Anyway, as a region of space gets denser, time slows down, and as the density approaches the density required to become black hole, time just freezes.
What you will see when looking at a "black hole" is just a region of space with the eventual event horizon of the hole just frozen in time, and as you move outside, time goes through the "molasses" stage, and as you get further away, gets normal.
Erm, no. See, the perception of time dilation is with respect to the frame of reference of the observer, not of the thing observed. You don't look from a region of low density space into a region of high density space and "see" that their time has slown down.
If you were outside the black hole observing, then you would see the black hole form instantaneously. Only from the perspective of the black hole's event horizon itself would time be stopped.
But it would still form -- the "stopping" is only in a relative sense to other frames of reference. The black hole would still form, the perception of the speed at which this occurs is all that varies, and it would be quite fast for anyone observing from "normal" space.
Geeze, you sure do have a cynical view of scientists. They love animals just as much as you do!
In the study, they only used animals with emotional problems who would cut themselves. They would watch the animals, and after the animal would cut themselves, they'd apply the protein gel. While they were studying the healing of the wound, another team of scientists who are conducting experimental depression therapy would treat the animals to stop them from cutting themselves any more. Both humans and animals benefit!
Also, I have it on good authority that rabbits actually enjoy having mascara smearing into their eyes, and were quite upset when they discovered certain humans were trying to stop the practice.
Nothing is more sickening then the nation getting duped into believing that there are exactly two sides to an issue and that "their" side always shares there opinion while the "enemy" is always wrong and blatantly evil.
This is why I never join any "club" whether a religious group or a political party or whatever that expects me to tow the line on every issue they're concerned with. Which is every political party (and most religious groups), so I'm not in one. I never agree with anyone 100%, and I'm unwilling to sacrifice my ability to dissent just to feel like part of a group.
Finally, I know it is almost pointless to bring it up, but I will anyways. The truth is that you have absolutely no idea if the Iraq war is being won or lost. If you looked at the Korean War or World War II and charted the body count, you would find that the closer to victory that the US got, the higher the body count for both sides. The most horrific and bloody battles of World War II were right before the end.
That's because a lot of the biggest and most decisive battles that involved the capture of key pieces of terrain were right before the end. This is obvious if you look at the strategic position near the end of the war, and without knowing anything about body counts one would still expect them to be higher. Anyone who looked at that strategic position would say that the war was going well for the Allies. This is not the case in Iraq.
Iraq is not a war like World War II. Word War II was a conventional war between nation-state militaries, Iraq is guerilla warfare conducted by disparate groups, some of whom work together and some of whom hate each other. Things like capturing key pieces of terrain mean nothing -- we're occupying the exact same space that we were in 2003. Increasing body count means only one thing: guerilla attacks are becoming more effective. That is not a good. If those lives came at some benefit, aquiring a key strategic location, or hobbling a key unit of the enemy forces, then you might be able to say it is a sign of good things to come. But it isn't. It's just soldiers being killed in their patrols, in their barracks, doing their day-to-day duty that will be the same tomorrow as it was today.
"Loss" and "victory" in such a situation are difficult to define. Again, this isn't WWII, where we roll into Berlin and the German government has basically no choice but to surrender. We already occupy Baghdad, and all that means is the guerillas know where to find our troops. When we kill an insurgent, we aren't just eliminating a combatant but inspiring others to sign up against us, often more than we killed. When we drop a bomb and kill innocents, the people we are supposedly there to protect, it is not the same as a bomb dropped on an enemy power's city. One makes a victim out of the population of your enemy. The other turns an alleged friend into an enemy. Productive, vs counterproductive, because it's a conventional war vs an unconventional war.
It is unclear that there is a military solution to an entrenched insurgency that doesn't involve genocide. Our current military strategy, which of course would not condone genocide, does not appear to be working.
I do know that anyone who claims to have a crystal ball and can see imminent victory or failure is a stupid fucking ideologue with the historical perspective of a gnat.
Well, okay, it's true that you can't say that failure or victory are imminent, but it is obvious that it isn't going well to anyone who isn't an idealogue. Arguing that we can't know that Iraq is going badly by making Iraq out to be an analog of WWII when it has basically nothing in common shows a lack of historical perspective, so just be aware before you fall into the same trap.
Seriously, there's a 4.2 on the USGS site, but they could have just faked it with a load of TNT, like that mysterious railway explosion they had years ago. Local quarry explosions frequently register as high as 2.0 on the richter scale. Enough Ammonium Nitrate and fuel oil down a well and you, too, could claim mastery of nuclear weapons, without any international monitors to say otherwise.
There's more too it than just the scale. A nuclear explosion is not just a large seismic event, but also has a particular seismic signature.
There was a large explosion at a rumored missile site just last year. Despite registering high enough on the Richter scale, it was ruled out as a nuclear event by several independent seismic stations.
I also believe that the neutron radiation generated by a real nuke is detectable over a great distance as well, and there are surely such stations near enough to NK to detect it.
In short, a nuclear test is neither something you can bluff nor something you can hide.
