I don't know of any commercial devices that don't support some kind of DRM.
As for "alternative" devices or building your own, well -- society has set up these rules. You don't have to buy commercial music. Somewhere along the line, someone decided "Hey, if I work I should get paid for it" and the idea stuck. If more people agreed with you that no DRM was the way to go, you'd see a concerted effort by consumers to buy such devices. You don't.
If you're talking about the DCMA, the courts have already shown that they can tell the difference between truly legitimate and illegitimate tools to circumvent protection. Notice that the "use the DMCA and we'll win" argument rarely actually works in the courtroom. The few times it does work (e.g. Blizzard and bnetd) is because there's a real reason why circumventing the protection is a problem (allows people to play the game without buying it). Often when people shout "DCMA" on Slashdot, it's more of a "sky is falling" kind of thing. Every time the RIAA or another company uses DCMA to bring in a 12-year old, they get laughed out of court.
The problem isn't that he's writing software that allows people to copy music to other devices they own. As has been said, that's allowed.
The problem is that he's writing software that allows people to copy music to device they DON'T own. To send the files over the net. To burn copies and sell them on the street.
If DVD Jon was smart, he'd write software that would unlock FairPlay, allow the user to copy it to another device, and then lock it down again (through FairPlay or whatever else). If the user wanted to copy it to 5 devices that he/she owned, he would have to copy it manually to each one, and it would always lock afterwards. That way, he would get Apple/MPAA/etc. off his back. Heck, he could even make a worthwhile business out of it.
Instead, he's created software that unlocks and stays unlocked. It just looks like a thinly-veiled tool for piracy.
If you want to play the word game ("Steve Jobs said this") don't mince them, Jon. He didn't say we should create tools to totally strip DRM so we could then copy files across the net. Artists make enough money already, they won't miss it, blah blah blah -- fact of the matter is there are artists who *are* working to eat, and we have to respect copyrights at least a little for them. Otherwise may as well throw out capitalism in the digital distribution age.
I don't know what Apple was thinking when they chose such a low default.
The powers that be (e.g. Steve Jobs) felt it was absolutely necessary to have a quiet machine over any kind of realistic cooling, thighs be damned. Barely audible is not the same thing as inaudible. Every person I know who owns the MacBook Pro says they love the machine -- except for the extreme heat.
If you notice, the Mac Pro also briefly had the same issue. Quiet machine -- got very hot. A firmware update forced the fans to run at higher RPMs, longer. Why they don't do that with the MacBook Pro is anyone's guess. (My guess: the version they release in a month or two will probably have some of the heat issues rectified and Apple will market it as "cooler").
It would vaporware talk if Nintendo actually said they're running Linux. They didn't. Nowhere in the linked article does it say this. The comments in the Slashdot summary were based off rumor.
As for "upgradable OSes" on consoles, not exactly a new concept. PS2 had several revisions. Both Xbox and Xbox 360 have updates via Xbox Live. The fact that it's going to be an online console should've been evidence enough that there would be udpates.
YouTube is another one of those oddities. Like MySpace. Or VHS even. None of them are best in class, but they achieved a critical mass and took it from there.
Stuff I hate about YouTube:
1.) Takes forever to load some videos. Google Video is lightening fast. 2.) Can't really shift to a point on the timeline. Unlike Google Video, it can't seem to pick up midstream. What's the point of even giving the user the option to move the timeline if you can't stream from that point? 3.) Sometimes you leave comments and they aren't saved. 4.) Regardless if the comments save or not, the page will completely refresh restarting the video. (No problem, you think -- I'll just fast forward to where I was. Wait, can't do that). 5.) Sometimes pages flat out won't load. View the historic pages for stuff like "most popular video" and you'll sometimes see this.
Not to mention the UI guys look like they threw up all over the screen, and the general content (like Google Video) is lacking. If you see one dumbass 14-year old kick someone in the crotch, you've seen them all. (On a sidenote, who are these teenagers that have all day to kick people in their crotch).
