DeVore describes the current Mars missions as a "teachable moment," an opportunity to teach factual science and astronomy in the context of sensationalistic psuedo-science and the legion of money-grubbing opportunists who make their living churning it out.
I think it's a great idea, but probably doomed to fail for a couple of reasons.
First off, pseudo-science is usually described as sensationalistic because it is fairly sensational. Light on reality, but very sensational. It's much more entertaining to see faces on Mars than trace water. If you doubt this, examine the headlines on the tabloid rack the next time you're checking out in the grocery store. Style usually beats substance.
Also, given the huge volume of crap that people believe about space, any useful information will probably be lost. My last attempt to fix this problem was a discussion with a family member who is a conspiracy theorist. This person does not believe we landed on the moon. And had loads of total crap pseudo-science to back him up. As I calmly talked him through the problems with his "facts", he became more and more agitated. I was ruining his world view.
After a while I gave up. He wanted his belief, and anything I said was because "they" had gotten to me, and I couldn't open up my mind to other possibilities. Facts be damned.
I think really the only people who want the truth about what's out there are the scientific types in the first place. We don't need to see faces on Mars to get excited. Trace water is exciting enough, because we know what it implies. If the Teachable Moment finds a few of these people, that's great. Just don't expect many converts.
Really, my only issue was that the original poster was making good points, and it seemed like you disagreed with him. That's all. Your response was "Knee-jerk anti-RIAA mumbo-jumbo", and I happened to agree with the original poster. Perhaps I saw confrontation where there was none.
I think it's great that people are working on alternate solutions to the whole RIAA/Copyright mess. My favorite solution happens to be firing Hillary Rosen out of a cannon, but to each his own, right?
Anyways, if I misread your intent I apologize. Please accept this olive branch, and good luck with Drums.
I had no idea I got it until I ran adaware. Then I got some freaking spyware bug that deleted windows media player and replaced it with a spyware app or a virus or something.
I just fought that one off last night. Took forever to nail it down. Here's what finally worked.
Delete the wmplayer.exe in Program Files/Windows Media Player. Run ad-aware 6 with the latest definitions. That'll zap the crap that it installs, which for me was windows/a.exe and windows/system32/bridge.dll, along with a host of other reg keys and crap.
Because it's windows, reboot and run the scanner again. If it finds anything, repeat.
If you're lucky, you'll still have a working copy of wmplayer.exe in windows/system32/dllcache. You'll know it's the good copy if it's larger than around 6k or so.
Hope this helps, because this one was a total pain in the ass to track down. Good thing my machine is dual boot Linux. And my main windows browser is now Firefox, too.
Oh yeah, on a side note... Whoever wrote the scumware that overwrites Windows Media Player needs to be hung by a pair of thumb screws and roasted over a coal fire. It's one thing to sneak your apps onto a system, but another thing entirely to overwrite existing apps.
Here's hoping their crap gets noticed on some FBI computer somewhere.
Weaselmancer
PS: Just in case there's a friendly FBI guy reading this, take the scumware wmplayer.exe into a Linux install and run "strings" on it. You'll see the URL of the fine folks who brought you this plague. They encrypt their strings by inserting 4 garbage characters over 0x80 every so often, so ignore those.
Correct. It's irrelevant. In this thread, we're discussing the RIAA not paying royalties.
I didn't say that his post was bullshit
"Plenty of bullshit argument from both sides.", and "Knee-jerk anti-RIAA mumbo-jumbo" don't qualify, then. I get it now. Perfectly clear.
The real question is what constitutes a practical step forward, and to that end, I've proposed DRUMS.
Or in other words, you have a hammer and now every conversation you stumble across looks like a nail.
While I'm sure Drums has the potential to change the world, let me state again that in this thread we're discussing the RIAA stiffing the artists it claims to represent. Not P2P, not DRM, not your favorite color or who you like for the world series.
I didn't say that he said this, but we may as well jump to the core issue, right? So, I'll ask you again: is unrestricted unregulated file-sharing just ok?
