Then please, tell me how to put Emacs keybindings into KDE! I have wrist problems, and much prefer to use C-b and C-f for backwards and forwards, instead of having to move to the cursor keys. I keep using Emacs keystrokes and having them not quite work right. I get so sick of non-Emacs keybindings, it's driving me to madness with KDE!
That's actually what I wanted the reader to notice, but didn't want to give it away directly (for impact). But since the cat's out of the bag...
At one point (in a previous episode), SMG commented to Joss that he was just going to cut away to music instead of playing out a scene emotionally. In "The Body", Joss forbade himself from doing that. He has one scene per act. He doesn't cut to music. He forces the viewer to confront the emotion that's playing out, and confront it head-on. (Source: OMWF Script Book)
Ripper was put on hold indefinitely some time ago. A lot of us thought it dead, but it's mostly on hold from what I can tell. Here's something I sent to some friends a while ago:
Regarding the series "Ripper", exploring Giles's past:
It's not dead yet. I found this on the BBC website:
Buffy News 05 August 2002
Head talks film/Ripper
The Scooby Gang prepare to sing Tony Head has revealed yet more on the future of Buffy and Ripper.
"Joss wants to make a movie," Tony told the ET Online website. "I'd love to make a movie. I don't think Sarah does at the moment, but who knows what is going to happen in two years' time. Joss' imagination is so wild, fertile and unstoppable, you know whatever it is going to be is cool."
As for Ripper, Tony suspects it won't now be happening until at least 2003.
"[It's] somewhere down the line. Joss really wants to do it. Jane Espenson has already written one script, and they are talking about putting six scripts together. [With Firefly, Joss] has quite a bit on his plate right now. It suits me because I have a fair amount on mine. I think possibly [it will happen] sometime next year."
To get something more recent, say, 18 November, from Zap2It:
"It's still there, it hasn't gone away... I had lunch with [BBC2 head] Jane Root just before I came back. [I]... couldn't resist the opportunity to say, had she heard anything about 'Ripper' and what were her feelings.
"She said she basically knew as much as I did, which was that Joss is just up against it. With these three balls up in the air [Buffy, Angel and Firefly], there's absolutely no point in throwing another one up there. I guess one would fall, and there's no need for that.
"Ultimately, along the line, everything can find its place and its time and succeed. Jane thinks we're still going to do it. I haven't even bothered to talk to Joss about it. The last he said, he really wants to do it. He's got three or four scripts he's got in progress with Jane Espenson."
Of course part of it is the fact that the show raised the "stunt" episode to a new art form. [snip] "The Body" was one of the best portrayals of the human reaction to a sudden loss of someone close.
Joss doesn't do a lot of "stunt" writing, and when he does, he does it more as a personal challenge than anything else.
Next time you watch "The Body", pay attention to how he uses music in that episode to provoke viewer's emotion. I'll say that it's different than most.
As others have mentioned, Mathematica and Maple-- like Maxima-- use symbolic manipulation to give exact answers. For example, Maxima tells me that the integral of x^2+2*sin(x) from -5 to 4 is 2 COS(5) - 2 COS(4) + 63. It can't reduce that further without introducing inexactness from the irrational functions. (If it could, it would; the same integral over -5 to 5 is reported as 250/3.)
Some math packages and programming languages-- such as Common Lisp-- have bignums (infinitely long, perfect precision integers) and rationals, which are also infinitely long and perfect precision. So the value of (/ 1 3) is not 0.3333, it's 1/3.
I use Maxima for my work. It's a continuation of Macsyma, the computer math program that was the inspiration for Mathmatica. Macsyma was tied up in copyrights for a while, but now it's public domain. So Maxima updated it to modern computer environments, added in a GUI (with web browser) and ties to modern programs like GnuPlot, and now there's a good, open-source symbolic math utility / programming language.
I also heard, when they were first introduced, that it was to detect large quantities of cash as they go through x-ray machines. Since the strips all line up, they show up as a clear big rectangle on the x-ray. (But I don't have a good source.)
The thought process is the same whether you are using cshell, java, assembler or any other programming tool.
