But when it comes to biology, people get squeamish because... well, because we've had the idea implanted in our heads, at least since
Frankenstein, that cutting-edge biological research is somehow "playing God."
Actually, according to a Catholic theologian when asked about this, to "play God" you would have to invent the rules then sit back and watch what happens within the rules. What we do is try to figure out what the rules are and then do everything we can within them. So trying to create life within the rules that we've got is not "plyaing God" but "playing Man".
The remedy in the DoJ case mentioned Longhorn by name. Did anyone think Microsoft wouldn't just invent some reason to say of their next product, "This is not the Longhorn you are looking for"?
A new, more
secure version of AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM, will enable businesses to read instant messages sent by employees, just as businesses can now monitor their workers' e-mail.
How is allowing someone else to monitor my communications more secure?
"We are familiar with the Wall Street group," Stewart said. "We don't believe standards are at a place that makes us comfortable we can ensure
customer privacy and security as well as network performance."
Instead, AOL plans to offer private companies and federal agencies a premium version of the service early next year...
Just keep in mind who the customer is. In the mass market, the customer is rarely the user.
The Loophole Clause (AKA section J) explicityly exempts anything having to do with "anti-piracy, anti-virus, software licensing, digital rights management, encryption or authentication systems". What do you think Palladium is for?
I've hilighted the part Microsoft will care about:
J.
No provision of this Final Judgment shall: 1. Require Microsoft to document, disclose or license to third parties: (a) portions of APIs or Documentation or portions or layers of Communications Protocols the disclosure of which would compromise the security of a particular installation or group of installations of anti-piracy, anti-virus, software licensing, digital rights management, encryption or authentication systems, including without limitation, keys, authorization tokens or enforcement criteria; or (b) any API, interface or other information related to any Microsoft product if lawfully directed not to do so by a governmental agency of competent jurisdiction.
"The important thing," he explains, "is that Word and Excel (and of course the new XDocs thing)
can export their data as XML without information loss."
Emphasis added. So the answer to What will be the default save format? is a resounding not XML.
There's already a reply sarcastically calling it a conspriacy theory, but consider this:
Over the next month, he
tried to find out who had fingered him and what he could do to get his auction back up. The constant back and forth eventually soured Ziemann -- who runs a website and retail service from his home -- on eBay altogether.
Only two people should have standing to send a take-down request: the copyright holder, and an agent for the copyright holder. In most cases that will be the RIAA. Since in this case it's clear the copyright holder didn't send the take-down notice, that leaves...
Right, the RIAA. The same way the MPAA sent a take-down order for a fourth-grader's book report about Harry Potter. They don't care if the claim has any merit. All they care about is that no one distributes music except through their channels.
On the one hand, he's not supposed to speak outside of the courtroom because what he says can be taken as indicating his official position. But on the other hand his comments would have been acceptable had they actually been offered while in court.
So which is it: Do his words outside the courtroom indicate his official position or not? Once we've decided that, we can decide whether it matters that he talks outside of court.
Reading that, you get one very good idea of incompetence: specifically, Microsoft's inept performance; ineptness that refers to Microsoft's lawyers, the performance of the "expert witnesses" they brought to the stand (who's going to forget Richard Schmalensee slamming down his old student in an economic analysis), or the "IE Removal Tool"... or even Gates's own performance.
As I said when I compiled this summary of their testimony:
The main challenge Microsoft has faced in trying to mount a defense is that they are massively, demonstrably guilty.
This is like all the stories about mothers throwing out their sons' baseball card collections. My brother and I had about a dozen of these things and would race them not just on the tracks, but up and down the hallway. We had chutes at either end that would direct them into U-turns and go back to the other end.
We discoverd that if you put the platic guard rails around the outside of every turn, you could even run them on slot car tracks. Never quite made it throught the loop though.
Of course we also raced them up and down the driveway, until they got so gummed up with dirt that they didn't work any more. I wonder what they'd be worth today?
I am guessing that someone could write a plugin for any wiki system todo the pointless little map of information with little lines on it
Take a look here and here and here. Someday I'll have the time to start digging into these more.
I wish that was just "funny"
on
Fritz's Hit List
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
> Machine: You had 3 messages. 1 Message deleted automatically since it has copyrighted material.
User: Oh no, Grandma again left a message with her radio on in the background.
But isn't this exactly what they seek to do? If general purpose computing devices were ever sufficiently locked down, someone would come up with a hack to add a hard drive to digital answering machines and start copying. Why do you think the language of the CPDTPA is so broad? They're trying damn hard to make sure their bought and paid for legislation isn't obsoleted by the next generation of technology.
It
will never beat Windows on the desktop, but the Linux operating system has an undeniable charm in the world of corporate computing: It's free. (Emphasis added)
Now even for people who don't care one way or the other whether Linux does someday beat Windows, how can they be so blind to history to suggest that it can never happen?
1. Story gets posted to Slashdot 2. Website is bombarded with requests 3. Operating system automatically requisitions 5 new Sun E4500 servers to handle the load 4. Sun stock stays listed in on Nasdaq for one more day
Maybe CDs all become DVDs, and you get not just the music, but interviews, concert footage, games, whatever. I don't have the answer.