I believe the core issue is, is it OK for the RIAA to skip out on their royalty obligations? The title of this thread is, "RIAA Forgets to Make Royalty Payments." How I feel about P2P has nothing to do with this, it is a straw man fallacy. If I'm all for it, or completely against it, it has nothing to do with the RIAA failing to make royalty payments.
And I invite you to quote me claiming that he was making a false claim.
I've read it over a few times, and I'm still not seeing where he says that.
He does mention that it's pretty documentable that the RIAA are notorious for screwing their artists, and with that in mind he doesn't feel bad for their losses due to file sharing...but I don't see any endorsement of P2P.
Again, I invite you to quote a false claim he is making.
IIRC, the goal of the installfest is to load Linux on to as many computers as possible, right?
So...what was Linux installed on to, for the most part?
Let's hear about the hardware. What was an average machine at the installfest? Anything really stand out? Also, what was on the HD that you installed to? Blank HD, or other OS? What was most common?
The problem with your above comment is that it is only kinda correct assuming vanilla axiomatic logic systems, a theoretical subset, which it appears you seem to think is the only kind.
Ah! I see where you're going.
True, I wasn't specifically considering non-axiomatic adaptive systems. But I still believe my original post is not in error. I wasn't concerned so much with the method of calculation, as it's implications with regards to consciousness.
I still submit that while there may be a body math capable of describing consciousness related phenomena, that does not imply that consciousness is defined by computation. It would be like saying that the music I hear on my radio is defined by Maxwell's equations. It's a true enough statement, but also misses the mark.
I still believe that (at this point in our understanding of it, anyways) consciousness==computation is an assumption. It may be that sometime in the future when we gain a better understanding of it, it will no longer be an assumption but rather a fact. But we don't know with any certainty, yet.
let me ask you: What do you think "computation" is?
A good question, and one I've not put any thought (computation?) into.
Princeton University, by way of dictionary.com says this:
1: the procedure of calculating; determining something by mathematical or logical methods 2: problem solving that involves numbers or quantities.
Which is pretty much what I thought it meant, Princess Bride quotes notwithstanding.
And even with a little clarification on the word computation, I still hold with my earlier post. I do not believe it has been proven that computation equals consciousness. It may be, but it has not been proven yet.
After all, consciousness does a lot of things that a purely logical calculation would have a hard time coming to. Like having a favorite color, falling in love, or disliking lima beans.
Now it may be that there is a mathmatical explanation for the above, but it isn't known yet. So, it's an assumption - and I stand by that.
This assumes that consciousness is based solely on computation. Not proven yet.
And for that matter, even if consciousness is nothing more than computation, how can we put a limit on an activity in space-time when we don't even know how space-time functions, or even how many dimensions it has?
Of course, the anology fails miserably in the case of copy prevention.
Well, somewhat.
But it wasn't really my point to make a perfect analogy. The poster's article just reminded me of a story. There are similarities, though.
I agree with the original poster, for the most part. Yes, copy protection is snake oil. Just like the lock on my yurt is snake oil.
What I disagree with is this:
Once a single CPT-free version has been created, then every penny anyone ever invested in that particular copy-prevention technology is wasted.
If that's true, then why do all new games still use these busted copy protection shcemes? You still see games released with SafeDisc. Even though if you have the right hardware, it's no big deal to copy them. And don't even get me started on stuff like FlexLM. There's books worth of info on how to bust it, and most expensive cad/engineering stuff uses it still.
The answer is simple, and it's a similar situation to my yurt.
Having even flawed protection is much better than none, and will stop the casual copier. Much like how my easily defeated lock will stop the casual thief.
You and I know that there's always a way to get a digital copy. But because it's difficult to do, that'll stop some people. And business sees those people as future sales, since the copy protection stopped them. So the flawed system keeps getting used.
That was really the only point I wished to make. Even a crappy lock has value.
Reminds me of a story. Let me tell you about my tent.
