There is already _tons_ of video cameras with 3 sensors in them. Except the beam splitter splits the three sensors by _color_. It should be easy for mfrs to replace the 3 color beam splitter with a monochrome one and change the monochrome sensors with color sensors. Then just adjust the each sensor gain or shutter speed to vary the exposure. Then save three files for each sensor for later processing.
So it's just a simple beam splitter swap out, sensor swap out and SW change. Nothing else in the video cam has to change. Sounds like a minimum invstment to me.
This is just a simple way for localities to make up lost revenue for a decreasing tax base in an economic downturn. Speeding tickets are on the rise too.
It's just another case of there are so many damn laws you can't help but break some everyday. It's just govt. doesn't choose to fine you until the coffers get low. They let you break the law (speeding and the such) so you get into the habit and then bam - crackdown! Instant revenue stream.
My favorite way to get back is to absolutely refuse to turn right on red at any light with the cameras. I don't care how many people I piss off. I'll sit there all freakin' day long. If it's in your local municipality and you support the camera then you get to wait behind my paranoid ass. Serves ya right.
But with control on both sides of the digital cable and with Mafiaa controlling HDCP certificates over time they can slowly reduce what can and can't be seen. They simply will have the control.
Just because that control doesn't exist today (or they are playing nice today) doesn't mean the bait and switch isn't lying in waiting. They could easily let you see word documents and prevent SW from playing non HDCP video (similar to iTunes DRM) in the future.
It's also why blu-ray players have to be internet capable. So they can do the bait and switch there too. It's all in the plans.
Will it happen? Maybe not.
But I believe it is why Mafiaa makes such a big deal about HDCP and why it exists in the first place. They saw the proliferation of high quality audio technology and wanted to get HDCP in with the intent of doing a bait and switch . . . someday.
It's a long term bait and switch. Eventually monitors (not just playback sources as it is now) will refuse to display non-HDCP encoded content.
Why?
Because content creation equipment that rivals the the quality most expensive HD television and film movie production equipment today can be had for less than $20k (Look at the Canon 5DMKII DSLR + Final Cut Pro).
In short any ol' regular guy with enough talent to create a movie is not prevented from doing so by cost of production alone. He can make his work and it has the potential be better in production values than Mafiaa content without having to go through them to make it.
If they can't control distribution of content then they lose.
HDCP gives them back distribution control by preventing independent content from being seen.
Mafiaa has smart people. Copy protection is the cover story to sell to law abiding people and politicians. The real [purpose is to continue to set up barriers to entry in content creation.
This would have been a great strategy for the late 1990's, when the CD was still a relevant media (and, for that matter, when consumers were demanding that prices be lowered, both through their words and through their actions -- which the industry by and large ignored completely).
I'm not sure I'd call CDs relevant still. We've moved on to solid state media, writeable storage decoupled from the content. You could discount 8-track tapes and they wouldn't sell today. CD's don't have the same analog appeal that vinyl records to, either. I expect that eventually they'll just stop making CDs, and all music will be distributed via the network.
This price reduction merely indicates that we're a little bit closer to that day. I doubt it'll do much to boost sales at this point.
Intel will limit the market for VXWorks which is all Wind River has that anyone would want (Yes. Wind River has a real nice integration tool for Wind River Linux and that could be a wild card factor in the future but today it's all about VXWorks). How? Give VXWorks away for free or very low prices when buying an Atom Processor, for example.
Intel: "You want VXWorks support for your Arm (Mips, etc.)? Ok yeah we'll do that but since you aren't buying our silicon we're gonna have to charge you the 'regular' price, OK?" Geez? Should I pay $200k for annual support/royalties for VXWorks or just switch to an Atom and get it for free? Tough choice.
Don't know if the deal is big enough to pop up on the radar for federal regulators but if you are using VXWorks today, it's time to look at alternatives or look at Intel processors like the Atom (and I wouldn't look to M$ either). VXWorks support for third party processors is doomed. Maybe this is good news for obscure embedded OS's like UCOS/II or ThreadX.
