Actually, it's kind of funny, back when I owned an Atari 800, and even now as mad as I am, I _never_ pirated. The closest I came to it was when my copy of Enchanter stopped working, I sent it back to Infocom and they sent it back to me saying it ran fine on their machines and I had a friend get me a working copy when it still wouldn't work in my drive.
For me this battle has never been about "the right to pirate a product" but rather "when I 'buy' a product have I bought the actual product or just a license to use it under certain circumstances?"
I have no interest in collecting entertainment "licenses." I can be forced into buying licensed software for many other things, but I'll never be successfully forced into buying licenses for movies, cds, book, or games. Myself, I'd rather do without than have a collection of stuff that was actually owned by someone else. I mean I feel that these people are trying to turn us into a society that can never buy anything, only rent it.
Imagine if when an auction house was selling a van Gogh painting saying, "We are selling a license to posess this fine painting as long as it is kept in this city with a tracking device in the frame and we have the right to repossess it at any time." I don't think they'd get many bids.
Right now, for example, I'm not "pirating" MPAA movies. I'm just not watching them. (Though, if my brother, who has no intention of ever joining the MPAA boycott, shows me a movie on his DVD player, am I then a pirate? I'm sure the MPAA would like me to think so.)
Incidentally, I recently re-bought Enchanter (as part of an Infocom collection) though I'm pretty sure I could easily have downloaded a pirated copy from somewhere (I mean the game is ancient). I hate having to still fight the pathetic (look at this page in the manual) copy protection they have on it.
There are a couple of things going on currently:
1. Stuff like Region Coding and DIVX are pretty disgusting ways to screw a purchaser who used to be able to just buy something and use it. Divx is not dead! It's just being retooled for a new release. The DVD makers have admitted as much in their comments to the copyright office:
Access control technologies are used, for example, to permit access to a work for a limited period (such as a free demonstration or "test drive" period, or the duration of a license agreement) while closing it thereafter. These techniques are also employed to allow access to part of a work while denying it to another part; to enable access by a specified category of users but not by another category; or to enable access by a specified number of simultaneous users but no more.-- from the MPAA comments on the DMCA
Consumers don't want it, it's a new way of extracting revenue from content that has nothing to do with piracy, and the big media corporations want to force it on people.
2. Anything that is available on electronic media is more easily copied than anything on traditional media. This is why book publishers aren't as woried about photocopiers as they were when they first came out. Unfortunately, the old media companies would rather kill or cripple the new technology (DVD is just crippled MPEG-2, I believe. You have to jump through hoops to watch something that could've been released in a standard readable format. Back in the days of vinyl records, films, and even video tape, crippling things wasn't as much of an option.) than try to find a way to work within the new technology. If these people had gotten their way, VCRs would never have become available to the general public! (Check out SONY CORPORATION OF AMERICA ET AL. v. UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., ET AL. for the actual court case.) I don't like seeing good usable technology crippled, and I hate seeing good usable technology completely suppressed just so Monty Burns can have another ivory back scratcher. (Digital Audio Tape, anyone?)
Of course, I wish Jon had made these points instead of saying that people ought to put up with piracy because "making money from ideas is wrong."
I like the dual monitor feature because of my plan. You see, I've decided that when the time comes to replace my TV, I'm going to buy a second computer monitor instead. I was going to hook the new monitor up to an old 486 I had but now I figure I'll just hook both of them up to my main computer and upgrade my G200 to a G400.
Also, the G200 supports Linux perfectly, and when I boot into Windows, games like System Shock II look great (System Shock II is the main reason I keep Windows around.)
Be sure and find out about the hardware the school is using before you try to install Linux. For example, if your school's computers have cheap, crummy winmodems in them then your non-Linux knowledgeable teachers might be a tad irritated if they no longer work under Linux. This is something you need to check out. Now, it's possible that the computers don't even have modems, but this advice also goes for other non-Linux compatible hardware (or experimentally compatible hardware like USBs, for instance).
The solution for this type of thing is to set the computers up in a dual-boot, so they can still use the Windows hardware but you can get the educational benifits of Linux.
Incidentally, stressing the educational benefits of Linux to your teacher, especially in computer science, is another great way to convince him/her about how great Linux is. I mean in Linux, and open source software in general, you get to see exactly how everything is coded. Show a teacher, say GIMP and how it works, then show him/her the source for GIMP and he/she is liable to be impressed that you can actually look at the internals of such a complex program to learn how it works.
Now the next step is choosing a distribution... you can either pick one based on fame and news articles about it (that you can show your teacher) or use this as a way to get everyone hooked on your favorite distribution.
