There IS a large underground movement of gamers who network the old-fasioned way, socially. The people I know who pirate PSX games, do it using CD burners and a friend or 3 who have games THEY've pirated.
And another ready source for games to pirate is your local Blockbuster...
AND, the people we are talking about aren't buying a G3 or P3 just to play playstation games... don't be silly. They are using the systems they already have.
I still agree that this was a good legal victory, AND I believe keeping in line with the spirit of the law.
Although I'm glad to see this ruling, I expect this isn't helping Sony at all.
I am aware of quite a bit of piracy on the PSX, and with emulators available now the people copying games don't even need to own a chipped PSX to play them, they can use a PC... and a pirated version of an emulator.
I have two opinions on this. I'm pleased that we (the people) are able to reverse engineer software still, and that others (companies) are not able to stop that reverse engineering. I'm not pleased that people continue to pirate software.
In the end, perhaps these are seperate issues, properly addressed seperately, but as piracy continues, the pressure to limit what can be pirated will continue.
I used to think that Sony was stupid for trying to stop emulators, but now I believe that I was being naive. There are a lot of people out there that are willing to pirate any software they get their hands on. I think Sony is smart to try to slow that down, even if the way they are going about it is wrong.
It should have been obvious from the context that he wasn't talking about the unloaded term "pornography" he was talking about the way the term is often used today, anything sexual that _cannot be publicly shown_. Sexually explicit material was very common in Pompeii, but relatively recently people started to distinguish between "material that should be publicly viewable" and "sexual material that should not be publicly viewable".
I expect that places like France have a different definition of "pornography", where just showing a naked body is not "porn", whereas in the US it seems that even an exposed nipple could be called porn.
Many (most? all?) of the current batch of photocopiers are digital copiers, after all. But I know of none that contain a modem, but I only work on a couple models...
All this talk about watermarks and such... I'm gonna have to do some asking around tommorrow.
Although on the surface this looks good, if you look at the price over a slightly longer period, the whole month of Novement they were in the $50-60 range. Only recently did they jump up, and besides, it looks like their stock price is pretty volatile. Sorry...:(
Lessee... Planet is 50 lightyears away from earth, assuming a nice round estimate of Radio waves being 100 times slower
Light and radio are made of the same thing, photons, which all travel at the same speed, speed of light. It is a constant speed in a vacuum (which space is pretty close to being). When they say that the planet is 50 lightyears away, it would take 50 years to send a radio signal there, or 50 years to get a radio signal from there. (Radio in this context is simply a specific frequency range, I'm not suggesting ANYTHING to do with life.)
Sound, on the other hand, isn't going anywhere off planet, from our planet or that one.
Just a little thought should tell you this isn't so. If the speed of light were directly correlated to datarate, that would indicate that all fiberoptics trasmitted the same amount of data, and thus the feat that Bell Labs performed wouldn't be very interesting.
To give a bit of background, fiberoptics is just a small glass (or other clear substance) thread, which provides a container for light to bounce through. The light always goes at the same speed (I know that isn't quite true, but close enough for this discussion).
The data rate achieved is based on the frequencies that are transmitted. So, in order to get the higher data rates, higher frequencies are needed. (Generally.)
I intend to send a letter of support of principle to B&N. I think it's just as important to tell them to fight this, as it is for Amazon to stop it. I also sent a letter to Amazon as follows:
To whom it may concern,
I was aware that Amazon acquired a patent on it's so-called "One-click" shopping. Further, it has come to my attention that you have started enforcing this patent.
Although I have spent in the upper hundreds through your site, and have truly appreciated the ease of searching and finding books that I was interested in, this approach to competition dismays me. I disagree, in principle, about patenting software, and in patenting "business models" and although the USPTO allows it, I believe this is something that you should not do.
I assume it is not useful for me to explain all my concerns about the particular state of patent law, however, I sincerely hope it is useful for me to explain that I will not be shopping at Amazon as long as you engage in business in this manner.
But if I believed I WAS right, and the police were wrong, and maybe further that I thought the police were OFTEN wrong... I'd have good reason to change the system, through whatever tools I had at my disposal, including attempting to limit their budgets (since they obviously have too much money, since they are harasing me), or get the police chief removed (since he obviously doesn't have the proper priorities), etc.