The good news is the embedded market has _never_ bowed to monopolistic moves because most embedded systems are highly specialized (and 95% of them don't need graphics, hard drives, web servers, etc) and can easily be created as "roll your own" systems.
On a long time scale this will simply be the end of VXWorks as Intel struggles to force companies to use it on their silicon.
When leaving abroad don't bring any data with you that could be inspected upon your return.
Any new data you acquire abroad should be uploaded via the Internet. Set up a server at home and only open one random port to SSH via a firewall with a port forwarding feature. Use sftp to upload your data that you don't want inspected before travelling back home.
Now wasn't that easy . . . (and completely legal). No games played, no headaches and no fear.
I don't believe in a metaphysical god that can intervene, but I do believe in Christian values and morality
Fuck You Asshole.
I am so sick and tired of Christians claiming "ownership" of morality. Here's a news bulletin: CHRISTIANS DID NOT INVENT MORALITY.
I don't suppose it is possible for you to understand that people have feelings and understand compassion without having any idea of who or what a christian god is. We have archeological as well as modern examples of thousands of societies who have had no exposure to a christian religion who seemed to function just fine. Do you suppose these societies exist(ed) as raping murderous folk? How long do you really believe a society could last with a populace with such values?
What I find humerous is that you seem to think religion is the only thing holding you back from killing and raping. Personally I'd recommend you get some physological help right away. Most normal people don't need a mental restraint to understand how to behave in society. They simply inherently know because being a good member of society is inherently in our nature and (speaking of evolution) in our best interest for propogation of our genes.
You're a Fucking Christian Moron and thinking like yours lead down the slippery slope to crazy shit like flying airplanes into buildings.
The full-permanent magnet system employs neodymium ("rare earth") magnets and there is no energy loss through friction.
Uhhhhh . . . no.
No such thing as a frictionless system. Even air itself in a maglev system provides efficiency hogging friction. Yeah the friction is much less than bearings but it isn't zero.
Maybe the article is a little bit too hype and this is a big clue?
The act of writing notes has nothing to do with _having_ the notes when the lecture is over.
If one is actually following the lecture the act of writing is causing you to affect your brain in a way that listening alone doesn't. In a way you are interacting instead of just listening. Interactivity is always more powerful with learning than passive absoption.
The additional advantage is having a set of notes for review when studying for tests.
Hmmmm. The real reason early CD's were dissed by audiophiles is because the CD's had the "harsh" sound. Original audio masters were mixed to make up for the extreme deficiencies of vinyl. When CD's came out these masters were transfered directly to the digital domain with no compensation at all. These early CD's sounded awful because all the enhancements for vinyl were not removed (not because of 16 bit transfers). This "harsh" sound of CD's was the largest complaint by audiophiles. No doubt because LP's have a long roll off of high frequencies (compensated for in the master) where this "harsh" sound comes from. LP audiophiles jumped all over this and some of the less intelligent ones today still hold LP's are better because of this early effect that has long ago been fixed.
Once masters were re-mixed for true fideltiy there is no LP in the world that can compete with CD's. Even a 16 bit transfer of a master properly re-eq'd blows away the earlier vinyl based master.
The RIAA will get paid anyways from artists who originally refuse to participate in their monopoly on entertainment. It is the only way for the RIAA to keep a stranglehold on their abusive business model. (BTW, it is the same tactic being used by the MPAA to keep regular Joes from making quality movies and independantly producing and distributing them via the Internet - HDCP technologies are not anti-pirate technologies - they are anti-competitive technologies)
Why doesn't a US internet radio station just play non-RIAA affiliated music (artist approved free airplay) and not pay a single dime for the music played? Then challenge any legal action that may be brought against them? Take it all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
It would probably be overall cheaper then the freakin' fees anyways. If this law properly challenged as being anti-competitve/monopolistic maybe the courst can wipe it off the books.