I'm hoping one of these days people will realize, just like Tamagotchies, pet rocks and the Tubthumping song, that the only reason sites like YouTube and MySpace prevade culture are because they're popular. It has nothing to do with great content or inherently good design. All you need nowadays apparently is crap code and a userbase willing to kick people in the crotch.
That's a good point. I've often tried to think of comedians that are both truly funny and Republican and I haven't found any.
The closest I have come is Michael J. Nelson from Mystery Science Theater 3000 (he said he was a "card-carrying Republican", in all sincerity). Frankly I would've never guessed that.
An update was also released for the iPod Nano yesterday, bringing the firmware on the 2G models to 1.02. Please PLEASE don't state something as fact if you know nothing about it.
I bought a 2G iPod awhile back and haven't really touched the platform until recently to buy a new Nano. Syncing still doesn't work properly with any playlists that include dates. Before you go thinking "that's not a big deal" -- the Nano doesn't have much storage. You rely on the playlists to fill it up correctly. In my case, I created a playlist with just enough music to fill the iPod up with songs I hadn't listened to recently. Doesn't work at all.
It's a relatively simple problem, and it kind of ticks me off that my 2G "old" iPod did this right while a brand new Nano doesn't.
That's the only part of the interview that truely surprised me (when he said he was 24). Either he's much younger or the educational system is clearly failing.
It's a fairly interesting (if not too detailed) analysis. A commenter makes a critical observation, though: these were passwords entered at the phishing site, not MySpace. As such, some people can easily recognize it's not the original site and add such gems as "fuckyou".
Personally, I try to fit the following in every eBay phishing page I see:
Field 1: "just who do you think you're kidding?" Field 2: "better luck next time, dolt."
We'll see. I am an ardent supporter of all the consoles (more competition = better games). While some attempts to introduce better "gameplay" by Nintendo have been successful, others have felt flat.
For example, I just bought Starfox for the Nintendo DS (I waited for the reviews and decided 80% from most gaming rags was enough). The game controls almost entirely with the stylus. You would think that would grant you slightly better control, but it doesn't -- everyone I've seen playing the game is constantly crashing into things. It was an interesting design decision -- does playing with the stylus actually improve the gameplay? Not really. It could've been a very fun game if they just used the traditional controls. (Ditto on Metroid for DS, which is known to give people hand cramps).
I don't doubt the stylus and Wiimote can add innovative spins on gameplay. It just seems a lot of developers right now are throwing darts and hoping a few stick. Which is fine when you're hammering out the beta, but when if you as a consumer have to pay $40 for a Starfox game that is intentionally crippled in the control department, you kind of wonder if it's worth it.
Legally, he has every right to post the communications. Emails are not covered under the same law as phone calls (where you need to inform the other participants the call will be recorded). They should have known what they were getting into before they emailed him (or anyone else on Craigslist).
Whether or not he's a sociopath has no relevance. One person should not be sued for the collective idiocy of hundreds.
He did nothing illegal. Do you think the argument "I didn't know my unencrypted email from my workplace email address would be readable across the internet" would stand in court? "Not knowing" is not a defense. Playing the idiot doesn't work either.
Using your example, these people were whipping their wallets out and flashing the cash right in front of the mugger with the knife. Does that give the mugger a right to rob them? No. Were they idiots without common sense? Yes. Could they have perhaps better protected themselves by recognizing they were in a seedy part of town (it was Craigslist's sex area for crying out out)? Yes. Would it have been better to keep their wallets in their pockets (what most people do in those kinds of societal situations)? Absolutely.
If you're going to brand him a sociopath, you may as well brand everyone involved, because clearly no one was thinking how this would affect their reputations.
In his responses, the guy is arguing with a kind of rethoric that completely ignores the importance of social image, social relations, and more globally social existence.
Perhaps the people involved should understand "the importance of social image, social relations, and more globally social existence" before sending sexual requests thousands of miles across the internet unencrypted. What they did was akin to shouting out "I'll do you, babe" on a crowded street corner, or handing someone a note in class saying "I'll have sex with you" without ever folding it up.
