There's not really anything that CAN be done. We have no control over what our government does; our vote doesn't count (look at how Bush got elected). Our politicians don't listen to us. If they don't get away with something, they rebrand it and try again, or try and tack it into the back of another bill. What can you do? It is what it is, and if you don't adapt to the new situation and find a workaround, you're going to be totally screwed.
Here's my approach.
First of all, I'm careful about my apartment. I make sure that I don't have a webcam, or anything similar, and I take the time to look for bugs or cameras when I clean it (remember that couple who bought a house, and were videotaped having sex for *months* by their next door neighbor, who'd installed cameras in their ventilation ducts? There was a big TV news article about it). I've never found anything, but if I did I'd simply destroy it -- or rip it out, strip it for parts, and consider it a freebie. So, this is step 1: establishing a zone in your apartment or home where you KNOW you have privacy.
Next, assume that whenever you're outside of your apartment, you have NO privacy, and behave accordingly. In other words, work the situation -- use it to your benefit. Always act in a way that will make you look like a hell of a guy to anyone who views the tapes. Put on a public face. Use the coming surveillance to protect yourself; work it, treat it as an opportunity to disseminate your own, pro-you propaganda. It's there, you might as well get something out of it.
Next, whenever you're online, or talking on a cell phone, or doing anything that might be monitored, assume that you ARE being monitored and behave accordingly. That means, bust out with the pro-you propaganda again! Make yourself look great, you're a hell of a guy! All you have to do is watch your mouth and always, always work the situation.
Going to travel? Assume everyone will know where you went and what you did. Going to spend some money on your vacation? Use travellers checks so the cops can't confiscate your money under some pretext (this happens a lot in the South). Going to pay for something innocuous? Use Visa. Make a record of it. FLOOD them with boring data. Demonstrate how harmless you are, daily, forever. BE BORING.
Ok, so, now you're boring, right? You're completely, earthshakingly boring. No cop or government agent would even spend two minutes checking YOU over again, because Jesus, Christ, it's like watching paint dry. Guess what?
You're safe, because you're invisible. In looking like everyone else, in becoming completely innocuous, you have vanished. There is a lot of safety in cultural camoflage. Remember the Japanese saying, "the nail that sticks up gets pounded down" and DON'T BE THAT NAIL.
Now, the FUN part.
We're all slashdotters, right? So it's fair to presume that almost all of us are pretty serious geeks. We're NOT middle-of-the-road types, in fact, we're highly eccentric, weirdo types with strange hobbies. You don't have to give any of that up! You just have to be sensible about it. If you're going to buy, say, a piece of hardware that might raise someone's eyebrows, pay cash, say as little as possible, and play it cool. If you're going to be studying something strange, pay cash for the book and study at home (not in public). Make sure that when you buy the book, or thing, or whatever, you're dressed in the most innocuous way possible: slacks and a button down shirt, maybe a loose tie. Carry a briefcase, look like you're doing it as a lark on your way home from the office. Present a very happy, goofy personality. Be eminently forgettable.
You have to think of everything unusual you do as an underground thing, and try to keep it there. Avoid even the apperance of eccentricity, of strangeness. BE BLAND.
Oh, I believe that you're not pirating; I didn't mean my post to sound like an accusation. All I'm saying is that it makes piracy not only possible, but not even particularly difficult, which is a Bad Thing. I think that even if your motive is to help people back up their games, the end result is that at least some will pirate them and you will have no control over that. So in a way, by providing the tool, you're facilitating the activity, even though you're not trying to. See what I mean?
And, it's different from a manufacturer producing a CD-R drive, because the CD-R drive wasn't built for the purpose of ripping game copies. A CD-R drive is designed for backups and data -- its primary purpose is legitimate. In contrast, an XBox's primary purpose is gaming, with built-in copy protections for the games. When you MOD an XBox, you're removing its primary purpose and replacing it with your own (whatever that may be). It's not the same.
I don't think that "morality" is going to make much of an impression on XBox modders who feel like pirating a few games. Otherwise, people wouldn't have pirated games in the past, either -- and software has been pirated all the way back to the MITS Altair, ok? It's a big problem in the industry. People don't consider a game, or a piece of software, to be a real thing; they don't think they're doing anything wrong when they copy it and pass it around. So it's going to happen, and the XBox mods are going to facilitate it. Doesn't that bother you? I'd much rather see the XBox be successful, and have people buy the games legitimately. And, I don't like Microsoft either, but I have to admit they've built a nice console here. I'd like to see it succeed.
People say they just want to use the XBox as a PC. Maybe for some people (yourself included) that's true. But, I suspect that for most XBox modders, that whole "rip, mix, burn" thing is just too tasty to ignore. It's a bad idea, IMHO.
Ok, so you mentioned that with a cable from Lik Sang you can use the Joystick port as a USB port and use USB peripherals under Linux. That's not bad if you're going to use the XBox as a PC. BUT, you also said (in response to my question about it being able to play XBox games):
"Yep! And 100% off the hard drive also without the original disc (a big bonus if you have kids that think DVDs are indestructible)..."
So you're saying that running Linux on an XBox lets you dump the games to the hard drive and run them without their DVD? See, that ruins it for me. What's going to stop people from pirating the hell out of games this way? Once they're on the hard drive, and runnable under Linux, they can be archived and passed around. That just isn't right.
This sort of thing could easily ruin the console by wrecking the market for games. I'd really hate to see that happen.
I think I can see now what people want a modded XBox for. I don't want any part of it.
I know it's considered bad form to reply to my own message, but I feel I have the right to address my unfairly being called a "troll" by the moderators.
