i read, "In General -- It is unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize certified security technologies that adhere to the security system standards adopted under section 104." (Emphasis added)
Isn't this the exact problem with the DMCA, this idea that laws should be more like an umbrella that can cover a great many things than a law that in concise and easily distinguishable from one another?
I am all for laws that protect people and/or companies from any sort of theft but I do not support the DMCA because of how general it is.
Of courseI haven't read the rest of the draft as of yet, flame if need be in re: to things stated later, but those two little words raised my ire something fierce.
Ease of use - AOL Joe isn't l33t. No codes, no dongles, no Captain Crunch decoder wheels. Quick initial registration, download and double-click, get billed monthly.
As I wait for /. to quit /.ing the /.ed
on
The End of Innovation?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I haven't read the/.'ed article but I figured I'd write this anyways.
Out of the three cases mentioned, the one one that made me the most upset, and is still the one that makes my blood boil the most, was the DeCSS travesty.
I'm talking, particularly, about the case with 2600. I'm not a big backer of 2600 or Emmanuel but in this case I had to give the respect where it was deserved. This was the case, IMHO, that set the tone for all cases after it and because 2600.com made the hearing available on their site I, we, were given a first hand listen to just how badly lawyers could manipulate judges in technology cases.
After listening to this case, at least the whole of 2600 / Emmanuel's side, and finally finding out the judgement, I knew that it was only going to get worse was only going to get worse (I suggest doing a search here for 'Court' it's truly appalling). It wasn't as though the judgement and the judgement alone upset me. It wasn't that I was all "rah-rah" for 2600. It wasn't even that I thought DeCSS should be "legal." It's that the judge had no concept of technology and the justice system allowed a mac truck of a manipulative lawyer to run him over. Listen to the testimony.
I said it before and I will continue to say it, the judicial system needs better qualified people presiding in these cases. I say 'these' because, and IANAL but, this is an entirely different concept than, say, laws of the physical world and laws of the 'cyber one.' I've often thought and giggled about the idea that files are never stolen, because if you copy something it's still there. I truly feal that we need judges that know the facts of the technology before it's sppon fed to them by the attorney's on both sides.
Until that happens, and / or until the hearings on Dmitry, Napster, etc. are made public (if they have been could someone please link them) so we can know for sure if proper and fair judgements were passed.
Without that, and without the DMCA being either a) abolished, or b) re-written (I'd much prefer the latter) the companies that own the DMCA will continue to 0wn anyone they want.
That's my two cents. Mod it to hell.
Re:I hope I like it, I hated the first one
on
Review: Rush Hour 2
·
· Score: 1
"With all the big guys telling people that we've only seen the eye of the storm its nice to see someone get it right."
Are you serious? This was the computing equivelant of Jon Katz covering, uhmmm, Cats. Sure, it made the Feds look like the miserable, inept, slugs that they've made themselves out to be, but it didn't offer any answers. Anyone can go on a tyrade making a mockery of any suit and pseudo-suit, I do it all the time, as a matter of fact. ..
Whoa, uhmmm, scratch everything after the start of the little gray box up there.
Chess, as a game, is overtly mathematical. Chess as an art is boundless and never duplicated.
I think that experiments like this forget the latter. The idea that a computer can duplicate moves programmed into it isn't all that interesting (aside from the complexities of the actual programming). This is not, as never should it be set out to be, a replacement to people or a way to show off machines and programming.
I'm still puzzled as to why people feel the need to use Chess in these sort of matters. The great ones - Morphy, Nimzovitch, Spaskey, Fischer, Kasparov, Karpov etc - played the game as passionately as they did logically, and that's what made them great.
Passion can not be duplicated or programmed into a machine.
Deep Blue + UPM = an even more frustrated Kasparov? Do you think he would give the finger as he stormed out of the building? Do you think the machine would give one back?
And in related news; The Mob is now known to be hiring geeks after realizing that they don't have time to RTFM in between money laundering and Wall Street extortion.