Having seen their lackluster performance, that's not setting the bar high.
The United States Salvation Army is more elite than the Iraqi Republican Guard.
You must be thinking of the regular Iraqi Army, which was less elite than the Salvation Army because their morale was lower.
The Republican Guard was serious. No, they couldn't stand up on the open field to our ground forces. That's why after we took out three divisions outside the capital, the two divisions guarding the city itself vanished and the Battle of Baghdad never occured. But two divisions of dedicated soldiers don't really "vanish" -- who do you think formed the foundation of the insurgency that took hold days after we declared victory? The Republican Guard isn't just fanatical, they're smart, and "fighting fair" when you know you'll lose isn't very smart.
Which brings me to the NK special forces, who are even more fanatical and even more smart. First, they're rarely if ever captured. Second, they actually use their suicide pills, so it's even more rare to have a survivor to interrogate. They will be extremely bad news if there's any kind of military action against NK.
Actually, my worst fear is that NK's special forces have already been hard at work planting nuclear devices at various cities around the world.
Actually, I did get his name right. If you are aware of a different romanization, which is possible, please go ahead and share it, but Google and the CIA factbook think you should check yourself before you wreck yourself.
It's not bad. I got the meaning pretty quickly, in part because of the homonym: The Wii is the weapon that Ubisoft will use to beat EA.
If/. headlines were often as well worded, rather than frequently misleading or blatantly wrong, then it would work better. If you can assume the author isn't an idiot and knows EA isn't making a console, and the author can assume that thus the reader won't assume the author is implying EA is making a console, it works just fine.
Agreed. Too many companies start thinking about risks and the future and decide to go with the short-term payoff. What this tells me is that Ubisoft really thinks they have a good chance, and that in the long term they will make more money being independent than taking a one-time payment and then being absorbed (and most likely gutted) by EA.
Personally I hope it works. Ubisoft made some of my favorite games of the last generation (specifically Prince of Persia and Beyond Good and Evil). I hope I say the same thing about the next generation.
That's like me saying "I'm the supreme ruler of the world, excluding all of the land mass not covered by my feet."
Hamad Karzai, is that you?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Re:Would some one please explain...
on
The Day Against DRM
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· Score: 2, Informative
It certainly does not mean having more fun with the copyrighted work than the owner wanted to allow you! If he says you can only play it on a certain device, that is his right. That is fully protected by copyright.
No, it isn't! The copyright owner does not in general have any say over how you use the work. That includes playing it on any player you want to. No, they don't get a say in that. Yes, you can have more fun with the copyrighted work than the owner wanted to allow you. That isn't "fair use", it's just use. Use is not covered by copyright.
You will notice that the line you quote says that "fair use is any copying of copyrighted material" and then goes on to list things that do in some way involve copying and making derivative works of a copyrighted act which would normally be prohibited. It doesn't list "having more fun with the copyright work than the owner wanted" because that has nothing to do with copyright and hence fair use. So you're right it isn't a good example of fair use, but it is also not a good example of something the copyright holder has the right to prohibit.
To be clear, there are three classes of "uses": 1) Those prohibited by copyright, such as distributing copies or making derivative works or public performances. 2) Those which are nominally prohibited by copyright, but exempted under "fair use" clauses. 3) Those which are not prohibited by copyright and thus do not need to be exempted by fair use.
The problem with DRM is that in the name of protecting 1, it prohibits both 2 and 3.
Of course the ones who are heavily invested in DRM see this as a feature. It allows them to enforce whatever crazy restrictions they want, like limiting the number of times you can listen to a song or charging you rent for songs where they can stop you from listening to the songs if you stop paying, but they are not given the right to create those restrictions based on copyright law. However because DRM enforces copyright law, and DRM also enforces these other restrictions, it creates the illusion in peoples' minds, like yours, that these are all covered by copyright law.
Well, they're not. Look it up. You will not find anything in copyright law empowering copyright owners to limit the number of times you listen to a legally acquired copy of their song. Copyright law only empowers the copyright owner to say who may or may not distribute the song. That's it.
By the way, it is legal for someone to distribute a copy of a work with certain stipulations like "you have to return this to the store by Thursday at 11pm", but that's a contract, and it has nothing to do with copyright law.
But being able to play content in different ways than the copyright owner wanted you to? No way is that fair use. He has every right to be able to charge you extra for that right, just as with other ways of enjoying his work.
Again, that is not fair use, but it is also not a violation of copyright. He does not have every right to charge me for the right to play the content in different ways, just as he does not have the right to prohibit other ways of enjoying his work. If Stephen King doesn't want me to use legally acquired copies of his books as toilet paper, guess what? Tough shit for him (and tough toilet paper for me, but that's not the point).
Being a youngster as I was, it was easy for me to be taken in by flashy covers that seemed to promise more than the game could ever practically deliver. Which is why I found myself liking the first-gen NES titles so much, since if the cover looked cool (despite being low res and blocky) then I could be assured that the game itself would look cool. Mario Bros and Kung Fu stood out as promising exactly what they delivered: a little plumber dude hopping around blocks and anthropomorphic mushrooms, and a kung fu guy kicking.
