A long time ago, Jerry Pournelle wrote in Byte Magazine to describe his experience with a destructive power event.
As I recall, he wrote that a car struck a power pole somewhere down the road, and dropped the 30,000 volt lines down onto the residential 220 volt lines, resulting in the (normally) 110 volt wiring in his home being briefly charged to 15,000 volts.
He wrote that the lights went out, then came back on REALLY BRIGHT, then went out again and stayed out.
I do not remember all of the details of his equipment, but I do remember that he had a variety of spike and surge suppressors, ranging from a $5 el-cheapo unit up to some fairly expensive protection.
End result: NO piece of equipment that had ANY kind of protection was harmed. The only piece of gear that was hurt (a VCR, I think) was plugged directly into the wall.
My recommendation: put whatever suppression you can comfortably afford on every piece of hardware that is valuable to you. After an "event" of any severity, replace them. For the most part, you have no way to know whether they are still working.
Perhaps he's saying that DRM increases the value of the consumer (to the content owner). Effective DRM would result in the purchase of more copies of the content - a definite improvement in value.
Keep in mind that Macrovision's customer is the content owner. In their vision, the "consumer" is just a mindless vehicle for the transfer of money, to be exploited as much as possible.
I expect that there will be some public assurance from WalMart that they've got a handle on the "false alarm for shoplifting" issue. Like, the register scanners can only see what's put on top of them, so your underwear that you bought last week won't get picked up when you're wearing it (unless you sit on the scanner, so don't do that).
Or they'll promise to "kill" the inventory-control tags at the point of sale. Hmmm. This seems unlikely, though, because they'll need to process returned merchandise in some fashion. Could be done, though -- either the tag could be reactivated (??) if the merchandise is returned, or else another tag could be applied by hand. Or perhaps returned merchandise will be handled in some completely new way.
Anyhow, addressing the "false alarm for shoplifting" issue does not resolve the privacy concerns. There is a huge opportunity here the company to gather (at least) marketing data, and they'll certainly consider doing it.
Assuming an unscrupulous company management, they might do the following:
1. Promise to kill the inventory-control tags at the point of sale. And actually *do* it. Make a big, public deal out of this.
2. Quietly get a *second* RFID tag inserted into selected merchandise. Say, a certain line of sweatshirts. Code them with an identifier that's unlikely to be duplicated by another company (ie, "WALMART-KQWERGREUGASUGASDJHGQWUE"). This "marketing-data" tag would be engineered to *not* be killed by the same signal strength that kills the "inventory-control" tag. Tell no one about this -- there's no need for most people, including employees, to know.
3. Sell the sweatshirts (or whatever).
4. Watch for the same shirts to come back through the front door (hidden detectors at the doors).
5. Watch for the same shirts to leave again through the registers (via separate, side-pointed detectors).
Even without identifying the individuals, the company can compile *all kinds* of useful marketing information.
And there's nothing to *stop* them from associating the sweatshirt ID number with an individual, if they want to. At any point from initial sale to any subsequent pass through the side-pointed register scanners, that shirt can be tied to a charge-card that's used for a purchase.
And from there, of course, it's a short trip to individual profiles and all the privacy problems people are fretting about.
...and after writing all that, I feel like I should go put on my foil-lined beanie.
Is it really paranoia, though, if there actually *is* a strong monetary motivation for a big company to do something that intrudes on your privacy? And worse, where there could be a government tie-in that could be stretched to be part of the "anti-terrorism" effort?
Now where did I leave that beanie...?
Re:There are no legitimate "privacy concerns"
on
Walmart to Push RFID
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· Score: 1
I'm not so sure.
The RFID tags do not have "a very small range" -- the tags just emit a very weak signal.
If I wanted to scan a house from the street, knowing that the signal was going to be weak, I'd use something to capture more signal. Say, a small dish antenna.
*BUT* -- how much energy has to be put *into* the RFID tag to make it respond? That might be the stopper for the the waRFIDrivers: if the input signal strength at the road-to-house distance means that the driver has to have a bank of wide-open microwave-oven emitters in the car, then the health risks might give him pause.
Nuclear bombs to blow up mountain-sized asteroids? Okay, let's use the "bowling ball and automobile" test to examine likely outcomes.
Take a number of identical cars and a number of identical 16-pound bowling balls. To simulate the effect of nuclear explosions on asteroids the size of mountains, we'll set off an M-80 on the surface of one ball, and another M-80 inside the finger hole of another ball. To make the test more interesting, we'll hire a movie star to play the part of an oil-well driller and have him drill a hole in a third ball and we'll set off an M-80 at the center.
Let's assume that these are *really powerful* M-80's and that they actually have some effect on the balls.
Now, since we're talking about asteroids falling from distant orbit, we'll need to do a little better than just dropping the balls onto the cars, right?
Take an intact bowling ball and fire it from a cannon at a car. Examine the damage. This is our control. We want to reduce the damage to the point where sitting inside the car during the experiment would be an acceptable risk.
The ball that had the explosion on its surface is slighly chipped. Put the the 15.99-pound fragment and the chips into the cannon and fire them at another car. Examine the damage and assess the difference from the first car. Probably not much difference.
The ball that had the explosion in the finger hole has a divot taken out of it. Put the 14.9-pound fragment and the 1.1-pound divot into the cannon and fire them at another car. Examine the damage. More holes, but I still wouldn't want to be in the car.
