Most people would rather have their "own" children - its that little bit of immortality they get through their kids. And so many would rather spend the money (if they have it - or good insurance). If you personally find yourself in the position that this woman was in, you and your partner may make your own decision regarding reproductive options. But please stop trying to limit the choices available to others.
Well, manufacturing and alot of development is already leaving the US, Reasearch won't be overly affected, and by the time that it could be, the rest of the world (via the WTO) will be under the same yoke. The tech firms will see the opportunity for new sales, but not be otherwise thrilled. Here is my take on how the how the testimony will play out:
Eisner (Disney) : Without adequate protection of our intellectual property we will make so much less money that
we will have to make severe cutbacks in our democratic outreach programs (campaign contributions) We would be forced to develop new properties to provide quality entertainment for America and the world (shows example of "Corrupt Congresscritter" - an obvious caricature of Hollings - as the proposed replacement for The Mouse)
Chernin (News Corporation): Without adequate protection of our intellectual property, we will be unable to prevent the digital manipulation of news stories by terrorists (plays video clip - subtitled "digitally manipulated" of Ken Lays testimony befre Congress, but rather than taking the fifth, he is passing out money to CongressCritters - including "Corrupt Congresscritter")
Vadasz (Intel Corporation): We have the technology to provide this level of protection (and hold the patents on some of it). But it will require national leadership in the form of very strict laws requiring the adoption of this
technology.
Bechtolsheim (Cisco Systems):
We also have developed technology to provide adequate protection for intellectual property and identification of those whgo would steal what is not rightfully theirs, but the existing network infrastructure will need to be replaced before these protections can be implemented. As this will be a very expensive proposition, I beleive that we will need national leadership in the form of financial assistance to all those firms who will need to replace their existing routers with our latest technology that we developed for thespecial problems then faced by the People's Republic of China, but as you can see now face us in America as well.
Meyer (Thomson Multimedia) As the recent experiences of the music industry clearly proves, the lack of adequate protection for intellectual property will indeed be the death knell for the entire entertainment industry.
Perry (Mitsubishi): As Mr Bechtosheim has already testified, we do indeed have the technolgy, but all the older technolgy must be forcefully removed from circulation and replaced with new equipment which respects the rigtsof creators to profit from their work. But we see no reason for a massive government program to assist those scofflaws who purchased equipment with the obvious intent of pirating copyrighted materials.
Valenti (MPAA): Just this week we are now seeing over 350,000 movies being illegally copied over the internet every single day. When broadband is fully available, the number of pirated films will rise to over seven million per day if nothing is done. This threat to the American People will do far more damage than the VCR ever did. ANd further, I have asked some friends at the IRS to prepare a little chart showing just how much tax revenue is escaping the government at that rate of piracy: 7 million movies at 5 people per copy at ten dollars per ticket is 350 million dollars a day in lost ticket sales, and that is also over 35 billion dollars per year in untaxed income. So, not only will this new law keep America entertained with quality movies, but it will help strengthen the government and bring in much needed additional tax revenues in these trying economic times.
Now that's just the sort of mindless MSFT bashing I would expect to see here. Now observe the proper way to bash Microsoft:
In December of 2001, MSFT was awarded a patent for an operating system that incorporates strong Digital Rights Management (do your own darn google search). This means that anyone and everyone that has any device that uses an "operating system" and enforces copy prevention technology needed to eliminate the potential for copyright infringement will be paying licensing fees to Microsoft unitil at least 2018. Naturally the license fee will just happen to exceed the retail price of the corresponding MSFT operating system by ten per cent. Just like the currenty MSFT tax, it won't matter if you recompile your own kernal to exclude the technology, you will still have to write that check to MSFT. If you do not license from them, well yes it really will be illegal. But you have to explain these little details. Just spewing anti-MSFT sentiment du jour is simply unacceptable laziness.
Combine this with the earlier story about howMSFT has determined that HTTPis "obsolete" and you will soon find yourself unable to network with other computers without paying Microsoft for the privilege of using MS-HTTP.
You will get a direct digital output froma DVD player one day before Jack Valenti starts freezing his buns off in the hottest corner of Hell. (as he considers a limited copyright to be one day less than forever).
Alternatively, once the final version of the SSSCA becomes law and the digital signal leaves the DVD player encrypted so that the video must be decrypted in real-time by your monitor and the audio channels will be decrypted in real time by your speakers, well then you might see digital output from your DVD player.
Seriously, there was something about some British outfit a while back (2+ years ago?) that was hacking DVD players aprt to add a digital video output to them. The result was said to be "infinitly superior" to regular DVD output on a big plasma screen. They charged several thousand bucks for the conversion. Their main customers were Hollywood types who needed the best possible picture. (These would be the same Hollywood types who used to be busted for having bootleg copies of movies - on film - for their home theaters).
You are correct sir! I am dumb. That is why I posted a text based reply rather than a.WAV or (to be Slashdotically Correct) a.ogg file so you could hear my voice.
If you wish to cast aspersions upon my intellect, well then I did indeed spell "pollution" wrongly.
If you meant something else by your remark, I suggest: 1> you explain your reasoning.(in academic terms, "show your work") 2> you apologize for your obvious error 3> we continue this discussion through our seconds.
... umm wait. I'm replying to an Anonymous Coward. I am dumb!