I wish they would have stayed with this, frankly. Would I have been as much or more likely to buy GTA if it had shown a blown-up shot of a car leaving bloody tire marks and a pile of dead hookers behind it? Yes, yes indeed.
"The level of degredation depends on the level of sophistication of your capture. Will the studios be happy with copies that are only 98% as good as the original floating around unrestricted?"
Only in analog form. There is no requirement that you present an unencrypted digital version of the content to the user. Analog content is already degraded.
The level of degredation depends on the level of sophistication of your capture. Will the studios be happy with
The Trusted Computing Architectural Overview defines a series of credentials which cryptographically certify things about a TPM or a computing platform. TPM-enabled software could be written that does not trust a TPM (and its key) until it sees a signed credential that the TPM is conformant and based in hardware.
According to one of the men responsible for defining that architecture, you can still get around this. Hint: if you are running the software which "does not trust" the TPM in a simulated computer, then you can control the point at which it decides whether or not it trusts the TPM and change "does not trust" to "does trust".
It is possible to create systems where no part of the system but some silicon in your display device ever sees unencrypted digital data. You have no effective rebuttal to this.
Sure I do: It is possible to simulate said system so that the software believes it is operating within such a system. You have no effective rebuttal to this.
I'm pretty sure he meant PS3. Not that this makes much sense, because the stripped PS3 is $150 more than the Wii not $50, but more sense than PS2 because if he's paying $300 for a PS2 he's an idiot.
So I'd say your point stands. Though it's still $150 more.:)
DRM'd content is not a secret "message," it's media.
As far as the principles of cryptography are concerned, it is. You apparently don't understand this.
If your argument boils down to "you can always hold a camcorder in front of your TV," you should say that up front, so that people can ignore you more readily. DRM is real, and people should not be misled into thinking that it's always going to be as toothless as it is now.
"Not as toothless" is not the same as "secure". A camcorder is just an example of the most basic, everyone-can-do-it method of duplicating the "message". With more sophistication you can duplicate the content quite reliably. The problem is that you have to present an unencrypted version of the content to the user. Let me repeat that: You have to present an unencrypted version of the content to the user.
On a more practical note, it is already possible to simulate the operation of a TPM chip. It is possible to install a "Trusted" operating system on a simulated computer with a simulated TPM chip. Once you do that, TC is broken. I discussed this possibility with a coworker of mine, who was largely responsible for defining the processor's interaction with the TPM chip. He admitted that this sort of attack is and always would be possible, but required enough effort that the media companies were not worried.
It has been and always will be about making the amount of effort required beyond what the casual pirate will be willing to do. It has never been about creating an impenetrable fortress that you cannot in theory get around beyond using brute-force methods. Because this is impossible, and the theory says so. Ignore me if you want, but it's true.
No, Bob is a piece of hardware. His key lives deep inside a silicon wafer.
Bob is not a piece of hardware. Bob is the recipient of the message, the one who is supposed to be able to view its unencrypted contents. For any case involving DRM -- music, video, software, documents -- the recipient, Bob, is the user.
Just like when the Germans sent an encrypted message using their Enigma engine, "Bob" was not the Enigma machine at the destination, but the human commander who read the de-encrypted message.
The TPM chip may be a hardware device which hides the key from Bob, but the problem -- as in "fundamentally breaks crypto theory" problem -- is that at the end of the day no matter what the TPM chip does it is going to be playing the music, showing the video, or displaying the document for Bob. Who is also Charlie.
Fundamental fact: It is impossible to simultaneously show somebody a message and then prevent them from showing that message to anyone else. DRM tries to get around this, and thus it will always fail.
Wrong. None of those changes had anything to do with DRM. They applied to the behavior of the software in general, regardless of whether files had DRM or not. These were intrinsic to the behavior and featureset of iTunes, and had nothing to do with, nor were they enabled by, DRM.
Yes, it is the iTunes software that has the behavior irrespective of whether the file has DRM.
However it is the DRM that prevents you from bypassing the iTunes software and its behavior by using some other software that does not have the same limitations.
Thus while the behavior is part of the software, it is the DRM that restricts you to using that particular software, and thus turns a behavior into a restriction. Thus any changes in iTunes behavior in the future is made into a future restriction by DRM and DRM alone.
I have a hard time believing you don't actually understand this.
So, we can only go on Apple's track record, which has so far been positive and has included negotiating aggressively with content owners for the least restrictive DRM possible.
Right, as I say in another post, they have found a very nice compromise. Who knows if this is temporary or not, and the whole point is that because of DRM -- and only because of DRM -- we are subsequent to any future changes thay make whether they are nice or not.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, Apple isn't utterly retarded like Microsoft, doing things like making "PlaysForSure" content NOT work on their own devices, and doing other ridiculous and confusing things with DRM. Apple's DRM is unobtrusive enough to most customers that most customers DON'T CARE, and will NEVER "get screwed" by it. Period.