First of all, this is not a troll. A troll is placed in order to start a pointless argument. I posted an honest appraisal of my opinion about this matter, therefore, my post is not a troll. Moderators can CALL it a troll because they're going to automatically attack anyone who even remotely appears to side with Microsoft -- this is standard Slashdot operating procedure. However, THIS POST WAS NOT A TROLL.
Second of all, I think I've been extremely reasonable. I listened to two reasonable posts from people who DIDN'T call me a troll, and I considered their points in a most reasonable way. In return, I posted a simple question in reply: Basically, if people are modding the XBox just so they can have a cheap PC, and not in an attempt to "stick it to Microsoft", or do some other strange nefarious thing (like cheating on XBox Live games, for instance), how does the XBox perform essential PC-type activities like interacting with peripherals and A/V gear? If the XBox is really a good, cheap PC substitute, how does it perform in this role? I didn't get any responses (at least, not yet) so I'm assuming that the XBox DOESN'T perform well in this role at all.
I think it's fair to assume that the XBox is NOT a suitable PC substitute, so I think that based on this assumption we can assume that the people modding the XBox are doing so for some other reason. Reasons that come to MY mind are:
* Sticking it to Microsoft; * Creating a setup for building bootlegs of XBox games, or perhaps altering XBox games or reverse-engineering them; * Being able to go onto XBox Live and cheat, which is much more difficult with a non-modded XBox, and which is almost certainly why modded XBoxes are not permitted anymore on XBox Live; * just for the irony, and to see if it'll work (i.e. just a hobbyist thing).
Again, as I said, if you want a cheap Linux box, you can always go to Ebay and pick up a cheapo older laptop or something. It'll work better than an XBox, it'll work with more peripherals, and it'll be able to accept a normal install. There's no real reason to screw up a perfectly good XBox by modding it. Unless someone can demonstrate that a modded XBox can do everything a cheap older computer can do, this is going to stay my opinion.
You can call me names, you can call me a troll, but it doesn't make it true. You can be as pissed off at me as you want, because I'm not *agreeing* with you, but it doesn't make me a troll. And, as long as I have breath, I'm going to call 'em as I see 'em.
That's a pretty strong point I guess. Although, you can get an older laptop on Ebay for like, a hundred bucks, which was MY point. Or, if you're a weirdo like me, you can hunt around for an old SPARC server or something similar in the same price range. Sometimes, Solaris is included, depends on the auction. If you only consider *new* gear, you limit yourself to a more expensive range of equipment than you would if you were willing to look at used and off-lease stuff. But, still -- Ok, I get your point.
Having said that, how well do peripherals hook up to an XBox? I've never tried to hook anything up to it, so I'm not sure off the top of my head whether it even offers USB, but since you seem to have tried modding an XBox, how well does it accept peripherals? And, once you modded it, did it still play XBox games? I know you wouldn't be able to use XBox Live with a modded box; Microsoft started shutting them out of the service a while back. But, what about normal games? How well do they work?
Honest questions. I'm finding this topic kind of interesting. And, honest -- I'm not trolling. I'm genuinely interested.
Well, that's kind of interesting; So you're saying you'd basically rework the XBox into a small, quiet PC, and save money on the cheapest PC currently available *new*, i.e. a new XBox is cheaper than the cheapest new PC available. But you can buy older PCs used for much less than an XBox. I guess my real problem with it is, how would you connect peripherals? How would you hook it up to the TV and stereo, as you mentioned? Honest question -- and I wasn't trying to troll, I honestly didn't get the attraction. But if you *can* hook up peripherals and A/V gear, I might be able to see the point...
I know people have said you can still play XBox games with a modded box, and that you can hook up peripherals to it, etc, but how well does that really work in your opinion? I've never tried it, and I'm loath to damage my existing XBox, so I have no way of knowing personally. I'm not sure I trust the thing to continue working properly after modifications...
An A/C said, "sounds like a prize bunch of wankers to me"
Thanks... It's true. I have a sense of humor about it, though -- aside from their annoying habit of making fun of my unix efforts, they're okay generally; I mean, they're not evil or anything. Really, I kind of feel sorry for them. What's funny is, they don't understand that they're the ones who are limiting themselves. It's like they're on foot, and making fun of the people zipping past in cars, you know? Air conditioned cars. In August. With CD players.;)
A tiny percentage of X-Box users don't want to play games, they want to convert the X-Box to a Linux box. Even though the X-Box isn't designed for this and you have to really bust your hump to get it working. Even when you could just buy an old laptop on Ebay for a hundred bucks, and use a plain-vanilla installer with no chip-modding at all. No, they want to run Linux on the X-Box.
So, ok, this tiny percentage of X-Box users, who aren't making Microsoft any money at all because everyone knows the profits are made on GAMES, not CONSOLES, want Microsoft to give them a digitally-signed bootloader for their favorite Linux distro so they don't have to go to all the trouble and mod the box, etc.
So, moving right along, the same tiny percentage of X-Box users has found some exploit which will allow people to do what they're asking Microsoft to help them do, only without the digitally signed loader, so for some reason the X-Box users think it isn't as neato a solution as Microsoft lending them a hand with their hobby.
So, instead of asking nicely, which wouldn't have gotten them anywhere anyway, they decided to send Microsoft an ultimatum and start a Big Pissing Match(tm). Which will probably result in their getting in all kinds of trouble and much yelling and shaking of lawyerly fists.
What's the point, here? Is it just the challenge? Is spite against Microsoft worth shelling out over 200 bucks for a console, just so they lose some game sales and you get the personal satisfaction of knowing that Bill Gates Would Not Approve? Is sticking it to "the man" so important that you'll spend all your time digging around in a poor little game console (instead of creating a new open-source application and making a name for yourselves)?
Come ON, guys, this is lame. Who the hell cares if the X-Box runs Linux? It's got some really fun games on it, isn't that enough?