The patent system will never really be reformed. Any legislation claimed to be patent reform will be cleverly written to have the opposite effect and enhance the present woes of the patent system instead of having the desired and claimed effect. This is simply one piece of the government sponsored corporate welfare standard of operation today.
Note the standard corporate business model of today:
1. Take a half assed product. No not a good product, a half assed product.
2. Patent the hell out of technologies used in it through trivial and voluminous patent and trademark submissions. Claim copyright on any and every copyrightable aspect.
3. Exert the least amount of effort to productise the idea. Buggy sw, unreliable parts, frequent but temporary outages of service, etc. are perfectly acceptable. As long as there is a flashy skin on a plastic box, blinky lights and/or graphics and slick well crafted product packaging you are golden.
4. Spend millions of dollars on slick advertising campaigns and pay off major industry rags for glowing reviews and endless hype.
5. Release product under great fanfare and press.
6. Ignore the high volume of complaints of a half functioning product by utilizing a phone support service in a foriegn country which requires 20 button presses to get through and 30 minutes of hold time. All this to talk to a person who knows nothing about the product, can barely speak english and cannot cancel the customers account.
7. Make sure the default pay option is through automatic checking account or credit card deduction (advertised as an exceptional service feature that you can probably even charge extra for). Make any other pay options obscure and/or difficult to sign up for. Never stop periodically charging the account regardless of account status. Just simply never stop charging under any circumstance. The customer will have to cancel the account to terminate paying you.
8. Pay off press and media to keep the tidal wave of customer discontent at bay or covered up. Legally attack any internet source that attempts to uncover the truth of your corporate evil ways with the threat of endless litigation. File any suits as necessary. Make examples of anyone who fights. Make the legal process a cash-plus division and use agressive offensive legal tactics where possible.
9. Pay off any and all politicians who will work to continue your corporate welfare status. This is accomplished through legislation that favors your ability to continue to screw customers and be given default monopoly status. Make deals with local and state legislators (under the guise that you provide jobs to the locals and threaten to move and fire 'am all if you don't get your way). Among the deals include govt. granted monopoly status. It's not worded that way in legislation but effected through the legislation that is passed. Sometimes named as anti-competitive act "this" or "that" and having the exact opposite effect as claimed. The other local govt. deal almost always includes being excluded from any taxes at all. The positive tax impact on the local economy is extracted from the taxes of the underpaid poor saps working for you. More perks include breaks on loans and funding for facilities management and capital expansion costs.
10. Attack anyone who even remotely treads on your patent and trademark portfolio. Use the resources of industry organizations which can help the lobbying effort to keep laws in place that prevent any competition from innovating a better product (which would be trivial since your original product is a piece of junk anyways). Continue any voliminous trivial patent filings so as to prevent any remote chance of any technology competing. Litigate, litigate, litigate.
My fellow Americans. This is what living in a fascist state gives you. Attempting to change the status quo will get the attention of the federal authorities under the suspicion of terrorism threats. The penalty of which (no conviction or due process is necessary) is being whisked away to a state sponsored gulag located in a legal limbo foriegn land where the laws of your own country do not apply.
Welcome to Ben Franklin's worst nightmare.
Maybe it's time for another declaration of independance?
Downrezzed analog connections + dynamic revokable viewing rights = dead and unusable technology.
5 years from today people will say "They actually tried to make a high definition DVD format? What happened?"
And just to prove my point, anyone of you remember DAT?
I didn't think so.
Competition is the difference
on
The Living Dilbert?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Having spent 5 years in the military myself and the last 18 years in the civilian sector, I can say with great confidence that the civilian sector in no way is anywhere near as disorganized and incompetent as the military. The military is another branch of the federal government. That means it falls to the same economic problems the government has. No accountability for output or productivity.