That type of person is an activist, and quite possibly is the sort of person I'd like in my neighborhood. But I imagine that you believe that MS has done something wrong, and therefore should be punished, but if you assume that they did NOT do something wrong, MS certainly should do something to prevent a recurrance in the future.
It isn't the task itself which is so much "mapping" or "packing" but it's the "why" you do the things you do that can be described as "mapping" or "packing". Do you follow your methodology because you were told to do it that way, or have you tried a bunch of techniques, some of which you may have been told, and developed something that works, and you know _why_ it works.
I think the "mapping" "packing" distinction is at a higher level than you are describing it as...
Yes, "everyone knows that stepping back from a problem to see it in new light is often helpful". But the distinction being drawn is "do you know the words" or "do you practice the meaning".
The author treats the distinction as a dichotomy, but it is a continuum, as stated in other articles here. Further, not only is the "mapper" ability continuous, but also it varies from domain to domain. e.g. I may be a mapper in software engineering, but am a packer in social situations. (But am aspiring to be a mapper there too!);)
I also think that while his distinction is useful (because people can now develop techniques to improve your "mapping" ability) it is mislabeled.
It seems to me that mapping ability is the ability for form abstractions. A "typical packer" only holds on to the barest of abstractions, while a "typical mapper" creates them continuously and deeply.
Another different point. I've found that when I'm being shown how to do something by someone else, I often get frustrated when they try to describe it in "mapper" terminology. I want them to describe the barest steps, and let me develop my own "map" for it.
I don't know quite where I'm going with this idea, but I think it's interesting.:P
I agree this sounds like an encryption chip, but I have to ask then, "What's the point?" I mean, where is the benefit of a hardware impl versus a run of the mill software implementation?
I'm not going to defend the actual values quoted, but the difference between "the potential" and "the actual" is that GT actually SOLD copies to people who paid for those copies, who would have just as likely bought legitimate copies (at the same cost). However, with pirated sofware (ie Warez), there is only the potential, in that a pirate may or may not have actually bought the software in question if it had not been available for free.
To provide a slightly more personal example. When I was younger, I did pirate some games for my old Apple IIe. I had a significant, but relatively small collection. I certainly could not have afforded those if I hadn't had access to the pirated versions.
An important use for this distinction is in discussions of "lost revenue" due to software pirates that the software industry will toss around from time to time. It is inaccurate (or blatantly deceitful) to say that all software pirated should be considered lost revenue. They are confusing the actual with the potential.
There may be ways of converting some of those potential sales to "lost revenue" but it must be based on very careful assumptions. For instance, it might be correct to assume that any lost OS sales due to corporate piracy is "lost revenue" because they require (from a corporate standpoint) a specific OS to run the applications they use.
I'm not a writer, and don't know what the current royalty rates are, but if they are as bad as some people suggest, like on the order of 1% or less, even if you lose 20:1 due to piracy, you could still be much better off. e.g. If your new cypherpunk novel sold for $6.00, and you got 1%, that would be.06 dollars per book. However, if you sold it on eMatter at 6.00, you would be earning $3.00 per book, so could lose 50:1, and break even (almost).
Aside from this, though, you've gotta wonder what the distribution will be like. The above doesn't take that into account at all.
It looks like they own the electronic distribution rights, for the duration of the contract, which can be terminated at any time, with a thirty day notice, by either side.
I'm only mildly bothered by that exclusive right, but it's seems to be JUST for the duration of the contract, and the contract is easy to break, so not too bad.
I generally agree this is a questionable use of user profiling information... I'm not sure whether I like to be profiled like that. HOWEVER, I like looking at other groups' buying habits... On to the point.
If you haven't ever bought anything from Amazon, you probably don't realize how useful it is. They have a great pattern matching tool, that offers ideas for other books you might like based on what you are buying. This is FAR FAR better than just randomly browsing a stack.
That said, I enjoy wandering around huge stacks of books in a library, looking at things that fit my fancy, but when I'm at a book store, I'm looking for something, a book of a specific type, or topic, and Amazon helps a lot with that. I've found lots of books that I never would have known about by just searching the shelves at B&N or Borders...