Think about it...
Re:Similar story at CNN Europe
on
Gates and Security
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· Score: 2, Informative
Also, here in New York, the state government tracks all sorts of personal movement. If you use a subway card, your movements are recorded; if you use EasyPass, your movements into and out of NYC, and around the state via toll roads, are recorded on a large Digital Unix server. I had a conversation once with one of the engineers who built the system. He said that whenever you passed through a toll on a New York State Highway, your front license plate, your rear license plate, your VIN plate on your dashboard, and your face are all recorded. The two license plates are compared, and then, they are compared to the VIN number to see if they match up. If they don't, the system has the capacity to react to that, although I don't know if they've enabled that part. The original motivation for this was the World Trade Center bombing, and the Oklahoma City bombing, way back when. They wanted to track vehicle traffic in and out of NYC.
During WWII, the Germans controlled traffic via checkpoints every few miles. You had to show papers to proceed. It was a large part of totalitarian control -- control of personal movement is control of liberty.
It doesn't sound like using Linux or FreeBSD even occurred to him. I think plenty of people have a giant blind spot when it comes to Free Software. At work, several other developers make fun of me for running Linux and FreeBSD at home (they're really, really pro-Microsoft). They're Visual Basic-only guys; I'm a long-time Unix fan, who can do Perl, Java, C/C++, *and* Visual Basic. But they consider ME to be silly and foolish! I'm turning into a running gag with them. Whenever I'm about to make a suggestion, one of them says, "Let me guess... FreeBSD?" Then they laugh. Sigh...
You can't help them; they'll NEVER listen to you. I gave up a long time ago; I just let them make fun of me. It isn't worth arguing about.
The thing about Orwell is, he was following a premise to a logical end in an effort to show the possible results of the premise (premise being, that a government decides to totally control every aspect of their citizens lives, even going so far as to try and control their thoughts through a redefinition of their language). People often forget that 1984 was written in 1948, on the heels of WWII, in which several governments had embarked on exactly this process -- totalitarianism -- and had demonstrated a great deal of power in molding their citizen's lives.
Bill Gates, and many other similar people (defined in my view as "people with a vested interest in creating systems with which the government can increase its control over us") like to point out that "Orwell's predictions didn't come true". They do this because if they say it often enough, people may believe it (which ironically is one of the mind-control techniques in 1984).
It's propaganda, and untrue, because after all, a number of governments in the past have used the techniques Orwell discussed, and today, even the US government uses them. Consider how it likes to redefine language; for example, calling hackers terrorists, thus redefining terrorist in a vague way while retaining the original negative overtones and successfully painting hackers as equivalent to people who blow up buses... Or "unlawful combatants" instead of "POWS", to permit them to flagrantly violate Geneva conventions while simultaneously complaining about the treatment of US troops. But, it doesn't stop there: what about framing things as bad, sinful or "unamerican" in a purely political ploy to bully someone into stopping some activity? What about the government's continuous attempts at creating a surveillance society? England currently has video cameras on almost every public street in London. If you travel there, you are *always* under surveillance. It hasn't caught on in the US yet, but it's just a matter of time before it does.
The problem with people contending that Orwell's "predictions" haven't come true is that the TRUTH is, they haven't come true YET. And, there are signs that the process by which they MAY come true has already begun. If we permit people like Bill Gates to persuade us that we are "safe", and not at risk, we may become complacent, and before we know it, we'll end up starring in our very own version of 1984. The only thing that has prevented it so far has been the risk of massive public outcry and voter rejection.
You don't have to wear a "tin foil hat" to understand where this situation could lead. You only have to consider it and form your own opinions about the matter, rejecting the propaganda being thrown around.
A Bayesian filter that reads personal ads, compares them to ads posted by women who are KNOWN to have been "easy" (on a sliding scale, configurable, ranging from "mildly slutty" to "dangerously psychotic nymphomaniac"), and returns a list of likely phone numbers.
Hell, I'd pay MONEY for a piece of software THAT good (Hmm, clickety-click, select "nymphomanic", enter search site... Ah! This one has an oral fixation! Thank you, Mr. Bayes!).
One of "Murphy's Laws of Combat" says, "Never forget that your weapon was manufactured by the lowest bidder". The gist of it is, basically, that you should keep in mind that the gear you're issued is crap, and you shouldn't assume it's going to work when you need it to.
Looks like nowadays, you still get crap, but you don't get to pick low bids. Lovely. Makes me really, really glad I'm already a veteran and too old to draft or drag back in.
Well... Ok, you win on those two points. Just about all java is automatically "open source" in that reading the source code for anything is trivial. And, yeah, you do end up doing all kinds of set-up for individual O/S'es, because you don't want to just hand your users a jar file.
Two slightly mitigating factors, though:
1. If you're into OSS, you don't care if people read your code; you've probably supplied it as part of your install media.
2. Although you've had to create an installer of some kind for your naiive users, the software itself hasn't changed, so it IS still write once, run anywhere (after setup, that is). If your users are more advanced, you might be able to just hand them a jar file after all. It depends. So this might not be so bad.
Still. Good points. I wish I could stick with C++, myself, but my grad school leans pretty heavily towards Java in all their software engineering courses, so I'm more or less stuck.
All that aside, though, you have to admit: Java is kind of interesting as languages go. And, I think a lot of these problems are going to fade as the GNU folks make more progress in their "classpath" project and GCJ.
Ah... I understand. But you know, that isn't a hit against Java per se, it's more against a programmer who fails to create a proper install setup. You can't blame a language for a programmer who doesn't want to go all the way. What if a VB programmer didn't want to use Visual Studio Installer, and instead just handed his users a diskette with an executable and ten system dlls that had to be installed, and just said to them, "Here ya go, you're all set." That would be just as bad. This is kind of a language-neutral thing.
