"The reality is, there are no known cases of DeCSS having been used to pirate any movie, so the correct assumption should be that legal users are using it for Fair Use purposes."
Excuse me? I must assume that you were being ironic.
The reality is pretty much the 180 degreee opposite.
Don't get me wrong, I like a good free movie as much as the next guy, but there some pretty self-serving elements to this debate. The primary purpose of DeCSS and the plethora of tools which depend upon it is to rent&rip movies.
It's the single factor which unites all of these kinds of spam, and which ties them together with junk mail/magazine ad/TV Preacher scams from time before time.
Sell them hope. They'll mortgage their homes to you for it.
All of those balding, poor, small-penile, halitosing, ear-hair growing, poorly educated, fat, insecure aging men with a burning desire to spy on people, order Russian brides around, and make a million dollars at the virtual slot machines and then hide it from the government MUST be out there, but I've certainly never met them.
What does this kind of spam say about the marketers perception of the internet demographic?
I read plenty of SF. I also work in biotech. It's one thing to put it in a book, but it's an utterly different supertanker full of gigantic fish to do it for real. That takes time, money, and lots of research that still needs to be done and will probably take several decades at least.
Honestly I'm in agreement with you for the most part. The objectives you state are those which should be pursued.
Here's the problem: unless you're prepared to presume that there is an actual Dark Corporate Room in which the Proper Spin is regularly decided upon (the Protocols of the Elders of Exxon?), then the biases inherent in the mainstream media are the rather complex emergent properties of a vast set of interlocking interests. The news media people I've known, on the whole, really do try to be objective and to present things in as balanced a manner as they can. Which is not to say that they always succeed. Or even that they can.
Joe Paycheck is for the most part not stupid. When he comes across a typical news report and compares it to something he's read which tries to "highlite" the "alternative" side of the matter, he is instantly struck by the contrast between the mainstream report which at least acknowledges that there may be two sides to the matter, and the alternative report which typically involves a restricted set of themes (not that they are not valid ones) and which will predictably involve demonization of one power group or another.
What is he to think? The alternative media as it exists presents a predictable viewpoint and thus does NOT appear as balanced as the mainstream media (example: Mainstream = "protesters worried about threats to democracy from free trade" AND "George Bush assures us that free trade promotes prosperity" Alternative = "Bush is a corporate tool who wants to take away your rights. Everything he says is a lie". Anyone whose views on something can be predicted before they open their mouth tends to be relegated to crank status.
Most people recognize that the many many problems inherent in the system are much more complex and difficult than just "bad rich guys" versus everyone else. Insofar as the alternative media keeps hammering stories into this mold, it's unlikely to go beyone fringe status.
I find this issue very confusing. I regularly see people putting down MPEG-4: lossy compression, lots of artifacts, etc.
I've played around with video capture to DivX;) quite a bit (but I don't post or trade it:) and I've downloaded a few DVD rips and vidcaps here and there. Practical experience tells me that these claims are nonsense. Some of the rips that are coming out right now using VBR are damn close to DVD quality. Really.
Every (and I mean every) time I've downloaded a video capture done in MPEG-1 it's (1) huge and (2) full of godawful artifacts. They cannot go fullscreen without looking like shit. At the same time I can do my own captures direct to DivX;) at 320x240 and put 30 minutes into less than 100 Megs and subsequently be able to blow it up to full screen with really minimal artifacts. Typically you can even read small fonts still.
The dichotomy between the claims and my own experience leaves me feeling very puzzled...
Oh PLEASE! Have you ever actually dealt with the extreme lefty types that typically get involved in this kind of thing? Think university "student government". On average they're about as ideologically flexible as the Red Guard or the NKVD.
On balance I approve of the idea of purely independent media, but that does NOT instantly translate into "Communist/Anarchist Mouthpiece Media". As long as they continue to act as if it does they will remain powerless and insignificant.
Want Joe Paycheck to read the material? Provide balanced, insightful coverage that kowtows to Nobody and that's good enough to start getting picked up by mainstream media once in a while.
"If a normal body could be grown for me and I could somehow retain my mind in it, I think I would welcome that."
There's the problem with cloning. We cannot (and will not be able to in the forseeable future) "clone" particular body parts. Your clone will be a unique individual just as much as any single identical twin is (and they _are_ clones by all meaningful standards).
To clone a person is to create another unique person who just happens to have your DNA. Are you going to cut off their head to get their body?
I can see lots of bad reasons for doing human cloning. I'm stumped as far as thinking of any good ones. Not that this will stop a few fat rich bastards of course - that's only a matter of time and money.
Maybe a few too many April Fool's posts, for sure.
What I'm starting to get disturbed by, however (and I am **not** singling out anyone's posts in particular - this is just an overall observation) is the general tone of acrimony I'm seeing all over the place as people bicker back and forth about just about everything to do with these stories.