No competition in govt. means the quality of output is not compared to a competitor. There are no standards nor metrics that have any independant oversight. The result is obvious. Poeple in govt. tend to get lazy and do less and less for more and more pay because they can. What standards can they be compared to? Who holds them accountable? The govt. is too big to have any real accountability.
In the civilian sector you have to make money. Yeah there is plenty of fat/red tape/ incompetance in large corporations. But it doesn't last forever. Any company that gets fat, happy and lazy will eventually lose in the marketplace. Just look at any large tech company in the last 10 years to see what a difference competition makes. When was the last time the military or fed govt. laid off a _large_ portion of it's workforce because they stopped bringing in enough income? The last time I checked, the govt just borrows more and more money when income goes down. It'd be nice in the civilain sector if companies could just borrow their way out of financial woes but unfortunately the civlian sector has to budget and follow normal economics.
Therefore no waste, incompetance and lazy tenured people who are mean, lazy and disfunctional (been to get a drivers license lately? Imagine millions of poeple in one organization just like that. Now think of the fed. govt.).
Hopefully getting into the civilian sector is not too much of a shock since you will now have to justify your value by production and not by how much "time" you have put in (unless you go union - that has the same problems fed govt has).
This is all about control of the medium - NOT PIRACY!!!! The laws simply do NOT address piracy. Laws are already on the books that deal with piracy. The new laws do not change this. Most piracy comes from _within_ the entertainment industry anyway. Every new 'leaked' CD that comes out never came from a store bought and ripped CD.
Wake up folks. This is about preventing independant content makers from having access to a high quality cheap distribution mechanism (i.e., The Internet). Todays production equipment costs are plummeting. Any independant content maker has no excuse not to be able to create his masterpiece.
So today an independant content provider could make a high quality movie, produce it and distribute it for next to nothing (compared to the "old" way of using 35mm film). His costs are hiring actors and his blood, sweat, and tears in shooting, mixing, producing, etc.
**AA is shitting themselves over THIS! NOT PIRACY. They are slimey little devils. They will do _anything_ and use _any_ excuse to prevent any new production and distribution model that doesn't 'deal' them in.
"Four months before Saddam's fall, Human Rights Watch estimated that up to 290,000 people had "disappeared" since the late 1970s and were presumed dead. The Coalition Provisional Authority's human rights office estimates that 300,000 bodies are contained in the numerous mass graves. "And that's the lower end of the estimates," said one CPA spokesperson. In fact, the accumulated credible reports make the likely number at least 400,000 to 450,000. So, by a conservative estimate, the regime was killing civilians at an average rate of at least 16,000 a year between 1979 and March 2003."
(Of course, any numbers of killings do not include many thousands of cases of torture, rape, amputation, branding, and other atrocities committed by Saddam's regime that stopped short of death.)
[Furthermore,] U.N. economic sanctions were also killing civilians. Critics regularly claimed sanctions caused 4,000 to 5,000 Iraqi children to die per month from poor nutrition and health care. UNICEF attributed some 500,000 unnecessary deaths to the sanctions in the 1990s. The sanctions remained in place as long as Saddam's regime refused to comply with international requirements. Liberation made it possible to lift the sanctions almost immediately--thus saving approximately 60,000 lives a year, if we use UNICEF's numbers."
I don't recall any of these facts being presented as the reason for invading Iraq. Why? because they weren't, you moron. We're in Iraq for Oil. Not to catch terrorist and not to promote democracy (did you see how well we promote Democracy in Palestine lately?) and save the Children of Iraq.
Revisionist history is the art of dogs and worm scum like you.
Slashdot Mirror
There is already _tons_ of video cameras with 3 sensors in them. Except the beam splitter splits the three sensors by _color_. It should be easy for mfrs to replace the 3 color beam splitter with a monochrome one and change the monochrome sensors with color sensors. Then just adjust the each sensor gain or shutter speed to vary the exposure. Then save three files for each sensor for later processing.
So it's just a simple beam splitter swap out, sensor swap out and SW change. Nothing else in the video cam has to change. Sounds like a minimum invstment to me.