The ball that had the explosion at its center has been reduced to 16 fragments of approximately equal size and a number of smaller bits. Put 16 0.9-pound fragments and the bits into the cannon and fire them at another car. Sixteen holes. I still don't want to be in the car.
The number of explosions required to reduce the ball to a collection of bits with no large chunks is probably large. It'd probably take a lot of time to set up and execute. Let's assume that we've done this, and fill the cannon with 16 pounds of marbles. Fire at yet another car.
Hmmmm.
I think the best solution is to push the cannon (the asteroid) sideways so that it isn't pointing at our car (the Earth).
First, we need to recognize that we're dealing with the MPAA here, so take what they say with a grain of salt (about softball size). Some of what they say and do (or appear to say and do) may actually be exactly what it seems to be, but it's also possible that there's more going on than is obvious.
They say up front that THIS IS A TEST. Okay, in at least one sense, I'd guess that it *is* a test -- they're looking to see how this will be received and what will happen in response to it.
It seems likely that this is more than *just* a test. Quite probably, the XXAA will take the results of this effort and "spin" them to suit other purposes. For example, results that can be interpreted as success of this effort may be used to justify lobbying for more repressive laws & regulations in other areas related to "fair use" because the XXAA is now providing access to movies online. Failure of this effort can be "spun" into support for legislation effecitvely banning transfer of movie data online because "there's no legitimate market for it -- we tried, see?"
They're trying to do this in a way that enforces the business model that they *want* to have: i.e., pay for the content every time you view it. They're offering "use it anytime within 30 days" and "view as many times as you like within 24 hours" but I think these are part of the smokescreen -- if you download a movie on Wednesday, watch it, like it, and want to have the girlfriends over to see it on the weekend, you have to pay them again...and this suits them just fine. From the consumer's point of view, it just about completely destroys any "fair use" rights -- they've defined the timeframe in which you may use the movie, and (if the test is successful) *this was accepted by the rest of the public*.
In order to enforce the business model they want to have, they have to make use of certain software and services on the user's end. They need the ability to restrict the activities of the user in ways supported by DRM and other functionality that's only present in the later versions of RealPlayer, Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer. Not sure why Internet Explorer 5.x/6.x or Windows > 95 would be required, but it may be tied up in this need.
Could be that they're using some Java functionality to check that the underlying operating system *really* is one that will support their user-activity restrictions (and not some other OS pretending to be Windows), and that the Java from MSIE < 5 doesn't provide support for the necessary checking. Guessing, again.
This would explain why they don't (and won't, ever) support Linux. They can't get the necessary degree of control over the user's machine at all levels. Don't know about Macs. If they can't get DRM or an equivalent ability to restrict the users on the Macs, they probably won't ever support them.
The same consideration may apply to overseas users -- if they can't get an assurance that US laws will enforce the relationship *the way they want it* then they probably won't provide movies to people outside the US. They'll check this at the IP level if they can and through the payment mechanism (at the very least). Your credit card billing address is the *first* thing they'll look at, and they'll use the charge card clearing house service that checks the address you gave them against the real address for the card.
Now, they're putting lots of effort into making sure that their relationship with the consumer is the way they want it to be, but exactly what *is* that relationship?
Based on a quick review of their help texts, it seems that they assert that what they are selling is a license to download and view a movie. If you buy the license, you may download the movie within 30 days and view it for 24 hours.
If you buy a license and do not actually download the movie, tough noogies -- you don't get a refund. They're treating this like movie tickets -- you buy a ticket for the 7:30 performance on Friday, and it's up to you to be there. Their position will probably be that you got what you paid for -- *permission* to download and view within set time frames. You had the permission. That you did not use it is your fault.
They say that they are not selling the movie, only a license to view it. I don't know how that stacks up legally against "fair use" or other considerations. You will probably not see any statement anywhere by the XXAA that acknowledges "fair use" in any way -- if they could get away with selling CDs, DVDs and videotapes that would only play *once*, they would probably go for it and insist that you only paid for a license to watch or listen *once* (see the fine print on the inside of the package -- you may require a microscope to view the product license).
All in all, this service seems geared to people who:
1. run a recent version of Windows with the latest DRM-enabled software installed, and
2. don't know or don't care about the loss of rights or other ramifications of DRM, and
3. live in a country where the law can be used to enforce restrictions on user activities by content providers, and
4. use their PC as the primary means of viewing movies (with or without some PC-to-TV conversion).
Seems to me that the last one kind of cuts out most of the mainstream movie viewers. None of *my* friends and co-workers watch movies on their PCs. I can safely say that the ability to download and watch a movie on the PC would have absolutely *no* appeal to any of them -- most of them have spent significant money on large-screen TVs and/or stereo systems, but have never hooked the PC into the system for watching movies.
I think that this service will actually appeal to only a very limited audience.
Maybe I'm out of touch with all those Moms & Dads out there who have 21-inch LCD screens or 35-inch monitors and who download movies over their OC3 connection so they can watch them minutes after they make their decision -- you know, just enough time delay to make some popcorn and gather the kids together. Anyway, to me it seems likely that the audience will be very small and the amount of money that these guys will actually get will be far less than the cost of providing the service.
Watch for this service to bomb after the (XXAA equivalent of) venture capital is used up.
Then watch for the failure to be spun to their advantage.
Lucky Green is on to something! I could apply for a patent on, say, techniques for using overwhelming dominance of the software marketplace to enforce monopolistic practices, and then force Microsoft to stop...
