I think the fair solution is obvious: Upon ceasing functionality of servers that can authorize computers, Apple should have to provide a means to strip DRM from all of their content for free. But "fair" usually doesn't matter, so I wonder what the legal repercussions would be? Could Apple be compelled to release a means of stripping DRM? Could someone be prosecuted for providing a means to strip the DRM at that point?
Fuck it, just play all of the songs through Audio Hijack and recapture them. DRM be gone!
Listen, hon, the horse left that barn behind a long time ago. Congress has made itself pretty much irrelevant.
Recall that the Republican-controlled Senate and House made itself irrelevant under a Republican president--so blame the Republicans. Contrast that to how the Republican Senate and House acted during the Clinton adminstration.
I dig Google but Google is in transition. "Don't be evil" should probably be changed to "We do less evil than everyone else".
Ah, just like that cell-phone company that advertises "fewer dropped calls than our competitors."
In other words, "We suck less than our competitors. We still suck, though."
Re:USB "short run" gadgets
on
Outré USB Gadgets
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· Score: 2, Informative
Last I looked, USB development kits with any chance of helping you succeed right away were about $2000. If you wanted to make a USB device that supplied some simple information, e.g. temperature probe? the light is on --or not--, how would you go about it?
makes some nifty microcontrollers and you can buy a developer's kit with in-circuit debugger for a hundred bucks. And you can use sdcc for your compiler.
Of course if you want to sell your USB device you need to get your own Vendor ID from the USB-IF.
Here in america, people are dumb. That's why there are still Full Frame or 4:3 pan and scan DVDs (a version made for all new films by popular demand!).
They're even dumber than you suspect. How many people bought a 16x9 format TV, yet still watch standard NTSC (4x3) programs? Answer: oh, pretty much everyone who watches TV. So, why don't they configure the set to keep the aspect ratio correct for those 4x3 programs? Nope, they just let the TV set strettttttch the lines so everything looks flat.
It's glaringly obvious when your local sports bar shows a football game on several TVs at time, and there's a 16x9 display next to a 4x3 display.
Either these people are idiots and they can't even tell the image is distorted, or they do notice but don't know how to set up the TV to display things properly, or maybe they don't like the black vertical bars on either side of the display.
Didn't it always say episode IV in the titles? I seem to remember it being that way since the original VHS release at least...
No. I saw the original film on 70mm like the third day it was in release (an older cousin, who saw it the day it the first day it was in theatres, took my brother and I to see it). No "Episode 4: A New Hope" after the big "Star Wars" logo crawled up the screen.
What's even better is that these 640*480 1.5Mbs h264 videos playback just fine on the iPod. What's the trick? was there an artificial limitation on playback capabilities? or is there an embedded file in the video itself?
Larger files means that the processor has to do less decompression.
Big deal. The dryer that came with my washing machine didn't even come with a POWER CABLE! How freakin' stupid is that??
The mains connection for your dryer may vary with local code requirements. Putting four moderately-expensive cables in with the appliance to cover all of the bases doesn't make any sense.
To the people who just have a home ISP and may not have much choice, I say: don't worry about it. Somebody will come in to provide the service eventually. Competition ensures that it'll happen. With wireless getting a little bit more useful every day, I think that we'll soon have some competition amongst ISP's again, soon.
Competition? Surely, you jest. Unless, of course, you mean "Competition between two subsidized monopolies," namely the local cable company and the local telco. Some choice.
As Lily Tomlin's telephone operator character liked to say, "We're the telephone company. We don't care. We don't have to."
We have Cox Communications for our cable modem. We never use any of their mailboxes (we have our own domains, hosted by a local company). Unfortunately, Cox blocks port 25 access so we can't use our mail provider's SMTP server. However, the mail provider admin ALSO has Cox at his home and he got pissed off at them so he opened up another port for SMTP traffic.
So, what you're really saying is that Windows and Ubuntu blithely ignore the USB spec. The device reports its current-supply needs at enumeration, and if it needs more than 100 mA and if it's plugged into a bus-powered hub, the OS is supposed to say, "Sorry, not enough current available."
Interesting spin. What are the odds that two very different OSes respond the same way, and OSX doesn't? Especially given that the devices he mentioned don't require a larger current supply. It doesn't indicate a possible bug with OSX? Oh no, not that, instead, the other OSes "blithely ignore the USB spec". Hmm...
If the operating system doesn't honor the device's reported current requirements, then it's a bug. Read the USB spec.
Re:I don't care for these commercials
on
New "Get a Mac" TV ads
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· Score: 2, Interesting
No matter what I plug into there other than the mouse, it tells me I need to plug this device into a powered USB port
A USB flash drive usually lives in one of the two ports on my Mac keyboard (the mouse lives in the other). I sometimes use one of those Griffin iKnobs in the keyboard port; works fine. A flash card reader also works fine in the keyboard port, although it's slow because the keyboard port is full speed, not high speed.
(even if it doesn't actually need power, like an iPod or my digital camera, both of which come with their own power).
Self-powered iPod? huh?
Its funny because on my PC, these devices work fine on unpowered ports. Same is true on the same hardware running Ubuntu. It's only OSX that thinks these external devices need to be powered.
So, what you're really saying is that Windows and Ubuntu blithely ignore the USB spec. The device reports its current-supply needs at enumeration, and if it needs more than 100 mA and if it's plugged into a bus-powered hub, the OS is supposed to say, "Sorry, not enough current available."