I can't say I like Apple's DRM no matter how unobtrusive, but I do have to admire them for striking such a good compromise considering the major labels' current requirements for DRM before they'll play ball.
Apple on the one hand tells the studios that their music files are protected by DRM and can't be traded on P2P services like MP3s can. Apple then turns around and tells their customers that they can take their purchased songs and burn them to a normal CD, which removes the DRM.
Not sure how they got the record companies to go along -- maybe they didn't think it through all the way, or maybe they figure the extra steps of burning/ripping will deter the extremely casual -- but I'm glad they did.
This is yet another example of why DRM is nothing more than a snakeoil-based totally flawed concept. You CANNOT turn the concept of public key cryptography upside down like that.
Not just public key crypto, but crypto itself.
Cryptography is concerned with making it so that Alice can send a message to Bob, without Charlie being able to read it even if he intercepts the message en route.
DRM is concerned with the same thing, except Bob and Charlie are actually the same person.
In crypto, both the sender and intended recipient are assumed to be trusted (or more precisely does not try to deal with the case where they are not). In DRM, the intended recipient is assumed to be untrustworthy. DRM pretends to be an extension/application of crypto, but it fundamentally breaks the most basic assumptions of cryptography.
Selecting Jan 2001 as a comparison point is plain stupid. This is still during the whole dot.com bubble which was an insane anomoly and using this is as dumb as using hurricane Katrina as a reference point for wind speeds. For anyone that has forgotten, you could get an IT job during dot.com if you could just spell cumputer^Wcomputer. For a more realistic point of reference, choose a point before dot.com, say Jan 1999. Do that and you;ll probably notice some growth.
Um, no. I graduated with my Masters in 2001, and started my job hunt early that year. Foolishly, I might add, since by then the bubble had already burst, tech stocks across the board were down the toilet, and most of the companies I had considered myself a shoe-in for employement with were not hiring at all. The company I'm working for now is the only one in my area that wasn't in a hiring freeze. Things have recovered since then, most of those companies started hiring again, though there have still been multiple rounds of layoffs.
FYI, the dot.com bubble burst in late 2000. 1999 was pretty much the peak. It started picking up steam around 1996. If things now are worse for IT than they were in early 2001, then things are truly shitty.
Here's the problem though. GR and QM are both, relative to ST, extremely simple. And while ST may make the same predictions that GR and QM make, it does so in a far more complex way, without adding any extra information -- QM and GR are incompatible, but ST fails to resolve those incompatibilities in a testable way.
If ST provides the same results as GR and QM using the same framework, rather than two completely separate frameworks that cannot be referred to at the same time, then yes it has added extra information. Right now, we can't consider QM and GR in the same universe at the same time, yet clearly they do both exist in the same universe, and ST attempts to describe that universe.
Whether it has succeded in that goal yet is open to debate, but that is the goal of ST, and it is important for that reason.
It would be like if Newton's theories were just a re-wording of two other theories, one that dealt with objects at rest, and the another that dealt with objects in motion, neither of which being able to cross that boundary. Newton's theory works in both regimes, and in this hypothetical example would still be an excellent new theory.
By the way, the "Spiderman problem", webslinging, was solved long ago with the Quake (I) grappling hook. However it required skill and practice to "websling" through missions. Plus it was fast.
Bah, the Quake I grappling hook was crap on a stick. Thank god most of the mods that made use of the grappling hook had a version that didn't. CTF servers were mostly grappling-hook enabled, much the pity, but normal Team Fortress didn't have it. Mega TF did use it, but Mega TF was also a crapfest in a variety of other ways too, so I didn't play it. But still, for a volunteer effort from the mod community back when 'mod communities' were a nascent concept, it was an important development.
If you want a good implementation of web slinging, try playing Spiderman 2. Not the best game ever, because the story and missions were pretty stupid and its otherwise a GTA-style "sand box" with a relatively small amount of things you can do. However swinging around Manhatten is pure bliss and was worth the $20 I payed for it.
Anyway, I feel that even in the "good" version of the game that flying, web-slinging, super-speed, teleportation, and other powers will probably not be available to players. Or they'll have to be gimped severely, so I almost hope they don't.
But at least the "tanks" will be among the most heavy hitters. No "Hulk" standing there who punches for less damage than the scrappers Spiderman and Wolverine.
I assume that's a dig at CoH. It's too bad that MMORPG roles have been reduced to simply being tank/healing/dps. Hopefully Marvel Universe will break out of it.
So we have a "theory" that doesn't make any predictions, and cannot be tested. In that way it is very similar to "Intelligent Design" which also doesn't make any predictions, and cannot be tested. If ID isn't science, why is string theory?
No, that's not correct. String theory DOES make predictions -- the problem is that so far none of these predictions would differentiate it from current theory. It's predictions are compatible with predictions of other theories, which is why the author is calling it a mere mathimatical exercise, although the point of string theory is to allow us to use multiple currently incompatible theories that make their own predictions within the same framework.
Slashdot Mirror
No, but I wouldn't mind flinging a few SUVs into a black hole either.