Oh, and I suggest you show everyone how to use.xinitrc to set up various window managers, and then make a few example logins using Gnome, KDE, WM, AfterStep, etc. so people can see one of the great things about Linux, ease of customization.
I mean I know people who have gotten shocking porno-mailings in their Email box almost every day who were pretty upset about it. (I have a cousin who couldn't recieve any Email from me. When I asked her about it we figured it out, she had put a block on all Email from the Hotmail domain because she kept getting porno-mail.)
Now, I even get sick at the mix of porno, "get rich quick schemes," and "free trips to Florida" (I live in Florida!!!) that show up in some of my mailboxes every day.
Notice though, that these people never complain about pornography that's being pushed on people who haven't asked for it and don't want it. No, that's because they are more worried about political power and interfering with people who choose to view pornography than in helping to curb a public nuisance on the same issue.
I mean, if they took on the spammers, it might be a First Amendment gray area (though I don't believe people have the right under the first Amenment to force me to look at things I don't want to) but it would be a help to everyone. Why, it would even help that oft-invoked group, "the children" who could get an Email account without having to worry about this kind of spam. I mean, heck, they'd probably even get supporters from Usenet enthusiasts. Of course, it wouldn't lead to massive new federal powers and major interference with people's right, so I guess there is no chance of them taking it up as an issue.
Actually, it's kind of interesting, because Alcoholics Anonymous (and Narcotics Anonymous and all other organizations based on the same model) make you take responsibility for your own problems as the first step to recovery.
Now, as to this article: The reason why this organization doesn't have any funding is because the politicians already have people to tell them what's wrong with the Internet. People like Pat Robertson, David Grossman and Donald Wildmon and organizations like th American Family Association, the Christian Coalition, and the Lion and the Lamb Project are more than willing to tell them about the horrors of the Internet. Maybe the reason that the organization set up by the Child Online Protection Act hasn't recieved any funding is because the politicians whose bread and butter is this issue are afraid that they would come up with something reasonable that doesn't tread on anyone's freedoms. Something rational is also not going to bring in those big contributions checks from the "family values" organizations.
Since these organizations and people want to see an end to the First Amendment in this country, they aren't really interested in solutions to the problems. They certainly wouldn't want an organization run by industry people making decisions on these issues.
After all, without controversial issues "for the children" what would politicians have to do all day?
The issue is not with censoreware, folks, the problem is with the use of hidden and encrypted ban lists. If everyone could see and change those lists at will, then censoreware, while still standing zero chance of actually working, would at least be acceptable.
Actually, though, I think the fact that the software doesn't work is something that people can also hold against it.
Of course, the bizarre thing about these programs is that they are a product which you sell to people which are designed to cripple their computers. If the software were efficient and trustworthy, of course, we could probably find it acceptable for use by home users who feel a need to install it on their (or their kids) PCs. (I'm not even going to get into the problems of public institutions inflicting these things on people, that's another debate.) However, what we have are a lot of people in the business of giving people a false sense of security.
I can some it up by paraphrasing (I don't remember the exact quote) an exchange between Homer Simpson and a con man:
Con Man:Now I could sell you a fancy security system with a lot of bells and whistles that doesn't really work.
Homer:Yeah, let's get that one!
The point is, how do these people get away with selling people software that doesn't actually work? I mean I could probably come up with a simple software program that would block exactly 50% of the World Wide Web (without checking content at all, just randomly blocking every other page) and say, "My product blocks more porn, violence and Satanic sites than any of my competitors." I could even (if I were able to hide my identity as a Libertarian rabble rouser) possibly get defenders from these AFA type associations provided my rhetoric was correct. The worst thing though is the lucerative government contracts some of these companies are starting to get. Believe it or not, these companies are probably only getting into this for the money, but once the money starts coming in they will be willing to spend at least some of it to continue pushing these bad laws. The Cyber patrol press release about Australia is particularly troubling in that regard. I don't like it when people commit to censorship for ideological reasons, but I think that when you add people with $ signs in their pupils but who don't have any particular ideological commitment to censorship, you create a really bad situation.
Ok, I want to make a point here. This is not supposed to be a letter writing campaign to intimidate the copyright office into complying with public wishes. It's not supposed to be one of those events where you, say, convince your legislator into voting your way by organizing a letter writing campaign. It is more like a "Friend to the Court" brief, because what the Copyright Office was trying to get were informed, legal opinions on how to interpret th DMCA.
For example, you wouldn't want people writing a lot of letters to the Supreme Court if the DMCA ever gets before them, in the hopes that massive opposition to the thing would get it declared unconstitutional, would you? I mean, I've yet to hear of anyone proposing a letter writing campaign to the judiciary, though I have been asked to write letters to the executive and legislative branch.