As far as Java and JAR files go, JAR files are cool; you can bundle everything you need up in one. It's just that you still have to give the user some kind of setup script!;)
Well... I think it might be worth it coming up with some kind of small program that checks for the JRE that is installed, and allows the user to choose whether he/she wants to upgrade, or just keep using the one he/she's got. 'Course, this would basically be a compiled binary in another language, which runs a command-line shell and queries the JRE, but you'd only have to build it once.
Hey, guys, guys, come on -- be cool. You're allowed to redistribute a JRE, you can put that as part of your install, and let the user choose whether to use it or use his own (he might already have it). You don't have to tell someone to go to a website...
Well, I know where you're coming from. I used to do Java, and it can be annoying at times. Plus, it is kind of on the slow side, even with the new compiler producing cached native code (it only produces native code when that code gets called, so the first time any function is called it's still slow -- why, oh why did they do THAT? They should have compiled and cached the whole enchilada right away). So, yeah, I can see why you'd ask "why Java?". It's a good question.
I think a lot of people like Java because it has a very rich API; they gave us just about everything we could possibly want, right in the language itself. Plus, Sun did a great job setting up a class reference, which makes it easy to code in Java without having memorized the whole language. You can look up what you need as you go. A variety of things that are much harder in other languages are no big deal in Java, which is kind of cool. And, it has a nice, C-style syntax.
Java does have problems: it's slow, different systems will implement the JRE differently (sometimes not so well), the GUI development environments are still a little rough around the edges...
But, there IS hope, though. Java gets better every year. And, GNU is working on their "classpath" project, which is going to give you a native-code implementation of most of the Java class libraries, usable with a number of OSS JRE-type environments. It ought to run quite a bit faster than the Sun JRE, and because it's Free Software, there won't be any license restrictions (except for the requirements of the GPL of course). Also, since "classpath" is being merged, sort of, with GCJ, you'll have a source-to-binary Java compiler for Linux, FreeBSD, and other OSS O/S'es soon. They're going to be able to handle most of Java's functionality, and it's a nice cleanroom implementation, so it'll be cool to have around.
I think it'll be worth it to know Java, because sooner or later, it'll be the language it could be. It's just a matter of having faith in the people who are working on it, and giving them time to work out all the problems. Eventually, I think it's inevitable that Java will be as good a language as C++.
I dunno; it's freaky, isn't it? Maybe it's because he's always out of breath after about twenty seconds, so he never gets to the stage where he'd actually burn fat (they say it takes at least 20 minutes to a half hour to burn up all your blood sugar when you exercise)...
My, you're in a whimsical mood today. I know you're trolling, but I don't mind; it's so skillful! I have to appreciate the pure elegance of it. So, I'll play along, just out of respect for your mad skills.
There's not much to say here, but I'll say this: it's not that I care what happens to the Monkeyboy. It's just that I'm morbidly fascinated by it. The spectacle, the weirdness of it all... It's just so freaky!
Anyway, trolling aside, I'd like to point something out: how much money he has is immaterial. I'm happy, I've got plenty of money for my needs, and as a result I feel that I'm far richer than he could ever be. Besides, I'm a great lay, and that's something money just can't buy.;)
P.S. Bite your tongue! Longhorn! Are you MAD? Go FreeBSD!
He's got another kinda funny troll elsewhere in this discussion somewhere... He must be in a whimsical mood today. They're pretty good trolls. He almost sounds serious.
Looks like a riddle... So, going by your criteria...
What's patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not proud, not rude, not self-seeking or easily angered, not prone to record-keeping of wrongs, leans to truth instead of evil, protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres?
Ha ha ha! Too funny... You forgot "Open source is a VIRUS that will infect all your IP!!!" (You have to imitate the Monkeyboy when you say it, though -- get your face really red, get really sweaty, with the sweaty patches under your arms and the glistening face and bald spot, and run back and forth swinging your arms).;)
I keep wondering about that guy; if he keeps up all that running and arm waving, he's going to have a heart attack! He's not exactly a spring chicken... Isn't he worried? Maybe he's pulling a Loman and going for a life insurance payout for his family...
I've looked over the article, and I don't see why this is such a terrible thing. So the FBI is going to have to create some kind of commercial or something telling people not to illegally download movies and music. And, our law enforcement agencies will cooperate more thoroughly in tracking down people who post movies and music to the web. In other words, activities that are *already illegal* will be more likely to be punished, and an effort will be made to convince people not to break *existing laws*. So what? I'd think this would be a GOOD thing.
I think that many of the people here on Slashdot are going to respond to you with screeds about how terrible this act is, but really, it isn't. It just tries to improve our existing law-enforcement structure a little when it comes to copyright violations. For the life of me, I can't understand why Slashdotters get so up in arms over stuff like this. People shouldn't be pirating music and software *anyway*. It's not like there aren't any FREE alternatives.
Anyway, this is just my opinion. I don't see anything wrong with reasonable, government-agency based enforcement of the existing legal structure. So, please take the numerous, knee-jerk, "information wants to be free" responses you're about to get with a grain of salt, ok? Maintain that reasonable point of view, dude. Because I don't think we as a nation (at least) want to go too far in one direction or the other -- we don't want to lean too far into either camp. It's a compromise position that's called for. And, that means we're going to have to at least enforce SOME of the laws...
Anyway, that's just my.02... BTW: I liked your post a lot.
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There's not really anything that CAN be done. We have no control over what our government does; our vote doesn't count (look at how Bush got elected). Our politicians don't listen to us. If they don't get away with something, they rebrand it and try again, or try and tack it into the back of another bill. What can you do? It is what it is, and if you don't adapt to the new situation and find a workaround, you're going to be totally screwed.