When did all this nerdy stuff stop being quite so much fun? Is it the changing character of the internet population, and in particular the people being drawn into formerly "nerdly" occupations and now defining themselves as geeks? Remember playing around with ideas and whatnot just because it was enjoyable?
[38] As we have noted Mr. Schmeiser testified that in 1997 he planted his canola crop
with seed saved from 1996 which he believed came mainly from field number 1. Roundup-resistant
canola was first noticed in his crop in 1997, when Mr. Schmeiser and his hired
hand, Carlysle Moritz, hand-sprayed Roundup around the power poles and in ditches along
the road bordering fields 1, 2, 3 and 4. These fields are adjacent to one another and are
located along the east side of the main paved grid road that leads south to Bruno from these fields. This spraying was part of the regular farming practices of the defendants, to kill weeds
and volunteer plants around power poles and in ditches. Several days after the spraying,
Mr. Schmeiser noticed that a large portion of the plants earlier sprayed by hand had survived
the spraying with the Roundup herbicide.
Paragraphs 38,39, and 40 are really the heart of the case for the judge, from what I understood of what I read...
If the bull crosses into your field and impregnates your cows in the middle of the night, it's not your fault.
If you sit there with your binoculars watching them do it and giggling to yourself about how great it is that you're getting that expensive bull semen for free, it's your fault.
There's a very substantial difference between a 4 year old and a 15 year old. The juvenile justice system already recognizes this and exists to deal with it accordingly. The issue isn't "Can a kid understand what they're doing is wrong?", it's "This is unacceptable, frequently illegal behaviour. Should society (teachers, police, parents) ignore it because it's always been so?"
Much of what passes for typical bullying at high school level is, as the previous poster so clearly pointed out, criminal in any other social context. It should be treated accordingly.
It does. Really. HS sucks worse than any other time in your life. I've known dozens of ex-geeks, and the _gigantic_ improvement that happens after you get out is a constant theme. Nothing makes me sadder than hearing about some kid who kills themselves over school bullying. I just wish someone who has been through it could have told them before they did it that they're giving up on the best part, if they were just willing to wait a couple more years...
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"The reality is, there are no known cases of DeCSS having been used to pirate any movie, so the correct assumption should be that legal users are using it for Fair Use purposes."
Excuse me? I must assume that you were being ironic.
The reality is pretty much the 180 degreee opposite.
Don't get me wrong, I like a good free movie as much as the next guy, but there some pretty self-serving elements to this debate. The primary purpose of DeCSS and the plethora of tools which depend upon it is to rent&rip movies.
It's the single factor which unites all of these kinds of spam, and which ties them together with junk mail/magazine ad/TV Preacher scams from time before time.
Sell them hope. They'll mortgage their homes to you for it.
All of those balding, poor, small-penile, halitosing, ear-hair growing, poorly educated, fat, insecure aging men with a burning desire to spy on people, order Russian brides around, and make a million dollars at the virtual slot machines and then hide it from the government MUST be out there, but I've certainly never met them.
What does this kind of spam say about the marketers perception of the internet demographic?
I read plenty of SF. I also work in biotech. It's one thing to put it in a book, but it's an utterly different supertanker full of gigantic fish to do it for real. That takes time, money, and lots of research that still needs to be done and will probably take several decades at least.
Honestly I'm in agreement with you for the most part. The objectives you state are those which should be pursued.
Here's the problem: unless you're prepared to presume that there is an actual Dark Corporate Room in which the Proper Spin is regularly decided upon (the Protocols of the Elders of Exxon?), then the biases inherent in the mainstream media are the rather complex emergent properties of a vast set of interlocking interests. The news media people I've known, on the whole, really do try to be objective and to present things in as balanced a manner as they can. Which is not to say that they always succeed. Or even that they can.
Joe Paycheck is for the most part not stupid. When he comes across a typical news report and compares it to something he's read which tries to "highlite" the "alternative" side of the matter, he is instantly struck by the contrast between the mainstream report which at least acknowledges that there may be two sides to the matter, and the alternative report which typically involves a restricted set of themes (not that they are not valid ones) and which will predictably involve demonization of one power group or another.
What is he to think? The alternative media as it exists presents a predictable viewpoint and thus does NOT appear as balanced as the mainstream media (example: Mainstream = "protesters worried about threats to democracy from free trade" AND "George Bush assures us that free trade promotes prosperity" Alternative = "Bush is a corporate tool who wants to take away your rights. Everything he says is a lie". Anyone whose views on something can be predicted before they open their mouth tends to be relegated to crank status.
Most people recognize that the many many problems inherent in the system are much more complex and difficult than just "bad rich guys" versus everyone else. Insofar as the alternative media keeps hammering stories into this mold, it's unlikely to go beyone fringe status.