This is just a simple way for localities to make up lost revenue for a decreasing tax base in an economic downturn. Speeding tickets are on the rise too.
It's just another case of there are so many damn laws you can't help but break some everyday. It's just govt. doesn't choose to fine you until the coffers get low. They let you break the law (speeding and the such) so you get into the habit and then bam - crackdown! Instant revenue stream.
My favorite way to get back is to absolutely refuse to turn right on red at any light with the cameras. I don't care how many people I piss off. I'll sit there all freakin' day long. If it's in your local municipality and you support the camera then you get to wait behind my paranoid ass. Serves ya right.
sh1t?
Agreed.
But with control on both sides of the digital cable and with Mafiaa controlling HDCP certificates over time they can slowly reduce what can and can't be seen. They simply will have the control.
Just because that control doesn't exist today (or they are playing nice today) doesn't mean the bait and switch isn't lying in waiting. They could easily let you see word documents and prevent SW from playing non HDCP video (similar to iTunes DRM) in the future.
It's also why blu-ray players have to be internet capable. So they can do the bait and switch there too. It's all in the plans.
Will it happen? Maybe not.
But I believe it is why Mafiaa makes such a big deal about HDCP and why it exists in the first place. They saw the proliferation of high quality audio technology and wanted to get HDCP in with the intent of doing a bait and switch . . . someday.
HDCP doesn't make much sense otherwise.
HDCP is not all about copy protection.
It's a long term bait and switch. Eventually monitors (not just playback sources as it is now) will refuse to display non-HDCP encoded content.
Why?
Because content creation equipment that rivals the the quality most expensive HD television and film movie production equipment today can be had for less than $20k (Look at the Canon 5DMKII DSLR + Final Cut Pro).
In short any ol' regular guy with enough talent to create a movie is not prevented from doing so by cost of production alone. He can make his work and it has the potential be better in production values than Mafiaa content without having to go through them to make it.
If they can't control distribution of content then they lose.
HDCP gives them back distribution control by preventing independent content from being seen.
Mafiaa has smart people. Copy protection is the cover story to sell to law abiding people and politicians. The real [purpose is to continue to set up barriers to entry in content creation.
It's just business the old fashion way.
"I swear if I ever win the lotto I'm gonna open a chain of restaurants"
like this?: http://www.heartattackgrill.com/
This would have been a great strategy for the late 1990's, when the CD was still a relevant media (and, for that matter, when consumers were demanding that prices be lowered, both through their words and through their actions -- which the industry by and large ignored completely).
I'm not sure I'd call CDs relevant still. We've moved on to solid state media, writeable storage decoupled from the content. You could discount 8-track tapes and they wouldn't sell today. CD's don't have the same analog appeal that vinyl records to, either. I expect that eventually they'll just stop making CDs, and all music will be distributed via the network.
This price reduction merely indicates that we're a little bit closer to that day. I doubt it'll do much to boost sales at this point.
Mod parent up.
This is _the_ post of the day.
I don't think Mrs right hand would appreciate that.
Simply put - the geek ratio of men to women shows that for the average male geek - loneliness is a fact of life.
Intel will limit the market for VXWorks which is all Wind River has that anyone would want (Yes. Wind River has a real nice integration tool for Wind River Linux and that could be a wild card factor in the future but today it's all about VXWorks). How? Give VXWorks away for free or very low prices when buying an Atom Processor, for example.
Intel: "You want VXWorks support for your Arm (Mips, etc.)? Ok yeah we'll do that but since you aren't buying our silicon we're gonna have to charge you the 'regular' price, OK?" Geez? Should I pay $200k for annual support/royalties for VXWorks or just switch to an Atom and get it for free? Tough choice.
Don't know if the deal is big enough to pop up on the radar for federal regulators but if you are using VXWorks today, it's time to look at alternatives or look at Intel processors like the Atom (and I wouldn't look to M$ either). VXWorks support for third party processors is doomed. Maybe this is good news for obscure embedded OS's like UCOS/II or ThreadX.