:)
Here's my approach.
First of all, I'm careful about my apartment. I make sure that I don't have a webcam, or anything similar, and I take the time to look for bugs or cameras when I clean it (remember that couple who bought a house, and were videotaped having sex for *months* by their next door neighbor, who'd installed cameras in their ventilation ducts? There was a big TV news article about it). I've never found anything, but if I did I'd simply destroy it -- or rip it out, strip it for parts, and consider it a freebie. So, this is step 1: establishing a zone in your apartment or home where you KNOW you have privacy.
Next, assume that whenever you're outside of your apartment, you have NO privacy, and behave accordingly. In other words, work the situation -- use it to your benefit. Always act in a way that will make you look like a hell of a guy to anyone who views the tapes. Put on a public face. Use the coming surveillance to protect yourself; work it, treat it as an opportunity to disseminate your own, pro-you propaganda. It's there, you might as well get something out of it.
Next, whenever you're online, or talking on a cell phone, or doing anything that might be monitored, assume that you ARE being monitored and behave accordingly. That means, bust out with the pro-you propaganda again! Make yourself look great, you're a hell of a guy! All you have to do is watch your mouth and always, always work the situation.
Going to travel? Assume everyone will know where you went and what you did. Going to spend some money on your vacation? Use travellers checks so the cops can't confiscate your money under some pretext (this happens a lot in the South). Going to pay for something innocuous? Use Visa. Make a record of it. FLOOD them with boring data. Demonstrate how harmless you are, daily, forever. BE BORING.
Ok, so, now you're boring, right? You're completely, earthshakingly boring. No cop or government agent would even spend two minutes checking YOU over again, because Jesus, Christ, it's like watching paint dry. Guess what?
You're safe, because you're invisible. In looking like everyone else, in becoming completely innocuous, you have vanished. There is a lot of safety in cultural camoflage. Remember the Japanese saying, "the nail that sticks up gets pounded down" and DON'T BE THAT NAIL.
Now, the FUN part.
We're all slashdotters, right? So it's fair to presume that almost all of us are pretty serious geeks. We're NOT middle-of-the-road types, in fact, we're highly eccentric, weirdo types with strange hobbies. You don't have to give any of that up! You just have to be sensible about it. If you're going to buy, say, a piece of hardware that might raise someone's eyebrows, pay cash, say as little as possible, and play it cool. If you're going to be studying something strange, pay cash for the book and study at home (not in public). Make sure that when you buy the book, or thing, or whatever, you're dressed in the most innocuous way possible: slacks and a button down shirt, maybe a loose tie. Carry a briefcase, look like you're doing it as a lark on your way home from the office. Present a very happy, goofy personality. Be eminently forgettable.
You have to think of everything unusual you do as an underground thing, and try to keep it there. Avoid even the apperance of eccentricity, of strangeness. BE BLAND.
And, THAT is how you handle this situation.
Just be smart about it.
Oh, I believe that you're not pirating; I didn't mean my post to sound like an accusation. All I'm saying is that it makes piracy not only possible, but not even particularly difficult, which is a Bad Thing. I think that even if your motive is to help people back up their games, the end result is that at least some will pirate them and you will have no control over that. So in a way, by providing the tool, you're facilitating the activity, even though you're not trying to. See what I mean?
And, it's different from a manufacturer producing a CD-R drive, because the CD-R drive wasn't built for the purpose of ripping game copies. A CD-R drive is designed for backups and data -- its primary purpose is legitimate. In contrast, an XBox's primary purpose is gaming, with built-in copy protections for the games. When you MOD an XBox, you're removing its primary purpose and replacing it with your own (whatever that may be). It's not the same.
I don't think that "morality" is going to make much of an impression on XBox modders who feel like pirating a few games. Otherwise, people wouldn't have pirated games in the past, either -- and software has been pirated all the way back to the MITS Altair, ok? It's a big problem in the industry. People don't consider a game, or a piece of software, to be a real thing; they don't think they're doing anything wrong when they copy it and pass it around. So it's going to happen, and the XBox mods are going to facilitate it. Doesn't that bother you? I'd much rather see the XBox be successful, and have people buy the games legitimately. And, I don't like Microsoft either, but I have to admit they've built a nice console here. I'd like to see it succeed.
People say they just want to use the XBox as a PC. Maybe for some people (yourself included) that's true. But, I suspect that for most XBox modders, that whole "rip, mix, burn" thing is just too tasty to ignore. It's a bad idea, IMHO.
Ok, so you mentioned that with a cable from Lik Sang you can use the Joystick port as a USB port and use USB peripherals under Linux. That's not bad if you're going to use the XBox as a PC. BUT, you also said (in response to my question about it being able to play XBox games):
"Yep! And 100% off the hard drive also without the original disc (a big bonus if you have kids that think DVDs are indestructible)..."
So you're saying that running Linux on an XBox lets you dump the games to the hard drive and run them without their DVD? See, that ruins it for me. What's going to stop people from pirating the hell out of games this way? Once they're on the hard drive, and runnable under Linux, they can be archived and passed around. That just isn't right.
This sort of thing could easily ruin the console by wrecking the market for games. I'd really hate to see that happen.
I think I can see now what people want a modded XBox for. I don't want any part of it.
I know it's considered bad form to reply to my own message, but I feel I have the right to address my unfairly being called a "troll" by the moderators.
First of all, this is not a troll. A troll is placed in order to start a pointless argument. I posted an honest appraisal of my opinion about this matter, therefore, my post is not a troll. Moderators can CALL it a troll because they're going to automatically attack anyone who even remotely appears to side with Microsoft -- this is standard Slashdot operating procedure. However, THIS POST WAS NOT A TROLL.
