Because Satan is in the operating system business. Sure, Apple may be roughly on the same team, but Satan still isn't gonna give the industry to them, when he is competing himself. Besides he did bail them out with that 10% non-voting stock deal a few years back, didn't he?
Phillips doesn't want this *now*. Because it will wreck their hardware market *now*.
This means, not that they are against DRM in principle... corporations have no principles. It means that not only will they not profit, but they'll lose money, if it happens *now*. Give them 24 months, and they'll figure out a way to profit from it. I wouldn't be shocked if the MPAA and RIAA literally bribed them. Some sort of DRM service fee.
The balance will change, and when it does, they'll be allied against us. If a anti-Hollywood PAC has not chance, what happens to our odds when the IT bigwigs are against us too?
A breeder card? What, they insist he get a Heterosexual License?
Yeh, I show my Disneyworld Mickey License to cops that pull me over too. They laugh and chuckle, then tell me that if I don't waste any more time in handing over my REAL license, they won't penalize me for it.
What, because of our DivX success? Not that you are thinking of that particularly, but if you aren't read up on it. It seems like we won then, didn't it?
That wasn't the war, that was a battle. And the hollywood machine was more than willing to sacrifice some scout troops, to get a better feel for the battlefield.
You're right, for now. Joe Sixpack doesn't care... that's what the ads are for. Maybe they'll have to temporarily soften the actual technical measures, long enough for the system to become entrenched. But lie to Joe, tell him movies will only get more expensive, unless he does something to stop it. Tell him that something is voting, for Sen. Asswad. Tell him he'll still be able to watch the movies he pays for, and that they'll only get cheaper if he votes correctly. Hell, Joe won't care that he'll never be able to do his own home movies, or write fan fiction.
We have no upper hands, in any respect. If you want any chance of winning, remember that first and foremost. I want to win, but it's far from sure, hell, it is impossible odds. I don't make it worse, by denying the truth of that, like some do.
Another tip. We have to somehow fight this in a way that no one has ever fought a conflict before. If we think we can fight the battles they have set us up to fight, and win, then we're screwed. And there is no better example of that, than the cliched "playing the system".
If you want ideas, I'll help. If you want more than that, I may possibly be persuaded. But if you're on my team, I can't help but have a lousy nervous feeling, that we are utterly fucked.
Lincoln did this, just slightly before that sort of politics died. I said the system was unfixable, not that I didn't think it wasn't good in the beginning.
That isn't possible today, not by far. My opinions are echoed by too many hear, for it to have not made public view. Unless, as I believe, there is something massive blocking it. I'll leave that as an exercise in cynicism for you, to decide just what the obstacle is.
There isn't enough money. The days when individual citizens had enough money to do anything are long gone. Corporations are indeed, artificial citizens. Ones with big pockets. Corporations don't care, by nature, about this stuff. It sometimes seems like it, but only because their concerns overlap ours... temporarily. The tech companies don't hate DRM exactly, they just haven't figured out how to make money on it. That's a distinction that you, and the rest of the slashdot crowd should take note of.
Joe Sixpack doesn't care. They sliced up the airwaves, and he didn't bat an eyelash. The airwaves used to be what the internet is today. There are other examples, but this kind of discussion just depresses me.
No, I'm not a defeatist. I'm waiting for my moment to strike back (Note: Dear FBI, I'm not a terrorist, you fucktwit. This is *metaphor*). I doubt that I can do it, but there might be a technology, that would throw off the corporate yoke and refuse to ever wear it again. Time will tell.
Well, I'd pretty much have to ruin my life, the way that I like it, to run for office.
Hmm. If there was even a long shot at winning, and being able to do something, that might be a sacrifice I would make.
There is no chance. Could I trust someone else to do it for me? No. Corruption and indoctrination are far too widespread, to trust someone else not to sell out.
But would anyone ever vote for me? Hell no. I have real opinions. People don't vote for that. I see the real problems, and sometimes I even have real solutions. No votes there either. But, just for the sake of the argument, imagine that I win, by some miracle. Maybe 1 million people accidentally vote for me due to some ballot misdesign.