Lomborg is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Aarhaus in Denmark. His specialty, indeed his only other major academic paper, is in the field of game theory, The reviewer seems to have fallen into that same trap of attacking the person rather than his ideas.
With those same credentials, he was a completely credible "scientist" to the Greens, the NRDF, GreenPeace, or the Union of Concerned Scientists. Indeed as his stated reason for beginning his research was to debunk one of those heretical lackeys of the Corporate Powers of Poluution he was undoubtably thinking he had an easy job of "making his bones" with the treehuggers and then just sit back and wait for the royalties and invitations to speaking enagements to roll in. Shucks maybe he just wanted to score with the chicks - look at all the hot models and movie stars that espouse Green causes
But something happened. He actually did have some of that near mythical "academic integrity". Since he did not produce a book in line with accepted religious beliefs (and it ain't just Greens that have "religion" - lots of folks have similar blind faith in "the marketplace", "capitalism", or "socialism" - I must admit a certain amount of faith in "scientific method"), the true believers did of course treat him as a traitor. Of course, the same intellectual honesty that lead him to give up his chance to bed a supermodel also lead him to document his work so other people could try to disprove his claims. And that is the real atrocity he committed in the eyes of his former friends. They need for people to take their claims on faith - and he dared suggest that statements should be verifiable.
Also, does a TV network have a right to control my memory of the show so they can make sure I remember the commercials along with the plot line?
They do not have a right to do so, but by broadcasting "content" that is strongly reminiscent of the nonliquid end product of a mammilian digestive tract, the commercials may be more entertaining and therefore memorable. Or have we already forgotten what TIVO told us about the replay habits of Superbowl fans. (If they are such fans of the freaking game, why replay the darn commercials and not the "big plays"?)
If your book was selling from your publisher you should still be getting paid. It is only if people stop buying it and download it that you will lose out
No. Once the copyright expires, the work is in the public domain and the publisher of the book is no longer obligated to pay you - remember that you no longer have a copyright. Of course, any other Tom, Dick, or Harriet with a publishing house can also start printing the book you wrote.
Having finished with the nitpicking, I'm, also in favor of relatively short copyright terms
Yeah, well the artists he refers to were the onse that sent "Cease & Desist" orders to have their music removed from PressPlay becasue they did the math and decided that as long as they were not being paid for their music anyways, they might as well let their fans have it for free.
The music industry feels that the kinks are indeed worked out. All new acts have contracts that turn internet distribution over to the labels, so its just the older acts that can "opt out" and in five or ten years no one will give a damn about them anyways.
What about Star Wars? It made Lucas a boatload of money because it was popular - in other words the people made it a part of popular culture. Lucas did not make it a part of the popular culture - he made it available and the people took it and ran with it as far as they could. (Which due to copyright and smart business dealings, rewarded Lucas rather handsomely - and I am fine with that.)
Now of course, you can see Lucas finding new ways to make money off 24 year old work, but how much new work is he doing? He is producing "derivative works". Because of copyright, he was able to inflict Jar Jar Binks upon the public.
Remember that the purpose of copyright was to encourage innovation and progress by giving them a monopoly on their work - FOR A LIMITED TIME. Letting the creators sit on their fat asses and sue anyone who might infringe on their old and moldy copyrights is not encouraging anyone. Heck, even Lucas admitted that he ripped off old WWII films for his space battles, using your reasoning Lucas should have never been allowed to make Star Wars as he was infringing upon whoever first did an aerial dogfight, whoever first teamed the idealistic youth with the worldwise cynical mercenary, and whoever first locked a princess up in a dungeon so she could be rescued.
Lastly, If Star Wars were in the public domain, it would be on DVD by now instead of waiting till Lucas is ready to allow that - and when he does, it will be a whole new "special DVD edition" whose main claim to newness will be a brand spanking new copyright date (of say 2006).
The article points out that the device has military applications (one of which is detonating land mines).
Accordingly we may expect that trying to carry one of these babies past airport security may result in a trip to Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay. For those not old enough to remember, back when hijacking was "chic" (late sixties, early 70's) before the terrorists got involved, the most common hijacker demand was "Take this plane to Cuba"
Bah humbug! (Bear with me while I pull numbers out of thin air and further pretend you are a theater operator)
More specifically, the new digital projector will cost upwards of 100 grand. Your theater seats 300 people, and you generally sell 1000 tickets per day. (five showings at 200 people per - you are doing good!) And you aren't going to be able to sell off the old projector - not everything is available digitally, and when it is all digital who the heck will buy your old film projector for anything near what it actually costs?
Now, pretend that you will actually get 5% more people coming for the "improved digital" experience. Well, that is an additional 50 people per day. But your box office basically goes to the distributor/studio (400.00 extra per day,but not to the theater). So you get 5 bucks per person on the concession stand - or an extra 250 bucks per day. Gee that would almost pay for the upgrade in a year -if you can count on that five bucks per extra person at the concession stand. On the other hand, the studio gets an extra 400 bucks per day from the box office (over a hundred grand per year), but it actually saves them a few thousand in the costs of actual films that they do not have to make and distrbute.
Oh, but wait - you don't have just one screen, you a new stadium seating multiplex with 2 dozen screens. And you are still paying off the debt you took on constructing that to get ahead of the competition, plus you are hurting because of the long term leases on the mall multiplexes you cannibalized when you put up the new stadium seating facility.