"A language that does not change the way you think about programming is not worth knowing." People think about problems differently depending on which language they're using. Or, people like myself, take an alternate approach: I choose the language depending on the problem.
Compiled languages such as C used to be compiled to assembly code which was then assembled to machine code (i.e. an executable). Now days virtually every C compiler produces executable machine code directly.
Delete/usr/bin/as and see how well your C compiler works.
Personally, I use Emacs. I set the font to something san-serif, big, and very readable, use view-mode (for ease of scrolling), and use bookmarks. I also make the Emacs full-screen; even the title bar goes off the screen.
If a mod chip were developed and proven to only allow installing linux, or playing imported (but not copied) games, and could not possibly play a copied game, I don't think Microsoft would care.
I'm not sure what the technical feasibility of this would be. Did you mean this as a practical solution, or was it a rhetorical hypothesis?
I agree. I was trying to say that the tone and dilligence of the open letter doesn't seem sufficient.
I absolutely agree with you there; a letter written in a cooperative tone may have been a better step. I'm not sure what other steps are being taken, though.
So, you're right about inventory not mattering -- but I think you're wrong about MS "needing" people to buy/play games in order to be successful in the console market.
I was referring to the long term, ie after MS conquers console-land. (If they don't, then it is a moot point.)
I first used the library to study it, then the web after that became a viable technology. I don't own a copy. (When I said "I have", I meant as in "I have read a book" in reference to the AC's post, not "I possess".)
Namely that 17USC1201f does not exist
17 USC1201; update your copy of Title 17 or paste in an addendum for the DMCA. I don't try to stretch this issue to include architecture, even though I did earlier ponder how strongly the case law established for audio works could apply.
17 USC 107 is notorious
And often misused on/., I know. The Fair Use Doctorine as it applies to the DMCA is a real briar patch, and I doubt there's enough case law to do a solid analysis. Mostly, I was not terribly encouraged to give a detailed analysis of my opinions of how the Fair Use doctorine (as established in 17 USC 107, case law, and common law) may apply to the struggle to get Linux on the XBox. The main reason I was not so encouraged is that I was responding to an AC whose only real assertion is that I hadn't done any homework.
However, you apparently have, so I'll give you the courtesy of a more complete response.
I don't think that MS is likely to be happy about Linux being on the XBox. They're likely to pull out a lot of measures to prevent it, both technical and legal. The most likely-- and possibly most deadly-- weapon they'll pull out is the DMCA. That's why I think that copyright law will be significant on this.
Now, if we could get Linux on the XBox legitimately, then we'd have a lot less of a leg to stand on. We first have to make an overture, to establish we can't get it legitimately. The fact that we know it'll be ignored or refused is irrelevant. The overture should be made. Part of this is for ethical reasons, like demanding a ship's surrender before opening fire. The other part is to gather ammo for the upcoming legal battle, so we can say that there was not an alternative.
I certainly am not saying that copyright law establishes that MS is obligated to license jack. I'm referring to the upcoming struggle to get Linux on the XBox.
I'm also interested in looking at the background and case law on 17USC115. I know it's not directly relevant, but the priciples and case law leading up to it may be.
By the way: I keep using the term "we" here. Let me clarify that word. I am not part of the group that is trying to get MS to certify anything. I'm not one of the guys developing Linux on any platform; I'm a BSD guy. I'm using the term "we" to represent a fairly nebulous group of people, who think that Linux on the XBox would be a cool thing to happen.
Microsoft is not stopping anybody from modifying their XBox to run Linux
My impression-- and I will be the first to admit that I normally only pay cursory attention to the goings-on surrounding the XBox-- MS was trying to effectively ban the manufacture and sale of mod chips, by asserting that they were circumvention devices and therefore in violation of the DMCA. I can't find a reference to that now, though... maybe I dreamed it up?
As I say, I normally only pay cursory attention to these things. But for some reason, I had it in my head that MS had tried to use the DMCA to ban mod chips. Did this really happen, or have I just taken one too many knocks on the head?
Thanks for the case refs, by the way. I'll have to review those decisions more carefully.