I like going to SCA events. While we're there, we camp. And that means having all of our expensive gear in our tents, all our food, and our booze. Some of our gear can run in the thousands of dollars.
At my favorite event, we camp near the edge of the camp. And idiots from the local village sneak over the fence and rip us off every so often.
So I made a tent with a locking door. I built a yurt, and built into the frame a full sized, 1/2" thick, wood and iron reinforced door. With a working brass good-enough-for-your-house lock.
And while camping one year, a neighbor made fun of me for my efforts. "There's no way that would keep a determined criminal out," he said. It was still a canvas tent, albeit with a wood lattice frame. You could cut a hole through the canvas and break the lattices, easy. The door was too thin, you could kick it down. The lock could be defeated.
And I explained to him that the point was not to be burglar proof, just more burglar resistant than my neighbors.
Not on topic at all, but I had to jump in here and point out that a guy named "Amiga Lover" is posting to a thread named "The good technology always dies."
Just kinda struck me funny.
Weaselmancer
PS: I'm an Amiga fan too... I still have a working 500, and a 2000 with a working GVP 120 mb hard drive/8 mg mem card.
...and I'm not even posting anonymously. Time to tank some Karma.
So, on to the flames.
Does anybody give even half a fuck about Star Wars anymore???
Why is this dreck still selling? You know, when I was a kid I saw a movie called "Star Wars". It wasn't a franchise, it wasn't a series, Vader was a bad guy, and nobody was related to anyone, so it was okay for Luke to kiss Leia.
Vader jumped the shark when he didn't kill Luke. Any half-decent villain would have offed his own son right then and there, and never looked back. Add to that his squishy, girly death scene and you don't even have a villain. Just a victim. Agh. How 90's. Let's form an encounter group called "Living Through the Dark Side : When the Force Goes Bad."
Remember - Lucas has been losing his mind for years now. The first symptoms were Ewoks. Then Jar Jar. And finally, Greedo shooting first. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if Vader's new costume was an "I'm with Stupid" t-shirt.
To provide system and application engineers the ability to fully utilize the features of the Intel PXA27x processor family, Intel is providing the Intel® Compiler and Intel® Integrated Performance Primitives, as well as optimized board support packages with drivers and power management software. Key OS vendors and ISVs like Sony Music Entertainment* have utilized these tools to create a comprehensive library of applications optimized for the new processors.
The way I read that, is that this processor has a few commands built into it that help make or validate keys. Notice how the DRM is built into the application and not the OS. The article also says this:
The Intel 2700G multimedia accelerator delivers DVD-quality video playback on VGA displays and supports a wide range of video formats such as MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and Microsoft* Windows Media Video9.
I take that to mean that it can do some key-type checking, but again - it's not part of the OS. In fact, the article also says this:
The phone platform supports full-featured operating systems from companies like Microsoft*, PalmSource*, Symbian* as well as MontaVista* Linux and Java* environments.
It runs Linux, so...DRM is already optional.
So, unless there's other documentation somewhere stating otherwise, I don't believe this is true "trusted computing" big-brother-knows-best DRM. I'd guess that the CPU has a few custom instructions that help doing RSA or something like that.
Slashdot Mirror
DeVore describes the current Mars missions as a "teachable moment," an opportunity to teach factual science and astronomy in the context of sensationalistic psuedo-science and the legion of money-grubbing opportunists who make their living churning it out.
I think it's a great idea, but probably doomed to fail for a couple of reasons.
First off, pseudo-science is usually described as sensationalistic because it is fairly sensational. Light on reality, but very sensational. It's much more entertaining to see faces on Mars than trace water. If you doubt this, examine the headlines on the tabloid rack the next time you're checking out in the grocery store. Style usually beats substance.
Also, given the huge volume of crap that people believe about space, any useful information will probably be lost. My last attempt to fix this problem was a discussion with a family member who is a conspiracy theorist. This person does not believe we landed on the moon. And had loads of total crap pseudo-science to back him up. As I calmly talked him through the problems with his "facts", he became more and more agitated. I was ruining his world view.