Nope. Wouldn't work. Microsoft can demonstrate prior art.
Does green camo inside an airport make any sense to anyone???
No, it doesn't make sense. It's just what they had available.
In a few months, the troops in the airports will be issued the new Office Camoflage(tm) uniforms -- imprinted with line and color patterns designed to blend in with their surroundings, airport security personnel will soon be indistinguishable from filing cabinets, desks and office water coolers.
These uniforms will be supplied by the same company that brought us the Urban Camoflage(tm) designs that allow tanks and APCs to be concealed in plain sight on city streets -- protective side-panel paint schemes such as Parked Van, Wrecked Pickup and Abandoned Dumpster.
- - - - - - - - -
All kidding aside, the guy's friend exercised what I'd call dangerously poor judgment in choosing his remarks while dealing with cranky people in uniforms with guns.
It's time the batteries finally caught up to the way we want to use our laptops.
Yes! I want to run my laptop for a week on a single charge! If I can buy a $14 lithium-ion battery for my cellphone that'll let me use it for a week, why can't I buy a battery that'll run my laptop for that amount of time?
I wouldn't demand that it be 1/8" thin and weigh next to nothing -- after all, I'm not going to carry my laptop around in my *pocket*. Still, though, shouldn't it be possible to make a battery pack that'd get the job done?
With the popularity of wireless networks, it has become a pain to have to plug in the laptop to the electric outlet while you spent that money to set up a wireless entwork so that you could stay on the net without any wires.
Right! Can anyone speak authoritatively to this and answer the question "What would it take?" If I'm willing to spend $3000+ for a laptop, I'd probably be willing to shell out a reasonable price for a portable power source that'll run my laptop for as long as my phone. What's stopping the battery makers from selling such a product?
Is there a reason that no one is doing the equivalent of wiring up 30 of those cellphone flatpack batteries in parallel and selling *that*? Would that work?
Or is the power drain for an illuminated LCD screen and current-generation CPU & hard drive still so high that they'd have to sell it with a steel frame, rubberized luggage handle and wheels?
Can this be fixed by *trying* to pay?
on
Dealing with the RIAA?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I've heard it said that if you have a debt and you make a good-faith attempt to pay it and the payment is refused, then the person (or company) can no longer pursue collection of that debt.
If this is actually how it works, then could a large group of people ruin the RIAA's grand plan by sending them a *huge* number of checks for the very small amounts owed for duplication, semi-public (semi-private?) performance or whatever of their copyrighted music?
Hmmmm.
I don't know the numbers that are actually being thrown around, but apparently, the position at the RIAA is that by downloading a song from the Internet instead of buying a CD, I am costing them some amount of money.
Fair enough. Figure a high-dollar CD, so we'll use a figure of $18.00 as the amount I didn't spend. Now, I don't work for free, so if I'm going to pay them for their music, I want compensation for my materials, effort, etc. So let's knock off the cost of *my* CD, the wear and tear on my burner, the use of my connectivity (all marked up, of course) and let's not forget my *time* (including the time spent doing accounting on their behalf to calculate and arrange payment).
Since I don't do this a lot, there are no economies of scale, and everything costs more when I'm doing it than in their huge and more efficient operation. I figure I end up owing them a balance of $0.02. I write a check for that amount and mail it in (have to find out just where to send it).
It has *got* to cost them way more than $0.02 just to open the envelope and process the check. I figure the odds are good that I'll either get it back with a form letter or it'll never be cashed.
If either of those happens, have they refused to accept payment for the use of their copyrighted music? Does this undermine their position?
I agree with some of what you say, but other parts...well...
Bands: yes, you're right. It costs money to record an album. And if people like that band and want them to continue recording, they need to compensate the band for their work. Is it necessary that this involve the RIAA, the CD-production companies, the various other middlemen and finally the music store? I don't know. Recent technological advances *may* make it unnecessary to have so many people involved.
If the band's website had a download function and a separate PayMeIfYouLikeMe(tm) function, then the money could move directly from the consumer to the band. If some decent bands would just try this out, we could find out whether enough people would pay enough money to make it actually work.
Quite possibly, it could work out that the various bands don't want to handle the website and business end of all this, and they'd hire another company to handle the Internet & web-technical end, as well as the accounting, in exchange for a share of the revenue...but that company would be hired by the band and would work for the band, not the other way 'round, like it is now with the RIAA, etc.
Cars and the Scan-Fab-o-Matic(tm): the development of such a radical technology might very well destroy many businesses. It is pointless to spend your effort trying to uphold a business model that *cannot* survive in the face of new technology, unless you are just trying to manage the pace of the change.
With the consumer version of Scan-Fab-o-Matic, you can duplicate anything below a certain size. Consider the implications...
Duplicate a car? Sure, but doing so is going to put the car-makers out of business fast. So do we make it illegal?
Copy a 50-gallon barrel of gasoline? Well, sure! Of course, the price of gas at the pumps will skyrocket because sales have dropped to nearly zero. Then the oil companies will go under. Are we going to allow that? No? Exactly why not?
Houses? Too big. Have to hire someone with the industrial-size Scan-Fab-o-Matic.
Other people? Sure, but Scan-Fab-o-Matic does not impart life, so you'd have a corpse on your hands. Tough to explain. You need to wait for God-Fab-o-Matic(tm) (under development).