On top of the pattern matching, they index lots of books that no local shop will carry... (sure, you can always special order it, but you're there to browse, right?) or if one local shop did, you would need to search between several to find those two particular books you're looking for.
I guess I'm suggesting that if you haven't used their search facilities to browse for a couple of books, you won't understand why they are as popular as they are.
I don't expect that they are trying to prove anything about evolution, per se, or really anything about biology either. They are taking a concept, evolution, and applying it to certain problem domain. In this case, it appears to be creating an environment of competing programs....
I agree that there are instances where the scientist/programmer tries taking something he learns from the program and applying it to the real world, and each instance of that should be properly evaluated and peer-reviewed on an individual basis, to verify that the assumptions are reasonable, that the results are reproducible and the conclusions fit the results. But it is unfair to criticise ALL of that category of experimentation.
I don't like people taking a specific result and trying to apply it to the real world, WITHOUT REGARD for the assumptions behind the results. I suspect that that happens more often than the scientist/programmer himself overgeneralizing his results.
Since Nuclear plants account for about 20 - 25% of US generating capacity, it is unlikely that having all nuc plants shutdown would cause the lights to go out.
You seem to be suggesting that we have 20-25% excess capacity, which is untrue. Depending on the time of year we are talking about, it is estimated for 1999 we have approximately 15% excess capacity during the middle of summer, and aprox. 25% during the middle of winter. So I believe some of us would be in the dark, if we were to take all the nuke plants out.
Besides, if SimCity is any indication, you don't want to be running your powerplants at 100% capacity for too long!:)
Anyway, as you've said, worst case, we won't have to power ALL of them down since some are already "compliant". I'm just trying to bring some real numbers to the table.
These seem like really good points... do you have any references to the security break ins?
It all seems like:
1 Small (perhaps temporary) problem exists.
2 Government claims they can fix it by raising taxes and spending money.
3 Problem gets worse.
4 Government claims that things are getting better or getting worse, but they need to spend more to really fix it.
5 Goto 3
Perhaps the problem is at step 2. The goverment shouldn't be fixing the problems anyway because they have a vested interest in maintaining themselves.
People have that attitude all the time, though. I get strange looks when I say that I see my goal as an software engineer is to make myself obsolete. I want to do my job well enough that they don't need me to do it anymore (because it's soo automated, or so easy that anyone can do it, or because it's completely solved and doesn't need doing anymore...). I want to be able to move on to other things, but most people don't get that. Perhaps people in the goverment more so.
And maybe some of them really believe that the goverment isn't really out to get them and are willing to help with this noble goal of protecting US citizens from the bad guys.
Just image for a moment, someone who has graduated school, perhaps with a CS degree, has spent some time with ROTC, perhaps would like to get into law enforcement, but doesn't like the idea of getting shot. Instead, the person gets a call from someone at the FBI who says "We need people like you. We are building this network monitoring facility, with all this high-end equipment to help protect us all from terrorists abroad. We will be looking for specific types of attacks and we need you to help write the software for that." The graduate meets the FBI people, likes them, they sound like they really believe what they are saying (and perhaps actually believe it), and so the grad joins up.
The person isn't evil, isn't a tool, and really believes in the goal, is convinced of the sincerity of those he/she works with...
Bottom line, I'm scared by all the invasions of privacy, the goverment intrusions into far too many aspects of life, the threat of being harassed by the Enforcers (police), the unauthorized confiscation of private property, etc. but to say that these people are all immoral, irrational bastards out to screw us all is just demonizing people who are more like you and me, than different.
Yeah, some of them are assholes, and some are stupid and many are irrational, but they are still just human beings trying to live out their lives the best they can.
And while trying to get along the best I can, I try do something to make the world a better place (according to my own, perhaps warped, judgement) by avoiding (and protecting myself from) the assholes, educating the stupid and by being understanding of the irrational (and trying to help them do the rational thing).
Bottom line, I'm very much against this proposed system, regardless of the goal, since I believe having a highly distributed, highly heterogeneous network, with individually applied security is the best defense. I also believe that a system like this can all too easily be used (by the stupid, or the irrational) to do bad things to you and I. (Besides being an ineffective way to do it's stated intent.)
it can and _should_ be changed and shouldn't be enforced 100% all of the time.