After a while I gave up. He wanted his belief, and anything I said was because "they" had gotten to me, and I couldn't open up my mind to other possibilities. Facts be damned.
I think really the only people who want the truth about what's out there are the scientific types in the first place. We don't need to see faces on Mars to get excited. Trace water is exciting enough, because we know what it implies. If the Teachable Moment finds a few of these people, that's great. Just don't expect many converts.
Weaselmancer
Really, my only issue was that the original poster was making good points, and it seemed like you disagreed with him. That's all. Your response was "Knee-jerk anti-RIAA mumbo-jumbo", and I happened to agree with the original poster. Perhaps I saw confrontation where there was none.
I think it's great that people are working on alternate solutions to the whole RIAA/Copyright mess. My favorite solution happens to be firing Hillary Rosen out of a cannon, but to each his own, right?
Anyways, if I misread your intent I apologize. Please accept this olive branch, and good luck with Drums.
Weaselmancer
I had no idea I got it until I ran adaware. Then I got some freaking spyware bug that deleted windows media player and replaced it with a spyware app or a virus or something.
I just fought that one off last night. Took forever to nail it down. Here's what finally worked.
Delete the wmplayer.exe in Program Files/Windows Media Player. Run ad-aware 6 with the latest definitions. That'll zap the crap that it installs, which for me was windows/a.exe and windows/system32/bridge.dll, along with a host of other reg keys and crap.
Because it's windows, reboot and run the scanner again. If it finds anything, repeat.
If you're lucky, you'll still have a working copy of wmplayer.exe in windows/system32/dllcache. You'll know it's the good copy if it's larger than around 6k or so.
Hope this helps, because this one was a total pain in the ass to track down. Good thing my machine is dual boot Linux. And my main windows browser is now Firefox, too.
Oh yeah, on a side note... Whoever wrote the scumware that overwrites Windows Media Player needs to be hung by a pair of thumb screws and roasted over a coal fire. It's one thing to sneak your apps onto a system, but another thing entirely to overwrite existing apps.
Here's hoping their crap gets noticed on some FBI computer somewhere.
Weaselmancer
PS: Just in case there's a friendly FBI guy reading this, take the scumware wmplayer.exe into a Linux install and run "strings" on it. You'll see the URL of the fine folks who brought you this plague. They encrypt their strings by inserting 4 garbage characters over 0x80 every so often, so ignore those.
...I'm sure that the RIAA will begin immediately reducing prices!
Weaselmancer
-1, Offtopic.
In other words, you're unwilling to answer?
Correct. It's irrelevant. In this thread, we're discussing the RIAA not paying royalties.
I didn't say that his post was bullshit
"Plenty of bullshit argument from both sides.", and "Knee-jerk anti-RIAA mumbo-jumbo" don't qualify, then. I get it now. Perfectly clear.
The real question is what constitutes a practical step forward, and to that end, I've proposed DRUMS.
Or in other words, you have a hammer and now every conversation you stumble across looks like a nail.
While I'm sure Drums has the potential to change the world, let me state again that in this thread we're discussing the RIAA stiffing the artists it claims to represent. Not P2P, not DRM, not your favorite color or who you like for the world series.
Weaselmancer
Let's focus on Tomb Raider!
Lara is just begging for this technology!
Weaselmancer
I didn't say that he said this, but we may as well jump to the core issue, right? So, I'll ask you again: is unrestricted unregulated file-sharing just ok?
I believe the core issue is, is it OK for the RIAA to skip out on their royalty obligations? The title of this thread is, "RIAA Forgets to Make Royalty Payments." How I feel about P2P has nothing to do with this, it is a straw man fallacy. If I'm all for it, or completely against it, it has nothing to do with the RIAA failing to make royalty payments.
And I invite you to quote me claiming that he was making a false claim.
Ok.
"Plenty of bullshit argument from both sides."
So again, which part of his post is bullshit?
Weaselmancer
Is unrestricted unregulated file-sharing just ok?