"We really don't have a full understanding of this [expletive] technology and we really don't give two [plural expletive] about wanting to learn it.", a spokesman for the New York 5 Families was quoted as saying.
He continued with, "But we ain't gonna get pinched because of it, so we hired a couple of those smart-ass techno-nerds to make sure that the way we run our *businesses* is as tight as legally can be."
Tomorrow, we venture into the world of hacking Monks and how they are trying to circumvent technology that would keep God in our lives.
Earlier this year, the FBI used a keystroke bug to nab two Russians suspected of hacking into U.S. Internet companies. The Russians have not yet gone to trial.
"The problem is that it was devised by a bunch of hippie anarchists who didn't have a strong profit motive. But this is a business, not a government-sponsored network."
One, yes it was created by a bunch of people that wanted to give a little something to Universities and didn't really (IMHO) care all that much about monetary wealth. Two, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't the 'Net (or at least part of it) grabbed by the government for their use, thus becoming government sponsered?
So, just where is the problem? You don't see businesses using the phone as their only means of marketing. Sure, you can order products over the phone, but they don't use it for advertising. The 'Net is a great advertising tool just as television is, but if Big Business Inc. is expecting to use it soley as it's own marketing and sellign point they should really look for a more viable way.
The 'Net, right now, as a way of selling goods is a novelty, and businesses better realize that. People use it, without a doubt, but seeing as how, as a consumer shopping center, it is still in it's infancy most people are still very reluctant to use it (I would suppose it would also help if they kept the "Evil Hacker" scare tactics to a minimum, and it would probably be better if they "found" ways to keep they 'Net more secure first, wait, that sounds familiar).
Why should I wait a couple of weeks or pay extra for over-night shipping for a product as a home consumer (mmm, home's taste goooood . . . sorry) when I could run out to the store within 5 miles of my house for something. Granted this works best for people in cities or otherwise indutrialized rural areas, but whatever. When I go to pricewatch looking for deals I look for stores in my area first (I'm usually willing to pay more if I don't have to wait).
I guess Internet2 is looking to have a bright future.
Microsoft also hopes that the prospect of bundling features such as Instant Messaging, browser and multimedia with the operating system will tempt developers to its own platform. Theoretically, this step will give applications running on Windows richer features than Windows applications that run on Linux or Unix under Mono. This depends, though, on how the open source community builds its libraries and calling languages
That said, let me make a a NEW checklist of all the things I need on my servers.
It's nice to see Chuck D still standing by the beliefs he had for leaving Def Jam all that time ago. While the music may not be Open/Free it is well thought out for Indie companies to take their music to the people on-line where there menacing enemies fear the most. Other big proponents of web-served music are Prince with the NPG Music Club and Ice-T who's last 5 (?) albums were only sold on the 'Net.
With court battles being waged over supposed pirating I only see it as a plus for artists trying to reap the rewards of their music without being systematically raped by the RIAA and their labels.
"We found that just 10 to 15 percent of Linux adoption comes from preinstalled machines... for every paid copy of Linux, there is a free copy that can be replicated 15 times."
Wow, i would have guessed that the number would have been lower. I wonder how these percentages would work out if companies had an easier time worming their way through a MS contract to ship other OSes or even to support other OSes (monetarily not help desk).
I honestly don't think breaking up the company will amount to much. The fact that MS would be two separate entities would do very little, if anything, to give other OS manufacturers any sort of leverage into getting a larger market-share. 90% of the worlds boxes run WinSomething/Or/Other and I'm willing to bet that that percentage is at least equal to the amount of people in the world that know very little about the actual workings of their machines. Out of the few that do know that oh so little bit, their knowledge is predominantly Microsoft based so you can't, realistically, up and leave MS hanging so that the rest of the world can play catch up on geekdom.