What then? Well, assume that I'm a senator, one of 100. I either have to join a party, and kowtow to the party line, or be ignored. Sure, I can cast a few token dissenting votes, that... big suprise here... change nothing. I can be the token kook politician, fighting unwinnable battles that no one is even sure why I'm fighting. And when it's all over and done with, in 6 years, I'll never hold office again. Because one party or the other, will target my seat as easily winnable, and dump a few million on the campaign.
The system can't fix itself. Historically, in cases where the system is broken like this, people move somewhere else, and start their own. Sometimes, they have trouble cutting the necrotic umbilical cord, but when they do, things are better for awhile. Until they turn into what it was that they ran from.
There is no place left to run. Maybe to the stars, but how many thousand years before we're capable of that?
Unlikely. For one thing, the NRA is a bad example. Sure, they've fought as good a fight as they can, hell, their right is even specifically enumerated in the Constitution.
Has it saved them? No. They're being ground down into dust, a year, a decade at a time. No candidate openly supports them, and when such a candidate finds a way of abandoning them without too much backlash, he does so.
The other candidate, if he is on our side, is too closely associated with the PAC, for it to matter. If he isn't on our side, then he'll distance himself. In which case, we just blew several hundred thousand dollars just to look like freaks and losers, on regional TV. If you are gonna waste $250,000, you should at least have one hell of a booze/liquor party to show for it, you know.
First nitpick: Actually, holyrollers that pretend to be true bible scholars annoy me. It wasn't a fig either, but rather a pomengranate.
Second nitpick: The Woz chose that price as a joke. It was $666.66, not "666". Is the number of the beast 2/3's rounded off to the nearest cent? I suppose all electronic calculators are also satanic, since dividing 2 by 3 gives you the same thing. I guess that holyrolling is so boring though, even they have to dabble in numerology.
And finally, I have to wonder if M$ isn't somehow involved with this. Maybe small cash donations to this guys church? There's something there, I'm sure.
Sorry. I'm in Virginia, and I'd probably even mess up who our own senators are. Not that there is much difference between one and the next. All are worthless.
Still, I think this guy underestimates how easy/cheap it would be. I'd donate a few bucks to such a PAC, but I'm not rich. And if we all banded together somehow, and wanted to votefuck Hollings when he's up for re-election, could we win? Imagine that we somehow come up with enough cash to mount a decent tv ad campaign. We'd still be the new guys, and they would retaliate. Does anyone believe they are somehow above lying and namecalling?
"These hippy anarchists, aren't even from your district. Yet they want to dictate to the good people of N. Carolina who you should vote for. They want to allow dirty thieves to steal movies and games from struggling artists, bankrupting them, and stealing from you in the long run. We can't tell you to do anything illegal, but by god, if we ever see them on the street alone at night..."
Remember folks, if you pick on one of Hollywood's bought and paid for politicians, you are **picking on Hollywood**. There is no way that we could ever do political ads that are as slick, as decietful, and unfortunately, as effective as they could. They'd have Cher saying how she supports Senator Asswad, and we'd have some finnish geek saying something that Joe Sixpack doesn't understand, in an accent that annoys him.
The system is broken, and can't fix itself. No matter how much we help it from the inside.
I saw this article the first day, but hesitated to reply. I'm not sure if I'm bullshitting or not, and you have to remember that I'm mostly a hobbyist and a tinkerer, not someone offering a finished product at this point.
I've been thinking along the same lines myself. I own, more or less, one of everything out there. And while it may only be a mac and pc, or pc and unix box, you have to remember that the mutant KVM would have to be usable with all these and more, or what's the point? First off, let's enumerate the various systems this would have to be designed for.
XT PC with db9 CGA video (serial mouse) XT PC with db9 CGA video (bus mouse) XT PC with hdb15 VGA (serial mouse) XT PC with VGA (bus mouse) PS/2 (mouse and kb, VGA) USB PC (mouse and kb, VGA) Mac ADB (db15 mac VGA) USB Mac Sun (type 5 kb and mouse, 13w3) Next Cube (I believe cubes are all non-ADB, with a sun5 kb and mouse... video is db19, fixed VGA) NeXT slab (sun type5 kb and mouse, 13w3) NeXT slab (ADB mouse and kb, 13w3) SGI (several different formats, only read about them) DEC (rj11 kb, miniDIN-7 mouse, 3w3 video)
This should work for vaxstations, DECstations, and some alphas Serial terminal (seems it would be useful) Amiga (quadrature db9 mouse, db23 multiscan video) Atari ST (db9 quad mouse, strange miniDIN-19 multiscan/VGA video)
I've missed some, but these are the ones that I can think of, off the top of my head. Some people like me, have most or all of them, sometimes even several of one or another. A single piece KVM just won't work, and adapters are messy at best, and often unworkable. How to fix this?