Since we already know we can get a 2-hour DVD for less than $20, and many new CDs have less than 1.5 hours of music for ~$20, what if someone puts out an all-music-video DVD? Or better yet, a concert DVD? Two hours of digital music plus video, liner notes, artist interviews, etc. etc. etc. for $20. Wouldn't that be fun.
Do you honestly think KaZaa is doing any real trading of your home movies, the music you recorded in your garage, or the (surely nonexistant) code you're writing as open source?
DRM is about controls on every computer, that will control access to every file that goes through it. The DRM won't know who created it. It is reasonable to suspect that large software manufacturers will attempt to suppress any software that will allow people to create their own content and define it as sharable on DRM systems. Want an example?
If any of it had value, you'd be selling it.
I guess Debian must not have any value.
Will all content require DRM? No. Will all commercial content require DRM? No.
Read the quote again. Here, I'll hilight it for you:
"Personal information such as medical and financial data; corporate information such as legal and business documents; and
commercial content such as software, music and movies may all require DRM," said a Microsoft spokeswoman, in Redmond, Wash.
That's exactly what they're talking about. Don't like my analysis of what he said? How about a little higher in the article where we get:
DRM technology enables
content creators, such as record companies, to encrypt content and define who can decrypt it and how they can use it.
Their example of a content creator is a record company, not an individual publishing his own work.
Are companies (not just internet) in a hurry to flood the internet with content when they have no way to guarantee any sort of profit from it, besides the 'honor system'? No.
You, and the eWeek article, are the ones who keep talking about content as though only companies can create it. The internet took off, and the bulk of its content was created, before it became so comercialized.
"Personal information such as medical and financial data; corporate information such as legal and business documents; and
commercial content such as software, music and movies may all require DRM," said a Microsoft spokeswoman, in Redmond, Wash.
So home movies are now "commercial?" And music that I and my band record in the garage and want to relase to build a following is "commercial?" And software that I write and release for the world to use freely under an open license is now "commercial?" Here's a clue: If no one is asking for payment, it's not commerce.
But if you give them a new form of media, say, a song on a copy-protected CD, and they can no longer listen to it except on approved devices that they cannot copy from, why should the government provide the same protection to you?
Why hasn't anyone else said this before? (At least not in anything I've read so far.) It's brilliant and fits in a sound bite. If copyright is to protect things that can be easily copied, then you can't copyright something that is hard to copy. QED.
Judges determine fair use case by case, but technology companies are being asked to develop DRM systems that determine ahead of time what people can and can't do with files. In many cases, there are no precedents for DRM companies to draw from.
Focus on the phrase "DRM companies" for a second. Does anyone realize we're already casually assuming that there will be a whole new class of companies that will spring up just to create, administer and monitor DRM? The "friction" this will add to the already-bloated digital-entertainment distribution system is enormous. Large distributors will create whole new divisions to take on the work. Small distributors, if they survive, will have to outsource the function. This is insane.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, according to a Catholic theologian when asked about this, to "play God" you would have to invent the rules then sit back and watch what happens within the rules. What we do is try to figure out what the rules are and then do everything we can within them. So trying to create life within the rules that we've got is not "plyaing God" but "playing Man".
The remedy in the DoJ case mentioned Longhorn by name. Did anyone think Microsoft wouldn't just invent some reason to say of their next product, "This is not the Longhorn you are looking for"?
They've already done your work for you. Don't reinvent the wheel again.
How is allowing someone else to monitor my communications more secure?
Just keep in mind who the customer is. In the mass market, the customer is rarely the user.
The Loophole Clause (AKA section J) explicityly exempts anything having to do with "anti-piracy, anti-virus, software licensing, digital rights management, encryption or authentication systems". What do you think Palladium is for?
Fuck.
damn, when did denis leary start posting on /. ? ;)
He didn't say anything about brown leather whale-skin interior or baby seal eyes for hubcaps.
Am I the only one who tried this URL?
No. I am such a loser.
Am I the only one who tried this URL?
Yes. Loser.
Right, the RIAA. The same way the MPAA sent a take-down order for a fourth-grader's book report about Harry Potter. They don't care if the claim has any merit. All they care about is that no one distributes music except through their channels.
On the one hand, he's not supposed to speak outside of the courtroom because what he says can be taken as indicating his official position. But on the other hand his comments would have been acceptable had they actually been offered while in court.
So which is it: Do his words outside the courtroom indicate his official position or not? Once we've decided that, we can decide whether it matters that he talks outside of court.
This is like all the stories about mothers throwing out their sons' baseball card collections. My brother and I had about a dozen of these things and would race them not just on the tracks, but up and down the hallway. We had chutes at either end that would direct them into U-turns and go back to the other end.
We discoverd that if you put the platic guard rails around the outside of every turn, you could even run them on slot car tracks. Never quite made it throught the loop though.
Of course we also raced them up and down the driveway, until they got so gummed up with dirt that they didn't work any more. I wonder what they'd be worth today?
1. Story gets posted to Slashdot
2. Website is bombarded with requests
3. Operating system automatically requisitions 5 new Sun E4500 servers to handle the load
4. Sun stock stays listed in on Nasdaq for one more day
5. Profit!
Though goatse.cx thread down below is actually funny *and* ontopic for once.