The reason why is that it wouldn't work. Think about it, the courts are usually the ones who make the unpolitical decisions and shut down stuff like the CDA. This is because a good jurist is supposed to follow the law, and nothing else. He/she is not supposed to be swayed by public opinion. One good legal opinion, in this case, will outweigh a million, "The DMCA sucks," letters.
My personal opinion on this is that if you couldn't write an intelligent opinion on this one, you should've taken a pass on it, because then you are just noise in relation to signal.
Now, to be realistic here, if the Copyright office got X numbers of letters against the DMCA, being human beings, it might influence them. However, the people in the office will tell you that the point of this exercise is:
1. It's a new law and it hasn't really been tested that much in the courts yet.
2. The copyright office wants guidelines on what the law actually means. They aren't in a position to repeal the law. If the US government had passed a copyright law which says everyone must wear green hats while watching DVDs, the copyright office can't repeal it.
The main thing I was hoping the copyright office would do in this case was examine the reverse engineering clause in the agreement and decide whether or not it trumps the "copy protection scheme" clause. However, even if they issue good guidelines on that, the DMCA will still be around and still be a bad law. The only difference is that it won't be possible to use it to prevent people from watching DVDs under Linux, though it could still be used to interfere with fair use.
If you examine the process, you'll see it is not designed to get an accurate gauge of public opinion:
Electronic Filing of Comments The Office prefers that comments be submitted in electronic form. For updated information on requirements for electronic and hard-copy filing, please see the Federal Register Notice Extending Deadlines for Initial and Reply Comments. Several persons have attempted to submit comments in the text of e-mail messages. The Office cannot accept such comments; the comments must be sent as attachments to e-mail messages or on diskettes as described in the Federal Register notice. In addition to the acceptable formats described in the Federal Register notice, the Office will accept comments in RTF and ASCII text formats. Important dates October 28, 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act enacted. November 24, 1999 Federal Register notice seeking written comments February 17, 2000 All written comments due. March 20, 2000 All reply comments due. Dates and locations to be announced Public hearings. Dates to be announced Post-hearing comments due October 28, 2000 Date of determination--from the Copyright Office
I'm pretty sure that they added ASCII and RTF because people suggested that over reliance on MS Word documents was undermining the public perception of objectivity. I wonder if that's the first time they ever had that problem? I wouldn't be surprised if it were, I bet they were expecting the majority of comments to be from lawyers and experts on the technical side of the issue.
At any rate, people who submitted comments to the copyright office should still write their legislators to try to get the law repealed. It is my opinion that the law is too deeply flawed for anything but a slight mitigation of terms from the copyright office, they can't overturn it or repeal it.
I read that it was done (first by Europeans) because the hair was worth money to wig makers (see the O. Henry story "Gift of the Magi" for an example of hair being a valuable commodity.)
Ok, well first of all you won't get any arguement from me about Micros~1.
However, my opinion of Sony is that they are not consumer friendly. I think they'd be just as anti-competitive if they could, and they are a prime mover behind the current deCSS battle. Oh, I shouldn't forget their lawsuits against Bleem! and Virtual Gamestation as well as their tough, anti-import stance on games and systems.
Hmm, sounds like the console to get therefore is Dreamcast or Dolphin... certainly nothing with X anywhere in the name. (PSX2, X-Box)
I like Lotus products, well Wordpro anyway. I bought Wordpro '96 and haven't needed an upgrade since.
Console advocacy is based on the theory that the more converts you get to a console, the less likely that a company you like will create exclusively for a competing console. This is a big factor when you only have one console, and something of a factor if you prefer one console over another even if you have more than one.
For example, I have a friend who's fairly young, and desperately wanted a Dreamcast. He's still in school and not making much money, so in order to get the money for the Dreamcast he sold his Playstation and a lot of games. However, he now has to deal with the fact that if, say, Square, comes out with a really cool game for PSX/PSX2 there is very little chance it will come out for Dreamcast. On the other hand, if Dreamcast comes to dominate the console market, then Square will likely port at least some games to Dreamcast. This works for all consoles.
So, console owners, especially younger ones who are buying systems with their parents' money, become rabid advocates for their system of choice. They know that if they can convince enough other people that their console is cool and the others aren't that their console will dominate and get all the best games.
Of course, marketing people know this and play up to it. I'm sure Nintendo fans will remember Sega's vicious "Sega does what Nintendon't" ads from the past. I remember that their anti-Gameboy ad (the one with the slack-joyed yokels being entertained by a bug zapper) was particularly comical. The whole goal is to convince people that the competing system isn't cool, and it gets picked up by the gamers.