Email is NOT the same as regular mail. It's NOT closed up in a nice envelope cross country. It's cleartext from end to end and completely visable.
When someone sends their bank account information and telephone number to a Nigerian scammer through email, Slashdot calls them idiots. How is asking for sexual favors using the exact same methods any different?
Presumably you'd have no problem with your wife writing a tell-all expose on your most depraved sexual fantasies and other pillowtalk without your knowledge or consent?
If my wife chose to do that she'd have every right to. It doesn't matter if I "had a problem" with it or not. I don't need to give consent. That's the way free speech works.
Think what would happen if people *didn't* talk when others had a problem with something, or had to seek consent. Whistleblowers would be stopped dead in their tracks. Enron executives would still be raking it in. Exposes wouldn't be written. We'd have no idea when our politicians were doing something wrong.
People don't need to make others happy while exercising their first amendment rights.
no you don't have the right to post private data just because it was sent to you
But it wasn't private. Nearly all of the people sent emails from their real addresses using their real names. None were encrypted. So you have emails coming from identifiable addresses, cleartext across the internet -- thousands of miles where anyone can read their contents (and probably did). Even if the senders didn't realize this (which they obviously didn't), you'd think at least a COUPLE would realize their employers keep track of outgoing mail.
When someone sends their bank information and telephone number through email to Nigerian scammers, Slashdot calls them idiots. When they're requesting sexual domination we're somehow supposed to treat them differently?
His methods were crude, but this is a wakeup call. You'd think years after the internet became mainstream people wouldn't need one, but apparently they still do.
"Email is not private" - but you still can't post other people's private information in public without their permission.
If that was true, the guys from Pirate Bay would've been in trouble a long time ago from posting all the email they got from media companies. Or that guy who posted his entire coorespondance with the "author" of CherryOS.
People who send email have to come to grips with the fact that it is NOT private communication. It can and will be transferred over hundreds or thousands of miles of landlines, unencrypted. If it's cleartext all the way across the country, what's the difference if it's posted when it gets to its destination?
People who want privacy should be smart: encrypt their emails, use a fake email address and verify who you're writing to before you do so. These people weren't smart, and are getting lampooned for their idiocy. There's no law against making fun of stupid people.
First off, it would help to link to the FAQ itself (it's here: www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeI d=161988011). I don't seen any reference to this paragraph in the FAQ.
But let's assume they've changed the FAQ. You leave out the actual "Q" for that answer, but since it talks about "devices" (not computers) one can only assume they're referring to iPod.
In that respect, Amazon is completely right. Apple has that thing completely sealed shut. The only ones who get to remotely play with the embedded OS (on a commercial level) are parties like Nike. No one gets to (legally) use the DRM.
Fault Amazon all you want (I'm going to on the crappy video selection. One episode of Mythbusters? Pass), but you can't fault them on Apple's stranglehold of the iPod.
Except they didn't "rip off" the one thing Everquest had in spades: mindblowingly inaccessible content that catered to only a select type of gamer. Blizzard went out of their way to make as much of the experience as fun as possible for a long time for EVERYONE. I've known total non-gamers can pick up Wow and run with it. The same can't be said with EQ.
You know, I really can't stand when people say "there is no story" with Wow. These are the same people that did a trial of the game, honestly didn't know what they were doing and left.
Your quote is indicative of a quest log (for those unfamiliar with Wow, the quest log track the physical objectives need to do to complete the quest). Missing is the rest of the quest text and the dialog you often have with the questgiver explaining WHY you're doing the quest. Missing is the dialog of NPCs you meet while doing the quests, the screams of bosses, the different places you head to that are familiar from previous games, etc. Missing is the hundreds of books and sidestories that can be found within the outer world and dungeons, giving the history of the world and reason for why you're there.
You played the game staring only at the quest log. Congrats. It's akin to playing Half-Life and only paying attention to your ammo and kill count. Don't fault the game for not reading beyond [1..20].
