The text of the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" _specifically_ states that it does NOT infringe on fair use. Which is interesting, since this obviously doesn't jive with the "encryption hacking is criminal activity" part of the act...
There's a lot of language in there about how the bill does NOT reduce fair-use rights, and the penalties section talks only about code-cracking for "commercial advantage or private financial gain"
It is a Conexa nt BT865 which is a "YCrCb to NTSC/PAL Digital/Video Encoder" (not that I know for sure what that means...) but I dunno if it has the "PCI push" feature or not... specs on the web page are sketchy.
This driver requires microcode from the Windows version of the drivers. (Just copy over a file called dvd1.ux) I guess that's a way to protect all those if-we-told-ya-we'd-have-ta-kill-ya hardware-level trade secrets?
Also, as I understand it, these were *not* developed *by* Creative, although Creative has given them their blessing. Hopefully the authors will pay us a visit and tell the story of how they came to be.:)
From the v4l mailing list, the code on creative's site is old. Until the authors get CVS write access, go here.
If you're interested, here's the first part of the readme:
Readme for DXR2 driver v0.9b
This is still a DEVELOPMENT driver, because parts of it are still not properly tested, and a few parts are missing (see "Todo"). The player program could do with some more user friendliness:)
The driver is being actively developed by adq@tardis.ed.ac.uk, and lucien@martincurrie.com
************************************************** ************************** Also, VGA overlay is not yet supported.... output is to a TV connected to the video output of the card. ************************************************** **************************
The current IOCTL interface is TEMPORARY and WILL change... probably to be compatable with the prototype DVD interface on linuxtv.org's web pages.
The current major device number (120) is TEMPORARY, and only for development purposes. It WILL change when the driver is finished.
It has been tested with kernels 2.2.5, 2.2.9, 2.2.12
Ok, sorry this is offtopic, but it excites as much as the Aureal stuff.:)
From the LiViD mailing list:
Hi, I'm one of the developers of the DXR2 driver. The version on Creative's site is an older version which doesn't work properly. They haven't yet given us upload access to their CVS server, so we cannot update it.
You can get the current version from http://www.geocities.com/dxr2linux This is temporary though, until we get CVS upload access.
(it doesn't matter which order the first 6 are in, but the dxr2 module MUST be loaded last)
3) Make the device file "mknod c/dev/dxr2 120 0"
4) Extract the DVD microcode from Creative's windows driver. You can get this by installing the windows version (say into "c:\Program Files\Creative\DXR2"), and copying the file "dvd1.ux" from the install directory. Currently, put this file in the driver's "test" directory.
5) Get a sample.VOB file (it is set up to play the sample "CREATIVE.VOB" from the driver CD), and put it in the driver's "test" directory.
6) Compile and run the test program in the test directory.
If all goes well, you should see the test video on the TV screen.. this will probably have a number of glitches, which are being investigated.
PcChips? I think those are the motherboards they sell at our local cheaper-than-dirt computer store, with the "VXPro" and "TXPro" chipsets. They're distributed under many different names.
I've never gotten Linux to run reliably on them (granted, these are older Socket-7 era motherboards). If you're looking for technical info, good luck. Their web site is slower than molasses, on a 56k modem or something... There's even a (tongue in cheek) PC Chips Lottery site, in which you can attempt to guess your motherboard model, and if you "win," you get a feeble amount of info on your board.
In short, if I were Corel, this is NOT the sort of relationship I'd be looking for.:)
findfast, office startup bar, little blue Real icon... all loading up 10s of megs of DLLs so that their app will load faster... all the while starving the other apps of memory while they sit there idle.
Well gee - how much does Arc/Info cost? Perhaps that's why Slashdot is "hyper" for an alternative?
I mean, that's sorta like all of a sudden BMWs are being given away, but "oh, well a Rolls Royce is so much nicer..."
GRASS does not have a chance? Against what? The issue is not competition, it's availablility. Of course it has a chance. Anyone who wants to use it, can, and it'll be around in perpetuity. That sounds like a pretty good "chance" to me.:)
Ok, but you have to take into account how many machines are running which OS. Macs rarely get cracked, but then there aren't many of them out there running webservers.
I tried to include some tables in here but I can't remember how to switch to a fixed-width font, so we'll skip it.:)
But if you try to normalize the "hacked" percentage based on the distribution of the OS in the webserver population (http://leb.net/hzo/ioscount/data/r.9904.www.txt), it's a bit more interesting. Assuming sites are hacked at random, (which is probably a very bad assumption) NT is hacked a bit more than Linux, Solaris even more than NT, and FreeBSD is in fact pretty low. If I did my math right.:)
Check out this altered page (used to be tuxedo.jpl.nasa.gov) - nice picture of Tux. Either it's a pun on the hostname (which would be much more creative than the 10 [cr|h]acks before it) or s/he's a Linux fan. Or both.:)
The DC265 camera has a PPC 823 running a 66Mhz. It's about like a Powermac6100/66 but without a big processor cache. So expect the older games to run well but the newer games to run a bit sluggish.