My assertion is not that MS is required to license Linux. I'm not even asserting that they should, legally or ethically. I'm saying that this is a necessary overture. We're giving MS the opportunity to give us a license. If they don't, then we can justify whatever's necessary to get it working.
I bring up copyright law because I was thinking that MS was trying to use the DMCA to get mod chips banned. If that's something I dreamed up in some sort of delusion, then my copyright references are certainly out of line and I apologize for wasting your time.
[The XBox is] a game machine, and not designed to be anything more.
True, it's not designed to be anything more. But it is implemented in such a way as to have other possible applications. Why should its design goals and marketing preclude alternate usages? When was the last time you used duct tape to repair a duct? I thought that ET using a saw blade as part of his transmitter was inventive. Do you think he should have gone down to the Rat Shack and picked up a stepper motor and 555, because the saw blade wasn't designed as a gear?
Certain PDP emulators were written (according to lore) to keep an old, sourceless Zork binary running. I use these emulators for historical research. Are you saying that just because they were written for games, I shouldn't use them for anything else?
Shouldn't we be trying to put OS X or LinuxPPC on [the GameCube]?
Personally, I'd prefer to see NetBSD instead. I'm not going to bother writing it, though, even though I own a GameCube and would be interested in seeing other OSs on it. But if somebody wants to port OSs badly enough to do the work, they should.
Somebody wanted to play games on the HP-19C calculators, too. Just because that wasn't the calculators' original intent, does that mean that Lunar Lander never should have existed?
Now, if the Linux/XBox guys find out that there's a technical limitation that keeps it from running well, or at all, then nobody should fault MS; as you say, it was never meant to be a general-purpose device. I don't gripe when the web server on my TiVo is sluggish. But we're not talking about a design limitation; we're talking about essentially a permissions issue.
Funny thing, I have. The entirety of 17USC, and most of 37CFR Chap. II, for example. In my post, I was mostly thinking about the possible applicability of 17USC1201f or 17USC107, for instance.
Or perhaps the case law (that I'm too lazy to look up now, because anybody that it seriously matters to can do so) regarding the concept that if licences cannot be obtained through legal means, that a copyright may be held to be unenforcable. This case law, IIRC, was originally applied to audio recordings, and is therefore subject to the legislation of 17USC115, but there's lots of wiggle room in some areas. I'd have to read the case law to see how much wiggle room, but I don't think it's a dead end.
I'm mostly bringing up copyright issues because it's copyright law that MS is using to halt distribution of mod chips. So copyright law may be a useful tool to get Linux for the XBox available.
I resent your implication that laymen cannot have opinions about law. It is our responsibility to understand the law, to a certain degree. I, for example, am a computer programmer by trade and training. As such, I hold many copyrights, have assigned many others, and have created many works for hire. I've therefore taken it upon myself to familiarize myself with copyright law, since it very strongly applies to my trade.
Besides the legal issues, there's an ethical one. I once wrote a commentary on a paper comparing Python vs. Lisp. While I didn't have to (legally), I decided to ask the original author for his permission before publishing it. I think that this is a similar stance: before we figure out ways to get around MS's protections, it may be a good idea just to ask if they'll give us a legit sig.
You raise good points. Perhaps I overstated the case for rhetorical purposes. I still think this is a good first overture to being able to legitimately publish Linux for the XBox without DMCA being an obsticle.
If a microwave is designed to cook food, but you want to hack it to play movies, are you hacking for "compatibility purposes"?
I don't think that this is a valid analogy. The microwave is not a general-purpose device that is only marketed for one purpose.
Are you kidding? This is not about the existing inventory. MS could write that off with a smile on their faces and a spring in their steps. No, it's about the continuing viability of the product line.
If MS makes sure that everybody pays MS to play games, then they can sell their boxes at under cost.
If they don't, then to make the product line viable, they have to raise the price of the box (at some point)-- pricing themselves out of the market.
I think you're missing the concept of legal overtures. (IANAL.)
First, you try to get MS to sign your binary. This shows that you attempted to enlist their cooperation to achieve your goals through means that MS may approve of, working within their system. That's right, we're willing to play by their rules.