The technicalities of this anti-trust case are vastly different than say the breakup of Ma Bell. When Bell got broken up, or, for the sake of argument, if they would have been totally destroyed Joe Normal would have still been able to make phone calls because the phone would have been the same. I'm not sticking up for MS, believe me, more than me thinking that things they do are wrong, most of the time they disgust me in their actions towards smaller "homegrown" (read Linux) companies. Usually about 2 hours after that happens reality sets in and I come to terms with the fact, like it or not, 80% (5% saved for multiple OS Mac users and 5% for the same of Linux) of the computing people of the world are DEPENDANT on MS or at least a few of MS products.
While I don't disagree with you that we need alternatives to Microsoft products, the issue is how do we create products that will be as familiar to end-users and the products that we have now. Different car companies may put luxury features like stereos and air-conditioners in a different place than their competitor, but the steering wheel and pedals are "cross-platform."
As far as cries of public outrage, that would be something nice to see. Besides ranting and ravings within the IT community I've heard very little coming from educated minds speaking for end-users (of course that excludes posts on/. 'cause we all know this is where government officials spend their time).
I also believe that Microsoft, IMHO, is doing a good enough job itself of creating negative public opinion about its own corporation and it will pay a price for the antics that have come to light in the past few months. When companies find out just how much XP is going to cost them and also how much it could potentially cost them, I'm guessing more than a few hundred will start looking for viable alternatives to it (that may include sticking with the current MS OS that they're running).
". . . it has the ability to throw practically any pitch within the strike zone.
The best pitches are the ones that make the batter reach or hit into a predetermined part of the field. If the robots AI were to have the ability to choose which pitches where and when then it may be a "smart robot" but it'll get taken for yard every pitch. Unless it has Jason Kendall calling the shots for it:o)
. . . "shouldn't be paying -" and no reason to pay is the real issue. I agree that schools should be exempt from paying the same price as a for-profit business, but I'm not sure if they should, when dealing with proprietary software, be totally exempt, only because MS has as much a right to charge for the use of their product as you or I have not to use their product. Right now, the good thing is that school's may not have to pay anything.
Granted If MS cut the schools some slack there would be more money able to be spent in other areas, but with the use of Free Software the money is, aside from the hardware, a non-issue. Microsoft in schools is only aiding MS in becoming even more "the norm" (or monopoly depending on how your semantics guide you). Microsoft is getting free users by being in damn near every classroom in every school that houses computers the children are being added to their roster of soon-to-be-MCSE's.
This is a fight for The OpenSource Community, not for the schools. Schools need to spend their time and money in places that are in dire need for improvement; new and better books, rooms, and other miscellaneous supplies. If the community were to take a more "aggressive" approach to getting the software in the market (this may be more of a fight for ditsributors than individuals, although it is the individuals that make up the community) then more and more people would be more and more familiar with OSS and thus more and more people would probably be using it.
Without sounding like too much of a psuedo-capalist pig, if "alternative" OSes got into the CLASSROOMS the more adults in the coming years would be more comfortable using them. As earlier (read) posts stated, and I quote paraphrased, "It's easier for a child to learn things than it is for an adult stuck in their ways"
"Microplex sent us a Chieftec DX01W fulltower for the project - this cabinet is a high quality very solid fulltower with several smart solutions." Now, I know I may be a little off but isn't that the Antec SX10 Series that I own?
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't this the exact problem with the DMCA, this idea that laws should be more like an umbrella that can cover a great many things than a law that in concise and easily distinguishable from one another?
I am all for laws that protect people and /or companies from any sort of theft but I do not support the DMCA because of how general it is.
Of courseI haven't read the rest of the draft as of yet, flame if need be in re: to things stated later, but those two little words raised my ire something fierce.
Isn't that, no Captain Crunch decoder whistle?
You're alive, you're alive, you're alive, you're dead.
...as opposed to a slow one;
You're alive, you're alive, you're alive, you're dead.
Out of the three cases mentioned, the one one that made me the most upset, and is still the one that makes my blood boil the most, was the DeCSS travesty.
I'm talking, particularly, about the case with 2600. I'm not a big backer of 2600 or Emmanuel but in this case I had to give the respect where it was deserved. This was the case, IMHO, that set the tone for all cases after it and because 2600.com made the hearing available on their site I, we, were given a first hand listen to just how badly lawyers could manipulate judges in technology cases.