I've read it over a few times, and I'm still not seeing where he says that.
He does mention that it's pretty documentable that the RIAA are notorious for screwing their artists, and with that in mind he doesn't feel bad for their losses due to file sharing...but I don't see any endorsement of P2P.
Again, I invite you to quote a false claim he is making.
Weaselmancer
The part you've quoted is not an assertion, but a recommendation. You might disagree with it, but that doesn't make it bullshit.
Mind pointing out what part of his argument is bullshit? Where has he made a false claim?
Weaselmancer
IIRC, the goal of the installfest is to load Linux on to as many computers as possible, right?
So...what was Linux installed on to, for the most part?
Let's hear about the hardware. What was an average machine at the installfest? Anything really stand out? Also, what was on the HD that you installed to? Blank HD, or other OS? What was most common?
Weaselmancer
Nothing to add, you pretty much said it all. Very well said.
Weaselmancer
Notice the wording above?
Earthlings Ugly Bags of Mostly Water is the name of a new documentary film - starring Worf (aka Michael Dorn)about Klingon language and culture.
Shouldn't that be Michael Dorn, AKA Worf?
You know, he was born Michael Dorn, and later on played a character named Worf.
Weaselmancer
The problem with your above comment is that it is only kinda correct assuming vanilla axiomatic logic systems, a theoretical subset, which it appears you seem to think is the only kind.
Ah! I see where you're going.
True, I wasn't specifically considering non-axiomatic adaptive systems. But I still believe my original post is not in error. I wasn't concerned so much with the method of calculation, as it's implications with regards to consciousness.
I still submit that while there may be a body math capable of describing consciousness related phenomena, that does not imply that consciousness is defined by computation. It would be like saying that the music I hear on my radio is defined by Maxwell's equations. It's a true enough statement, but also misses the mark.
I still believe that (at this point in our understanding of it, anyways) consciousness==computation is an assumption. It may be that sometime in the future when we gain a better understanding of it, it will no longer be an assumption but rather a fact. But we don't know with any certainty, yet.
Weaselmancer
let me ask you: What do you think "computation" is?
A good question, and one I've not put any thought (computation?) into.
Princeton University, by way of dictionary.com says this:
1: the procedure of calculating; determining something by mathematical or logical methods 2: problem solving that involves numbers or quantities.
Which is pretty much what I thought it meant, Princess Bride quotes notwithstanding.
And even with a little clarification on the word computation, I still hold with my earlier post. I do not believe it has been proven that computation equals consciousness. It may be, but it has not been proven yet.
After all, consciousness does a lot of things that a purely logical calculation would have a hard time coming to. Like having a favorite color, falling in love, or disliking lima beans.
Now it may be that there is a mathmatical explanation for the above, but it isn't known yet. So, it's an assumption - and I stand by that.
Weaselmancer
"...consciousness must be finite."
This assumes that consciousness is based solely on computation. Not proven yet.
And for that matter, even if consciousness is nothing more than computation, how can we put a limit on an activity in space-time when we don't even know how space-time functions, or even how many dimensions it has?
Weaselmancer
Of course, the anology fails miserably in the case of copy prevention.
Well, somewhat.
But it wasn't really my point to make a perfect analogy. The poster's article just reminded me of a story. There are similarities, though.
I agree with the original poster, for the most part. Yes, copy protection is snake oil. Just like the lock on my yurt is snake oil.
What I disagree with is this:
Once a single CPT-free version has been created, then every penny anyone ever invested in that particular copy-prevention technology is wasted.
If that's true, then why do all new games still use these busted copy protection shcemes? You still see games released with SafeDisc. Even though if you have the right hardware, it's no big deal to copy them. And don't even get me started on stuff like FlexLM. There's books worth of info on how to bust it, and most expensive cad/engineering stuff uses it still.
The answer is simple, and it's a similar situation to my yurt.
Having even flawed protection is much better than none, and will stop the casual copier. Much like how my easily defeated lock will stop the casual thief.