And having learned some hard lessons from the stadium seating construcion glut, you know that if you do upgrade to digital and start seeing slightly better numbers, well, then your competitors (who lost that extra 50 tickets per day per screen) are going to be forced into upgrading aswell - if they can afford to. If they can't afford to, they will take other steps to remain competitive - maybe cutting their ticket prices. You can pretty much be guaranteed that you won't see those extra customers long enough to recover your investment in a new projector.
But wait, we aren't even talking about a single multiplex! You are actually part of a national chain, and theses decisions are made at a regional level (the manager at McDonalds does not decide what gos on his menu either). So rather than a decision involving a dozen screens, and a couple of million bucks, we are talking hundreds of screens and real money. All so we won't disappoint George Lucas - the prima donna snob whose ideas of "fair play" kept us from running Episode 1 on most of our screens for the first few days to milk maximum revenue, and then cut back to handle just the die hard fans who put down "Jedi" as their religion on census forms.
No, theater operators actually have a strong financial DIS-incentive to "go digital". Their demands that the studios subbsidize it make a heck of a lot of sense - the studios will see all the major cost savings on the digital distribution over physical media, but there won't be any overall change in the actual numbers of tickets sold or buckets of popcorn purchased - hence no advantage for the theater.
Infringement of copyright:All readers are warned that acceptance of this license (which you agrred to as soon as you even thought of reading this book) means you agree to abide by Hogwarts Rules on copying. As copying is a very serious offense at Hogwarts, a first offense will reult in immediate defenestration from the Headmaster's Office. Subsequent offenses will be punished by expulsion and exile to the role of Jar jar Binks for all eternity.
Military History means you are studying how to manage a military overthrow of the New Imperium with your elite militia.
Computer books means you are a terrorist hacker determining the best way to sabotage our economic infrastructure - or worse.
Cars... hmm, buying a car makes you a flight risk so they can hold you without bail. Buying books about cars means you are either a professional auto thief reading articles to find the best way to steal a vehicle, or you are a drug dealer identifying the best vehicle for smuggling in urban areas.
I have to give you a failing grade in Paranoia 101.
It is obvious in hindsight, but where are the numbers showing how much MSFT spent in Washington before someone sicced the DOJ on them like a pack of rabid dogs? Yah, I think MSFT needs to be spanked really hard, but the point I'm tyring to make is who looked at all the cash MSFT is sitting on and asked:
"Gee, Microsoft has lots of money, what do you suppose would happen if they became politicized?"
Did the folks at Sun or AOL consider that MSFT might decide to try and get government help before making their complaints?
In short, the way Bill G and Micosoft sees it, they were just minding their own business and figuring the government would pretty much leave them alone. Now that Uncle Guido has delivered the wake up call, they are paying their protection money (lobbyists, campaign contributions)like everyone else who has come to the attention of the US political machine.
The only problem is that Sun (for example) doesn't have the cash reserves to compete on an equal footing in this arena. They should have thought of that before they escalated by bringing a knife to a fistfight.
(These thoughts are not mine, I borrowed 'em from Jerry Pournelle's website, filed off the serial numbers, and put my own spin on them - He did bring up the "politicization of Bill Gates" some time ago.)
1>Seems kinda slow moving to have much utility as a weapon.
2>Doesn't exactly follow apredictable path. Using it on a battlefield would be like playing soccer with an American style football.
3>Battlefield directed energy weapons in general have a problem. The energy requirements are enormous. A laser beam that carries the energy equivalent of 25 kilos of high explosive is going to need a whole lot of generator/fuel cells to power it. This would tend to make it a much more expensive (and much less versatile) target than a piece of field artillery that can lob 25 kilo smart shells with a variety of different types of ammunition. Or if you don't like artillery, just consider the small missiles easily mounted on vehicles. As a recnetly in the news example, you just can't make a self contained single shot energy weapon fit in the same sized package as a Hellfire missile that will do equivalent damage.
I like the idea of energy weapons, but I don't think the BLG 6500 is going to be one of them, and I don't think they will have much of a place on the battlefield. In space, certainly, and possibly as part of a fixed defensive position, but not on tanks or close support aircraft. Having shot my mouth off,I do recall that the US military has been experimenting with directed energy weapons, but I don't know what the results were.
And giant robots, piloted or not, running across the battlefield just screams out "easy kill" to a modern tank or A-10.
Well, there's paying, and then there's paying. If you watch three hours of commercial television, you are seeing about two hours of content and paying for it by watching one hour of advertising. But how many people really stop to think just how much of their time they are giving up to the advertisers? I have my "guilty pleasures" programs, and I have bought back an hour on Tuesday nights by timeshifting and skipping the commercials.
As to charging the cable and satellite providers, well they already do. A couple of years back Disney/ABC got into a pissing contest with Time Warner (houston market at least). It seems Disney wanted Time Warner to carry Disney's answer to the Cartoon Network, and was withholding rights to the regular ABC programming as a bargaining chit. Both "channels" are considered "free (advertiser supported) TV". TW stopped carrying ABC for a brief period of time and all was eventually worked out, but somebody pays for it - and my basic cable bill keeps getting raised without any change in programming that I can see. So it looks like I'm paying with cash as well.