Duplicate a pile of money? Yes, but that's counterfeiting. For now. This technology might mean the end of the cash economy.
If one objects to all this copying of things that one did not originally create, then how about this: copy a pickup-truck-load of nutritious foodstuffs in the barren hinterlands of Ethiopia? The fact that those people cannot afford to *pay* for such supplies with their attendant transportation costs should not stop us from using a new technology to feed them.
Enough, I guess. Either you get my point or you don't, in which case I've just failed to express it well.
Fat cats in xxAA: I'm sure that they're highly qualified or well connected. That's not the point, nor is it the point that they work hard at it. It's what they *do* for their money and whether they should be getting paid that well for it.
If you think that they're just hard-working Joes making a buck, then that's fine, I guess. But if you don't think that what they're doing is exploiting the artists, orchestrating pay-for-play on the public airwaves in order to lock out any competition, and price fixing all along the distribution chain, well, then maybe we're not talking about the same people in the music industry.
My prerogative: it *is* my prerogative to form my own opinion, and to express it where it seems fitting. And that's all that I'm doing here. It's your prerogative, too. ALL of you.
If you know things I don't know, then cite me some facts and I'll stand corrected. Or if my cynicism has led me to unfairly attribute negative motivations to people who are actually just trying to get by in this life, well then I can only say that sometimes the cynicism just gets the better of me. Maybe I need to work on that.
I can't afford a Bentley, either, never felt I had the right to take one off the lot.
That is not what we're talking about. Technology has advanced. It's no longer necessary to purchase physical media to have the music. The *data* that makes up the music can be duplicated at effectively zero cost.
Analogy: you can't afford to buy a Bentley at the price they're charging. But if, through advances in technology, you were able to create your own automobile out of airborne dust molecules by pointing your Scan-Fab-o-Matic(tm) at the car of your choice and selecting "Object" and then "Copy" off the menu, doesn't it make *sense* that you could copy any car you like?
Technology makes life better. Why should you be forbidden to use it? Because companies who used to make complex objects and sell them for huge sums need to preserve their livelihoods?
Advances in technology change the way we live. Sometimes that means some businesses will no longer be viable.
Would mass unemployment in the auto industry as a result of this be a Bad Thing? Of course it would! But we *don't* have that to deal with at this point. The worst we're actually looking at is mass price reductions at the checkout counter for CDs and DVDs, and huge salary cuts for lots of fat cats at the top of the entertainment industry. If Metallica can't make ends meet on what people are *willing* to pay for their CDs, then they'll go the way of the dodo and there'll be lots of new bands who are dedicated to the music to take up the slack. Will the RIAA/MPAA moguls be able to save their fat salaries? Doesn't seem likely. Is this a Bad Thing? I don't think so.
Perhaps we all will be able to find something better to do with that portion of our collective wealth that used to end up in the hands of overpaid rock-band drug addicts, Pretty People(tm) in the film industry and their various handlers. I don't know, perhaps feed some hungry people. Maybe fight oppression in the third world. I bet we could think of something.
Okay, the article sounds like this bill is going in the right direction, but...
It doesn't deal with "Sure you have the right to make a copy of the disk you just bought, but the xxAA is not required to make it easy for you." So the xxAA can continue to waste their money and our time with one bizarre copy-preventing scheme after another.
What we need is to change the language of the DMCA in two basic ways:
First, the prohibition should not be directed at activities of the consumer but rather at the manufacturer, and
Second, the activity prohibited should not be the circumvention but rather the installation of copy prevention.
Bottom line: the DMCA should be changed to say that it is unlawful to alter any digital work to be sold to the public in such a way that the altered work may not be readily used by the consumer or reproduced by the consumer for archival purposes.
And there sould be severe penalties imposed on corporations that violate the DMCA by creating copy-protection schemes that render their products partly or completely unusable by any consumer.
No activity by a consumer should be restricted in any way by the new DMCA.
The xxAA guys should be left with the traditional tools for fighting violations of their copyright -- i.e., catch the guy who's making money by selling bootleg copies of the CD and haul him into court.
Will this 3D display be ruggedized?
on
3D LCD Display
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· Score: 2, Funny
I hope they're going to put some solid transparent material in front of the screen. I mean, dealing with fingerprints is already irritating, but all the LCD screens *I* have used would suffer significant damage if people repeatedly tried to reach *through* them.
You know, like, to grasp the rounded, perky... uhhhh...
The car has nickle metal hydride batteries (probably some special size) that can be recharged in about 10 minutes, which will then run the car for about 15 minutes. The remote control needs 4 size AA batteries, preferably the alkaline kind.
They say that nickle metal hydride AA batteries cannot be use as replacements for the AA batteries because "real" AA batteries are 1.5 volts each and the rechargable nickle metal hydride AAs are only 1.2 volts. The remote control must *really* want 6 volts to work right. Or at least, that's what they want you to believe.
Oooo...I bet they'd go quite nicely on the big conference table in the staff-meeting room though. Start out hidden behind the projector, and when the VP's back is turned, make a speed run for the other end!
I have to wonder if the artists who are supporting this ACTUALLY believe it, or if their record company is forcing them to do it.
Whether they're speaking in public because they're compelled by contract or because they get paid extra or because they actually believe what they're saying doesn't really seem important.