Second of all, I think I've been extremely reasonable. I listened to two reasonable posts from people who DIDN'T call me a troll, and I considered their points in a most reasonable way. In return, I posted a simple question in reply: Basically, if people are modding the XBox just so they can have a cheap PC, and not in an attempt to "stick it to Microsoft", or do some other strange nefarious thing (like cheating on XBox Live games, for instance), how does the XBox perform essential PC-type activities like interacting with peripherals and A/V gear? If the XBox is really a good, cheap PC substitute, how does it perform in this role? I didn't get any responses (at least, not yet) so I'm assuming that the XBox DOESN'T perform well in this role at all.
I think it's fair to assume that the XBox is NOT a suitable PC substitute, so I think that based on this assumption we can assume that the people modding the XBox are doing so for some other reason. Reasons that come to MY mind are:
* Sticking it to Microsoft;
* Creating a setup for building bootlegs of XBox games, or perhaps altering XBox games or reverse-engineering them;
* Being able to go onto XBox Live and cheat, which is much more difficult with a non-modded XBox, and which is almost certainly why modded XBoxes are not permitted anymore on XBox Live;
* just for the irony, and to see if it'll work (i.e. just a hobbyist thing).
Again, as I said, if you want a cheap Linux box, you can always go to Ebay and pick up a cheapo older laptop or something. It'll work better than an XBox, it'll work with more peripherals, and it'll be able to accept a normal install. There's no real reason to screw up a perfectly good XBox by modding it. Unless someone can demonstrate that a modded XBox can do everything a cheap older computer can do, this is going to stay my opinion.
You can call me names, you can call me a troll, but it doesn't make it true. You can be as pissed off at me as you want, because I'm not *agreeing* with you, but it doesn't make me a troll. And, as long as I have breath, I'm going to call 'em as I see 'em.
Ah. Ahem. Well, then.
That's a pretty strong point I guess. Although, you can get an older laptop on Ebay for like, a hundred bucks, which was MY point. Or, if you're a weirdo like me, you can hunt around for an old SPARC server or something similar in the same price range. Sometimes, Solaris is included, depends on the auction. If you only consider *new* gear, you limit yourself to a more expensive range of equipment than you would if you were willing to look at used and off-lease stuff. But, still -- Ok, I get your point.
Having said that, how well do peripherals hook up to an XBox? I've never tried to hook anything up to it, so I'm not sure off the top of my head whether it even offers USB, but since you seem to have tried modding an XBox, how well does it accept peripherals? And, once you modded it, did it still play XBox games? I know you wouldn't be able to use XBox Live with a modded box; Microsoft started shutting them out of the service a while back. But, what about normal games? How well do they work?
Honest questions. I'm finding this topic kind of interesting. And, honest -- I'm not trolling. I'm genuinely interested.
Well, that's kind of interesting; So you're saying you'd basically rework the XBox into a small, quiet PC, and save money on the cheapest PC currently available *new*, i.e. a new XBox is cheaper than the cheapest new PC available. But you can buy older PCs used for much less than an XBox. I guess my real problem with it is, how would you connect peripherals? How would you hook it up to the TV and stereo, as you mentioned? Honest question -- and I wasn't trying to troll, I honestly didn't get the attraction. But if you *can* hook up peripherals and A/V gear, I might be able to see the point...
;)
I know people have said you can still play XBox games with a modded box, and that you can hook up peripherals to it, etc, but how well does that really work in your opinion? I've never tried it, and I'm loath to damage my existing XBox, so I have no way of knowing personally. I'm not sure I trust the thing to continue working properly after modifications...
Seriously -- I'm asking. Not trolling.
An A/C said, "sounds like a prize bunch of wankers to me"
;)
Thanks... It's true. I have a sense of humor about it, though -- aside from their annoying habit of making fun of my unix efforts, they're okay generally; I mean, they're not evil or anything. Really, I kind of feel sorry for them. What's funny is, they don't understand that they're the ones who are limiting themselves. It's like they're on foot, and making fun of the people zipping past in cars, you know? Air conditioned cars. In August. With CD players.
Let me see if I get this right:
A tiny percentage of X-Box users don't want to play games, they want to convert the X-Box to a Linux box. Even though the X-Box isn't designed for this and you have to really bust your hump to get it working. Even when you could just buy an old laptop on Ebay for a hundred bucks, and use a plain-vanilla installer with no chip-modding at all. No, they want to run Linux on the X-Box.
So, ok, this tiny percentage of X-Box users, who aren't making Microsoft any money at all because everyone knows the profits are made on GAMES, not CONSOLES, want Microsoft to give them a digitally-signed bootloader for their favorite Linux distro so they don't have to go to all the trouble and mod the box, etc.
So, moving right along, the same tiny percentage of X-Box users has found some exploit which will allow people to do what they're asking Microsoft to help them do, only without the digitally signed loader, so for some reason the X-Box users think it isn't as neato a solution as Microsoft lending them a hand with their hobby.
So, instead of asking nicely, which wouldn't have gotten them anywhere anyway, they decided to send Microsoft an ultimatum and start a Big Pissing Match(tm). Which will probably result in their getting in all kinds of trouble and much yelling and shaking of lawyerly fists.
What's the point, here? Is it just the challenge? Is spite against Microsoft worth shelling out over 200 bucks for a console, just so they lose some game sales and you get the personal satisfaction of knowing that Bill Gates Would Not Approve? Is sticking it to "the man" so important that you'll spend all your time digging around in a poor little game console (instead of creating a new open-source application and making a name for yourselves)?
Come ON, guys, this is lame. Who the hell cares if the X-Box runs Linux? It's got some really fun games on it, isn't that enough?