After listening to this case, at least the whole of 2600 / Emmanuel's side, and finally finding out the judgement, I knew that it was only going to get worse was only going to get worse (I suggest doing a search here for 'Court' it's truly appalling). It wasn't as though the judgement and the judgement alone upset me. It wasn't that I was all "rah-rah" for 2600. It wasn't even that I thought DeCSS should be "legal." It's that the judge had no concept of technology and the justice system allowed a mac truck of a manipulative lawyer to run him over. Listen to the testimony.
I said it before and I will continue to say it, the judicial system needs better qualified people presiding in these cases. I say 'these' because, and IANAL but, this is an entirely different concept than, say, laws of the physical world and laws of the 'cyber one.' I've often thought and giggled about the idea that files are never stolen, because if you copy something it's still there. I truly feal that we need judges that know the facts of the technology before it's sppon fed to them by the attorney's on both sides.
Until that happens, and / or until the hearings on Dmitry, Napster, etc. are made public (if they have been could someone please link them) so we can know for sure if proper and fair judgements were passed.
Without that, and without the DMCA being either a) abolished, or b) re-written (I'd much prefer the latter) the companies that own the DMCA will continue to 0wn anyone they want.
That's my two cents. Mod it to hell.
Bill Cosby.
Hehehe, I can't talk, I helped too. Oh well, maybe heading over to ThinkGeek is in order (or is it just the banner ad up there?).
Are you serious? This was the computing equivelant of Jon Katz covering, uhmmm, Cats. Sure, it made the Feds look like the miserable, inept, slugs that they've made themselves out to be, but it didn't offer any answers. Anyone can go on a tyrade making a mockery of any suit and pseudo-suit, I do it all the time, as a matter of fact. . .
Whoa, uhmmm, scratch everything after the start of the little gray box up there.
Oh wait, my Linux distro cost me about $80 USD more than my Windows98 OS. :o)
I never have a problem forking over some green for free software. It's paying for the over-priced stuff that makes me heave.
I think that experiments like this forget the latter. The idea that a computer can duplicate moves programmed into it isn't all that interesting (aside from the complexities of the actual programming). This is not, as never should it be set out to be, a replacement to people or a way to show off machines and programming.
I'm still puzzled as to why people feel the need to use Chess in these sort of matters. The great ones - Morphy, Nimzovitch, Spaskey, Fischer, Kasparov, Karpov etc - played the game as passionately as they did logically, and that's what made them great.
Passion can not be duplicated or programmed into a machine.
I'd watch just to find out.
Here's a PDF describing the market.
Here is Mandrakes information page on the IPO.
Finally, this a price-per-share page.
"We really don't have a full understanding of this [expletive] technology and we really don't give two [plural expletive] about wanting to learn it.", a spokesman for the New York 5 Families was quoted as saying.
He continued with, "But we ain't gonna get pinched because of it, so we hired a couple of those smart-ass techno-nerds to make sure that the way we run our *businesses* is as tight as legally can be."
Tomorrow, we venture into the world of hacking Monks and how they are trying to circumvent technology that would keep God in our lives.
Larry?
Neither has Dmitry.
One, yes it was created by a bunch of people that wanted to give a little something to Universities and didn't really (IMHO) care all that much about monetary wealth. Two, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't the 'Net (or at least part of it) grabbed by the government for their use, thus becoming government sponsered?
So, just where is the problem? You don't see businesses using the phone as their only means of marketing. Sure, you can order products over the phone, but they don't use it for advertising. The 'Net is a great advertising tool just as television is, but if Big Business Inc. is expecting to use it soley as it's own marketing and sellign point they should really look for a more viable way.
The 'Net, right now, as a way of selling goods is a novelty, and businesses better realize that. People use it, without a doubt, but seeing as how, as a consumer shopping center, it is still in it's infancy most people are still very reluctant to use it (I would suppose it would also help if they kept the "Evil Hacker" scare tactics to a minimum, and it would probably be better if they "found" ways to keep they 'Net more secure first, wait, that sounds familiar).