Personally, I think that going to Video On Demand is the answer the studios/networks need. Stop selling audiences to advertisers and start selling entertainment to audiences. Of course, if I pay a dollar (I figure that would be a good fee) for a forty minute (1 hour less commercials) program, then I should be able to record it and do anything else I like with it except those actions which would prevent the shows copyright holder from selling it to other people (like sharing it with 20 million close personal friends via a P2P networks)
Of course, this is a whole new business model for the studios and they just don't adapt well. Let's see, using my example, I'd pay fifty cents for an episode of Seinfeld - how many people would it take to get the 5 million per episode that Jerry turned down?
The Wright Brothers worked with what they had. I am not requiring a reuseable manned spacecraft to be built using technology, materials and knowledge available in a bicycle shop circa 1900. If you want to point out what they did not have to acccomplish, you should also point out what they did not have to work with. (everything that comes with another century of tecnological progress)
1> yep, you do have to go fast to get to orbit - but in the century since Kitty Hawk, we have had multiple "proofs of concept" starting with Sputnik that it is possible to go that fast.
2> dangerous? by what definition? I invite you to consider the actual energy content of various rocket fuels (bearing in mind that gasoline and kerosene derivatives (jet fuel) are also useable in rockets) hard to handle? You can pick up LOX from any number of suppliers, or make it yourself from condensation using liquid N2.
3> 30 days of life support? stop pulling numbers from nowhere. The requirement I suggested was for 3 round trip flights in thirty days. 48 hours of life support would probably leave a fairly comfortable safety margin.
4> 99.4% success? well you are pulling numbers from nowhere related to the proposed task (which would actually require 100% success for three flights)
5> "one of the most complex machines..." I suggest that it may be possible to go into orbit in something a heck of a lot simpler. Actually I suggest that if we are ever to go into space in any significant way, simpler implementations are necessary.
Could the commercial sector do it better? We will never know if there is no incentive to find out. Proposing a prize costs absolutely nothing unless someone actually manages to claim it.
And 99.4% is not a very good sucess rate when you are defining "non success" as the death of everyone on board. You might also consider that it was only a 75% "success" rate as one of four shuttles experienced a "non successful" flight. If six out of every 1000 commercial airline flights resulted in the complete loss of life for everyone on board, I doubt you'd be crowing about the airline's "success rate" (lets say 10,000 flights a day with 100 people on beach flight would result in 6,000 deaths per day, or over 200,000 people per year).
We won't get into space in any meaningful way as long as a government employment program is sucking up and destroying the engineers who could make it happen. Gut NASA like the beached whale it is before the corpse explodes from the pressure of its own decomposition.
The Wright Brothers (or pick your own early aviation pioneers)did not require a 15,000 man ground support crew to fly.
Lindbergh made a solo flight from the US to Paris so he could win a $25,000 prize.
If Bush really wants to get into space (and yes, the military does - they are not really stupid) he should get Congress to set up a series of prizes. Five billion tax free for the first resuseable spacecraft to make three round trips to the vicinity of the ISS in a thirty day period carrying say three people and two tons of cargo on each trip.
Rather than controlling the development of spacecraft, the government should just promise to buy a bunch of them that meet a certain price performance criteria. And, if Bush with his noted tendencies towards such things can not make it happen, it will probably happen somewhere else (India, China, Japan - hell maybe even France - (those arrogant little snots still miss Napoleon))
But, the studio would want to charge 5.95 or more per episode (Unless it was Lucas, Spielberg or any screen adaptation of Steven King, then it would be 5.95 per 15 minute segment, with "premium" (say Jar-Jar's death scene)segments going for 8.95), and that would be a PPV system so you could not archive it to recordable DVD or whatever media floats your boat. And the ads would not be in between "scenes" as they are when broadcast, they would be overlaid so you would be forced to watch them (maybe they would "letterbox" the show and stick the ads in the "black space" created by letterboxing.
In other words I like your idea, but the studios would retain too much "control" to make it worthwhile.
Call it corporate irony at its finest, but I really really really loved the way that Pizza Hut promoted a movie where the script tie in was actually to the Domino's promotion at the time. (Domino's had a thirty minute delivery guarantee - but a multimilion dollar lawsuit because of a traffic accident involving a pizza delivery guy ended it)
That is the excuse they would give. NASA will really say no because they only exercise power by refusing people. It is the same sort of idiocy I recall hearing about in Russia a few years back. A restaurant (post USSR) hires a doorman. The retaurant is empty. No one ever comes in. Why? because the doorman would refuse entrance to anyone who did not have a reservation. Sure he could have opened the freaking door and let customers into the restaurant, but he did not exercize any power by doing that. By saying "NYET!", he demonstrated his power.
In addition, if NASA were to apply those "standards" to their astronaut corps, the vast majority of them would be grounded.