On the subject of my choice of how to acquire music, from among the various sources which are available, I would not take advice from Britney Spears nor from any other celebrity. She is not knowledgable of the issues at my level, nor the factors that influence my thinking, nor is she an expert on the consequences of this use of technology (it's so new that there *are* no experts), and she is definitely getting paid by people who do not have *my* interests at heart.
I would no more accept advice from her than I would listen to any other celebrity who simply lends their name to another's cause. I don't care *what* she believes about file sharing. I also don't care what she believes about choosing Intel vs AMD CPU chips. If she were featured in an Intel commercial, it would make *zero* difference to me.
Same for Eminem, Metallica and all other music and film celebrities. They're not experts, and they're paid by people with a strong profit motive (not unbiased).
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Mr Trump? Is that you?
A long time ago, Jerry Pournelle wrote in Byte Magazine to describe his experience with a destructive power event.
As I recall, he wrote that a car struck a power pole somewhere down the road, and dropped the 30,000 volt lines down onto the residential 220 volt lines, resulting in the (normally) 110 volt wiring in his home being briefly charged to 15,000 volts.
He wrote that the lights went out, then came back on REALLY BRIGHT, then went out again and stayed out.
I do not remember all of the details of his equipment, but I do remember that he had a variety of spike and surge suppressors, ranging from a $5 el-cheapo unit up to some fairly expensive protection.
End result: NO piece of equipment that had ANY kind of protection was harmed. The only piece of gear that was hurt (a VCR, I think) was plugged directly into the wall.
My recommendation: put whatever suppression you can comfortably afford on every piece of hardware that is valuable to you. After an "event" of any severity, replace them. For the most part, you have no way to know whether they are still working.
And ending sentences with prepositions. That's something up with which I won't put!
2. They released it for download, payment optional.
3. They made $6-10 million dollars. (PROFIT!!!)
I'd say it worked.
Keep in mind that Macrovision's customer is the content owner. In their vision, the "consumer" is just a mindless vehicle for the transfer of money, to be exploited as much as possible.
You did it wrong. You left out the important [????] step.
The Federal Elections Commission is granted the authority to regulate elections -- not speech.
Not even speech about elections. Just the processes of the elections themselves.
By trying to regulate speech, they're attempting to extend their authority beyond that granted to them.
BDIFY - Been Doing It For Years
As in: "Manage your systems? Oh, yes -- I have a BDIFY in that."
Chisel? You had chisels?
Back in *my* day, we had to scratch our messages on flat rocks with a piece of sandstone!
Boy, you guys had it easy...
I expect that there will be some public assurance from WalMart that they've got a handle on the "false alarm for shoplifting" issue. Like, the register scanners can only see what's put on top of them, so your underwear that you bought last week won't get picked up when you're wearing it (unless you sit on the scanner, so don't do that).
Or they'll promise to "kill" the inventory-control tags at the point of sale. Hmmm. This seems unlikely, though, because they'll need to process returned merchandise in some fashion. Could be done, though -- either the tag could be reactivated (??) if the merchandise is returned, or else another tag could be applied by hand. Or perhaps returned merchandise will be handled in some completely new way.
Anyhow, addressing the "false alarm for shoplifting" issue does not resolve the privacy concerns. There is a huge opportunity here the company to gather (at least) marketing data, and they'll certainly consider doing it.
Assuming an unscrupulous company management, they might do the following:
1. Promise to kill the inventory-control tags at the point of sale. And actually *do* it. Make a big, public deal out of this.
2. Quietly get a *second* RFID tag inserted into selected merchandise. Say, a certain line of sweatshirts. Code them with an identifier that's unlikely to be duplicated by another company (ie, "WALMART-KQWERGREUGASUGASDJHGQWUE"). This "marketing-data" tag would be engineered to *not* be killed by the same signal strength that kills the "inventory-control" tag. Tell no one about this -- there's no need for most people, including employees, to know.
3. Sell the sweatshirts (or whatever).
4. Watch for the same shirts to come back through the front door (hidden detectors at the doors).
5. Watch for the same shirts to leave again through the registers (via separate, side-pointed detectors).
Even without identifying the individuals, the company can compile *all kinds* of useful marketing information.
And there's nothing to *stop* them from associating the sweatshirt ID number with an individual, if they want to. At any point from initial sale to any subsequent pass through the side-pointed register scanners, that shirt can be tied to a charge-card that's used for a purchase.
And from there, of course, it's a short trip to individual profiles and all the privacy problems people are fretting about.
Is it really paranoia, though, if there actually *is* a strong monetary motivation for a big company to do something that intrudes on your privacy? And worse, where there could be a government tie-in that could be stretched to be part of the "anti-terrorism" effort?
Now where did I leave that beanie...?
The RFID tags do not have "a very small range" -- the tags just emit a very weak signal.
If I wanted to scan a house from the street, knowing that the signal was going to be weak, I'd use something to capture more signal. Say, a small dish antenna.
*BUT* -- how much energy has to be put *into* the RFID tag to make it respond? That might be the stopper for the the waRFIDrivers: if the input signal strength at the road-to-house distance means that the driver has to have a bank of wide-open microwave-oven emitters in the car, then the health risks might give him pause.
Shouldn't there be something in there about "das Blinkenlights" ??
Take a number of identical cars and a number of identical 16-pound bowling balls. To simulate the effect of nuclear explosions on asteroids the size of mountains, we'll set off an M-80 on the surface of one ball, and another M-80 inside the finger hole of another ball. To make the test more interesting, we'll hire a movie star to play the part of an oil-well driller and have him drill a hole in a third ball and we'll set off an M-80 at the center.