You and I know that there's always a way to get a digital copy. But because it's difficult to do, that'll stop some people. And business sees those people as future sales, since the copy protection stopped them. So the flawed system keeps getting used.
That was really the only point I wished to make. Even a crappy lock has value.
Weaselmancer
Reminds me of a story. Let me tell you about my tent.
I like going to SCA events. While we're there, we camp. And that means having all of our expensive gear in our tents, all our food, and our booze. Some of our gear can run in the thousands of dollars.
At my favorite event, we camp near the edge of the camp. And idiots from the local village sneak over the fence and rip us off every so often.
So I made a tent with a locking door. I built a yurt, and built into the frame a full sized, 1/2" thick, wood and iron reinforced door. With a working brass good-enough-for-your-house lock.
And while camping one year, a neighbor made fun of me for my efforts. "There's no way that would keep a determined criminal out," he said. It was still a canvas tent, albeit with a wood lattice frame. You could cut a hole through the canvas and break the lattices, easy. The door was too thin, you could kick it down. The lock could be defeated.
And I explained to him that the point was not to be burglar proof, just more burglar resistant than my neighbors.
At that moment, he was enlightened.
Weaselmancer
Couldn't agree more. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go Xerox something. =)
Weaselmancer
You don't know how lucky you are - if this was 500 years ago, you'd receive the medieval punishment for telling bad puns.
You'd be drawn and quoted.
Weaselmancer
I mean, it worked for Star Wars. Right?
Weaselmancer
Not on topic at all, but I had to jump in here and point out that a guy named "Amiga Lover" is posting to a thread named "The good technology always dies."
Just kinda struck me funny.
Weaselmancer
PS: I'm an Amiga fan too... I still have a working 500, and a 2000 with a working GVP 120 mb hard drive/8 mg mem card.
...and I'm not even posting anonymously. Time to tank some Karma.
So, on to the flames.
Does anybody give even half a fuck about Star Wars anymore???
Why is this dreck still selling? You know, when I was a kid I saw a movie called "Star Wars". It wasn't a franchise, it wasn't a series, Vader was a bad guy, and nobody was related to anyone, so it was okay for Luke to kiss Leia.
Vader jumped the shark when he didn't kill Luke. Any half-decent villain would have offed his own son right then and there, and never looked back. Add to that his squishy, girly death scene and you don't even have a villain. Just a victim. Agh. How 90's. Let's form an encounter group called "Living Through the Dark Side : When the Force Goes Bad."
Remember - Lucas has been losing his mind for years now. The first symptoms were Ewoks. Then Jar Jar. And finally, Greedo shooting first. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if Vader's new costume was an "I'm with Stupid" t-shirt.
EOF.
(end of flame)
Weaselmancer
From the article:
To provide system and application engineers the ability to fully utilize the features of the Intel PXA27x processor family, Intel is providing the Intel® Compiler and Intel® Integrated Performance Primitives, as well as optimized board support packages with drivers and power management software. Key OS vendors and ISVs like Sony Music Entertainment* have utilized these tools to create a comprehensive library of applications optimized for the new processors.
The way I read that, is that this processor has a few commands built into it that help make or validate keys. Notice how the DRM is built into the application and not the OS. The article also says this:
The Intel 2700G multimedia accelerator delivers DVD-quality video playback on VGA displays and supports a wide range of video formats such as MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and Microsoft* Windows Media Video9.
I take that to mean that it can do some key-type checking, but again - it's not part of the OS. In fact, the article also says this:
The phone platform supports full-featured operating systems from companies like Microsoft*, PalmSource*, Symbian* as well as MontaVista* Linux and Java* environments.
It runs Linux, so...DRM is already optional.
So, unless there's other documentation somewhere stating otherwise, I don't believe this is true "trusted computing" big-brother-knows-best DRM. I'd guess that the CPU has a few custom instructions that help doing RSA or something like that.
Weaselmancer
Personally, I think Gator should have named themselves Anusol, but it's already taken.
Weaselmancer