The good news is the embedded market has _never_ bowed to monopolistic moves because most embedded systems are highly specialized (and 95% of them don't need graphics, hard drives, web servers, etc) and can easily be created as "roll your own" systems.
On a long time scale this will simply be the end of VXWorks as Intel struggles to force companies to use it on their silicon.
Large, and with a long, thin snout ... It can inject passing prey with a venom-loaded bite.
... one of only two countries where this nocturnal, insect-eating animal (Solenodon paradoxus) can be found ...
OK. Large venom injecting animal probably doesn't need venom to eat insects.
Gattaca
Geesh. Am I to believe that that w3c never used images to hyperlink pages before the patent was issued?
When leaving abroad don't bring any data with you that could be inspected upon your return.
Any new data you acquire abroad should be uploaded via the Internet. Set up a server at home and only open one random port to SSH via a firewall with a port forwarding feature. Use sftp to upload your data that you don't want inspected before travelling back home.
Now wasn't that easy . . . (and completely legal). No games played, no headaches and no fear.
I don't believe in a metaphysical god that can intervene, but I do believe in Christian values and morality
Fuck You Asshole.
I am so sick and tired of Christians claiming "ownership" of morality. Here's a news bulletin: CHRISTIANS DID NOT INVENT MORALITY.
I don't suppose it is possible for you to understand that people have feelings and understand compassion without having any idea of who or what a christian god is. We have archeological as well as modern examples of thousands of societies who have had no exposure to a christian religion who seemed to function just fine. Do you suppose these societies exist(ed) as raping murderous folk? How long do you really believe a society could last with a populace with such values?
What I find humerous is that you seem to think religion is the only thing holding you back from killing and raping. Personally I'd recommend you get some physological help right away. Most normal people don't need a mental restraint to understand how to behave in society. They simply inherently know because being a good member of society is inherently in our nature and (speaking of evolution) in our best interest for propogation of our genes.
You're a Fucking Christian Moron and thinking like yours lead down the slippery slope to crazy shit like flying airplanes into buildings.
From the wind turbine Maglev Article:
The full-permanent magnet system employs neodymium ("rare earth") magnets and there is no energy loss through friction.
Uhhhhh . . . no.
No such thing as a frictionless system. Even air itself in a maglev system provides efficiency hogging friction. Yeah the friction is much less than bearings but it isn't zero.
Maybe the article is a little bit too hype and this is a big clue?
Ridiculous.
The act of writing notes has nothing to do with _having_ the notes when the lecture is over.
If one is actually following the lecture the act of writing is causing you to affect your brain in a way that listening alone doesn't. In a way you are interacting instead of just listening. Interactivity is always more powerful with learning than passive absoption.
The additional advantage is having a set of notes for review when studying for tests.
Hmmmm. The real reason early CD's were dissed by audiophiles is because the CD's had the "harsh" sound. Original audio masters were mixed to make up for the extreme deficiencies of vinyl. When CD's came out these masters were transfered directly to the digital domain with no compensation at all. These early CD's sounded awful because all the enhancements for vinyl were not removed (not because of 16 bit transfers). This "harsh" sound of CD's was the largest complaint by audiophiles. No doubt because LP's have a long roll off of high frequencies (compensated for in the master) where this "harsh" sound comes from. LP audiophiles jumped all over this and some of the less intelligent ones today still hold LP's are better because of this early effect that has long ago been fixed.
Once masters were re-mixed for true fideltiy there is no LP in the world that can compete with CD's. Even a 16 bit transfer of a master properly re-eq'd blows away the earlier vinyl based master.
And this is THE HEART of the issue.