My brother is a fervent Nintendo advocate, it can only be compared to the way people feel about sports teams.
Hmm, here's the thing, though, Squaresoft makes games for Wintel PCs already. So does Capcom for that matter.
I'm not sure why these companies make games for the PC platform, but Square for example, shuns everyone but Sony and Microsoft (Windows releases are on Microsoft's gaming platform, DirectX).
Microsoft is certainly going to use DirectX on the X-box, and I know Capcom (and I'm pretty sure Square too) use DirectX in their PC releases.
I'm guessing Microsoft plans on leveraging DirectX to prevent game companies from publishing games for PCs that are incompatible with X-box.
Of course, if Sony is smart, they'll come up with a PC platform to compete with DirectX that they control as opposed to Microsoft.
I'm no fan of Microsoft, but the Sidewinder is a seriously well made, ergonomically designed joystick. That may not seem like much, but I actually think that joystick/pad design is a big part of console development. I also think that badly designed joysticks, like the one on Jaguar, can hurt a console.
My philosophy on this is, "the more the merrier, let's see what they can do." Microsoft is certainly no eviller than Sony, in any case.
Slackware, unlike most of the other Linux distro's _does_ have a higher purpose. That purpose is to provide slack! As anyone who has read the sacred texts of the Church of the Subgenius knows, there is no higher purpose!
As J.R. "Bob" Dobbs would say, "You'd pay to know what you really think." Nothing can be considered more idealistic than that.
Obviously, we have an agent of the great and terrible Jehovah-1 here, attempting to undermine the work of the folks at Slackware.
This agent by whom I mean the "feminist" Anonymous Coward, is what is referred to as a "pink boy", in the official Sub-Genius text. Therefore he is clearly, by definition, not female (see the "boy" part of the appelation) and therefore his ranting may be taken with a grain of salt.
To "Pink Boy" the AC: I hope you will accept J.R. "Bob" Dobbs as your personal Lord and Savior, and leave your servitude to themightyandterribleJehovah1. Fnord.
Almost anywone who is reading the stuff you've been writing (to the trolling Anonymous Coward) can't help but come away with the idea that you are a deranged person with no self-esteem.
Add to government intervention a third reason that it is difficult to set up ISPs in some countries, government corruption. In other words, the need to pay the proper bribes. In some countries in the world paying gratuties to government officials in order to do just about anything is just part of the cost of doing business.
Here is the appropriate link, http://www.salon.com/books/it/1999/12/06/indian/in dex.html Technical Sutra. I don't know what happened to it in the above post.
Oh, you should know that this isn't an accident, but a carefully planned government program. Here's an article about is from Salon: Technical Sutra Of course, any country that wanted to could do this, but because India also has a huge population and a lot of the people who go abroad are the ones with the best technical educations, you get the effect that you see. I know that a considerable number of the instructors at my current school are Indian.
So, anyway, it is not racism to note that the Indians you know are better at math and science, it is just considered to be an attractive choice of career in India.
Actually, I think that the US is one of the few countries in which people who are good at math and science in grade school need to keep quiet and hide it lest they be kicked around. I could be wrong about that, of course, because I only have superficial knowledge of other countries. I mean I know that the nerd stereotype from when I was a kid was not anything anyone would ever want to be (it seems that people are trying to turn it around these days, but when I was a kid it was a huge insult) and it was intimately connected with being good at math and math related things. I think these kinds of cultural differences matter.
My brother has an N64 and it has some games for it that I know to be fun, like Super Smash Brothers, Doom, Goldeneye and others. However, I've never been able to get past that awkward monstrocity of a joystick! I mean, the joypads on the two previous systems (NES, SNES) were good as were the ones created by their competitor (Sega, Sony). As far as I know, it is the only "three-legged" joystick on the market. It also seems to be counterintuitive for fighting games (although N64 seems to have been gipped out of fighting games, I'm betting partly because of the fact that the presidents of Nintendo Japan and Namco Japan don't like each other (see Game Over by David Scheff))
I'm hoping that when they come out with the Dolphin they put some serious ergonomic research into the joystick, because more than anything else its what has kept me from enjoying N64 games.
To be fair, I've had games for other systems that were hard on my hands (I can't think of any off hand, maybe some of the Bonk games mini-games). However, I'm guessing that that wierd joystick exacerbates the problem.
I think you are absolutely right. Sony has been coming up with more and more Draconian ways to enforce regional coding on it's disks, including eliminating the port in the back and adding mod-chip detection code to the newer games.