I find this issue very confusing. I regularly see people putting down MPEG-4: lossy compression, lots of artifacts, etc.
;) quite a bit (but I don't post or trade it :) and I've downloaded a few DVD rips and vidcaps here and there. Practical experience tells me that these claims are nonsense. Some of the rips that are coming out right now using VBR are damn close to DVD quality. Really.
;) at 320x240 and put 30 minutes into less than 100 Megs and subsequently be able to blow it up to full screen with really minimal artifacts. Typically you can even read small fonts still.
I've played around with video capture to DivX
Every (and I mean every) time I've downloaded a video capture done in MPEG-1 it's (1) huge and (2) full of godawful artifacts. They cannot go fullscreen without looking like shit. At the same time I can do my own captures direct to DivX
The dichotomy between the claims and my own experience leaves me feeling very puzzled...
Oh PLEASE! Have you ever actually dealt with the extreme lefty types that typically get involved in this kind of thing? Think university "student government". On average they're about as ideologically flexible as the Red Guard or the NKVD.
On balance I approve of the idea of purely independent media, but that does NOT instantly translate into "Communist/Anarchist Mouthpiece Media". As long as they continue to act as if it does they will remain powerless and insignificant.
Want Joe Paycheck to read the material? Provide balanced, insightful coverage that kowtows to Nobody and that's good enough to start getting picked up by mainstream media once in a while.
"If a normal body could be grown for me and I could somehow retain my mind in it, I think I would welcome that."
There's the problem with cloning. We cannot (and will not be able to in the forseeable future) "clone" particular body parts. Your clone will be a unique individual just as much as any single identical twin is (and they _are_ clones by all meaningful standards).
To clone a person is to create another unique person who just happens to have your DNA. Are you going to cut off their head to get their body?
I can see lots of bad reasons for doing human cloning. I'm stumped as far as thinking of any good ones. Not that this will stop a few fat rich bastards of course - that's only a matter of time and money.
Maybe a few too many April Fool's posts, for sure.
What I'm starting to get disturbed by, however (and I am **not** singling out anyone's posts in particular - this is just an overall observation) is the general tone of acrimony I'm seeing all over the place as people bicker back and forth about just about everything to do with these stories.
When did all this nerdy stuff stop being quite so much fun? Is it the changing character of the internet population, and in particular the people being drawn into formerly "nerdly" occupations and now defining themselves as geeks? Remember playing around with ideas and whatnot just because it was enjoyable?
I dunno...
(slouches away muttering)
[38] As we have noted Mr. Schmeiser testified that in 1997 he planted his canola crop
with seed saved from 1996 which he believed came mainly from field number 1. Roundup-resistant
canola was first noticed in his crop in 1997, when Mr. Schmeiser and his hired
hand, Carlysle Moritz, hand-sprayed Roundup around the power poles and in ditches along
the road bordering fields 1, 2, 3 and 4. These fields are adjacent to one another and are
located along the east side of the main paved grid road that leads south to Bruno from these fields. This spraying was part of the regular farming practices of the defendants, to kill weeds
and volunteer plants around power poles and in ditches. Several days after the spraying,
Mr. Schmeiser noticed that a large portion of the plants earlier sprayed by hand had survived
the spraying with the Roundup herbicide.
Paragraphs 38,39, and 40 are really the heart of the case for the judge, from what I understood of what I read...
If the bull crosses into your field and impregnates your cows in the middle of the night, it's not your fault.
If you sit there with your binoculars watching them do it and giggling to yourself about how great it is that you're getting that expensive bull semen for free, it's your fault.
Right on the money. Most of the people posting here clearly have not read the decision.
1) The farmer could not help but be aware of Monsanto Canola. He's been a farmer for a long time.
2) He sprayed glyphosate to fallow a field and found a big swath of resistant canola growing there.
3) This has happened on other farms. The farmers call Monsanto, who comes in and cleans it up at their own expense.
4) This farmer chose to harvest the seed and incorporate it into the planting for his next crop.
5) He absolutely knew or should have known that he was likely violating patents.
There's a very substantial difference between a 4 year old and a 15 year old. The juvenile justice system already recognizes this and exists to deal with it accordingly. The issue isn't "Can a kid understand what they're doing is wrong?", it's "This is unacceptable, frequently illegal behaviour. Should society (teachers, police, parents) ignore it because it's always been so?" Much of what passes for typical bullying at high school level is, as the previous poster so clearly pointed out, criminal in any other social context. It should be treated accordingly.
It does. Really. HS sucks worse than any other time in your life. I've known dozens of ex-geeks, and the _gigantic_ improvement that happens after you get out is a constant theme. Nothing makes me sadder than hearing about some kid who kills themselves over school bullying. I just wish someone who has been through it could have told them before they did it that they're giving up on the best part, if they were just willing to wait a couple more years...