Then, if MS denies the sig, then we can start hacking the X-Box for compatibility purposes, 'cause it's no longer just an anti-privacy measure.
This is not about us getting a sig. It's about us getting a way to legitimately hack the X-Box, by having MS deny the sig.
I don't know whether it's Messenger or Hotmail, but...
I recently got a Hotmail account just to use Messenger (the question of why I needed Messenger-- actually, kMerlin-- isn't worth going into). I set up my Hotmail account and Messenger account nearly the same time.
In under five minutes, my Hotmail account was getting spam. Yes, I opted out of the directory, and my addy is not in the dictionary. But still I was getting spam.
The only thing I can figure is that Microsoft is giving out the email addys!
Slashdot Mirror
Then please, tell me how to put Emacs keybindings into KDE! I have wrist problems, and much prefer to use C-b and C-f for backwards and forwards, instead of having to move to the cursor keys. I keep using Emacs keystrokes and having them not quite work right. I get so sick of non-Emacs keybindings, it's driving me to madness with KDE!
Xaw?
What's more, a clone of Pacman was made, called Jawbreaker, and a big (and significant) lawsuit ensued... google all about it.
That's actually what I wanted the reader to notice, but didn't want to give it away directly (for impact). But since the cat's out of the bag...
At one point (in a previous episode), SMG commented to Joss that he was just going to cut away to music instead of playing out a scene emotionally. In "The Body", Joss forbade himself from doing that. He has one scene per act. He doesn't cut to music. He forces the viewer to confront the emotion that's playing out, and confront it head-on. (Source: OMWF Script Book)
It's quite effective.
Ripper was put on hold indefinitely some time ago. A lot of us thought it dead, but it's mostly on hold from what I can tell. Here's something I sent to some friends a while ago:
Regarding the series "Ripper", exploring Giles's past:
It's not dead yet. I found this on the BBC website:
To get something more recent, say, 18 November, from Zap2It:
I guess I'm jonesing for more Joss these days.
Of course part of it is the fact that the show raised the "stunt" episode to a new art form. [snip] "The Body" was one of the best portrayals of the human reaction to a sudden loss of someone close.
Joss doesn't do a lot of "stunt" writing, and when he does, he does it more as a personal challenge than anything else.
Next time you watch "The Body", pay attention to how he uses music in that episode to provoke viewer's emotion. I'll say that it's different than most.
Where can I find this community? I've been doing most of my Maxima stuff in isolation.
Some math packages and programming languages-- such as Common Lisp-- have bignums (infinitely long, perfect precision integers) and rationals, which are also infinitely long and perfect precision. So the value of (/ 1 3) is not 0.3333, it's 1/3.
I use Maxima for my work. It's a continuation of Macsyma, the computer math program that was the inspiration for Mathmatica. Macsyma was tied up in copyrights for a while, but now it's public domain. So Maxima updated it to modern computer environments, added in a GUI (with web browser) and ties to modern programs like GnuPlot, and now there's a good, open-source symbolic math utility / programming language.
I also heard, when they were first introduced, that it was to detect large quantities of cash as they go through x-ray machines. Since the strips all line up, they show up as a clear big rectangle on the x-ray. (But I don't have a good source.)
The thought process is the same whether you are using cshell, java, assembler or any other programming tool.
"A language that does not change the way you think about programming is not worth knowing." People think about problems differently depending on which language they're using. Or, people like myself, take an alternate approach: I choose the language depending on the problem.
Compiled languages such as C used to be compiled to assembly code which was then assembled to machine code (i.e. an executable). Now days virtually every C compiler produces executable machine code directly.
Delete /usr/bin/as and see how well your C compiler works.
Personally, I use Emacs. I set the font to something san-serif, big, and very readable, use view-mode (for ease of scrolling), and use bookmarks. I also make the Emacs full-screen; even the title bar goes off the screen.
I do this on my laptop, and this helps.
But usually, I prefer to use paper.
While increasing the resolution can improve clarity, it often comes at the price of refresh rate. Watch out!