If Bush the Younger wants to see serious space development, he should start treating NASA administrators like Nixon treated DOJ critters during the Watergate investigation, or like th eCLinton's handled the White House travel office
Slashdot Mirror
Unless I am misunderstanding what you are saying, you are not paying attention:
- we are talking about speakers requiring an encrypted digital signal, not the current analog signal
-
we are talking about monitors and televisions that require encrypted digital input signal and will not display anything else - broadcast, cable, or webcast "transmissions" will incorporate a "realtime" validation check so that even if you did record the digital signal, the playback would not be able to decrypt because a time signature would be part of the key
-
we are talking about hard drives and compact flash devices that function like the Sony Minidisk (they will not copy)
For those defiant souls who are going to put their microphones in front of their speakers, or camcorders in front of their monitor screens - the law isn't going to stop you from doing that, but it won't take too long before the codecs needed to digitize the analog recordings are as tightly controlled as mimeograph machines were in Soviet era Russia.{rant "level=rabid"}All of you American developers working on A/V codecs - leave the US at once, and renounce your citizenship. Look for the merger of the BSA, MPAA, and RIAA into a single organization with an armed security branch. Their enforcement actions will make the Pinkerton's role in labor relations with coal miners of the last century look positively smurf-errific.{/rant}
Hmm... the early onset Alzheimers hits in the late 30s/early 40s. The kids could die of neglect if they were too young to care for themselves and had no other adult parent/ older siblings, both conditions are possible but not highly probable. People back then had children earlier. It is highly unlikely that Mom or Dad would have waited till their mid to late thirties to start their families - it just wouldn't be natural :).
and secretly replaced by the Borg-resurrected clone of Gene Roddenberry (William Shatner expained this in his famous book cleverly disguised as fiction where he had the Borg resurrect Kirk) Needless to say, there is no danger of "the suits" ruining this series. It will be pronounced DOA.
Lets see:
ST:TOS had an episode involving a killer virus that killed everyone when they hit puberty. Things were looking pretty grim for the survivors until the Enterprise showed up.
Jeremiah: A killer virus wipes out everyone who has gone through puberty. In the premiere episode, we find out that the killer virus may return. (After killing off all the adults, the virus nipped on down to the pub for a quick pint, was delayed brefly by a Vogon contruction crew, but as now returned to hit on all the newly nubile sorts - Hey wait maybe this is just an "edgier" remake of Jimmy Neutron - Boy Genius). It seems obvious that midway through the season Jeremiah will discover clues pointing to a secret hiding place of adult survivors in some form of suspended animation. So his original quest to "relocate" Valhalla will be replaced with his new "Search For (Dr) Spock", or perhaps it will be to find the mysterious "Jay Tee Kur Ok". We will eventually discover that the surviving adults are sleeping out the Apocalypse in orbit aboard the original space shuttle (the one that never flew under power - the one that only did glide tests - the one that was named "Enterprise". But someone forgot to wind their alarm clock so they are oversleeping...
One note about the cast
series is set LESS THAN TEN YEARS after the virus did its thing. Now humanity is being led by thirtysomething actors playing at most 23 year old characters. Call me an old fuddy duddy, but why not hire real 20-somethings? They could also have a few former female gymnasts as they would have deliberately delayed the onset of puberty through their strict training regimens, but that would be the only real possibility for using older cast members.
I'd heard a rumor that JMS might be involved in a series adaption of David Weber's Honor Harrington books. I'd have much rather seen that. Oh well, maybe Weber can get someone decent to do it as an anime series or as all CGI animation...
As someone pointed out earlier, this has no impact on "natural selection" as the disease being screened for doesn't show up till long after the woman was capable of having offspring.
Natural selection would mean each of her children would have a 50 percent chance of carrying the gene AND passing it on to their kids as well.
As was also pointed out, this happens BEFORE the eggs are fertilized. Unassisted (the old fashioned way) reproduction would not lend itself to this approach and would certainly leave no point of entry for your government intervention. If governments decide to get into the "species improvement" game, they don't need such a medically expensive method. Just consider the German eugenics programs of the 1930s, or the PRCs more recent "healthy birth" laws which may or may not be a eugenics program favoring the ethnic Hans.It certainly is an attempt by a government to eliminate babies with undesireable traits.
As to the adoption argument, well people are funny that way. Most people would rather have their "own" children - its that little bit of immortality they get through their kids. And so many would rather spend the money (if they have it - or good insurance). If you personally find yourself in the position that this woman was in, you and your partner may make your own decision regarding reproductive options. But please stop trying to limit the choices available to others.
Now that's just the sort of mindless MSFT bashing I would expect to see here. Now observe the proper way to bash Microsoft:
In December of 2001, MSFT was awarded a patent for an operating system that incorporates strong Digital Rights Management (do your own darn google search). This means that anyone and everyone that has any device that uses an "operating system" and enforces copy prevention technology needed to eliminate the potential for copyright infringement will be paying licensing fees to Microsoft unitil at least 2018. Naturally the license fee will just happen to exceed the retail price of the corresponding MSFT operating system by ten per cent. Just like the currenty MSFT tax, it won't matter if you recompile your own kernal to exclude the technology, you will still have to write that check to MSFT. If you do not license from them, well yes it really will be illegal. But you have to explain these little details. Just spewing anti-MSFT sentiment du jour is simply unacceptable laziness.
Combine this with the earlier story about howMSFT has determined that HTTPis "obsolete" and you will soon find yourself unable to network with other computers without paying Microsoft for the privilege of using MS-HTTP.
You will get a direct digital output froma DVD player one day before Jack Valenti starts freezing his buns off in the hottest corner of Hell. (as he considers a limited copyright to be one day less than forever).
Alternatively, once the final version of the SSSCA becomes law and the digital signal leaves the DVD player encrypted so that the video must be decrypted in real-time by your monitor and the audio channels will be decrypted in real time by your speakers, well then you might see digital output from your DVD player.