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know of any commercial devices that don't support some kind of DRM.
As for "alternative" devices or building your own, well -- society has set up these rules. You don't have to buy commercial music. Somewhere along the line, someone decided "Hey, if I work I should get paid for it" and the idea stuck. If more people agreed with you that no DRM was the way to go, you'd see a concerted effort by consumers to buy such devices. You don't.
If you're talking about the DCMA, the courts have already shown that they can tell the difference between truly legitimate and illegitimate tools to circumvent protection. Notice that the "use the DMCA and we'll win" argument rarely actually works in the courtroom. The few times it does work (e.g. Blizzard and bnetd) is because there's a real reason why circumventing the protection is a problem (allows people to play the game without buying it). Often when people shout "DCMA" on Slashdot, it's more of a "sky is falling" kind of thing. Every time the RIAA or another company uses DCMA to bring in a 12-year old, they get laughed out of court.
The problem isn't that he's writing software that allows people to copy music to other devices they own. As has been said, that's allowed.
The problem is that he's writing software that allows people to copy music to device they DON'T own. To send the files over the net. To burn copies and sell them on the street.
If DVD Jon was smart, he'd write software that would unlock FairPlay, allow the user to copy it to another device, and then lock it down again (through FairPlay or whatever else). If the user wanted to copy it to 5 devices that he/she owned, he would have to copy it manually to each one, and it would always lock afterwards. That way, he would get Apple/MPAA/etc. off his back. Heck, he could even make a worthwhile business out of it.
Instead, he's created software that unlocks and stays unlocked. It just looks like a thinly-veiled tool for piracy.
If you want to play the word game ("Steve Jobs said this") don't mince them, Jon. He didn't say we should create tools to totally strip DRM so we could then copy files across the net. Artists make enough money already, they won't miss it, blah blah blah -- fact of the matter is there are artists who *are* working to eat, and we have to respect copyrights at least a little for them. Otherwise may as well throw out capitalism in the digital distribution age.
The powers that be (e.g. Steve Jobs) felt it was absolutely necessary to have a quiet machine over any kind of realistic cooling, thighs be damned. Barely audible is not the same thing as inaudible. Every person I know who owns the MacBook Pro says they love the machine -- except for the extreme heat.
If you notice, the Mac Pro also briefly had the same issue. Quiet machine -- got very hot. A firmware update forced the fans to run at higher RPMs, longer. Why they don't do that with the MacBook Pro is anyone's guess. (My guess: the version they release in a month or two will probably have some of the heat issues rectified and Apple will market it as "cooler").
It would vaporware talk if Nintendo actually said they're running Linux. They didn't. Nowhere in the linked article does it say this. The comments in the Slashdot summary were based off rumor.
As for "upgradable OSes" on consoles, not exactly a new concept. PS2 had several revisions. Both Xbox and Xbox 360 have updates via Xbox Live. The fact that it's going to be an online console should've been evidence enough that there would be udpates.
YouTube is another one of those oddities. Like MySpace. Or VHS even. None of them are best in class, but they achieved a critical mass and took it from there.
Stuff I hate about YouTube:
1.) Takes forever to load some videos. Google Video is lightening fast.
2.) Can't really shift to a point on the timeline. Unlike Google Video, it can't seem to pick up midstream. What's the point of even giving the user the option to move the timeline if you can't stream from that point?
3.) Sometimes you leave comments and they aren't saved.
4.) Regardless if the comments save or not, the page will completely refresh restarting the video. (No problem, you think -- I'll just fast forward to where I was. Wait, can't do that).
5.) Sometimes pages flat out won't load. View the historic pages for stuff like "most popular video" and you'll sometimes see this.
Not to mention the UI guys look like they threw up all over the screen, and the general content (like Google Video) is lacking. If you see one dumbass 14-year old kick someone in the crotch, you've seen them all. (On a sidenote, who are these teenagers that have all day to kick people in their crotch).