Anyway, as a region of space gets denser, time slows down, and as the density approaches the density required to become black hole, time just freezes.
What you will see when looking at a "black hole" is just a region of space with the eventual event horizon of the hole just frozen in time, and as you move outside, time goes through the "molasses" stage, and as you get further away, gets normal.
Erm, no. See, the perception of time dilation is with respect to the frame of reference of the observer, not of the thing observed. You don't look from a region of low density space into a region of high density space and "see" that their time has slown down.
If you were outside the black hole observing, then you would see the black hole form instantaneously. Only from the perspective of the black hole's event horizon itself would time be stopped.
But it would still form -- the "stopping" is only in a relative sense to other frames of reference. The black hole would still form, the perception of the speed at which this occurs is all that varies, and it would be quite fast for anyone observing from "normal" space.
But this way we get to see a star get swallowed by a black hole. How cool would that be?
Geeze, you sure do have a cynical view of scientists. They love animals just as much as you do!
In the study, they only used animals with emotional problems who would cut themselves. They would watch the animals, and after the animal would cut themselves, they'd apply the protein gel. While they were studying the healing of the wound, another team of scientists who are conducting experimental depression therapy would treat the animals to stop them from cutting themselves any more. Both humans and animals benefit!
Also, I have it on good authority that rabbits actually enjoy having mascara smearing into their eyes, and were quite upset when they discovered certain humans were trying to stop the practice.
Nothing is more sickening then the nation getting duped into believing that there are exactly two sides to an issue and that "their" side always shares there opinion while the "enemy" is always wrong and blatantly evil.
This is why I never join any "club" whether a religious group or a political party or whatever that expects me to tow the line on every issue they're concerned with. Which is every political party (and most religious groups), so I'm not in one. I never agree with anyone 100%, and I'm unwilling to sacrifice my ability to dissent just to feel like part of a group.
Finally, I know it is almost pointless to bring it up, but I will anyways. The truth is that you have absolutely no idea if the Iraq war is being won or lost. If you looked at the Korean War or World War II and charted the body count, you would find that the closer to victory that the US got, the higher the body count for both sides. The most horrific and bloody battles of World War II were right before the end.
That's because a lot of the biggest and most decisive battles that involved the capture of key pieces of terrain were right before the end. This is obvious if you look at the strategic position near the end of the war, and without knowing anything about body counts one would still expect them to be higher. Anyone who looked at that strategic position would say that the war was going well for the Allies. This is not the case in Iraq.
Iraq is not a war like World War II. Word War II was a conventional war between nation-state militaries, Iraq is guerilla warfare conducted by disparate groups, some of whom work together and some of whom hate each other. Things like capturing key pieces of terrain mean nothing -- we're occupying the exact same space that we were in 2003. Increasing body count means only one thing: guerilla attacks are becoming more effective. That is not a good. If those lives came at some benefit, aquiring a key strategic location, or hobbling a key unit of the enemy forces, then you might be able to say it is a sign of good things to come. But it isn't. It's just soldiers being killed in their patrols, in their barracks, doing their day-to-day duty that will be the same tomorrow as it was today.
"Loss" and "victory" in such a situation are difficult to define. Again, this isn't WWII, where we roll into Berlin and the German government has basically no choice but to surrender. We already occupy Baghdad, and all that means is the guerillas know where to find our troops. When we kill an insurgent, we aren't just eliminating a combatant but inspiring others to sign up against us, often more than we killed. When we drop a bomb and kill innocents, the people we are supposedly there to protect, it is not the same as a bomb dropped on an enemy power's city. One makes a victim out of the population of your enemy. The other turns an alleged friend into an enemy. Productive, vs counterproductive, because it's a conventional war vs an unconventional war.
It is unclear that there is a military solution to an entrenched insurgency that doesn't involve genocide. Our current military strategy, which of course would not condone genocide, does not appear to be working.
I do know that anyone who claims to have a crystal ball and can see imminent victory or failure is a stupid fucking ideologue with the historical perspective of a gnat.
Well, okay, it's true that you can't say that failure or victory are imminent, but it is obvious that it isn't going well to anyone who isn't an idealogue. Arguing that we can't know that Iraq is going badly by making Iraq out to be an analog of WWII when it has basically nothing in common shows a lack of historical perspective, so just be aware before you fall into the same trap.
Seriously, there's a 4.2 on the USGS site, but they could have just faked it with a load of TNT, like that mysterious railway explosion they had years ago. Local quarry explosions frequently register as high as 2.0 on the richter scale. Enough Ammonium Nitrate and fuel oil down a well and you, too, could claim mastery of nuclear weapons, without any international monitors to say otherwise.
There's more too it than just the scale. A nuclear explosion is not just a large seismic event, but also has a particular seismic signature.
There was a large explosion at a rumored missile site just last year. Despite registering high enough on the Richter scale, it was ruled out as a nuclear event by several independent seismic stations.
I also believe that the neutron radiation generated by a real nuke is detectable over a great distance as well, and there are surely such stations near enough to NK to detect it.