Think about it...
Also, here in New York, the state government tracks all sorts of personal movement. If you use a subway card, your movements are recorded; if you use EasyPass, your movements into and out of NYC, and around the state via toll roads, are recorded on a large Digital Unix server. I had a conversation once with one of the engineers who built the system. He said that whenever you passed through a toll on a New York State Highway, your front license plate, your rear license plate, your VIN plate on your dashboard, and your face are all recorded. The two license plates are compared, and then, they are compared to the VIN number to see if they match up. If they don't, the system has the capacity to react to that, although I don't know if they've enabled that part. The original motivation for this was the World Trade Center bombing, and the Oklahoma City bombing, way back when. They wanted to track vehicle traffic in and out of NYC.
During WWII, the Germans controlled traffic via checkpoints every few miles. You had to show papers to proceed. It was a large part of totalitarian control -- control of personal movement is control of liberty.
Interesting, isn't it?
It doesn't sound like using Linux or FreeBSD even occurred to him. I think plenty of people have a giant blind spot when it comes to Free Software. At work, several other developers make fun of me for running Linux and FreeBSD at home (they're really, really pro-Microsoft). They're Visual Basic-only guys; I'm a long-time Unix fan, who can do Perl, Java, C/C++, *and* Visual Basic. But they consider ME to be silly and foolish! I'm turning into a running gag with them. Whenever I'm about to make a suggestion, one of them says, "Let me guess... FreeBSD?" Then they laugh. Sigh...
You can't help them; they'll NEVER listen to you. I gave up a long time ago; I just let them make fun of me. It isn't worth arguing about.
The thing about Orwell is, he was following a premise to a logical end in an effort to show the possible results of the premise (premise being, that a government decides to totally control every aspect of their citizens lives, even going so far as to try and control their thoughts through a redefinition of their language). People often forget that 1984 was written in 1948, on the heels of WWII, in which several governments had embarked on exactly this process -- totalitarianism -- and had demonstrated a great deal of power in molding their citizen's lives.
Bill Gates, and many other similar people (defined in my view as "people with a vested interest in creating systems with which the government can increase its control over us") like to point out that "Orwell's predictions didn't come true". They do this because if they say it often enough, people may believe it (which ironically is one of the mind-control techniques in 1984).
It's propaganda, and untrue, because after all, a number of governments in the past have used the techniques Orwell discussed, and today, even the US government uses them. Consider how it likes to redefine language; for example, calling hackers terrorists, thus redefining terrorist in a vague way while retaining the original negative overtones and successfully painting hackers as equivalent to people who blow up buses... Or "unlawful combatants" instead of "POWS", to permit them to flagrantly violate Geneva conventions while simultaneously complaining about the treatment of US troops. But, it doesn't stop there: what about framing things as bad, sinful or "unamerican" in a purely political ploy to bully someone into stopping some activity? What about the government's continuous attempts at creating a surveillance society? England currently has video cameras on almost every public street in London. If you travel there, you are *always* under surveillance. It hasn't caught on in the US yet, but it's just a matter of time before it does.
The problem with people contending that Orwell's "predictions" haven't come true is that the TRUTH is, they haven't come true YET. And, there are signs that the process by which they MAY come true has already begun. If we permit people like Bill Gates to persuade us that we are "safe", and not at risk, we may become complacent, and before we know it, we'll end up starring in our very own version of 1984. The only thing that has prevented it so far has been the risk of massive public outcry and voter rejection.
You don't have to wear a "tin foil hat" to understand where this situation could lead. You only have to consider it and form your own opinions about the matter, rejecting the propaganda being thrown around.
A Bayesian filter that reads personal ads, compares them to ads posted by women who are KNOWN to have been "easy" (on a sliding scale, configurable, ranging from "mildly slutty" to "dangerously psychotic nymphomaniac"), and returns a list of likely phone numbers.
Hell, I'd pay MONEY for a piece of software THAT good (Hmm, clickety-click, select "nymphomanic", enter search site... Ah! This one has an oral fixation! Thank you, Mr. Bayes!).
One of "Murphy's Laws of Combat" says, "Never forget that your weapon was manufactured by the lowest bidder". The gist of it is, basically, that you should keep in mind that the gear you're issued is crap, and you shouldn't assume it's going to work when you need it to.
Looks like nowadays, you still get crap, but you don't get to pick low bids. Lovely. Makes me really, really glad I'm already a veteran and too old to draft or drag back in.
Well... Ok, you win on those two points. Just about all java is automatically "open source" in that reading the source code for anything is trivial. And, yeah, you do end up doing all kinds of set-up for individual O/S'es, because you don't want to just hand your users a jar file.
Two slightly mitigating factors, though:
1. If you're into OSS, you don't care if people read your code; you've probably supplied it as part of your install media.
2. Although you've had to create an installer of some kind for your naiive users, the software itself hasn't changed, so it IS still write once, run anywhere (after setup, that is). If your users are more advanced, you might be able to just hand them a jar file after all. It depends. So this might not be so bad.
Still. Good points. I wish I could stick with C++, myself, but my grad school leans pretty heavily towards Java in all their software engineering courses, so I'm more or less stuck.
All that aside, though, you have to admit: Java is kind of interesting as languages go. And, I think a lot of these problems are going to fade as the GNU folks make more progress in their "classpath" project and GCJ.
Ah... I understand. But you know, that isn't a hit against Java per se, it's more against a programmer who fails to create a proper install setup. You can't blame a language for a programmer who doesn't want to go all the way. What if a VB programmer didn't want to use Visual Studio Installer, and instead just handed his users a diskette with an executable and ten system dlls that had to be installed, and just said to them, "Here ya go, you're all set." That would be just as bad. This is kind of a language-neutral thing.