I'm hoping one of these days people will realize, just like Tamagotchies, pet rocks and the Tubthumping song, that the only reason sites like YouTube and MySpace prevade culture are because they're popular. It has nothing to do with great content or inherently good design. All you need nowadays apparently is crap code and a userbase willing to kick people in the crotch.
That's a good point. I've often tried to think of comedians that are both truly funny and Republican and I haven't found any.
The closest I have come is Michael J. Nelson from Mystery Science Theater 3000 (he said he was a "card-carrying Republican", in all sincerity). Frankly I would've never guessed that.
An update was also released for the iPod Nano yesterday, bringing the firmware on the 2G models to 1.02. Please PLEASE don't state something as fact if you know nothing about it.
Uh... no. You're wrong. A bunch of people are having problems specifically with smart playlists using dates. The update has not fixed anything.
= 642774&tstart=0 for other examples. They screwed up the code, plain and simple.
See http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID
I bought a 2G iPod awhile back and haven't really touched the platform until recently to buy a new Nano. Syncing still doesn't work properly with any playlists that include dates. Before you go thinking "that's not a big deal" -- the Nano doesn't have much storage. You rely on the playlists to fill it up correctly. In my case, I created a playlist with just enough music to fill the iPod up with songs I hadn't listened to recently. Doesn't work at all.
It's a relatively simple problem, and it kind of ticks me off that my 2G "old" iPod did this right while a brand new Nano doesn't.
There should be a law that if you have no sense of humor you shouldn't be allowed to make jokes.
It would be most amusing if they sold for 1.5 billion Flooz.
That's the only part of the interview that truely surprised me (when he said he was 24). Either he's much younger or the educational system is clearly failing.
It's a fairly interesting (if not too detailed) analysis. A commenter makes a critical observation, though: these were passwords entered at the phishing site, not MySpace. As such, some people can easily recognize it's not the original site and add such gems as "fuckyou".
Personally, I try to fit the following in every eBay phishing page I see:
Field 1: "just who do you think you're kidding?"
Field 2: "better luck next time, dolt."
We'll see. I am an ardent supporter of all the consoles (more competition = better games). While some attempts to introduce better "gameplay" by Nintendo have been successful, others have felt flat.
For example, I just bought Starfox for the Nintendo DS (I waited for the reviews and decided 80% from most gaming rags was enough). The game controls almost entirely with the stylus. You would think that would grant you slightly better control, but it doesn't -- everyone I've seen playing the game is constantly crashing into things. It was an interesting design decision -- does playing with the stylus actually improve the gameplay? Not really. It could've been a very fun game if they just used the traditional controls. (Ditto on Metroid for DS, which is known to give people hand cramps).
I don't doubt the stylus and Wiimote can add innovative spins on gameplay. It just seems a lot of developers right now are throwing darts and hoping a few stick. Which is fine when you're hammering out the beta, but when if you as a consumer have to pay $40 for a Starfox game that is intentionally crippled in the control department, you kind of wonder if it's worth it.
Legally, he has every right to post the communications. Emails are not covered under the same law as phone calls (where you need to inform the other participants the call will be recorded). They should have known what they were getting into before they emailed him (or anyone else on Craigslist).
Whether or not he's a sociopath has no relevance. One person should not be sued for the collective idiocy of hundreds.
He did nothing illegal. Do you think the argument "I didn't know my unencrypted email from my workplace email address would be readable across the internet" would stand in court? "Not knowing" is not a defense. Playing the idiot doesn't work either.
Using your example, these people were whipping their wallets out and flashing the cash right in front of the mugger with the knife. Does that give the mugger a right to rob them? No. Were they idiots without common sense? Yes. Could they have perhaps better protected themselves by recognizing they were in a seedy part of town (it was Craigslist's sex area for crying out out)? Yes. Would it have been better to keep their wallets in their pockets (what most people do in those kinds of societal situations)? Absolutely.
If you're going to brand him a sociopath, you may as well brand everyone involved, because clearly no one was thinking how this would affect their reputations.