Although I agree with most of your post, I think that all laws should be enforced 100% of the time, otherwise you get what we have now, selective enforcement and a decay of individual liberty. If the laws are questionable, they should be removed from the books, period. If they are only appropriate some of the time, then they weren't written correctly to begin with and should be redone.
FWIW, I too was asked by my Mom to pick up cigarettes when I was 8 or 10 or so. I agree with you about parent providing alcohol or cigarettes to their "kids". It shouldn't be the goverment's purpose to decide those things for me...
I'll try to carefully write a little rant I have: The government should NEVER be making laws dictating morals. I think the proper role of government is protecting individuals from others, both individuals and groups of individuals (like corporations, or religious orgs, or other goverments...). In doing this, the goverment will create a set of laws that look like they are defending (some concept of) "morality", but that is strictly incidental.
I wonder if much of the confusion about the role of government, separation of church and state, role of gov. as surrogate-parent, etc, is because people don't {realize|accept|understand} this distinction.
In the end, I guess you're either a parent, or you're someone who just has kids.
This is a very good comment.
...but ever wonder if perhaps they've become necessary?
The more you allow people to be stupid, the more stupid they will tend to be. The more we babysit the adults, by "helping" them raise kids, the more we have to, because there will always be people pushing the envelope, on the top as well as the bottom.
I think the rating system sucks, as is. It should be more like some of VG systems, where they show several scales of different factors, like nudity, language, violence... etc. This allows PARENTS or ADULTS to decide and not some rating board.
The claim was that BO2K was malicious because it "includes stealth behavior". Presumably (although I don't know this first hand) BO2K could be used for legitimate purposes regardless of cDc's "intention" for the use of their product. A sysadmin COULD install it for purposes of administration, particularly if it is open source.
Also, I would guess the SMS's remote control facility can only be turned off by an ADMIN on the local machine, not by just any user... but as I said this is just a guess.
Slashdot Mirror
I use it all the time, because of the stupid layout of the PC keyboard... I find it easier to use the control key than the actual ESC key.
And another ready source for games to pirate is your local Blockbuster...
AND, the people we are talking about aren't buying a G3 or P3 just to play playstation games... don't be silly. They are using the systems they already have.
I still agree that this was a good legal victory, AND I believe keeping in line with the spirit of the law.
I am aware of quite a bit of piracy on the PSX, and with emulators available now the people copying games don't even need to own a chipped PSX to play them, they can use a PC... and a pirated version of an emulator.
I have two opinions on this. I'm pleased that we (the people) are able to reverse engineer software still, and that others (companies) are not able to stop that reverse engineering. I'm not pleased that people continue to pirate software.
In the end, perhaps these are seperate issues, properly addressed seperately, but as piracy continues, the pressure to limit what can be pirated will continue.
I used to think that Sony was stupid for trying to stop emulators, but now I believe that I was being naive. There are a lot of people out there that are willing to pirate any software they get their hands on. I think Sony is smart to try to slow that down, even if the way they are going about it is wrong.
I expect that places like France have a different definition of "pornography", where just showing a naked body is not "porn", whereas in the US it seems that even an exposed nipple could be called porn.
All this talk about watermarks and such... I'm gonna have to do some asking around tommorrow.
Although on the surface this looks good, if you look at the price over a slightly longer period, the whole month of Novement they were in the $50-60 range. Only recently did they jump up, and besides, it looks like their stock price is pretty volatile. :(
Sorry...
Light and radio are made of the same thing, photons, which all travel at the same speed, speed of light. It is a constant speed in a vacuum (which space is pretty close to being). When they say that the planet is 50 lightyears away, it would take 50 years to send a radio signal there, or 50 years to get a radio signal from there. (Radio in this context is simply a specific frequency range, I'm not suggesting ANYTHING to do with life.)
Sound, on the other hand, isn't going anywhere off planet, from our planet or that one.
To give a bit of background, fiberoptics is just a small glass (or other clear substance) thread, which provides a container for light to bounce through. The light always goes at the same speed (I know that isn't quite true, but close enough for this discussion).
The data rate achieved is based on the frequencies that are transmitted. So, in order to get the higher data rates, higher frequencies are needed. (Generally.)