In short, a nuclear test is neither something you can bluff nor something you can hide.
Having seen their lackluster performance, that's not setting the bar high.
The United States Salvation Army is more elite than the Iraqi Republican Guard.
You must be thinking of the regular Iraqi Army, which was less elite than the Salvation Army because their morale was lower.
The Republican Guard was serious. No, they couldn't stand up on the open field to our ground forces. That's why after we took out three divisions outside the capital, the two divisions guarding the city itself vanished and the Battle of Baghdad never occured. But two divisions of dedicated soldiers don't really "vanish" -- who do you think formed the foundation of the insurgency that took hold days after we declared victory? The Republican Guard isn't just fanatical, they're smart, and "fighting fair" when you know you'll lose isn't very smart.
Which brings me to the NK special forces, who are even more fanatical and even more smart. First, they're rarely if ever captured. Second, they actually use their suicide pills, so it's even more rare to have a survivor to interrogate. They will be extremely bad news if there's any kind of military action against NK.
Actually, my worst fear is that NK's special forces have already been hard at work planting nuclear devices at various cities around the world.
Actually, I did get his name right. If you are aware of a different romanization, which is possible, please go ahead and share it, but Google and the CIA factbook think you should check yourself before you wreck yourself.
:)
And that joke was choice.
It's not bad. I got the meaning pretty quickly, in part because of the homonym: The Wii is the weapon that Ubisoft will use to beat EA.
/. headlines were often as well worded, rather than frequently misleading or blatantly wrong, then it would work better. If you can assume the author isn't an idiot and knows EA isn't making a console, and the author can assume that thus the reader won't assume the author is implying EA is making a console, it works just fine.
If
That's a big if, I know.
Agreed. Too many companies start thinking about risks and the future and decide to go with the short-term payoff. What this tells me is that Ubisoft really thinks they have a good chance, and that in the long term they will make more money being independent than taking a one-time payment and then being absorbed (and most likely gutted) by EA.
Personally I hope it works. Ubisoft made some of my favorite games of the last generation (specifically Prince of Persia and Beyond Good and Evil). I hope I say the same thing about the next generation.
That's like me saying "I'm the supreme ruler of the world, excluding all of the land mass not covered by my feet."
Hamad Karzai, is that you?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
It certainly does not mean having more fun with the copyrighted work than the owner wanted to allow you! If he says you can only play it on a certain device, that is his right. That is fully protected by copyright.
No, it isn't! The copyright owner does not in general have any say over how you use the work. That includes playing it on any player you want to. No, they don't get a say in that. Yes, you can have more fun with the copyrighted work than the owner wanted to allow you. That isn't "fair use", it's just use. Use is not covered by copyright.
You will notice that the line you quote says that "fair use is any copying of copyrighted material" and then goes on to list things that do in some way involve copying and making derivative works of a copyrighted act which would normally be prohibited. It doesn't list "having more fun with the copyright work than the owner wanted" because that has nothing to do with copyright and hence fair use. So you're right it isn't a good example of fair use, but it is also not a good example of something the copyright holder has the right to prohibit.
To be clear, there are three classes of "uses":
1) Those prohibited by copyright, such as distributing copies or making derivative works or public performances.
2) Those which are nominally prohibited by copyright, but exempted under "fair use" clauses.
3) Those which are not prohibited by copyright and thus do not need to be exempted by fair use.
The problem with DRM is that in the name of protecting 1, it prohibits both 2 and 3.
Of course the ones who are heavily invested in DRM see this as a feature. It allows them to enforce whatever crazy restrictions they want, like limiting the number of times you can listen to a song or charging you rent for songs where they can stop you from listening to the songs if you stop paying, but they are not given the right to create those restrictions based on copyright law. However because DRM enforces copyright law, and DRM also enforces these other restrictions, it creates the illusion in peoples' minds, like yours, that these are all covered by copyright law.
Well, they're not. Look it up. You will not find anything in copyright law empowering copyright owners to limit the number of times you listen to a legally acquired copy of their song. Copyright law only empowers the copyright owner to say who may or may not distribute the song. That's it.
By the way, it is legal for someone to distribute a copy of a work with certain stipulations like "you have to return this to the store by Thursday at 11pm", but that's a contract, and it has nothing to do with copyright law.
But being able to play content in different ways than the copyright owner wanted you to? No way is that fair use. He has every right to be able to charge you extra for that right, just as with other ways of enjoying his work.
Again, that is not fair use, but it is also not a violation of copyright. He does not have every right to charge me for the right to play the content in different ways, just as he does not have the right to prohibit other ways of enjoying his work. If Stephen King doesn't want me to use legally acquired copies of his books as toilet paper, guess what? Tough shit for him (and tough toilet paper for me, but that's not the point).
Being a youngster as I was, it was easy for me to be taken in by flashy covers that seemed to promise more than the game could ever practically deliver. Which is why I found myself liking the first-gen NES titles so much, since if the cover looked cool (despite being low res and blocky) then I could be assured that the game itself would look cool. Mario Bros and Kung Fu stood out as promising exactly what they delivered: a little plumber dude hopping around blocks and anthropomorphic mushrooms, and a kung fu guy kicking.