Perhaps the people involved should understand "the importance of social image, social relations, and more globally social existence" before sending sexual requests thousands of miles across the internet unencrypted. What they did was akin to shouting out "I'll do you, babe" on a crowded street corner, or handing someone a note in class saying "I'll have sex with you" without ever folding it up.
Email is NOT the same as regular mail. It's NOT closed up in a nice envelope cross country. It's cleartext from end to end and completely visable.
When someone sends their bank account information and telephone number to a Nigerian scammer through email, Slashdot calls them idiots. How is asking for sexual favors using the exact same methods any different?
If my wife chose to do that she'd have every right to. It doesn't matter if I "had a problem" with it or not. I don't need to give consent. That's the way free speech works.
Think what would happen if people *didn't* talk when others had a problem with something, or had to seek consent. Whistleblowers would be stopped dead in their tracks. Enron executives would still be raking it in. Exposes wouldn't be written. We'd have no idea when our politicians were doing something wrong.
People don't need to make others happy while exercising their first amendment rights.
But it wasn't private. Nearly all of the people sent emails from their real addresses using their real names. None were encrypted. So you have emails coming from identifiable addresses, cleartext across the internet -- thousands of miles where anyone can read their contents (and probably did). Even if the senders didn't realize this (which they obviously didn't), you'd think at least a COUPLE would realize their employers keep track of outgoing mail.
When someone sends their bank information and telephone number through email to Nigerian scammers, Slashdot calls them idiots. When they're requesting sexual domination we're somehow supposed to treat them differently?
His methods were crude, but this is a wakeup call. You'd think years after the internet became mainstream people wouldn't need one, but apparently they still do.
If that was true, the guys from Pirate Bay would've been in trouble a long time ago from posting all the email they got from media companies. Or that guy who posted his entire coorespondance with the "author" of CherryOS.
People who send email have to come to grips with the fact that it is NOT private communication. It can and will be transferred over hundreds or thousands of miles of landlines, unencrypted. If it's cleartext all the way across the country, what's the difference if it's posted when it gets to its destination?
People who want privacy should be smart: encrypt their emails, use a fake email address and verify who you're writing to before you do so. These people weren't smart, and are getting lampooned for their idiocy. There's no law against making fun of stupid people.
Reference please? I've never heard him say that. Hell, I've never herad him talk about Linux period.
I call bunk on your part.
I d=161988011). I don't seen any reference to this paragraph in the FAQ.
First off, it would help to link to the FAQ itself (it's here: www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?node
But let's assume they've changed the FAQ. You leave out the actual "Q" for that answer, but since it talks about "devices" (not computers) one can only assume they're referring to iPod.
In that respect, Amazon is completely right. Apple has that thing completely sealed shut. The only ones who get to remotely play with the embedded OS (on a commercial level) are parties like Nike. No one gets to (legally) use the DRM.
Fault Amazon all you want (I'm going to on the crappy video selection. One episode of Mythbusters? Pass), but you can't fault them on Apple's stranglehold of the iPod.
Except they didn't "rip off" the one thing Everquest had in spades: mindblowingly inaccessible content that catered to only a select type of gamer. Blizzard went out of their way to make as much of the experience as fun as possible for a long time for EVERYONE. I've known total non-gamers can pick up Wow and run with it. The same can't be said with EQ.
You know, I really can't stand when people say "there is no story" with Wow. These are the same people that did a trial of the game, honestly didn't know what they were doing and left.
Your quote is indicative of a quest log (for those unfamiliar with Wow, the quest log track the physical objectives need to do to complete the quest). Missing is the rest of the quest text and the dialog you often have with the questgiver explaining WHY you're doing the quest. Missing is the dialog of NPCs you meet while doing the quests, the screams of bosses, the different places you head to that are familiar from previous games, etc. Missing is the hundreds of books and sidestories that can be found within the outer world and dungeons, giving the history of the world and reason for why you're there.
You played the game staring only at the quest log. Congrats. It's akin to playing Half-Life and only paying attention to your ammo and kill count. Don't fault the game for not reading beyond [1..20].