To whom it may concern,
I was aware that Amazon acquired a patent on it's so-called "One-click" shopping. Further, it has come to my attention that you have started enforcing this patent.
Although I have spent in the upper hundreds through your site, and have truly appreciated the ease of searching and finding books that I was interested in, this approach to competition dismays me. I disagree, in principle, about patenting software, and in patenting "business models" and although the USPTO allows it, I believe this is something that you should not do.
I assume it is not useful for me to explain all my concerns about the particular state of patent law, however, I sincerely hope it is useful for me to explain that I will not be shopping at Amazon as long as you engage in business in this manner.
Sincerely,
That type of person is an activist, and quite possibly is the sort of person I'd like in my neighborhood. But I imagine that you believe that MS has done something wrong, and therefore should be punished, but if you assume that they did NOT do something wrong, MS certainly should do something to prevent a recurrance in the future.
I think the "mapping" "packing" distinction is at a higher level than you are describing it as...
But, that's just my opinion. ;)
The author treats the distinction as a dichotomy, but it is a continuum, as stated in other articles here. Further, not only is the "mapper" ability continuous, but also it varies from domain to domain. e.g. I may be a mapper in software engineering, but am a packer in social situations. (But am aspiring to be a mapper there too!) ;)
I also think that while his distinction is useful (because people can now develop techniques to improve your "mapping" ability) it is mislabeled.
It seems to me that mapping ability is the ability for form abstractions. A "typical packer" only holds on to the barest of abstractions, while a "typical mapper" creates them continuously and deeply.
Another different point. I've found that when I'm being shown how to do something by someone else, I often get frustrated when they try to describe it in "mapper" terminology. I want them to describe the barest steps, and let me develop my own "map" for it.
I don't know quite where I'm going with this idea, but I think it's interesting. :P
To provide a slightly more personal example. When I was younger, I did pirate some games for my old Apple IIe. I had a significant, but relatively small collection. I certainly could not have afforded those if I hadn't had access to the pirated versions.
An important use for this distinction is in discussions of "lost revenue" due to software pirates that the software industry will toss around from time to time. It is inaccurate (or blatantly deceitful) to say that all software pirated should be considered lost revenue. They are confusing the actual with the potential.
There may be ways of converting some of those potential sales to "lost revenue" but it must be based on very careful assumptions. For instance, it might be correct to assume that any lost OS sales due to corporate piracy is "lost revenue" because they require (from a corporate standpoint) a specific OS to run the applications they use.
Aside from this, though, you've gotta wonder what the distribution will be like. The above doesn't take that into account at all.
I'm only mildly bothered by that exclusive right, but it's seems to be JUST for the duration of the contract, and the contract is easy to break, so not too bad.
IANAL, so ready the thing for yourself. ;)
If you haven't ever bought anything from Amazon, you probably don't realize how useful it is. They have a great pattern matching tool, that offers ideas for other books you might like based on what you are buying. This is FAR FAR better than just randomly browsing a stack.
That said, I enjoy wandering around huge stacks of books in a library, looking at things that fit my fancy, but when I'm at a book store, I'm looking for something, a book of a specific type, or topic, and Amazon helps a lot with that. I've found lots of books that I never would have known about by just searching the shelves at B&N or Borders...
On top of the pattern matching, they index lots of books that no local shop will carry... (sure, you can always special order it, but you're there to browse, right?) or if one local shop did, you would need to search between several to find those two particular books you're looking for.
I guess I'm suggesting that if you haven't used their search facilities to browse for a couple of books, you won't understand why they are as popular as they are.
I agree that there are instances where the scientist/programmer tries taking something he learns from the program and applying it to the real world, and each instance of that should be properly evaluated and peer-reviewed on an individual basis, to verify that the assumptions are reasonable, that the results are reproducible and the conclusions fit the results. But it is unfair to criticise ALL of that category of experimentation.
I don't like people taking a specific result and trying to apply it to the real world, WITHOUT REGARD for the assumptions behind the results. I suspect that that happens more often than the scientist/programmer himself overgeneralizing his results.
Try:
Avida
Tierra
You seem to be suggesting that we have 20-25% excess capacity, which is untrue. Depending on the time of year we are talking about, it is estimated for 1999 we have approximately 15% excess capacity during the middle of summer, and aprox. 25% during the middle of winter. So I believe some of us would be in the dark, if we were to take all the nuke plants out.