I wish they would have stayed with this, frankly. Would I have been as much or more likely to buy GTA if it had shown a blown-up shot of a car leaving bloody tire marks and a pile of dead hookers behind it? Yes, yes indeed.
"The level of degredation depends on the level of sophistication of your capture. Will the studios be happy with copies that are only 98% as good as the original floating around unrestricted?"
Preview is my friend.
Only in analog form. There is no requirement that you present an unencrypted digital version of the content to the user. Analog content is already degraded.
The level of degredation depends on the level of sophistication of your capture. Will the studios be happy with
The Trusted Computing Architectural Overview defines a series of credentials which cryptographically certify things about a TPM or a computing platform. TPM-enabled software could be written that does not trust a TPM (and its key) until it sees a signed credential that the TPM is conformant and based in hardware.
According to one of the men responsible for defining that architecture, you can still get around this. Hint: if you are running the software which "does not trust" the TPM in a simulated computer, then you can control the point at which it decides whether or not it trusts the TPM and change "does not trust" to "does trust".
It is possible to create systems where no part of the system but some silicon in your display device ever sees unencrypted digital data. You have no effective rebuttal to this.
Sure I do: It is possible to simulate said system so that the software believes it is operating within such a system. You have no effective rebuttal to this.
I'm pretty sure he meant PS3. Not that this makes much sense, because the stripped PS3 is $150 more than the Wii not $50, but more sense than PS2 because if he's paying $300 for a PS2 he's an idiot.
:)
So I'd say your point stands. Though it's still $150 more.
DRM'd content is not a secret "message," it's media.
As far as the principles of cryptography are concerned, it is. You apparently don't understand this.
If your argument boils down to "you can always hold a camcorder in front of your TV," you should say that up front, so that people can ignore you more readily. DRM is real, and people should not be misled into thinking that it's always going to be as toothless as it is now.
"Not as toothless" is not the same as "secure". A camcorder is just an example of the most basic, everyone-can-do-it method of duplicating the "message". With more sophistication you can duplicate the content quite reliably. The problem is that you have to present an unencrypted version of the content to the user. Let me repeat that: You have to present an unencrypted version of the content to the user.
On a more practical note, it is already possible to simulate the operation of a TPM chip. It is possible to install a "Trusted" operating system on a simulated computer with a simulated TPM chip. Once you do that, TC is broken. I discussed this possibility with a coworker of mine, who was largely responsible for defining the processor's interaction with the TPM chip. He admitted that this sort of attack is and always would be possible, but required enough effort that the media companies were not worried.
It has been and always will be about making the amount of effort required beyond what the casual pirate will be willing to do. It has never been about creating an impenetrable fortress that you cannot in theory get around beyond using brute-force methods. Because this is impossible, and the theory says so. Ignore me if you want, but it's true.
No, Bob is a piece of hardware. His key lives deep inside a silicon wafer.
Bob is not a piece of hardware. Bob is the recipient of the message, the one who is supposed to be able to view its unencrypted contents. For any case involving DRM -- music, video, software, documents -- the recipient, Bob, is the user.
Just like when the Germans sent an encrypted message using their Enigma engine, "Bob" was not the Enigma machine at the destination, but the human commander who read the de-encrypted message.
The TPM chip may be a hardware device which hides the key from Bob, but the problem -- as in "fundamentally breaks crypto theory" problem -- is that at the end of the day no matter what the TPM chip does it is going to be playing the music, showing the video, or displaying the document for Bob. Who is also Charlie.
Fundamental fact: It is impossible to simultaneously show somebody a message and then prevent them from showing that message to anyone else. DRM tries to get around this, and thus it will always fail.
Wrong. None of those changes had anything to do with DRM. They applied to the behavior of the software in general, regardless of whether files had DRM or not. These were intrinsic to the behavior and featureset of iTunes, and had nothing to do with, nor were they enabled by, DRM.
Yes, it is the iTunes software that has the behavior irrespective of whether the file has DRM.
However it is the DRM that prevents you from bypassing the iTunes software and its behavior by using some other software that does not have the same limitations.
Thus while the behavior is part of the software, it is the DRM that restricts you to using that particular software, and thus turns a behavior into a restriction. Thus any changes in iTunes behavior in the future is made into a future restriction by DRM and DRM alone.
I have a hard time believing you don't actually understand this.
So, we can only go on Apple's track record, which has so far been positive and has included negotiating aggressively with content owners for the least restrictive DRM possible.
Right, as I say in another post, they have found a very nice compromise. Who knows if this is temporary or not, and the whole point is that because of DRM -- and only because of DRM -- we are subsequent to any future changes thay make whether they are nice or not.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, Apple isn't utterly retarded like Microsoft, doing things like making "PlaysForSure" content NOT work on their own devices, and doing other ridiculous and confusing things with DRM. Apple's DRM is unobtrusive enough to most customers that most customers DON'T CARE, and will NEVER "get screwed" by it. Period.