The first problem that comes to mind, is that of keyboard differences... some are insurmountable. Sure, you can get away with keyboard remapping to some extent. But I think I have a fancier solution, if more expensive. A totally new keyboard. Call this Product #1.
Product #1 is a USB keyboard. It has something along the lines of 140-160 keys. Each key has a real keyswitch, not the damn bubble membranes you see nowdays. Each key also has a small monochrome LCD atop it, with a pixel resolution of 24x24 or so. We can remap any of these keys to any other, and the legend follows. We have plenty of keys, for the 24 function keys that some systems use, the mac specific keys, the "windows" keys, everything. When you press the capslock, maybe even the legends change to reflect this. Hell, maybe game designers could have the game remap icons to certain keys... there could be alot of use in this thing all by itself. Hence, it being USB, allowing it to be a seperate product.
The second problem you'll encounter, is that of a wildly varying group/number of systems people like us might like to use with it. This, I think is also solvable.
Product #2 The KVM itself, would be a attractive chassis, with anywhere from 8 to 64 slots. Perhaps even several models to reflect this. These slots would be much like you see on router hardware, hotpluggable, with no need to open the case. The chassis itself would probably be a passive backplane with a small power supply. There would be one (or possibly more on the high end model) "controller" slot. This slot/card is where you plug in your keyboard, mouse and monitor. If necessary, there could even be several different cards for this, maybe one for a regular ps/2 setup, another for the Uber-keyboard described above, etc. Future insurance against having a DVI flat panel 5 years from now, if you like to think of it that way.
The other slots, would allow you to plug in the perfect match for whatever computer you will use it with. If there is no such card, you call me up, and get a quote from me. I hopefully wouldn't have to charge too much... I get to keep the design, in case someone wants one later. We even make the design open... make your own, or design it and let me put it together. I dunno. But the idea is just too cool, IMO, to not do it.
Can anyone see a technical problem with this?
Can anyone think of a good way to get this happening?
Wow. First post, and redundant. Dude, I so hope that I get to metamoderate this. My bet though, is some asswad crackmoderator adds flamebait to the thing too.
The content of the story was unavailable. Whats more, the editors of slashdot all know that it is unavailable. It's not temporarily unavailable, like some are when they get slashdotted, I could bookmark this, and try to read it 3 months from now, and would have the same problem.
I would really like to know why they rerquire registration, but like anyone with any intelligence whatsoever, I realize that asking NYT is pointless. If they even deigned to answer something, which is a big if, it wouldn't be honest in any significant way.
I do post here. 99% of the time about the content of the story. Its obvious though, that being moderated offtopic has absolutely zero correlation with posting offtopic. Heck, if anything, this was the one exception out of many offtopic moderation.
Asking or stating an opinion about the content, is the same thing as "about the content". Not that anyone like you could understand something that falls so far outside the scope of your tunnel vision.
There once was a moderator on crack... Whose brain was located in his nutsack He modded me unfairly, Could control myself barely Wish he would pull his head out of his asscrack.
Slashdot Mirror
Because Satan is in the operating system business. Sure, Apple may be roughly on the same team, but Satan still isn't gonna give the industry to them, when he is competing himself. Besides he did bail them out with that 10% non-voting stock deal a few years back, didn't he?
Not that they'll believe me. But at least when they drag me in front of the military tribunal, I'll have some sort of proof.
You still misunderstand.
Phillips doesn't want this *now*. Because it will wreck their hardware market *now*.
This means, not that they are against DRM in principle... corporations have no principles. It means that not only will they not profit, but they'll lose money, if it happens *now*. Give them 24 months, and they'll figure out a way to profit from it. I wouldn't be shocked if the MPAA and RIAA literally bribed them. Some sort of DRM service fee.