Besides, if SimCity is any indication, you don't want to be running your powerplants at 100% capacity for too long! :)
Anyway, as you've said, worst case, we won't have to power ALL of them down since some are already "compliant". I'm just trying to bring some real numbers to the table.
Try here: NERC
It all seems like:
1 Small (perhaps temporary) problem exists.
2 Government claims they can fix it by raising taxes and spending money.
3 Problem gets worse.
4 Government claims that things are getting better or getting worse, but they need to spend more to really fix it.
5 Goto 3
Perhaps the problem is at step 2. The goverment shouldn't be fixing the problems anyway because they have a vested interest in maintaining themselves.
People have that attitude all the time, though. I get strange looks when I say that I see my goal as an software engineer is to make myself obsolete. I want to do my job well enough that they don't need me to do it anymore (because it's soo automated, or so easy that anyone can do it, or because it's completely solved and doesn't need doing anymore...). I want to be able to move on to other things, but most people don't get that. Perhaps people in the goverment more so.
Just image for a moment, someone who has graduated school, perhaps with a CS degree, has spent some time with ROTC, perhaps would like to get into law enforcement, but doesn't like the idea of getting shot. Instead, the person gets a call from someone at the FBI who says "We need people like you. We are building this network monitoring facility, with all this high-end equipment to help protect us all from terrorists abroad. We will be looking for specific types of attacks and we need you to help write the software for that." The graduate meets the FBI people, likes them, they sound like they really believe what they are saying (and perhaps actually believe it), and so the grad joins up.
The person isn't evil, isn't a tool, and really believes in the goal, is convinced of the sincerity of those he/she works with...
Bottom line, I'm scared by all the invasions of privacy, the goverment intrusions into far too many aspects of life, the threat of being harassed by the Enforcers (police), the unauthorized confiscation of private property, etc. but to say that these people are all immoral, irrational bastards out to screw us all is just demonizing people who are more like you and me, than different.
Yeah, some of them are assholes, and some are stupid and many are irrational, but they are still just human beings trying to live out their lives the best they can.
And while trying to get along the best I can, I try do something to make the world a better place (according to my own, perhaps warped, judgement) by avoiding (and protecting myself from) the assholes, educating the stupid and by being understanding of the irrational (and trying to help them do the rational thing).
Bottom line, I'm very much against this proposed system, regardless of the goal, since I believe having a highly distributed, highly heterogeneous network, with individually applied security is the best defense. I also believe that a system like this can all too easily be used (by the stupid, or the irrational) to do bad things to you and I. (Besides being an ineffective way to do it's stated intent.)
Although I agree with most of your post, I think that all laws should be enforced 100% of the time, otherwise you get what we have now, selective enforcement and a decay of individual liberty. If the laws are questionable, they should be removed from the books, period. If they are only appropriate some of the time, then they weren't written correctly to begin with and should be redone.
FWIW, I too was asked by my Mom to pick up cigarettes when I was 8 or 10 or so. I agree with you about parent providing alcohol or cigarettes to their "kids". It shouldn't be the goverment's purpose to decide those things for me...
I'll try to carefully write a little rant I have: The government should NEVER be making laws dictating morals. I think the proper role of government is protecting individuals from others, both individuals and groups of individuals (like corporations, or religious orgs, or other goverments...). In doing this, the goverment will create a set of laws that look like they are defending (some concept of) "morality", but that is strictly incidental.
I wonder if much of the confusion about the role of government, separation of church and state, role of gov. as surrogate-parent, etc, is because people don't {realize|accept|understand} this distinction.
This is a very good comment.
The more you allow people to be stupid, the more stupid they will tend to be. The more we babysit the adults, by "helping" them raise kids, the more we have to, because there will always be people pushing the envelope, on the top as well as the bottom.
I think the rating system sucks, as is. It should be more like some of VG systems, where they show several scales of different factors, like nudity, language, violence... etc. This allows PARENTS or ADULTS to decide and not some rating board.
Manax
Also, I would guess the SMS's remote control facility can only be turned off by an ADMIN on the local machine, not by just any user... but as I said this is just a guess.