Seriously, there was something about some British outfit a while back (2+ years ago?) that was hacking DVD players aprt to add a digital video output to them. The result was said to be "infinitly superior" to regular DVD output on a big plasma screen. They charged several thousand bucks for the conversion. Their main customers were Hollywood types who needed the best possible picture. (These would be the same Hollywood types who used to be busted for having bootleg copies of movies - on film - for their home theaters).
You are correct sir! I am dumb. That is why I posted a text based reply rather than a .WAV or (to be Slashdotically Correct) a .ogg file so you could hear my voice.
If you wish to cast aspersions upon my intellect, well then I did indeed spell "pollution" wrongly.
If you meant something else by your remark, I suggest:
1> you explain your reasoning.(in academic terms, "show your work")
2> you apologize for your obvious error
3> we continue this discussion through our seconds.
... umm wait.
I'm replying to an Anonymous Coward. I am dumb!
With those same credentials, he was a completely credible "scientist" to the Greens, the NRDF, GreenPeace, or the Union of Concerned Scientists. Indeed as his stated reason for beginning his research was to debunk one of those heretical lackeys of the Corporate Powers of Poluution he was undoubtably thinking he had an easy job of "making his bones" with the treehuggers and then just sit back and wait for the royalties and invitations to speaking enagements to roll in. Shucks maybe he just wanted to score with the chicks - look at all the hot models and movie stars that espouse Green causes
But something happened. He actually did have some of that near mythical "academic integrity". Since he did not produce a book in line with accepted religious beliefs (and it ain't just Greens that have "religion" - lots of folks have similar blind faith in "the marketplace", "capitalism", or "socialism" - I must admit a certain amount of faith in "scientific method"), the true believers did of course treat him as a traitor. Of course, the same intellectual honesty that lead him to give up his chance to bed a supermodel also lead him to document his work so other people could try to disprove his claims. And that is the real atrocity he committed in the eyes of his former friends. They need for people to take their claims on faith - and he dared suggest that statements should be verifiable.
They do not have a right to do so, but by broadcasting "content" that is strongly reminiscent of the nonliquid end product of a mammilian digestive tract, the commercials may be more entertaining and therefore memorable. Or have we already forgotten what TIVO told us about the replay habits of Superbowl fans. (If they are such fans of the freaking game, why replay the darn commercials and not the "big plays"?)
At least, that is my paranoid take on the topic
No. Once the copyright expires, the work is in the public domain and the publisher of the book is no longer obligated to pay you - remember that you no longer have a copyright. Of course, any other Tom, Dick, or Harriet with a publishing house can also start printing the book you wrote.
Having finished with the nitpicking, I'm, also in favor of relatively short copyright terms
Yeah, well the artists he refers to were the onse that sent "Cease & Desist" orders to have their music removed from PressPlay becasue they did the math and decided that as long as they were not being paid for their music anyways, they might as well let their fans have it for free.
The music industry feels that the kinks are indeed worked out. All new acts have contracts that turn internet distribution over to the labels, so its just the older acts that can "opt out" and in five or ten years no one will give a damn about them anyways.
What about Star Wars? It made Lucas a boatload of money because it was popular - in other words the people made it a part of popular culture. Lucas did not make it a part of the popular culture - he made it available and the people took it and ran with it as far as they could. (Which due to copyright and smart business dealings, rewarded Lucas rather handsomely - and I am fine with that.)
Now of course, you can see Lucas finding new ways to make money off 24 year old work, but how much new work is he doing? He is producing "derivative works". Because of copyright, he was able to inflict Jar Jar Binks upon the public.
Remember that the purpose of copyright was to encourage innovation and progress by giving them a monopoly on their work - FOR A LIMITED TIME. Letting the creators sit on their fat asses and sue anyone who might infringe on their old and moldy copyrights is not encouraging anyone. Heck, even Lucas admitted that he ripped off old WWII films for his space battles, using your reasoning Lucas should have never been allowed to make Star Wars as he was infringing upon whoever first did an aerial dogfight, whoever first teamed the idealistic youth with the worldwise cynical mercenary, and whoever first locked a princess up in a dungeon so she could be rescued.
Lastly, If Star Wars were in the public domain, it would be on DVD by now instead of waiting till Lucas is ready to allow that - and when he does, it will be a whole new "special DVD edition" whose main claim to newness will be a brand spanking new copyright date (of say 2006).
The article points out that the device has military applications (one of which is detonating land mines).
Accordingly we may expect that trying to carry one of these babies past airport security may result in a trip to Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay. For those not old enough to remember, back when hijacking was "chic" (late sixties, early 70's) before the terrorists got involved, the most common hijacker demand was "Take this plane to Cuba"
Bah humbug! (Bear with me while I pull numbers out of thin air and further pretend you are a theater operator)
More specifically, the new digital projector will cost upwards of 100 grand. Your theater seats 300 people, and you generally sell 1000 tickets per day. (five showings at 200 people per - you are doing good!) And you aren't going to be able to sell off the old projector - not everything is available digitally, and when it is all digital who the heck will buy your old film projector for anything near what it actually costs?
Now, pretend that you will actually get 5% more people coming for the "improved digital" experience. Well, that is an additional 50 people per day. But your box office basically goes to the distributor/studio (400.00 extra per day,but not to the theater). So you get 5 bucks per person on the concession stand - or an extra 250 bucks per day. Gee that would almost pay for the upgrade in a year -if you can count on that five bucks per extra person at the concession stand. On the other hand, the studio gets an extra 400 bucks per day from the box office (over a hundred grand per year), but it actually saves them a few thousand in the costs of actual films that they do not have to make and distrbute.