Why should I wait a couple of weeks or pay extra for over-night shipping for a product as a home consumer (mmm, home's taste goooood . . . sorry) when I could run out to the store within 5 miles of my house for something. Granted this works best for people in cities or otherwise indutrialized rural areas, but whatever. When I go to pricewatch looking for deals I look for stores in my area first (I'm usually willing to pay more if I don't have to wait).
I guess Internet2 is looking to have a bright future.
That said, let me make a a NEW checklist of all the things I need on my servers.
With court battles being waged over supposed pirating I only see it as a plus for artists trying to reap the rewards of their music without being systematically raped by the RIAA and their labels.
Wow, i would have guessed that the number would have been lower. I wonder how these percentages would work out if companies had an easier time worming their way through a MS contract to ship other OSes or even to support other OSes (monetarily not help desk).
The technicalities of this anti-trust case are vastly different than say the breakup of Ma Bell. When Bell got broken up, or, for the sake of argument, if they would have been totally destroyed Joe Normal would have still been able to make phone calls because the phone would have been the same. I'm not sticking up for MS, believe me, more than me thinking that things they do are wrong, most of the time they disgust me in their actions towards smaller "homegrown" (read Linux) companies. Usually about 2 hours after that happens reality sets in and I come to terms with the fact, like it or not, 80% (5% saved for multiple OS Mac users and 5% for the same of Linux) of the computing people of the world are DEPENDANT on MS or at least a few of MS products.
While I don't disagree with you that we need alternatives to Microsoft products, the issue is how do we create products that will be as familiar to end-users and the products that we have now. Different car companies may put luxury features like stereos and air-conditioners in a different place than their competitor, but the steering wheel and pedals are "cross-platform."
As far as cries of public outrage, that would be something nice to see. Besides ranting and ravings within the IT community I've heard very little coming from educated minds speaking for end-users (of course that excludes posts on /. 'cause we all know this is where government officials spend their time).
I also believe that Microsoft, IMHO, is doing a good enough job itself of creating negative public opinion about its own corporation and it will pay a price for the antics that have come to light in the past few months. When companies find out just how much XP is going to cost them and also how much it could potentially cost them, I'm guessing more than a few hundred will start looking for viable alternatives to it (that may include sticking with the current MS OS that they're running).
The best pitches are the ones that make the batter reach or hit into a predetermined part of the field. If the robots AI were to have the ability to choose which pitches where and when then it may be a "smart robot" but it'll get taken for yard every pitch. Unless it has Jason Kendall calling the shots for it :o)
No, I'm from Chicago.
Granted If MS cut the schools some slack there would be more money able to be spent in other areas, but with the use of Free Software the money is, aside from the hardware, a non-issue. Microsoft in schools is only aiding MS in becoming even more "the norm" (or monopoly depending on how your semantics guide you). Microsoft is getting free users by being in damn near every classroom in every school that houses computers the children are being added to their roster of soon-to-be-MCSE's.
This is a fight for The OpenSource Community, not for the schools. Schools need to spend their time and money in places that are in dire need for improvement; new and better books, rooms, and other miscellaneous supplies. If the community were to take a more "aggressive" approach to getting the software in the market (this may be more of a fight for ditsributors than individuals, although it is the individuals that make up the community) then more and more people would be more and more familiar with OSS and thus more and more people would probably be using it.
Without sounding like too much of a psuedo-capalist pig, if "alternative" OSes got into the CLASSROOMS the more adults in the coming years would be more comfortable using them. As earlier (read) posts stated, and I quote paraphrased, "It's easier for a child to learn things than it is for an adult stuck in their ways"
There has to be a better way.
"Microplex sent us a Chieftec DX01W fulltower for the project - this cabinet is a high quality very solid fulltower with several smart solutions." Now, I know I may be a little off but isn't that the Antec SX10 Series that I own?