The balance will change, and when it does, they'll be allied against us. If a anti-Hollywood PAC has not chance, what happens to our odds when the IT bigwigs are against us too?
A breeder card? What, they insist he get a Heterosexual License?
Yeh, I show my Disneyworld Mickey License to cops that pull me over too. They laugh and chuckle, then tell me that if I don't waste any more time in handing over my REAL license, they won't penalize me for it.
In which case, instead of $1 billion of losses annually (or whatever it is they claim), it's more like $50 million worth of losses due to piracy?
They can't have it both ways.
The sad part is, there is no need to recycle. I'll take em all ;)
6 dozen and counting....
What, because of our DivX success? Not that you are thinking of that particularly, but if you aren't read up on it. It seems like we won then, didn't it?
That wasn't the war, that was a battle. And the hollywood machine was more than willing to sacrifice some scout troops, to get a better feel for the battlefield.
You're right, for now. Joe Sixpack doesn't care... that's what the ads are for. Maybe they'll have to temporarily soften the actual technical measures, long enough for the system to become entrenched. But lie to Joe, tell him movies will only get more expensive, unless he does something to stop it. Tell him that something is voting, for Sen. Asswad. Tell him he'll still be able to watch the movies he pays for, and that they'll only get cheaper if he votes correctly. Hell, Joe won't care that he'll never be able to do his own home movies, or write fan fiction.
We have no upper hands, in any respect. If you want any chance of winning, remember that first and foremost. I want to win, but it's far from sure, hell, it is impossible odds. I don't make it worse, by denying the truth of that, like some do.
Another tip. We have to somehow fight this in a way that no one has ever fought a conflict before. If we think we can fight the battles they have set us up to fight, and win, then we're screwed. And there is no better example of that, than the cliched "playing the system".
If you want ideas, I'll help. If you want more than that, I may possibly be persuaded. But if you're on my team, I can't help but have a lousy nervous feeling, that we are utterly fucked.
Lincoln did this, just slightly before that sort of politics died. I said the system was unfixable, not that I didn't think it wasn't good in the beginning.
That isn't possible today, not by far. My opinions are echoed by too many hear, for it to have not made public view. Unless, as I believe, there is something massive blocking it. I'll leave that as an exercise in cynicism for you, to decide just what the obstacle is.
There isn't enough money. The days when individual citizens had enough money to do anything are long gone. Corporations are indeed, artificial citizens. Ones with big pockets. Corporations don't care, by nature, about this stuff. It sometimes seems like it, but only because their concerns overlap ours... temporarily. The tech companies don't hate DRM exactly, they just haven't figured out how to make money on it. That's a distinction that you, and the rest of the slashdot crowd should take note of.
Joe Sixpack doesn't care. They sliced up the airwaves, and he didn't bat an eyelash. The airwaves used to be what the internet is today. There are other examples, but this kind of discussion just depresses me.
No, I'm not a defeatist. I'm waiting for my moment to strike back (Note: Dear FBI, I'm not a terrorist, you fucktwit. This is *metaphor*). I doubt that I can do it, but there might be a technology, that would throw off the corporate yoke and refuse to ever wear it again. Time will tell.
Well, I'd pretty much have to ruin my life, the way that I like it, to run for office.
... big suprise here... change nothing. I can be the token kook politician, fighting unwinnable battles that no one is even sure why I'm fighting. And when it's all over and done with, in 6 years, I'll never hold office again. Because one party or the other, will target my seat as easily winnable, and dump a few million on the campaign.
Hmm. If there was even a long shot at winning, and being able to do something, that might be a sacrifice I would make.
There is no chance. Could I trust someone else to do it for me? No. Corruption and indoctrination are far too widespread, to trust someone else not to sell out.
But would anyone ever vote for me? Hell no. I have real opinions. People don't vote for that. I see the real problems, and sometimes I even have real solutions. No votes there either. But, just for the sake of the argument, imagine that I win, by some miracle. Maybe 1 million people accidentally vote for me due to some ballot misdesign.