I plug and unplug PS2 mice and keyboards all the time. Or did you mean windows is too shitty to handle plugging in PS2 mice while running? The hardware allows it no problem.
PS/2 ports have SMT fuses on the +5V line, and hotplugging PS/2 devices tends to blow the fuses. Good luck fixing them.
And because the PS/2 port is not designed for hotplugging, it's only scanned at boot time, so plugging in a new device won't be recognized until a reboot.
The PS/2 port has no advantage over USB ports and several disadvantages.
Between 4 million Dell batteries and 1.8 million Apple batteries recalled, there have been what, 10 laptop fires total? The odds that the battery will burst into flames in the next week is lower than the odds that lightning will strike his iBook and fry it in the same time period...
there should be ZERO fires. One person killed as a result of a battery failure will cost everyone involved (sony, dell, apple, the re-seller, all down the line) tons of money.
* The machine produces three bits of paper; my reciept, my official ballot, and my exit poll token.
* I retain the reciept for my own personal records. It contains no bare words, simply a tracking number, date and time, and location.
so what makes you think that the vote that's actually recorded is the vote that you cast? Or that the "official ballot" that's used in an eventual recount also indicates your vote? The only time that the official ballot would be used is if the election is very close. If a Bad Guy was to somehow skew the votes so that the result was beyond the recount margin, nobody would know. See here for my hopefully-clear argument against electronic voting machines.
Slashdot Mirror
Fuck it, just play all of the songs through Audio Hijack and recapture them. DRM be gone!
Don't forget the 90s punk band, the Dwarves (famous for "Blood, Guts and Pussy").
I have one of their t-shirts. On the back it says, "Fuck you up and get high." Word!
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that we must know the results of an election before we go to sleep on election night.
Our democracy can handle waiting two weeks for accurate, verified election results.
So, what makes you think that the vote indicated on the receipt is the same as the vote that's actually counted?
here
-aRecall that the Republican-controlled Senate and House made itself irrelevant under a Republican president--so blame the Republicans. Contrast that to how the Republican Senate and House acted during the Clinton adminstration.
He certainly thinks so, the way he repeats "9/11" like it's some kind of mantra.
Then why did you post as an AC?
One can only hope. So, all of you who voted for Bush: are you happy now?
Ah, just like that cell-phone company that advertises "fewer dropped calls than our competitors."
In other words, "We suck less than our competitors. We still suck, though."
Look again: Silicon Labs
makes some nifty microcontrollers and you can buy a developer's kit with in-circuit debugger for a hundred bucks. And you can use sdcc for your compiler.Of course if you want to sell your USB device you need to get your own Vendor ID from the USB-IF.
They're even dumber than you suspect. How many people bought a 16x9 format TV, yet still watch standard NTSC (4x3) programs? Answer: oh, pretty much everyone who watches TV. So, why don't they configure the set to keep the aspect ratio correct for those 4x3 programs? Nope, they just let the TV set strettttttch the lines so everything looks flat.
It's glaringly obvious when your local sports bar shows a football game on several TVs at time, and there's a 16x9 display next to a 4x3 display.
Either these people are idiots and they can't even tell the image is distorted, or they do notice but don't know how to set up the TV to display things properly, or maybe they don't like the black vertical bars on either side of the display.
My guess is option 1: people are idiots.
No. I saw the original film on 70mm like the third day it was in release (an older cousin, who saw it the day it the first day it was in theatres, took my brother and I to see it). No "Episode 4: A New Hope" after the big "Star Wars" logo crawled up the screen.
-afinally repurposed those brain cells that I was using to store the arcane knowledge of autoexec.bat and config.sys!
12XU
The mains connection for your dryer may vary with local code requirements. Putting four moderately-expensive cables in with the appliance to cover all of the bases doesn't make any sense.
-aCompetition? Surely, you jest. Unless, of course, you mean "Competition between two subsidized monopolies," namely the local cable company and the local telco. Some choice.
As Lily Tomlin's telephone operator character liked to say, "We're the telephone company. We don't care. We don't have to."
We have Cox Communications for our cable modem. We never use any of their mailboxes (we have our own domains, hosted by a local company). Unfortunately, Cox blocks port 25 access so we can't use our mail provider's SMTP server. However, the mail provider admin ALSO has Cox at his home and he got pissed off at them so he opened up another port for SMTP traffic.
A USB flash drive usually lives in one of the two ports on my Mac keyboard (the mouse lives in the other). I sometimes use one of those Griffin iKnobs in the keyboard port; works fine. A flash card reader also works fine in the keyboard port, although it's slow because the keyboard port is full speed, not high speed.
Self-powered iPod? huh?
So, what you're really saying is that Windows and Ubuntu blithely ignore the USB spec. The device reports its current-supply needs at enumeration, and if it needs more than 100 mA and if it's plugged into a bus-powered hub, the OS is supposed to say, "Sorry, not enough current available."
PS/2 ports have SMT fuses on the +5V line, and hotplugging PS/2 devices tends to blow the fuses. Good luck fixing them.
And because the PS/2 port is not designed for hotplugging, it's only scanned at boot time, so plugging in a new device won't be recognized until a reboot.
The PS/2 port has no advantage over USB ports and several disadvantages.