Let's assume that these are *really powerful* M-80's and that they actually have some effect on the balls.
Now, since we're talking about asteroids falling from distant orbit, we'll need to do a little better than just dropping the balls onto the cars, right?
Take an intact bowling ball and fire it from a cannon at a car. Examine the damage. This is our control. We want to reduce the damage to the point where sitting inside the car during the experiment would be an acceptable risk.
The ball that had the explosion on its surface is slighly chipped. Put the the 15.99-pound fragment and the chips into the cannon and fire them at another car. Examine the damage and assess the difference from the first car. Probably not much difference.
The ball that had the explosion in the finger hole has a divot taken out of it. Put the 14.9-pound fragment and the 1.1-pound divot into the cannon and fire them at another car. Examine the damage. More holes, but I still wouldn't want to be in the car.
The ball that had the explosion at its center has been reduced to 16 fragments of approximately equal size and a number of smaller bits. Put 16 0.9-pound fragments and the bits into the cannon and fire them at another car. Sixteen holes. I still don't want to be in the car.
The number of explosions required to reduce the ball to a collection of bits with no large chunks is probably large. It'd probably take a lot of time to set up and execute. Let's assume that we've done this, and fill the cannon with 16 pounds of marbles. Fire at yet another car.
Hmmmm.
I think the best solution is to push the cannon (the asteroid) sideways so that it isn't pointing at our car (the Earth).
They say up front that THIS IS A TEST. Okay, in at least one sense, I'd guess that it *is* a test -- they're looking to see how this will be received and what will happen in response to it.
It seems likely that this is more than *just* a test. Quite probably, the XXAA will take the results of this effort and "spin" them to suit other purposes. For example, results that can be interpreted as success of this effort may be used to justify lobbying for more repressive laws & regulations in other areas related to "fair use" because the XXAA is now providing access to movies online. Failure of this effort can be "spun" into support for legislation effecitvely banning transfer of movie data online because "there's no legitimate market for it -- we tried, see?"
They're trying to do this in a way that enforces the business model that they *want* to have: i.e., pay for the content every time you view it. They're offering "use it anytime within 30 days" and "view as many times as you like within 24 hours" but I think these are part of the smokescreen -- if you download a movie on Wednesday, watch it, like it, and want to have the girlfriends over to see it on the weekend, you have to pay them again...and this suits them just fine. From the consumer's point of view, it just about completely destroys any "fair use" rights -- they've defined the timeframe in which you may use the movie, and (if the test is successful) *this was accepted by the rest of the public*.
In order to enforce the business model they want to have, they have to make use of certain software and services on the user's end. They need the ability to restrict the activities of the user in ways supported by DRM and other functionality that's only present in the later versions of RealPlayer, Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer. Not sure why Internet Explorer 5.x/6.x or Windows > 95 would be required, but it may be tied up in this need.
Could be that they're using some Java functionality to check that the underlying operating system *really* is one that will support their user-activity restrictions (and not some other OS pretending to be Windows), and that the Java from MSIE < 5 doesn't provide support for the necessary checking. Guessing, again.
This would explain why they don't (and won't, ever) support Linux. They can't get the necessary degree of control over the user's machine at all levels. Don't know about Macs. If they can't get DRM or an equivalent ability to restrict the users on the Macs, they probably won't ever support them.
The same consideration may apply to overseas users -- if they can't get an assurance that US laws will enforce the relationship *the way they want it* then they probably won't provide movies to people outside the US. They'll check this at the IP level if they can and through the payment mechanism (at the very least). Your credit card billing address is the *first* thing they'll look at, and they'll use the charge card clearing house service that checks the address you gave them against the real address for the card.
Now, they're putting lots of effort into making sure that their relationship with the consumer is the way they want it to be, but exactly what *is* that relationship?
Based on a quick review of their help texts, it seems that they assert that what they are selling is a license to download and view a movie. If you buy the license, you may download the movie within 30 days and view it for 24 hours.
If you buy a license and do not actually download the movie, tough noogies -- you don't get a refund. They're treating this like movie tickets -- you buy a ticket for the 7:30 performance on Friday, and it's up to you to be there. Their position will probably be that you got what you paid for -- *permission* to download and view within set time frames. You had the permission. That you did not use it is your fault.
They say that they are not selling the movie, only a license to view it. I don't know how that stacks up legally against "fair use" or other considerations. You will probably not see any statement anywhere by the XXAA that acknowledges "fair use" in any way -- if they could get away with selling CDs, DVDs and videotapes that would only play *once*, they would probably go for it and insist that you only paid for a license to watch or listen *once* (see the fine print on the inside of the package -- you may require a microscope to view the product license).
All in all, this service seems geared to people who:
1. run a recent version of Windows with the latest DRM-enabled software installed, and
2. don't know or don't care about the loss of rights or other ramifications of DRM, and
3. live in a country where the law can be used to enforce restrictions on user activities by content providers, and
4. use their PC as the primary means of viewing movies (with or without some PC-to-TV conversion).
Seems to me that the last one kind of cuts out most of the mainstream movie viewers. None of *my* friends and co-workers watch movies on their PCs. I can safely say that the ability to download and watch a movie on the PC would have absolutely *no* appeal to any of them -- most of them have spent significant money on large-screen TVs and/or stereo systems, but have never hooked the PC into the system for watching movies.