Sony is probably willing to release a buggy product if it means in the long term that no one will be able to region jump... with DVDs or games. ('Course, someone may come up with a mod, but that's another story...)
Another thing about backward compatibility, now that Bleem! and Virtual Game Station are "in the clear" how big a feature can it be? It's not really a reason to buy a console if you have a PC or Mac that can play the same games, and while I'll admit compatibility is an issue, I expect eventually (especially after PSX is moribund) these two programs will reach an acceptably high level of compatibility.
Sony can basically only use Nintendo style intimidation tactics on vendors to keep them from developing for the Dreamcast, if the Dreamcast is a success. Which is something I certainly expect them to do, if they think they can get away with it. I don't know if they can, smart developers will develop for as many platforms as possible to keep conditions attractive for themselves. Otherwise, a hardware vendor can dictate terms to the third parties and no one wants that (except the dominant hardware vendor).
Feels Cheap? My brother's Gameboy looks, feels and is cheap compared to my Handy^H^H^H^HLynx, but the Lynx is no more and the Gameboy rules the handheld market, "handely."
Its still really scary to think this is happening to the machines designed for one purpose only.
Isn't really true anymore, is it?
The PSX2 is a Thneed. It's a DVD player, an Internet appliance, a game machine... it's a lot of stuff in that little box. It's Sony's next step to total household domination.
These kinds of problems show up with my Genesis/SegaCD combination unit a lot. I'm guessing for similar reasons, the hardware just doesn't quite mesh as well as they'd hoped. (This is one of the stated reasons, on some emulation pages, why SegaCD emulation isn't a reality yet.)
Unfortunately, in the PSX2, it's all integrated into a single unit. I think the PSX2 is mainly a marketing thing to get the first Digital Versatile Disk machines into as many homes as possible, rather than make the best possible game machine. Well, of course, I could be wrong about that, of course, but I'm pretty sure that neither Dreamcast nor Dolphin are going to include out of the box DVD playback.
Is PSX2 really a game machine, or is it a new kind of PC "optimized" for gaming?
Slashdot Mirror
For me this battle has never been about "the right to pirate a product" but rather "when I 'buy' a product have I bought the actual product or just a license to use it under certain circumstances?"
I have no interest in collecting entertainment "licenses." I can be forced into buying licensed software for many other things, but I'll never be successfully forced into buying licenses for movies, cds, book, or games. Myself, I'd rather do without than have a collection of stuff that was actually owned by someone else. I mean I feel that these people are trying to turn us into a society that can never buy anything, only rent it.
Imagine if when an auction house was selling a van Gogh painting saying, "We are selling a license to posess this fine painting as long as it is kept in this city with a tracking device in the frame and we have the right to repossess it at any time." I don't think they'd get many bids.
Right now, for example, I'm not "pirating" MPAA movies. I'm just not watching them. (Though, if my brother, who has no intention of ever joining the MPAA boycott, shows me a movie on his DVD player, am I then a pirate? I'm sure the MPAA would like me to think so.)
Incidentally, I recently re-bought Enchanter (as part of an Infocom collection) though I'm pretty sure I could easily have downloaded a pirated copy from somewhere (I mean the game is ancient). I hate having to still fight the pathetic (look at this page in the manual) copy protection they have on it.
There are a couple of things going on currently:
1. Stuff like Region Coding and DIVX are pretty disgusting ways to screw a purchaser who used to be able to just buy something and use it. Divx is not dead! It's just being retooled for a new release. The DVD makers have admitted as much in their comments to the copyright office:
Consumers don't want it, it's a new way of extracting revenue from content that has nothing to do with piracy, and the big media corporations want to force it on people.2. Anything that is available on electronic media is more easily copied than anything on traditional media. This is why book publishers aren't as woried about photocopiers as they were when they first came out. Unfortunately, the old media companies would rather kill or cripple the new technology (DVD is just crippled MPEG-2, I believe. You have to jump through hoops to watch something that could've been released in a standard readable format. Back in the days of vinyl records, films, and even video tape, crippling things wasn't as much of an option.) than try to find a way to work within the new technology. If these people had gotten their way, VCRs would never have become available to the general public! (Check out SONY CORPORATION OF AMERICA ET AL. v. UNIVERSAL CITY STUDIOS, INC., ET AL. for the actual court case.) I don't like seeing good usable technology crippled, and I hate seeing good usable technology completely suppressed just so Monty Burns can have another ivory back scratcher. (Digital Audio Tape, anyone?)