The RIAA will get paid anyways from artists who originally refuse to participate in their monopoly on entertainment. It is the only way for the RIAA to keep a stranglehold on their abusive business model. (BTW, it is the same tactic being used by the MPAA to keep regular Joes from making quality movies and independantly producing and distributing them via the Internet - HDCP technologies are not anti-pirate technologies - they are anti-competitive technologies)
Why doesn't a US internet radio station just play non-RIAA affiliated music (artist approved free airplay) and not pay a single dime for the music played? Then challenge any legal action that may be brought against them? Take it all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
It would probably be overall cheaper then the freakin' fees anyways. If this law properly challenged as being anti-competitve/monopolistic maybe the courst can wipe it off the books.
The patent system will never really be reformed. Any legislation claimed to be patent reform will be cleverly written to have the opposite effect and enhance the present woes of the patent system instead of having the desired and claimed effect. This is simply one piece of the government sponsored corporate welfare standard of operation today.
Note the standard corporate business model of today:
1. Take a half assed product. No not a good product, a half assed product.
2. Patent the hell out of technologies used in it through trivial and voluminous patent and trademark submissions. Claim copyright on any and every copyrightable aspect.
3. Exert the least amount of effort to productise the idea. Buggy sw, unreliable parts, frequent but temporary outages of service, etc. are perfectly acceptable. As long as there is a flashy skin on a plastic box, blinky lights and/or graphics and slick well crafted product packaging you are golden.
4. Spend millions of dollars on slick advertising campaigns and pay off major industry rags for glowing reviews and endless hype.
5. Release product under great fanfare and press.
6. Ignore the high volume of complaints of a half functioning product by utilizing a phone support service in a foriegn country which requires 20 button presses to get through and 30 minutes of hold time. All this to talk to a person who knows nothing about the product, can barely speak english and cannot cancel the customers account.
7. Make sure the default pay option is through automatic checking account or credit card deduction (advertised as an exceptional service feature that you can probably even charge extra for). Make any other pay options obscure and/or difficult to sign up for. Never stop periodically charging the account regardless of account status. Just simply never stop charging under any circumstance. The customer will have to cancel the account to terminate paying you.
8. Pay off press and media to keep the tidal wave of customer discontent at bay or covered up. Legally attack any internet source that attempts to uncover the truth of your corporate evil ways with the threat of endless litigation. File any suits as necessary. Make examples of anyone who fights. Make the legal process a cash-plus division and use agressive offensive legal tactics where possible.
9. Pay off any and all politicians who will work to continue your corporate welfare status. This is accomplished through legislation that favors your ability to continue to screw customers and be given default monopoly status. Make deals with local and state legislators (under the guise that you provide jobs to the locals and threaten to move and fire 'am all if you don't get your way). Among the deals include govt. granted monopoly status. It's not worded that way in legislation but effected through the legislation that is passed. Sometimes named as anti-competitive act "this" or "that" and having the exact opposite effect as claimed. The other local govt. deal almost always includes being excluded from any taxes at all. The positive tax impact on the local economy is extracted from the taxes of the underpaid poor saps working for you. More perks include breaks on loans and funding for facilities management and capital expansion costs.
10. Attack anyone who even remotely treads on your patent and trademark portfolio. Use the resources of industry organizations which can help the lobbying effort to keep laws in place that prevent any competition from innovating a better product (which would be trivial since your original product is a piece of junk anyways). Continue any voliminous trivial patent filings so as to prevent any remote chance of any technology competing. Litigate, litigate, litigate.
My fellow Americans. This is what living in a fascist state gives you. Attempting to change the status quo will get the attention of the federal authorities under the suspicion of terrorism threats. The penalty of which (no conviction or due process is necessary) is being whisked away to a state sponsored gulag located in a legal limbo foriegn land where the laws of your own country do not apply.
Welcome to Ben Franklin's worst nightmare.
Maybe it's time for another declaration of independance?
Downrezzed analog connections + dynamic revokable viewing rights = dead and unusable technology.
5 years from today people will say "They actually tried to make a high definition DVD format? What happened?"
And just to prove my point, anyone of you remember DAT?