I think that this service will actually appeal to only a very limited audience.
Maybe I'm out of touch with all those Moms & Dads out there who have 21-inch LCD screens or 35-inch monitors and who download movies over their OC3 connection so they can watch them minutes after they make their decision -- you know, just enough time delay to make some popcorn and gather the kids together. Anyway, to me it seems likely that the audience will be very small and the amount of money that these guys will actually get will be far less than the cost of providing the service.
Watch for this service to bomb after the (XXAA equivalent of) venture capital is used up.
Then watch for the failure to be spun to their advantage.
Nope. Wouldn't work. Microsoft can demonstrate prior art.
No, it doesn't make sense. It's just what they had available.
In a few months, the troops in the airports will be issued the new Office Camoflage(tm) uniforms -- imprinted with line and color patterns designed to blend in with their surroundings, airport security personnel will soon be indistinguishable from filing cabinets, desks and office water coolers.
These uniforms will be supplied by the same company that brought us the Urban Camoflage(tm) designs that allow tanks and APCs to be concealed in plain sight on city streets -- protective side-panel paint schemes such as Parked Van, Wrecked Pickup and Abandoned Dumpster.
- - - - - - - - -
All kidding aside, the guy's friend exercised what I'd call dangerously poor judgment in choosing his remarks while dealing with cranky people in uniforms with guns.
Yes! I want to run my laptop for a week on a single charge! If I can buy a $14 lithium-ion battery for my cellphone that'll let me use it for a week, why can't I buy a battery that'll run my laptop for that amount of time?
I wouldn't demand that it be 1/8" thin and weigh next to nothing -- after all, I'm not going to carry my laptop around in my *pocket*. Still, though, shouldn't it be possible to make a battery pack that'd get the job done?
With the popularity of wireless networks, it has become a pain to have to plug in the laptop to the electric outlet while you spent that money to set up a wireless entwork so that you could stay on the net without any wires.
Right! Can anyone speak authoritatively to this and answer the question "What would it take?" If I'm willing to spend $3000+ for a laptop, I'd probably be willing to shell out a reasonable price for a portable power source that'll run my laptop for as long as my phone. What's stopping the battery makers from selling such a product?
Is there a reason that no one is doing the equivalent of wiring up 30 of those cellphone flatpack batteries in parallel and selling *that*? Would that work?
Or is the power drain for an illuminated LCD screen and current-generation CPU & hard drive still so high that they'd have to sell it with a steel frame, rubberized luggage handle and wheels?
If this is actually how it works, then could a large group of people ruin the RIAA's grand plan by sending them a *huge* number of checks for the very small amounts owed for duplication, semi-public (semi-private?) performance or whatever of their copyrighted music?
Hmmmm.
I don't know the numbers that are actually being thrown around, but apparently, the position at the RIAA is that by downloading a song from the Internet instead of buying a CD, I am costing them some amount of money.
Fair enough. Figure a high-dollar CD, so we'll use a figure of $18.00 as the amount I didn't spend. Now, I don't work for free, so if I'm going to pay them for their music, I want compensation for my materials, effort, etc. So let's knock off the cost of *my* CD, the wear and tear on my burner, the use of my connectivity (all marked up, of course) and let's not forget my *time* (including the time spent doing accounting on their behalf to calculate and arrange payment).
Since I don't do this a lot, there are no economies of scale, and everything costs more when I'm doing it than in their huge and more efficient operation. I figure I end up owing them a balance of $0.02. I write a check for that amount and mail it in (have to find out just where to send it).
It has *got* to cost them way more than $0.02 just to open the envelope and process the check. I figure the odds are good that I'll either get it back with a form letter or it'll never be cashed.
If either of those happens, have they refused to accept payment for the use of their copyrighted music? Does this undermine their position?
Any attorneys out there who can comment on this?
Bands: yes, you're right. It costs money to record an album. And if people like that band and want them to continue recording, they need to compensate the band for their work. Is it necessary that this involve the RIAA, the CD-production companies, the various other middlemen and finally the music store? I don't know. Recent technological advances *may* make it unnecessary to have so many people involved.
If the band's website had a download function and a separate PayMeIfYouLikeMe(tm) function, then the money could move directly from the consumer to the band. If some decent bands would just try this out, we could find out whether enough people would pay enough money to make it actually work.
Quite possibly, it could work out that the various bands don't want to handle the website and business end of all this, and they'd hire another company to handle the Internet & web-technical end, as well as the accounting, in exchange for a share of the revenue...but that company would be hired by the band and would work for the band, not the other way 'round, like it is now with the RIAA, etc.
Cars and the Scan-Fab-o-Matic(tm): the development of such a radical technology might very well destroy many businesses. It is pointless to spend your effort trying to uphold a business model that *cannot* survive in the face of new technology, unless you are just trying to manage the pace of the change.
With the consumer version of Scan-Fab-o-Matic, you can duplicate anything below a certain size. Consider the implications...
Duplicate a car? Sure, but doing so is going to put the car-makers out of business fast. So do we make it illegal?
Copy a 50-gallon barrel of gasoline? Well, sure! Of course, the price of gas at the pumps will skyrocket because sales have dropped to nearly zero. Then the oil companies will go under. Are we going to allow that? No? Exactly why not?
Houses? Too big. Have to hire someone with the industrial-size Scan-Fab-o-Matic.