Of course, I wish Jon had made these points instead of saying that people ought to put up with piracy because "making money from ideas is wrong."
http://www.forbes.com/columnists/dvorak/
And here's a link to a Wired story on the same subject.
http://www.wired.com/news/n ews/culture/story/12899.html
Also, the G200 supports Linux perfectly, and when I boot into Windows, games like System Shock II look great (System Shock II is the main reason I keep Windows around.)
The solution for this type of thing is to set the computers up in a dual-boot, so they can still use the Windows hardware but you can get the educational benifits of Linux.
Incidentally, stressing the educational benefits of Linux to your teacher, especially in computer science, is another great way to convince him/her about how great Linux is. I mean in Linux, and open source software in general, you get to see exactly how everything is coded. Show a teacher, say GIMP and how it works, then show him/her the source for GIMP and he/she is liable to be impressed that you can actually look at the internals of such a complex program to learn how it works.
Now the next step is choosing a distribution... you can either pick one based on fame and news articles about it (that you can show your teacher) or use this as a way to get everyone hooked on your favorite distribution.
Oh, and I suggest you show everyone how to use .xinitrc to set up various window managers, and then make a few example logins using Gnome, KDE, WM, AfterStep, etc. so people can see one of the great things about Linux, ease of customization.
Good luck at school.
Maybe they meant to say, "First and last meeting...." since they don't have any money.
I mean I know people who have gotten shocking porno-mailings in their Email box almost every day who were pretty upset about it. (I have a cousin who couldn't recieve any Email from me. When I asked her about it we figured it out, she had put a block on all Email from the Hotmail domain because she kept getting porno-mail.)
Now, I even get sick at the mix of porno, "get rich quick schemes," and "free trips to Florida" (I live in Florida!!!) that show up in some of my mailboxes every day.
Notice though, that these people never complain about pornography that's being pushed on people who haven't asked for it and don't want it. No, that's because they are more worried about political power and interfering with people who choose to view pornography than in helping to curb a public nuisance on the same issue.
I mean, if they took on the spammers, it might be a First Amendment gray area (though I don't believe people have the right under the first Amenment to force me to look at things I don't want to) but it would be a help to everyone. Why, it would even help that oft-invoked group, "the children" who could get an Email account without having to worry about this kind of spam. I mean, heck, they'd probably even get supporters from Usenet enthusiasts. Of course, it wouldn't lead to massive new federal powers and major interference with people's right, so I guess there is no chance of them taking it up as an issue.
Now, as to this article: The reason why this organization doesn't have any funding is because the politicians already have people to tell them what's wrong with the Internet. People like Pat Robertson, David Grossman and Donald Wildmon and organizations like th American Family Association, the Christian Coalition, and the Lion and the Lamb Project are more than willing to tell them about the horrors of the Internet. Maybe the reason that the organization set up by the Child Online Protection Act hasn't recieved any funding is because the politicians whose bread and butter is this issue are afraid that they would come up with something reasonable that doesn't tread on anyone's freedoms. Something rational is also not going to bring in those big contributions checks from the "family values" organizations.
Since these organizations and people want to see an end to the First Amendment in this country, they aren't really interested in solutions to the problems. They certainly wouldn't want an organization run by industry people making decisions on these issues.
After all, without controversial issues "for the children" what would politicians have to do all day?
Of course, the bizarre thing about these programs is that they are a product which you sell to people which are designed to cripple their computers. If the software were efficient and trustworthy, of course, we could probably find it acceptable for use by home users who feel a need to install it on their (or their kids) PCs. (I'm not even going to get into the problems of public institutions inflicting these things on people, that's another debate.) However, what we have are a lot of people in the business of giving people a false sense of security.
I can some it up by paraphrasing (I don't remember the exact quote) an exchange between Homer Simpson and a con man:
Con Man:Now I could sell you a fancy security system with a lot of bells and whistles that doesn't really work.
Homer:Yeah, let's get that one!
The point is, how do these people get away with selling people software that doesn't actually work? I mean I could probably come up with a simple software program that would block exactly 50% of the World Wide Web (without checking content at all, just randomly blocking every other page) and say, "My product blocks more porn, violence and Satanic sites than any of my competitors." I could even (if I were able to hide my identity as a Libertarian rabble rouser) possibly get defenders from these AFA type associations provided my rhetoric was correct. The worst thing though is the lucerative government contracts some of these companies are starting to get. Believe it or not, these companies are probably only getting into this for the money, but once the money starts coming in they will be willing to spend at least some of it to continue pushing these bad laws. The Cyber patrol press release about Australia is particularly troubling in that regard. I don't like it when people commit to censorship for ideological reasons, but I think that when you add people with $ signs in their pupils but who don't have any particular ideological commitment to censorship, you create a really bad situation.