Hey, I did my part to keep Miguel out of the rain. I gave him a ride home from the airport once.:) I think he had only consumed about half of the world's coffee at that point.
There are several other devices running Palm OS, including a phone by Qualcomm, the WorkPad by IBM, and the Visor
I think those are pretty much the same devices - the WorkPad is just a relabeled Pilot, and the Phone is pretty much just a borg-like combination of the pilot and a phone... I think the Visor is the only device that is significantly different, hardware-wise.
That would work some of the time, but I'm guessing you'd get an error more often than not. Just because you're reading a file that contains "blah.txt" doesn't mean that "blah.txt" exists in your current directory.
On the other hand I suppose you could be more sophisticated and only make it hypertext if the file actually DOES exist in your directory...
Take the article, and replace every Microsoft-specific reference with a "_____"
For example:
October 1999--It's no big secret that _______ isn't an easy operating system to set up and configure (although it's miles ahead of _____, _______, and ______ ). In my years of working with _____, I've found some common mistakes that people make. These are errors that are usually made out of ignorance, caused by not reading directions (I'm guilty of this too).
But many times, mistakes are made just because it isn't quite clear just what the right thing to do is. This isn't a bad thing. It gives guys like me, who get paid to sort this stuff out, some job security. It should be better though, and, with _______ just around the corner, we'll begin to see some changes. Until then, read on to see my Top 10 list of dumb things that people do when using ______. See if you fit into the category of dumb, or, like me, dumber.
Now give it to one of your NT-loving buddies. Ask them if they can fill in the blanks.
Then send them to the full story. It's good for some laughs!:)
I get a kick out of reading Slashdot comments on the PCWeek thing, about how 21 security updates aren't that bad, you just wget the whole directory, then rpm -Fvh *.rpm and you're done. And how one big service pack from Microsoft is bloated and slow and inefficient....
Today, it seems, we've turned the tables. "30 packages? What a pain! Why don't they just give me one big package that I can click?"
Slashdot Mirror
The text of the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" _specifically_ states that it does NOT infringe on fair use. Which is interesting, since this obviously doesn't jive with the "encryption hacking is criminal activity" part of the act...
:/
One for the courts, I suppose.
Specifically, the part which makes code-cracking illegal?
There's a lot of language in there about how the bill does NOT reduce fair-use rights, and the penalties section talks only about code-cracking for "commercial advantage or private financial gain"
Has anyone seen good discussions an all of this?
If I go out and pay $15-$20 for a DVD, and use this so I can actually watch it on my system, that's "immoral?"
If I watch this disk under an operating system other than Windows - that's "immoral?"
If I demonstrate, with examples, to the public how an encryption scheme is weak - that's "immoral?"
You have some interesting ideas about morality. If you're worried about moral decline, I think there are better issues on which to focus.
It is a Conexa nt BT865 which is a "YCrCb to NTSC/PAL Digital/Video Encoder" (not that I know for sure what that means...) but I dunno if it has the "PCI push" feature or not... specs on the web page are sketchy.
A couple of other interesting points:
:)
This driver requires microcode from the Windows version of the drivers. (Just copy over a file called dvd1.ux) I guess that's a way to protect all those if-we-told-ya-we'd-have-ta-kill-ya hardware-level trade secrets?
Also, as I understand it, these were *not* developed *by* Creative, although Creative has given them their blessing. Hopefully the authors will pay us a visit and tell the story of how they came to be.
If you're interested, here's the first part of the readme:
I'm not the developer - I'm just the email-cut-n-paster. Take a look at the package, the developer emails are in there.
Ok, sorry this is offtopic, but it excites as much as the Aureal stuff. :)
From the LiViD mailing list:
Hi, I'm one of the developers of the DXR2 driver.
The version on Creative's site is an older version which doesn't work properly. They haven't yet given us upload access to their CVS server, so we cannot update it.
You can get the current version from http://www.geocities.com/dxr2linux
This is temporary though, until we get CVS upload access.
--
adq
From the DXR2 ReadMe:
/dev/dxr2 120 0"
.VOB file (it is set up to play the sample
Readme for DXR2 driver v0.9b
This is still a DEVELOPMENT driver, because parts of it are still not properly
tested, and a few parts are missing (see "Todo").
Also, VGA overlay is not yet supported.... output is to a TV connected to the
video output of the card.
The current IOCTL interface is TEMPORARY and WILL change... probably to be
compatable with the prototype DVD interface on linuxtv.org's web pages.
The current major device number (120) is TEMPORARY, and only for development pur
poses.
it WILL change when the driver is finished.