Other people? Sure, but Scan-Fab-o-Matic does not impart life, so you'd have a corpse on your hands. Tough to explain. You need to wait for God-Fab-o-Matic(tm) (under development).
Duplicate a pile of money? Yes, but that's counterfeiting. For now. This technology might mean the end of the cash economy.
If one objects to all this copying of things that one did not originally create, then how about this: copy a pickup-truck-load of nutritious foodstuffs in the barren hinterlands of Ethiopia? The fact that those people cannot afford to *pay* for such supplies with their attendant transportation costs should not stop us from using a new technology to feed them.
Enough, I guess. Either you get my point or you don't, in which case I've just failed to express it well.
Fat cats in xxAA: I'm sure that they're highly qualified or well connected. That's not the point, nor is it the point that they work hard at it. It's what they *do* for their money and whether they should be getting paid that well for it.
If you think that they're just hard-working Joes making a buck, then that's fine, I guess. But if you don't think that what they're doing is exploiting the artists, orchestrating pay-for-play on the public airwaves in order to lock out any competition, and price fixing all along the distribution chain, well, then maybe we're not talking about the same people in the music industry.
My prerogative: it *is* my prerogative to form my own opinion, and to express it where it seems fitting. And that's all that I'm doing here. It's your prerogative, too. ALL of you.
If you know things I don't know, then cite me some facts and I'll stand corrected. Or if my cynicism has led me to unfairly attribute negative motivations to people who are actually just trying to get by in this life, well then I can only say that sometimes the cynicism just gets the better of me. Maybe I need to work on that.
That is not what we're talking about. Technology has advanced. It's no longer necessary to purchase physical media to have the music. The *data* that makes up the music can be duplicated at effectively zero cost.
Analogy: you can't afford to buy a Bentley at the price they're charging. But if, through advances in technology, you were able to create your own automobile out of airborne dust molecules by pointing your Scan-Fab-o-Matic(tm) at the car of your choice and selecting "Object" and then "Copy" off the menu, doesn't it make *sense* that you could copy any car you like?
Technology makes life better. Why should you be forbidden to use it? Because companies who used to make complex objects and sell them for huge sums need to preserve their livelihoods?
Advances in technology change the way we live. Sometimes that means some businesses will no longer be viable.
Would mass unemployment in the auto industry as a result of this be a Bad Thing? Of course it would! But we *don't* have that to deal with at this point. The worst we're actually looking at is mass price reductions at the checkout counter for CDs and DVDs, and huge salary cuts for lots of fat cats at the top of the entertainment industry. If Metallica can't make ends meet on what people are *willing* to pay for their CDs, then they'll go the way of the dodo and there'll be lots of new bands who are dedicated to the music to take up the slack. Will the RIAA/MPAA moguls be able to save their fat salaries? Doesn't seem likely. Is this a Bad Thing? I don't think so.
Perhaps we all will be able to find something better to do with that portion of our collective wealth that used to end up in the hands of overpaid rock-band drug addicts, Pretty People(tm) in the film industry and their various handlers. I don't know, perhaps feed some hungry people. Maybe fight oppression in the third world. I bet we could think of something.
It doesn't deal with "Sure you have the right to make a copy of the disk you just bought, but the xxAA is not required to make it easy for you." So the xxAA can continue to waste their money and our time with one bizarre copy-preventing scheme after another.
What we need is to change the language of the DMCA in two basic ways:
First, the prohibition should not be directed at activities of the consumer but rather at the manufacturer, and
Second, the activity prohibited should not be the circumvention but rather the installation of copy prevention.
Bottom line: the DMCA should be changed to say that it is unlawful to alter any digital work to be sold to the public in such a way that the altered work may not be readily used by the consumer or reproduced by the consumer for archival purposes.
And there sould be severe penalties imposed on corporations that violate the DMCA by creating copy-protection schemes that render their products partly or completely unusable by any consumer.
No activity by a consumer should be restricted in any way by the new DMCA.
The xxAA guys should be left with the traditional tools for fighting violations of their copyright -- i.e., catch the guy who's making money by selling bootleg copies of the CD and haul him into court.
You know, like, to grasp the rounded, perky ... uhhhh ...
They say that nickle metal hydride AA batteries cannot be use as replacements for the AA batteries because "real" AA batteries are 1.5 volts each and the rechargable nickle metal hydride AAs are only 1.2 volts. The remote control must *really* want 6 volts to work right. Or at least, that's what they want you to believe.
Oooo...I bet they'd go quite nicely on the big conference table in the staff-meeting room though. Start out hidden behind the projector, and when the VP's back is turned, make a speed run for the other end!
Whether they're speaking in public because they're compelled by contract or because they get paid extra or because they actually believe what they're saying doesn't really seem important.
On the subject of my choice of how to acquire music, from among the various sources which are available, I would not take advice from Britney Spears nor from any other celebrity. She is not knowledgable of the issues at my level, nor the factors that influence my thinking, nor is she an expert on the consequences of this use of technology (it's so new that there *are* no experts), and she is definitely getting paid by people who do not have *my* interests at heart.
I would no more accept advice from her than I would listen to any other celebrity who simply lends their name to another's cause. I don't care *what* she believes about file sharing. I also don't care what she believes about choosing Intel vs AMD CPU chips. If she were featured in an Intel commercial, it would make *zero* difference to me.
Same for Eminem, Metallica and all other music and film celebrities. They're not experts, and they're paid by people with a strong profit motive (not unbiased).