;)
As far as Java and JAR files go, JAR files are cool; you can bundle everything you need up in one. It's just that you still have to give the user some kind of setup script!
An A/C said, "Looks like a riddle...
;)
It's from the Bible. Oh ye of little culture..."
CULTURE? Feh. Culture is what happens when I forget to throw out old chinese food. Usually it's blue, sometimes green.
Well... I think it might be worth it coming up with some kind of small program that checks for the JRE that is installed, and allows the user to choose whether he/she wants to upgrade, or just keep using the one he/she's got. 'Course, this would basically be a compiled binary in another language, which runs a command-line shell and queries the JRE, but you'd only have to build it once.
Hey, guys, guys, come on -- be cool. You're allowed to redistribute a JRE, you can put that as part of your install, and let the user choose whether to use it or use his own (he might already have it). You don't have to tell someone to go to a website...
Well, I know where you're coming from. I used to do Java, and it can be annoying at times. Plus, it is kind of on the slow side, even with the new compiler producing cached native code (it only produces native code when that code gets called, so the first time any function is called it's still slow -- why, oh why did they do THAT? They should have compiled and cached the whole enchilada right away). So, yeah, I can see why you'd ask "why Java?". It's a good question.
I think a lot of people like Java because it has a very rich API; they gave us just about everything we could possibly want, right in the language itself. Plus, Sun did a great job setting up a class reference, which makes it easy to code in Java without having memorized the whole language. You can look up what you need as you go. A variety of things that are much harder in other languages are no big deal in Java, which is kind of cool. And, it has a nice, C-style syntax.
Java does have problems: it's slow, different systems will implement the JRE differently (sometimes not so well), the GUI development environments are still a little rough around the edges...
But, there IS hope, though. Java gets better every year. And, GNU is working on their "classpath" project, which is going to give you a native-code implementation of most of the Java class libraries, usable with a number of OSS JRE-type environments. It ought to run quite a bit faster than the Sun JRE, and because it's Free Software, there won't be any license restrictions (except for the requirements of the GPL of course). Also, since "classpath" is being merged, sort of, with GCJ, you'll have a source-to-binary Java compiler for Linux, FreeBSD, and other OSS O/S'es soon. They're going to be able to handle most of Java's functionality, and it's a nice cleanroom implementation, so it'll be cool to have around.
I think it'll be worth it to know Java, because sooner or later, it'll be the language it could be. It's just a matter of having faith in the people who are working on it, and giving them time to work out all the problems. Eventually, I think it's inevitable that Java will be as good a language as C++.
I dunno; it's freaky, isn't it? Maybe it's because he's always out of breath after about twenty seconds, so he never gets to the stage where he'd actually burn fat (they say it takes at least 20 minutes to a half hour to burn up all your blood sugar when you exercise)...
My, you're in a whimsical mood today. I know you're trolling, but I don't mind; it's so skillful! I have to appreciate the pure elegance of it. So, I'll play along, just out of respect for your mad skills.
;)
There's not much to say here, but I'll say this: it's not that I care what happens to the Monkeyboy. It's just that I'm morbidly fascinated by it. The spectacle, the weirdness of it all... It's just so freaky!
Anyway, trolling aside, I'd like to point something out: how much money he has is immaterial. I'm happy, I've got plenty of money for my needs, and as a result I feel that I'm far richer than he could ever be. Besides, I'm a great lay, and that's something money just can't buy.
P.S. Bite your tongue! Longhorn! Are you MAD? Go FreeBSD!
He's got another kinda funny troll elsewhere in this discussion somewhere... He must be in a whimsical mood today. They're pretty good trolls. He almost sounds serious.
Looks like a riddle... So, going by your criteria...
What's patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not proud, not rude, not self-seeking or easily angered, not prone to record-keeping of wrongs, leans to truth instead of evil, protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres?
I know! It's a HOOKER!
Ha ha ha! Too funny... You forgot "Open source is a VIRUS that will infect all your IP!!!" (You have to imitate the Monkeyboy when you say it, though -- get your face really red, get really sweaty, with the sweaty patches under your arms and the glistening face and bald spot, and run back and forth swinging your arms). ;)
I keep wondering about that guy; if he keeps up all that running and arm waving, he's going to have a heart attack! He's not exactly a spring chicken... Isn't he worried? Maybe he's pulling a Loman and going for a life insurance payout for his family...
I've looked over the article, and I don't see why this is such a terrible thing. So the FBI is going to have to create some kind of commercial or something telling people not to illegally download movies and music. And, our law enforcement agencies will cooperate more thoroughly in tracking down people who post movies and music to the web. In other words, activities that are *already illegal* will be more likely to be punished, and an effort will be made to convince people not to break *existing laws*. So what? I'd think this would be a GOOD thing.
.02... BTW: I liked your post a lot.
I think that many of the people here on Slashdot are going to respond to you with screeds about how terrible this act is, but really, it isn't. It just tries to improve our existing law-enforcement structure a little when it comes to copyright violations. For the life of me, I can't understand why Slashdotters get so up in arms over stuff like this. People shouldn't be pirating music and software *anyway*. It's not like there aren't any FREE alternatives.
Anyway, this is just my opinion. I don't see anything wrong with reasonable, government-agency based enforcement of the existing legal structure. So, please take the numerous, knee-jerk, "information wants to be free" responses you're about to get with a grain of salt, ok? Maintain that reasonable point of view, dude. Because I don't think we as a nation (at least) want to go too far in one direction or the other -- we don't want to lean too far into either camp. It's a compromise position that's called for. And, that means we're going to have to at least enforce SOME of the laws...
Anyway, that's just my
Phil