For example, you wouldn't want people writing a lot of letters to the Supreme Court if the DMCA ever gets before them, in the hopes that massive opposition to the thing would get it declared unconstitutional, would you? I mean, I've yet to hear of anyone proposing a letter writing campaign to the judiciary, though I have been asked to write letters to the executive and legislative branch.
The reason why is that it wouldn't work. Think about it, the courts are usually the ones who make the unpolitical decisions and shut down stuff like the CDA. This is because a good jurist is supposed to follow the law, and nothing else. He/she is not supposed to be swayed by public opinion. One good legal opinion, in this case, will outweigh a million, "The DMCA sucks," letters.
My personal opinion on this is that if you couldn't write an intelligent opinion on this one, you should've taken a pass on it, because then you are just noise in relation to signal.
Now, to be realistic here, if the Copyright office got X numbers of letters against the DMCA, being human beings, it might influence them. However, the people in the office will tell you that the point of this exercise is:
1. It's a new law and it hasn't really been tested that much in the courts yet.
2. The copyright office wants guidelines on what the law actually means. They aren't in a position to repeal the law. If the US government had passed a copyright law which says everyone must wear green hats while watching DVDs, the copyright office can't repeal it.
The main thing I was hoping the copyright office would do in this case was examine the reverse engineering clause in the agreement and decide whether or not it trumps the "copy protection scheme" clause. However, even if they issue good guidelines on that, the DMCA will still be around and still be a bad law. The only difference is that it won't be possible to use it to prevent people from watching DVDs under Linux, though it could still be used to interfere with fair use.
If you examine the process, you'll see it is not designed to get an accurate gauge of public opinion:
I'm pretty sure that they added ASCII and RTF because people suggested that over reliance on MS Word documents was undermining the public perception of objectivity. I wonder if that's the first time they ever had that problem? I wouldn't be surprised if it were, I bet they were expecting the majority of comments to be from lawyers and experts on the technical side of the issue.
At any rate, people who submitted comments to the copyright office should still write their legislators to try to get the law repealed. It is my opinion that the law is too deeply flawed for anything but a slight mitigation of terms from the copyright office, they can't overturn it or repeal it.
I read that it was done (first by Europeans) because the hair was worth money to wig makers (see the O. Henry story "Gift of the Magi" for an example of hair being a valuable commodity.)
However, my opinion of Sony is that they are not consumer friendly. I think they'd be just as anti-competitive if they could, and they are a prime mover behind the current deCSS battle. Oh, I shouldn't forget their lawsuits against Bleem! and Virtual Gamestation as well as their tough, anti-import stance on games and systems.
Hmm, sounds like the console to get therefore is Dreamcast or Dolphin... certainly nothing with X anywhere in the name. (PSX2, X-Box)
I like Lotus products, well Wordpro anyway. I bought Wordpro '96 and haven't needed an upgrade since.
For example, I have a friend who's fairly young, and desperately wanted a Dreamcast. He's still in school and not making much money, so in order to get the money for the Dreamcast he sold his Playstation and a lot of games. However, he now has to deal with the fact that if, say, Square, comes out with a really cool game for PSX/PSX2 there is very little chance it will come out for Dreamcast. On the other hand, if Dreamcast comes to dominate the console market, then Square will likely port at least some games to Dreamcast. This works for all consoles.
So, console owners, especially younger ones who are buying systems with their parents' money, become rabid advocates for their system of choice. They know that if they can convince enough other people that their console is cool and the others aren't that their console will dominate and get all the best games.
Of course, marketing people know this and play up to it. I'm sure Nintendo fans will remember Sega's vicious "Sega does what Nintendon't" ads from the past. I remember that their anti-Gameboy ad (the one with the slack-joyed yokels being entertained by a bug zapper) was particularly comical. The whole goal is to convince people that the competing system isn't cool, and it gets picked up by the gamers.
My brother is a fervent Nintendo advocate, it can only be compared to the way people feel about sports teams.
Hmm, here's the thing, though, Squaresoft makes games for Wintel PCs already. So does Capcom for that matter.
I'm not sure why these companies make games for the PC platform, but Square for example, shuns everyone but Sony and Microsoft (Windows releases are on Microsoft's gaming platform, DirectX).
Microsoft is certainly going to use DirectX on the X-box, and I know Capcom (and I'm pretty sure Square too) use DirectX in their PC releases.
I'm guessing Microsoft plans on leveraging DirectX to prevent game companies from publishing games for PCs that are incompatible with X-box.