What then? Well, assume that I'm a senator, one of 100. I either have to join a party, and kowtow to the party line, or be ignored. Sure, I can cast a few token dissenting votes, that
The system can't fix itself. Historically, in cases where the system is broken like this, people move somewhere else, and start their own. Sometimes, they have trouble cutting the necrotic umbilical cord, but when they do, things are better for awhile. Until they turn into what it was that they ran from.
There is no place left to run. Maybe to the stars, but how many thousand years before we're capable of that?
Unlikely. For one thing, the NRA is a bad example. Sure, they've fought as good a fight as they can, hell, their right is even specifically enumerated in the Constitution.
Has it saved them? No. They're being ground down into dust, a year, a decade at a time. No candidate openly supports them, and when such a candidate finds a way of abandoning them without too much backlash, he does so.
The other candidate, if he is on our side, is too closely associated with the PAC, for it to matter. If he isn't on our side, then he'll distance himself. In which case, we just blew several hundred thousand dollars just to look like freaks and losers, on regional TV. If you are gonna waste $250,000, you should at least have one hell of a booze/liquor party to show for it, you know.
It really is an unwinnable fight.
Not articles. Besides, did you see the footnotes?
First nitpick: Actually, holyrollers that pretend to be true bible scholars annoy me. It wasn't a fig either, but rather a pomengranate.
Second nitpick: The Woz chose that price as a joke. It was $666.66, not "666". Is the number of the beast 2/3's rounded off to the nearest cent? I suppose all electronic calculators are also satanic, since dividing 2 by 3 gives you the same thing. I guess that holyrolling is so boring though, even they have to dabble in numerology.
And finally, I have to wonder if M$ isn't somehow involved with this. Maybe small cash donations to this guys church? There's something there, I'm sure.
Sorry. I'm in Virginia, and I'd probably even mess up who our own senators are. Not that there is much difference between one and the next. All are worthless.
Still, I think this guy underestimates how easy/cheap it would be. I'd donate a few bucks to such a PAC, but I'm not rich. And if we all banded together somehow, and wanted to votefuck Hollings when he's up for re-election, could we win? Imagine that we somehow come up with enough cash to mount a decent tv ad campaign. We'd still be the new guys, and they would retaliate. Does anyone believe they are somehow above lying and namecalling?
"These hippy anarchists, aren't even from your district. Yet they want to dictate to the good people of N. Carolina who you should vote for. They want to allow dirty thieves to steal movies and games from struggling artists, bankrupting them, and stealing from you in the long run. We can't tell you to do anything illegal, but by god, if we ever see them on the street alone at night..."
Remember folks, if you pick on one of Hollywood's bought and paid for politicians, you are **picking on Hollywood**. There is no way that we could ever do political ads that are as slick, as decietful, and unfortunately, as effective as they could. They'd have Cher saying how she supports Senator Asswad, and we'd have some finnish geek saying something that Joe Sixpack doesn't understand, in an accent that annoys him.
The system is broken, and can't fix itself. No matter how much we help it from the inside.
Politicians don't have to pay a recycle tax for each stupid piece of boneheaded legislation they keep recycling from election year to election year.
I saw this article the first day, but hesitated to reply. I'm not sure if I'm bullshitting or not, and you have to remember that I'm mostly a hobbyist and a tinkerer, not someone offering a finished product at this point.
I've been thinking along the same lines myself. I own, more or less, one of everything out there. And while it may only be a mac and pc, or pc and unix box, you have to remember that the mutant KVM would have to be usable with all these and more, or what's the point? First off, let's enumerate the various systems this would have to be designed for.
XT PC with db9 CGA video (serial mouse)
XT PC with db9 CGA video (bus mouse)
XT PC with hdb15 VGA (serial mouse)
XT PC with VGA (bus mouse)
PS/2 (mouse and kb, VGA)
USB PC (mouse and kb, VGA)
Mac ADB (db15 mac VGA)
USB Mac
Sun (type 5 kb and mouse, 13w3)
Next Cube (I believe cubes are all non-ADB, with a sun5 kb and mouse... video is db19, fixed VGA)
NeXT slab (sun type5 kb and mouse, 13w3)
NeXT slab (ADB mouse and kb, 13w3)
SGI (several different formats, only read about them)
DEC (rj11 kb, miniDIN-7 mouse, 3w3 video)
This should work for vaxstations, DECstations, and some alphas
Serial terminal (seems it would be useful)
Amiga (quadrature db9 mouse, db23 multiscan video)
Atari ST (db9 quad mouse, strange miniDIN-19 multiscan/VGA video)
I've missed some, but these are the ones that I can think of, off the top of my head. Some people like me, have most or all of them, sometimes even several of one or another. A single piece KVM just won't work, and adapters are messy at best, and often unworkable. How to fix this?