If a mod chip were developed and proven to only allow installing linux, or playing imported (but not copied) games, and could not possibly play a copied game, I don't think Microsoft would care.
I'm not sure what the technical feasibility of this would be. Did you mean this as a practical solution, or was it a rhetorical hypothesis?
I agree. I was trying to say that the tone and dilligence of the open letter doesn't seem sufficient.
I absolutely agree with you there; a letter written in a cooperative tone may have been a better step. I'm not sure what other steps are being taken, though.
So, you're right about inventory not mattering -- but I think you're wrong about MS "needing" people to buy/play games in order to be successful in the console market.
I was referring to the long term, ie after MS conquers console-land. (If they don't, then it is a moot point.)
Its funny that if you have the 17 USC
I first used the library to study it, then the web after that became a viable technology. I don't own a copy. (When I said "I have", I meant as in "I have read a book" in reference to the AC's post, not "I possess".)
Namely that 17USC1201f does not exist
17 USC1201; update your copy of Title 17 or paste in an addendum for the DMCA. I don't try to stretch this issue to include architecture, even though I did earlier ponder how strongly the case law established for audio works could apply.
17 USC 107 is notorious
And often misused on /., I know. The Fair Use Doctorine as it applies to the DMCA is a real briar patch, and I doubt there's enough case law to do a solid analysis. Mostly, I was not terribly encouraged to give a detailed analysis of my opinions of how the Fair Use doctorine (as established in 17 USC 107, case law, and common law) may apply to the struggle to get Linux on the XBox. The main reason I was not so encouraged is that I was responding to an AC whose only real assertion is that I hadn't done any homework.
However, you apparently have, so I'll give you the courtesy of a more complete response.
I don't think that MS is likely to be happy about Linux being on the XBox. They're likely to pull out a lot of measures to prevent it, both technical and legal. The most likely-- and possibly most deadly-- weapon they'll pull out is the DMCA. That's why I think that copyright law will be significant on this.
Now, if we could get Linux on the XBox legitimately, then we'd have a lot less of a leg to stand on. We first have to make an overture, to establish we can't get it legitimately. The fact that we know it'll be ignored or refused is irrelevant. The overture should be made. Part of this is for ethical reasons, like demanding a ship's surrender before opening fire. The other part is to gather ammo for the upcoming legal battle, so we can say that there was not an alternative.
I certainly am not saying that copyright law establishes that MS is obligated to license jack. I'm referring to the upcoming struggle to get Linux on the XBox.
I'm also interested in looking at the background and case law on 17USC115. I know it's not directly relevant, but the priciples and case law leading up to it may be.
By the way: I keep using the term "we" here. Let me clarify that word. I am not part of the group that is trying to get MS to certify anything. I'm not one of the guys developing Linux on any platform; I'm a BSD guy. I'm using the term "we" to represent a fairly nebulous group of people, who think that Linux on the XBox would be a cool thing to happen.
Microsoft is not stopping anybody from modifying their XBox to run Linux
My impression-- and I will be the first to admit that I normally only pay cursory attention to the goings-on surrounding the XBox-- MS was trying to effectively ban the manufacture and sale of mod chips, by asserting that they were circumvention devices and therefore in violation of the DMCA. I can't find a reference to that now, though... maybe I dreamed it up?
As I say, I normally only pay cursory attention to these things. But for some reason, I had it in my head that MS had tried to use the DMCA to ban mod chips. Did this really happen, or have I just taken one too many knocks on the head?
Thanks for the case refs, by the way. I'll have to review those decisions more carefully.
My assertion is not that MS is required to license Linux. I'm not even asserting that they should, legally or ethically. I'm saying that this is a necessary overture. We're giving MS the opportunity to give us a license. If they don't, then we can justify whatever's necessary to get it working.
I bring up copyright law because I was thinking that MS was trying to use the DMCA to get mod chips banned. If that's something I dreamed up in some sort of delusion, then my copyright references are certainly out of line and I apologize for wasting your time.
[The XBox is] a game machine, and not designed to be anything more.