Of course, if Sony is smart, they'll come up with a PC platform to compete with DirectX that they control as opposed to Microsoft.
There is also this, SquareSoft tied to Microsoft's X-Box?
I'm no fan of Microsoft, but the Sidewinder is a seriously well made, ergonomically designed joystick. That may not seem like much, but I actually think that joystick/pad design is a big part of console development. I also think that badly designed joysticks, like the one on Jaguar, can hurt a console.
My philosophy on this is, "the more the merrier, let's see what they can do." Microsoft is certainly no eviller than Sony, in any case.
As J.R. "Bob" Dobbs would say, "You'd pay to know what you really think." Nothing can be considered more idealistic than that.
This agent by whom I mean the "feminist" Anonymous Coward, is what is referred to as a "pink boy", in the official Sub-Genius text. Therefore he is clearly, by definition, not female (see the "boy" part of the appelation) and therefore his ranting may be taken with a grain of salt.
To "Pink Boy" the AC: I hope you will accept J.R. "Bob" Dobbs as your personal Lord and Savior, and leave your servitude to themightyandterribleJehovah1. Fnord.
Add to government intervention a third reason that it is difficult to set up ISPs in some countries, government corruption. In other words, the need to pay the proper bribes. In some countries in the world paying gratuties to government officials in order to do just about anything is just part of the cost of doing business.
Here is the appropriate link, http://www.salon.com/books/it/1999/12/06/indian/in dex.html Technical Sutra. I don't know what happened to it in the above post.
So, anyway, it is not racism to note that the Indians you know are better at math and science, it is just considered to be an attractive choice of career in India.
Actually, I think that the US is one of the few countries in which people who are good at math and science in grade school need to keep quiet and hide it lest they be kicked around. I could be wrong about that, of course, because I only have superficial knowledge of other countries. I mean I know that the nerd stereotype from when I was a kid was not anything anyone would ever want to be (it seems that people are trying to turn it around these days, but when I was a kid it was a huge insult) and it was intimately connected with being good at math and math related things. I think these kinds of cultural differences matter.
My brother has an N64 and it has some games for it that I know to be fun, like Super Smash Brothers, Doom, Goldeneye and others. However, I've never been able to get past that awkward monstrocity of a joystick! I mean, the joypads on the two previous systems (NES, SNES) were good as were the ones created by their competitor (Sega, Sony). As far as I know, it is the only "three-legged" joystick on the market. It also seems to be counterintuitive for fighting games (although N64 seems to have been gipped out of fighting games, I'm betting partly because of the fact that the presidents of Nintendo Japan and Namco Japan don't like each other (see Game Over by David Scheff))
I'm hoping that when they come out with the Dolphin they put some serious ergonomic research into the joystick, because more than anything else its what has kept me from enjoying N64 games.
To be fair, I've had games for other systems that were hard on my hands (I can't think of any off hand, maybe some of the Bonk games mini-games). However, I'm guessing that that wierd joystick exacerbates the problem.
Sony is probably willing to release a buggy product if it means in the long term that no one will be able to region jump... with DVDs or games. ('Course, someone may come up with a mod, but that's another story...)
Sony can basically only use Nintendo style intimidation tactics on vendors to keep them from developing for the Dreamcast, if the Dreamcast is a success. Which is something I certainly expect them to do, if they think they can get away with it. I don't know if they can, smart developers will develop for as many platforms as possible to keep conditions attractive for themselves. Otherwise, a hardware vendor can dictate terms to the third parties and no one wants that (except the dominant hardware vendor).
Feels Cheap? My brother's Gameboy looks, feels and is cheap compared to my Handy^H^H^H^HLynx, but the Lynx is no more and the Gameboy rules the handheld market, "handely."
The PSX2 is a Thneed. It's a DVD player, an Internet appliance, a game machine... it's a lot of stuff in that little box. It's Sony's next step to total household domination.
These kinds of problems show up with my Genesis/SegaCD combination unit a lot. I'm guessing for similar reasons, the hardware just doesn't quite mesh as well as they'd hoped. (This is one of the stated reasons, on some emulation pages, why SegaCD emulation isn't a reality yet.)
Unfortunately, in the PSX2, it's all integrated into a single unit. I think the PSX2 is mainly a marketing thing to get the first Digital Versatile Disk machines into as many homes as possible, rather than make the best possible game machine. Well, of course, I could be wrong about that, of course, but I'm pretty sure that neither Dreamcast nor Dolphin are going to include out of the box DVD playback.
Is PSX2 really a game machine, or is it a new kind of PC "optimized" for gaming?