I didn't think so.
Having spent 5 years in the military myself and the last 18 years in the civilian sector, I can say with great confidence that the civilian sector in no way is anywhere near as disorganized and incompetent as the military. The military is another branch of the federal government. That means it falls to the same economic problems the government has. No accountability for output or productivity.
No competition in govt. means the quality of output is not compared to a competitor. There are no standards nor metrics that have any independant oversight. The result is obvious. Poeple in govt. tend to get lazy and do less and less for more and more pay because they can. What standards can they be compared to? Who holds them accountable? The govt. is too big to have any real accountability.
In the civilian sector you have to make money. Yeah there is plenty of fat/red tape/ incompetance in large corporations. But it doesn't last forever. Any company that gets fat, happy and lazy will eventually lose in the marketplace. Just look at any large tech company in the last 10 years to see what a difference competition makes. When was the last time the military or fed govt. laid off a _large_ portion of it's workforce because they stopped bringing in enough income? The last time I checked, the govt just borrows more and more money when income goes down. It'd be nice in the civilain sector if companies could just borrow their way out of financial woes but unfortunately the civlian sector has to budget and follow normal economics.
Therefore no waste, incompetance and lazy tenured people who are mean, lazy and disfunctional (been to get a drivers license lately? Imagine millions of poeple in one organization just like that. Now think of the fed. govt.).
Hopefully getting into the civilian sector is not too much of a shock since you will now have to justify your value by production and not by how much "time" you have put in (unless you go union - that has the same problems fed govt has).
My $.02.
This is all about control of the medium - NOT PIRACY!!!! The laws simply do NOT address piracy. Laws are already on the books that deal with piracy. The new laws do not change this. Most piracy comes from _within_ the entertainment industry anyway. Every new 'leaked' CD that comes out never came from a store bought and ripped CD.
Wake up folks. This is about preventing independant content makers from having access to a high quality cheap distribution mechanism (i.e., The Internet). Todays production equipment costs are plummeting. Any independant content maker has no excuse not to be able to create his masterpiece.
So today an independant content provider could make a high quality movie, produce it and distribute it for next to nothing (compared to the "old" way of using 35mm film). His costs are hiring actors and his blood, sweat, and tears in shooting, mixing, producing, etc.
**AA is shitting themselves over THIS! NOT PIRACY. They are slimey little devils. They will do _anything_ and use _any_ excuse to prevent any new production and distribution model that doesn't 'deal' them in.
"Four months before Saddam's fall, Human Rights Watch estimated that up to 290,000 people had "disappeared" since the late 1970s and were presumed dead. The Coalition Provisional Authority's human rights office estimates that 300,000 bodies are contained in the numerous mass graves. "And that's the lower end of the estimates," said one CPA spokesperson. In fact, the accumulated credible reports make the likely number at least 400,000 to 450,000. So, by a conservative estimate, the regime was killing civilians at an average rate of at least 16,000 a year between 1979 and March 2003." (Of course, any numbers of killings do not include many thousands of cases of torture, rape, amputation, branding, and other atrocities committed by Saddam's regime that stopped short of death.) [Furthermore,] U.N. economic sanctions were also killing civilians. Critics regularly claimed sanctions caused 4,000 to 5,000 Iraqi children to die per month from poor nutrition and health care. UNICEF attributed some 500,000 unnecessary deaths to the sanctions in the 1990s. The sanctions remained in place as long as Saddam's regime refused to comply with international requirements. Liberation made it possible to lift the sanctions almost immediately--thus saving approximately 60,000 lives a year, if we use UNICEF's numbers."
I don't recall any of these facts being presented as the reason for invading Iraq. Why? because they weren't, you moron. We're in Iraq for Oil. Not to catch terrorist and not to promote democracy (did you see how well we promote Democracy in Palestine lately?) and save the Children of Iraq.
Revisionist history is the art of dogs and worm scum like you.
HD-DVD + DRM == stillborn