True, it's not designed to be anything more. But it is implemented in such a way as to have other possible applications. Why should its design goals and marketing preclude alternate usages? When was the last time you used duct tape to repair a duct? I thought that ET using a saw blade as part of his transmitter was inventive. Do you think he should have gone down to the Rat Shack and picked up a stepper motor and 555, because the saw blade wasn't designed as a gear?
Certain PDP emulators were written (according to lore) to keep an old, sourceless Zork binary running. I use these emulators for historical research. Are you saying that just because they were written for games, I shouldn't use them for anything else?
Shouldn't we be trying to put OS X or LinuxPPC on [the GameCube]?
Personally, I'd prefer to see NetBSD instead. I'm not going to bother writing it, though, even though I own a GameCube and would be interested in seeing other OSs on it. But if somebody wants to port OSs badly enough to do the work, they should.
Somebody wanted to play games on the HP-19C calculators, too. Just because that wasn't the calculators' original intent, does that mean that Lunar Lander never should have existed?
Now, if the Linux/XBox guys find out that there's a technical limitation that keeps it from running well, or at all, then nobody should fault MS; as you say, it was never meant to be a general-purpose device. I don't gripe when the web server on my TiVo is sluggish. But we're not talking about a design limitation; we're talking about essentially a permissions issue.
Or at least read a book?
Funny thing, I have. The entirety of 17USC, and most of 37CFR Chap. II, for example. In my post, I was mostly thinking about the possible applicability of 17USC1201f or 17USC107, for instance.
Or perhaps the case law (that I'm too lazy to look up now, because anybody that it seriously matters to can do so) regarding the concept that if licences cannot be obtained through legal means, that a copyright may be held to be unenforcable. This case law, IIRC, was originally applied to audio recordings, and is therefore subject to the legislation of 17USC115, but there's lots of wiggle room in some areas. I'd have to read the case law to see how much wiggle room, but I don't think it's a dead end.
I'm mostly bringing up copyright issues because it's copyright law that MS is using to halt distribution of mod chips. So copyright law may be a useful tool to get Linux for the XBox available.
I resent your implication that laymen cannot have opinions about law. It is our responsibility to understand the law, to a certain degree. I, for example, am a computer programmer by trade and training. As such, I hold many copyrights, have assigned many others, and have created many works for hire. I've therefore taken it upon myself to familiarize myself with copyright law, since it very strongly applies to my trade.
Besides the legal issues, there's an ethical one. I once wrote a commentary on a paper comparing Python vs. Lisp. While I didn't have to (legally), I decided to ask the original author for his permission before publishing it. I think that this is a similar stance: before we figure out ways to get around MS's protections, it may be a good idea just to ask if they'll give us a legit sig.
If a microwave is designed to cook food, but you want to hack it to play movies, are you hacking for "compatibility purposes"?
I don't think that this is a valid analogy. The microwave is not a general-purpose device that is only marketed for one purpose.
If MS makes sure that everybody pays MS to play games, then they can sell their boxes at under cost.
If they don't, then to make the product line viable, they have to raise the price of the box (at some point)-- pricing themselves out of the market.
I think you're missing the concept of legal overtures. (IANAL.)
First, you try to get MS to sign your binary. This shows that you attempted to enlist their cooperation to achieve your goals through means that MS may approve of, working within their system. That's right, we're willing to play by their rules.
Then, if MS denies the sig, then we can start hacking the X-Box for compatibility purposes, 'cause it's no longer just an anti-privacy measure.
This is not about us getting a sig. It's about us getting a way to legitimately hack the X-Box, by having MS deny the sig.
Once more: I am not a lawyer.
So maybe we should just get a signature for LILO, and put Linux on a separate disk.
I don't know whether it's Messenger or Hotmail, but...
I recently got a Hotmail account just to use Messenger (the question of why I needed Messenger-- actually, kMerlin-- isn't worth going into). I set up my Hotmail account and Messenger account nearly the same time.
In under five minutes, my Hotmail account was getting spam. Yes, I opted out of the directory, and my addy is not in the dictionary. But still I was getting spam.
The only thing I can figure is that Microsoft is giving out the email addys!