The first problem that comes to mind, is that of keyboard differences... some are insurmountable. Sure, you can get away with keyboard remapping to some extent. But I think I have a fancier solution, if more expensive. A totally new keyboard. Call this Product #1.
Product #1 is a USB keyboard. It has something along the lines of 140-160 keys. Each key has a real keyswitch, not the damn bubble membranes you see nowdays. Each key also has a small monochrome LCD atop it, with a pixel resolution of 24x24 or so. We can remap any of these keys to any other, and the legend follows. We have plenty of keys, for the 24 function keys that some systems use, the mac specific keys, the "windows" keys, everything. When you press the capslock, maybe even the legends change to reflect this. Hell, maybe game designers could have the game remap icons to certain keys... there could be alot of use in this thing all by itself. Hence, it being USB, allowing it to be a seperate product.
The second problem you'll encounter, is that of a wildly varying group/number of systems people like us might like to use with it. This, I think is also solvable.
Product #2
The KVM itself, would be a attractive chassis, with anywhere from 8 to 64 slots. Perhaps even several models to reflect this. These slots would be much like you see on router hardware, hotpluggable, with no need to open the case. The chassis itself would probably be a passive backplane with a small power supply. There would be one (or possibly more on the high end model) "controller" slot. This slot/card is where you plug in your keyboard, mouse and monitor. If necessary, there could even be several different cards for this, maybe one for a regular ps/2 setup, another for the Uber-keyboard described above, etc. Future insurance against having a DVI flat panel 5 years from now, if you like to think of it that way.
The other slots, would allow you to plug in the perfect match for whatever computer you will use it with. If there is no such card, you call me up, and get a quote from me. I hopefully wouldn't have to charge too much... I get to keep the design, in case someone wants one later. We even make the design open... make your own, or design it and let me put it together. I dunno. But the idea is just too cool, IMO, to not do it.
Can anyone see a technical problem with this?
Can anyone think of a good way to get this happening?
Wow. First post, and redundant. Dude, I so hope that I get to metamoderate this. My bet though, is some asswad crackmoderator adds flamebait to the thing too.
Since when are moderations accurate reflections of the value or content of a post?
No need to explain yourself, but if you can figure out how to force a moderater to do the same, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it.
No problem. The Slashdot editors transcripted it themselves, and have it in this nice universal Word 2000 doc file. Enjoy it.
The content of the story was unavailable. Whats more, the editors of slashdot all know that it is unavailable. It's not temporarily unavailable, like some are when they get slashdotted, I could bookmark this, and try to read it 3 months from now, and would have the same problem.
I would really like to know why they rerquire registration, but like anyone with any intelligence whatsoever, I realize that asking NYT is pointless. If they even deigned to answer something, which is a big if, it wouldn't be honest in any significant way.
I do post here. 99% of the time about the content of the story. Its obvious though, that being moderated offtopic has absolutely zero correlation with posting offtopic. Heck, if anything, this was the one exception out of many offtopic moderation.
Asking or stating an opinion about the content, is the same thing as "about the content". Not that anyone like you could understand something that falls so far outside the scope of your tunnel vision.
Thank you. I'll try to remember those lessons. There may be more need for limericks.
There once was a moderator on crack...
Whose brain was located in his nutsack
He modded me unfairly,
Could control myself barely
Wish he would pull his head out of his asscrack.
Crackfiends moderate.
Claim offtopic and flamebait....
Why do you rob me?
The story is a NYT, and I comment about that. MoC (Moderators on Crack [TM]) strike back with "offtopic". Maybe that intolerance thing really is true.
If registration is no big deal, why do they make me do it, just to read the damn article?
Personally, I think the fine print says something about Satan owning your soul after the 666th web registration. Thank god, I'm only at #50something.