Oh, but wait - you don't have just one screen, you a new stadium seating multiplex with 2 dozen screens. And you are still paying off the debt you took on constructing that to get ahead of the competition, plus you are hurting because of the long term leases on the mall multiplexes you cannibalized when you put up the new stadium seating facility.
And having learned some hard lessons from the stadium seating construcion glut, you know that if you do upgrade to digital and start seeing slightly better numbers, well, then your competitors (who lost that extra 50 tickets per day per screen) are going to be forced into upgrading aswell - if they can afford to. If they can't afford to, they will take other steps to remain competitive - maybe cutting their ticket prices. You can pretty much be guaranteed that you won't see those extra customers long enough to recover your investment in a new projector.
But wait, we aren't even talking about a single multiplex! You are actually part of a national chain, and theses decisions are made at a regional level (the manager at McDonalds does not decide what gos on his menu either). So rather than a decision involving a dozen screens, and a couple of million bucks, we are talking hundreds of screens and real money. All so we won't disappoint George Lucas - the prima donna snob whose ideas of "fair play" kept us from running Episode 1 on most of our screens for the first few days to milk maximum revenue, and then cut back to handle just the die hard fans who put down "Jedi" as their religion on census forms.
No, theater operators actually have a strong financial DIS-incentive to "go digital". Their demands that the studios subbsidize it make a heck of a lot of sense - the studios will see all the major cost savings on the digital distribution over physical media, but there won't be any overall change in the actual numbers of tickets sold or buckets of popcorn purchased - hence no advantage for the theater.
I can see the clause in the EULA now...
Infringement of copyright:All readers are warned that acceptance of this license (which you agrred to as soon as you even thought of reading this book) means you agree to abide by Hogwarts Rules on copying. As copying is a very serious offense at Hogwarts, a first offense will reult in immediate defenestration from the Headmaster's Office. Subsequent offenses will be punished by expulsion and exile to the role of Jar jar Binks for all eternity.
Silly fool!
Military History means you are studying how to manage a military overthrow of the New Imperium with your elite militia.
Computer books means you are a terrorist hacker determining the best way to sabotage our economic infrastructure - or worse.
Cars... hmm, buying a car makes you a flight risk so they can hold you without bail. Buying books about cars means you are either a professional auto thief reading articles to find the best way to steal a vehicle, or you are a drug dealer identifying the best vehicle for smuggling in urban areas.
I have to give you a failing grade in Paranoia 101.
It is obvious in hindsight, but where are the numbers showing how much MSFT spent in Washington before someone sicced the DOJ on them like a pack of rabid dogs? Yah, I think MSFT needs to be spanked really hard, but the point I'm tyring to make is who looked at all the cash MSFT is sitting on and asked:
"Gee, Microsoft has lots of money, what do you suppose would happen if they became politicized?"
Did the folks at Sun or AOL consider that MSFT might decide to try and get government help before making their complaints?
In short, the way Bill G and Micosoft sees it, they were just minding their own business and figuring the government would pretty much leave them alone. Now that Uncle Guido has delivered the wake up call, they are paying their protection money (lobbyists, campaign contributions)like everyone else who has come to the attention of the US political machine.
The only problem is that Sun (for example) doesn't have the cash reserves to compete on an equal footing in this arena. They should have thought of that before they escalated by bringing a knife to a fistfight.
(These thoughts are not mine, I borrowed 'em from Jerry Pournelle's website, filed off the serial numbers, and put my own spin on them - He did bring up the "politicization of Bill Gates" some time ago.)
1>Seems kinda slow moving to have much utility as a weapon. /fuel cells to power it. This would tend to make it a much more expensive (and much less versatile) target than a piece of field artillery that can lob 25 kilo smart shells with a variety of different types of ammunition. Or if you don't like artillery, just consider the small missiles easily mounted on vehicles. As a recnetly in the news example, you just can't make a self contained single shot energy weapon fit in the same sized package as a Hellfire missile that will do equivalent damage.
2>Doesn't exactly follow apredictable path. Using it on a battlefield would be like playing soccer with an American style football.
3>Battlefield directed energy weapons in general have a problem. The energy requirements are enormous. A laser beam that carries the energy equivalent of 25 kilos of high explosive is going to need a whole lot of generator
I like the idea of energy weapons, but I don't think the BLG 6500 is going to be one of them, and I don't think they will have much of a place on the battlefield. In space, certainly, and possibly as part of a fixed defensive position, but not on tanks or close support aircraft. Having shot my mouth off,I do recall that the US military has been experimenting with directed energy weapons, but I don't know what the results were.
And giant robots, piloted or not, running across the battlefield just screams out "easy kill" to a modern tank or A-10.
Well, there's paying, and then there's paying. If you watch three hours of commercial television, you are seeing about two hours of content and paying for it by watching one hour of advertising. But how many people really stop to think just how much of their time they are giving up to the advertisers? I have my "guilty pleasures" programs, and I have bought back an hour on Tuesday nights by timeshifting and skipping the commercials.