I can't say I like Apple's DRM no matter how unobtrusive, but I do have to admire them for striking such a good compromise considering the major labels' current requirements for DRM before they'll play ball.
Apple on the one hand tells the studios that their music files are protected by DRM and can't be traded on P2P services like MP3s can. Apple then turns around and tells their customers that they can take their purchased songs and burn them to a normal CD, which removes the DRM.
Not sure how they got the record companies to go along -- maybe they didn't think it through all the way, or maybe they figure the extra steps of burning/ripping will deter the extremely casual -- but I'm glad they did.
This is yet another example of why DRM is nothing more than a snakeoil-based totally flawed concept. You CANNOT turn the concept of public key cryptography upside down like that.
Not just public key crypto, but crypto itself.
Cryptography is concerned with making it so that Alice can send a message to Bob, without Charlie being able to read it even if he intercepts the message en route.
DRM is concerned with the same thing, except Bob and Charlie are actually the same person.
In crypto, both the sender and intended recipient are assumed to be trusted (or more precisely does not try to deal with the case where they are not). In DRM, the intended recipient is assumed to be untrustworthy. DRM pretends to be an extension/application of crypto, but it fundamentally breaks the most basic assumptions of cryptography.
Selecting Jan 2001 as a comparison point is plain stupid. This is still during the whole dot.com bubble which was an insane anomoly and using this is as dumb as using hurricane Katrina as a reference point for wind speeds.
For anyone that has forgotten, you could get an IT job during dot.com if you could just spell cumputer^Wcomputer. For a more realistic point of reference, choose a point before dot.com, say Jan 1999. Do that and you;ll probably notice some growth.
Um, no. I graduated with my Masters in 2001, and started my job hunt early that year. Foolishly, I might add, since by then the bubble had already burst, tech stocks across the board were down the toilet, and most of the companies I had considered myself a shoe-in for employement with were not hiring at all. The company I'm working for now is the only one in my area that wasn't in a hiring freeze. Things have recovered since then, most of those companies started hiring again, though there have still been multiple rounds of layoffs.
FYI, the dot.com bubble burst in late 2000. 1999 was pretty much the peak. It started picking up steam around 1996. If things now are worse for IT than they were in early 2001, then things are truly shitty.
Here's the problem though. GR and QM are both, relative to ST, extremely simple. And while ST may make the same predictions that GR and QM make, it does so in a far more complex way, without adding any extra information -- QM and GR are incompatible, but ST fails to resolve those incompatibilities in a testable way.
If ST provides the same results as GR and QM using the same framework, rather than two completely separate frameworks that cannot be referred to at the same time, then yes it has added extra information. Right now, we can't consider QM and GR in the same universe at the same time, yet clearly they do both exist in the same universe, and ST attempts to describe that universe.
Whether it has succeded in that goal yet is open to debate, but that is the goal of ST, and it is important for that reason.
It would be like if Newton's theories were just a re-wording of two other theories, one that dealt with objects at rest, and the another that dealt with objects in motion, neither of which being able to cross that boundary. Newton's theory works in both regimes, and in this hypothetical example would still be an excellent new theory.
By the way, the "Spiderman problem", webslinging, was solved long ago with the Quake (I) grappling hook. However it required skill and practice to "websling" through missions. Plus it was fast.
Bah, the Quake I grappling hook was crap on a stick. Thank god most of the mods that made use of the grappling hook had a version that didn't. CTF servers were mostly grappling-hook enabled, much the pity, but normal Team Fortress didn't have it. Mega TF did use it, but Mega TF was also a crapfest in a variety of other ways too, so I didn't play it. But still, for a volunteer effort from the mod community back when 'mod communities' were a nascent concept, it was an important development.
If you want a good implementation of web slinging, try playing Spiderman 2. Not the best game ever, because the story and missions were pretty stupid and its otherwise a GTA-style "sand box" with a relatively small amount of things you can do. However swinging around Manhatten is pure bliss and was worth the $20 I payed for it.
Anyway, I feel that even in the "good" version of the game that flying, web-slinging, super-speed, teleportation, and other powers will probably not be available to players. Or they'll have to be gimped severely, so I almost hope they don't.
But at least the "tanks" will be among the most heavy hitters. No "Hulk" standing there who punches for less damage than the scrappers Spiderman and Wolverine.
I assume that's a dig at CoH. It's too bad that MMORPG roles have been reduced to simply being tank/healing/dps. Hopefully Marvel Universe will break out of it.
So we have a "theory" that doesn't make any predictions, and cannot be tested. In that way it is very similar to "Intelligent Design" which also doesn't make any predictions, and cannot be tested. If ID isn't science, why is string theory?
No, that's not correct. String theory DOES make predictions -- the problem is that so far none of these predictions would differentiate it from current theory. It's predictions are compatible with predictions of other theories, which is why the author is calling it a mere mathimatical exercise, although the point of string theory is to allow us to use multiple currently incompatible theories that make their own predictions within the same framework.
ID makes no predictions period.