It has only been tested with kernel 2.2.8
To use:
1) compile each of the following modules
anp82, bt865, dxr2, pcm1723, tc6807af, vxp524, zivaDS
2) insert the modules into your kernel:
insmod anp82
insmod bt865
insmod pcm1723
insmod tc6807af
insmod vxp524
insmod zivaDS
insmod dxr2
(it doesn't matter which order the first 6 are in, but the dxr2 module
MUST be loaded last)
3) Make the device file "mknod c
4) Extract the DVD microcode from Creative's windows driver. You can get this
by installing the windows version (say into
"c:\Program Files\Creative\DXR2"), and copying the file "dvd1.ux" from the
install directory. Currently, put this file in the driver's "test" directory.
5) Get a sample
"CREATIVE.VOB" from the driver CD), and put it in the driver's "test"
directory.
6) Compile and run the test program in the test directory.
If all goes well, you should see the test video on the TV screen.. this will
probably have a number of glitches, which are being investigated.
I've never gotten Linux to run reliably on them (granted, these are older Socket-7 era motherboards). If you're looking for technical info, good luck. Their web site is slower than molasses, on a 56k modem or something... There's even a (tongue in cheek) PC Chips Lottery site, in which you can attempt to guess your motherboard model, and if you "win," you get a feeble amount of info on your board.
In short, if I were Corel, this is NOT the sort of relationship I'd be looking for. :)
findfast, office startup bar, little blue Real icon... all loading up 10s of megs of DLLs so that their app will load faster... all the while starving the other apps of memory while they sit there idle.
:)
Just my pet peeve.
Well gee - how much does Arc/Info cost? Perhaps that's why Slashdot is "hyper" for an alternative?
:)
I mean, that's sorta like all of a sudden BMWs are being given away, but "oh, well a Rolls Royce is so much nicer..."
GRASS does not have a chance? Against what? The issue is not competition, it's availablility. Of course it has a chance. Anyone who wants to use it, can, and it'll be around in perpetuity. That sounds like a pretty good "chance" to me.
My tiny lan at home is named after beer styles. The beefier the machine, the darker the beer.
SMP 450Mhz workstation is "Porter"
200Mhz gateway is "Lager"
133Mhz laptop is "Weizen"
486sx-25 laptop is... "Lite"
Maybe someday I can afford a "Stout" - or even "Barleywine!"
:)
Ok, but you have to take into account how many machines are running which OS. Macs rarely get cracked, but then there aren't many of them out there running webservers.
:)
, it's a bit more interesting. Assuming sites are hacked at random, (which is probably a very bad assumption) NT is hacked a bit more than Linux, Solaris even more than NT, and FreeBSD is in fact pretty low. If I did my math right. :)
I tried to include some tables in here but I can't remember how to switch to a fixed-width font, so we'll skip it.
But if you try to normalize the "hacked" percentage based on the distribution of the OS in the webserver population (http://leb.net/hzo/ioscount/data/r.9904.www.txt)
Check out this altered page (used to be tuxedo.jpl.nasa.gov) - nice picture of Tux. Either it's a pun on the hostname (which would be much more creative than the 10 [cr|h]acks before it) or s/he's a Linux fan. Or both. :)
Perhaps they should give PCWeek a call, to beef up their Windows security. :)
Seriously, though, too bad he didn't go after the PCWeek hack-contest box. The damn thing's still up!
The DC265 camera has a PPC 823 running a 66Mhz. It's about like a Powermac6100/66 but without a big processor cache. So expect the older games to run well but the newer games to run a bit sluggish.
Hey, I did my part to keep Miguel out of the rain. I gave him a ride home from the airport once. :) I think he had only consumed about half of the world's coffee at that point.
I think those are pretty much the same devices - the WorkPad is just a relabeled Pilot, and the Phone is pretty much just a borg-like combination of the pilot and a phone... I think the Visor is the only device that is significantly different, hardware-wise.
Or I could be wrong. :)
I commented below, but no one will ever read it down there, so... :-)
Did anyone notice the Macintosh GUI that reverted to a C:\ prompt when he shut it down? Sheesh.
And in it, they feature a Mac which, when shut down, reverts to a DOS prompt...?!
:)
Why do they always have to put together these obviously false screens for movies? Wouldn't Enlightenment be cool enough?
That would work some of the time, but I'm guessing you'd get an error more often than not. Just because you're reading a file that contains "blah.txt" doesn't mean that "blah.txt" exists in your current directory.
On the other hand I suppose you could be more sophisticated and only make it hypertext if the file actually DOES exist in your directory...
For example:
Now give it to one of your NT-loving buddies. Ask them if they can fill in the blanks.Then send them to the full story. It's good for some laughs! :)
I get a kick out of reading Slashdot comments on the PCWeek thing, about how 21 security updates aren't that bad, you just wget the whole directory, then rpm -Fvh *.rpm and you're done. And how one big service pack from Microsoft is bloated and slow and inefficient....
Today, it seems, we've turned the tables. "30 packages? What a pain! Why don't they just give me one big package that I can click?"
:)
smtp.innova.net is 208.211.173.3 Check it out on ORBS - it's already been abused by spammers.