As to charging the cable and satellite providers, well they already do. A couple of years back Disney/ABC got into a pissing contest with Time Warner (houston market at least). It seems Disney wanted Time Warner to carry Disney's answer to the Cartoon Network, and was withholding rights to the regular ABC programming as a bargaining chit. Both "channels" are considered "free (advertiser supported) TV". TW stopped carrying ABC for a brief period of time and all was eventually worked out, but somebody pays for it - and my basic cable bill keeps getting raised without any change in programming that I can see. So it looks like I'm paying with cash as well.
Personally, I think that going to Video On Demand is the answer the studios/networks need. Stop selling audiences to advertisers and start selling entertainment to audiences. Of course, if I pay a dollar (I figure that would be a good fee) for a forty minute (1 hour less commercials) program, then I should be able to record it and do anything else I like with it except those actions which would prevent the shows copyright holder from selling it to other people (like sharing it with 20 million close personal friends via a P2P networks)
Of course, this is a whole new business model for the studios and they just don't adapt well. Let's see, using my example, I'd pay fifty cents for an episode of Seinfeld - how many people would it take to get the 5 million per episode that Jerry turned down?
The Wright Brothers worked with what they had. I am not requiring a reuseable manned spacecraft to be built using technology, materials and knowledge available in a bicycle shop circa 1900. If you want to point out what they did not have to acccomplish, you should also point out what they did not have to work with. (everything that comes with another century of tecnological progress)
1> yep, you do have to go fast to get to orbit - but in the century since Kitty Hawk, we have had multiple "proofs of concept" starting with Sputnik that it is possible to go that fast.
2> dangerous? by what definition? I invite you to consider the actual energy content of various rocket fuels (bearing in mind that gasoline and kerosene derivatives (jet fuel) are also useable in rockets) hard to handle? You can pick up LOX from any number of suppliers, or make it yourself from condensation using liquid N2.
3> 30 days of life support? stop pulling numbers from nowhere. The requirement I suggested was for 3 round trip flights in thirty days. 48 hours of life support would probably leave a fairly comfortable safety margin.
4> 99.4% success? well you are pulling numbers from nowhere related to the proposed task (which would actually require 100% success for three flights)
5> "one of the most complex machines..." I suggest that it may be possible to go into orbit in something a heck of a lot simpler. Actually I suggest that if we are ever to go into space in any significant way, simpler implementations are necessary.
Could the commercial sector do it better? We will never know if there is no incentive to find out. Proposing a prize costs absolutely nothing unless someone actually manages to claim it.
And 99.4% is not a very good sucess rate when you are defining "non success" as the death of everyone on board. You might also consider that it was only a 75% "success" rate as one of four shuttles experienced a "non successful" flight. If six out of every 1000 commercial airline flights resulted in the complete loss of life for everyone on board, I doubt you'd be crowing about the airline's "success rate" (lets say 10,000 flights a day with 100 people on beach flight would result in 6,000 deaths per day, or over 200,000 people per year).
We won't get into space in any meaningful way as long as a government employment program is sucking up and destroying the engineers who could make it happen. Gut NASA like the beached whale it is before the corpse explodes from the pressure of its own decomposition.
The Wright Brothers (or pick your own early aviation pioneers)did not require a 15,000 man ground support crew to fly.
Lindbergh made a solo flight from the US to Paris so he could win a $25,000 prize.
If Bush really wants to get into space (and yes, the military does - they are not really stupid) he should get Congress to set up a series of prizes. Five billion tax free for the first resuseable spacecraft to make three round trips to the vicinity of the ISS in a thirty day period carrying say three people and two tons of cargo on each trip.
Rather than controlling the development of spacecraft, the government should just promise to buy a bunch of them that meet a certain price performance criteria. And, if Bush with his noted tendencies towards such things can not make it happen, it will probably happen somewhere else (India, China, Japan - hell maybe even France - (those arrogant little snots still miss Napoleon))
But, the studio would want to charge 5.95 or more per episode (Unless it was Lucas, Spielberg or any screen adaptation of Steven King, then it would be 5.95 per 15 minute segment, with "premium" (say Jar-Jar's death scene)segments going for 8.95), and that would be a PPV system so you could not archive it to recordable DVD or whatever media floats your boat. And the ads would not be in between "scenes" as they are when broadcast, they would be overlaid so you would be forced to watch them (maybe they would "letterbox" the show and stick the ads in the "black space" created by letterboxing.
In other words I like your idea, but the studios would retain too much "control" to make it worthwhile.
Call it corporate irony at its finest, but I really really really loved the way that Pizza Hut promoted a movie where the script tie in was actually to the Domino's promotion at the time. (Domino's had a thirty minute delivery guarantee - but a multimilion dollar lawsuit because of a traffic accident involving a pizza delivery guy ended it)
That is the excuse they would give. NASA will really say no because they only exercise power by refusing people. It is the same sort of idiocy I recall hearing about in Russia a few years back. A restaurant (post USSR) hires a doorman. The retaurant is empty. No one ever comes in. Why? because the doorman would refuse entrance to anyone who did not have a reservation. Sure he could have opened the freaking door and let customers into the restaurant, but he did not exercize any power by doing that. By saying "NYET!", he demonstrated his power.
In addition, if NASA were to apply those "standards" to their astronaut corps, the vast majority of them would be grounded.
If Bush the Younger wants to see serious space development, he should start treating NASA administrators like Nixon treated DOJ critters during the Watergate investigation, or like th eCLinton's handled the White House travel office