Ah, got it. He meant all the little bits of protocol data that got sent along in addition to the 11,000,000 bits of payload data getting sent across the stream. Thanks.
"Before we get to the numbers, I'd like to point out that even with the above fancy command, there was still a small amount of system overhead in actually getting the packets sent. As the exact amount is difficult to calculate but non-trivial, I decided to weigh the figures like this:
At 1 Mbps, it should take 11.00 seconds to transmit my 11 Mbit file, in the best possible case. On average (each test was sampled five times and averaged), it took 14.91 seconds to complete.
So, we have 3.91 seconds of unaccounted-for overhead (or 35 percent of the total transmission time.) For purposes of argument, we'll assume that the 1 Mbit speed is optimal, and deduct 35 percent from all transmission speeds (chalking it up to system overhead.) And so we are grading on a curve.
I may be crazy here, but why does the amount of non-transmission overhead vary indirectly with the speed of transmission? He mentions early in the article that there is a small amount of overhead in generating the bytes he's sending and timing the process, etc. because of CPU time and accessing the hard disk. Why then does he scale the overhead percentage-wise with each of his tests? That overhead time shouldn't disappear just because you're using a faster connection, it should stay exactly the same - the rest of the time should vary with the transmission speed. If you redo his calculations without scaling the overhead, the results look a lot more logical for the bandwidths he's using (bandwith and transfer time vary more correctly with each other, that is).
"To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it."
When did we become Klingons? I'd like to think that life in America is peaceful enough that I don't need Mortal Combat 4 to train my kid to be violent enough to survive. Did Indiana somehow get zapped into being the evil, alternate Hill Valley from Back to the Future 2? I'm all for freedom of expression, and letting people do business without excessive regulation, but to hear a community leader defend violence in video games as a necessary part of the instruction of our youth makes me want move to Pennsylvania and become Amish.
Dude, halfway down your post you go so wildly off-topic I don't think you remembered what your original point was.
This post is not about "we're going to make it illegal for you to see this" censorship, it's about "we're going to tag these naughty games so kids can't buy them on their own" censorship. The former is highly questionable, while the latter is a pragmatic solution to the problem of allowing adults the freedom to play whatever games they want, while protecting kids from seeing things that will warp their little minds.
Go back and read that message again, and see if you realize what I'm talking about with the off-topic and the ranting and so forth.
It troubles me that the state of Linux is such that the porting of a few ten-year-old DOS games to everyone's favorite OS is a newsworthy event. How about someone other than Carmack porting/making his new game run on Linux? As much as I loved the Sierra Quest games, The fact that this is such a big deal depresses me.
Isn't there an upper limit to how much information the brain is ready to handle from the optic nerve? I know in my own experience (and those of my friends), when our vision has been over-corrected to 20/15 or even 20/10, headaches are the usual result, because the brain isn't used to dealing with what it's getting. Is this completely unrelated, or is it something the developers have thought about?
"But really. We are an average planet around an average star. The hubris required to think that we are along in the universe is almost unmeasurable."
That's an assumption based on our own solar system and the stars we can see. We've yet to find planets in a system that resembles our own (in fact scientists are rethinking the standard solar system model because of it).
So yes, assuming we're the only ones out here is jumping to conclusions, but so is assuming the universe falls neatly into the Heliocentric solar system model, don't you think?
Why is it that when scientists are scoping out the universe for life, they're always looking for the things that make our form of life possible? Just because we've observed the forms of life around as being carbon-based doesn't mean that's the only option, does it?
I'm reminded of back when scientists were sure that all life on this planet was based in some way on the photosynthesis cycle. Plants use the sun to make their energy, animals eat the plants for energy, decay puts materials back into the soil for plants to use as raw materials, and they engergize the whole system once again. They had this set in their minds as the paradigm of life, and then one day someone found organisms at the bottom of the sea living off the energy of a vent in the sea floor (chemosynthesis). Blew their minds.
Anybody else a litle nervous about us searching space looking for our own form of life? Remeber in Stranger in a Strange Land when the scientists decided there couldn't be any life on Mars because there wasn't any oxygen? Let's learn from our Sci-fi, guys!:)
"There are two sides to careerists, of course. If you give them enough trouble for censoring, then they will discover the freedom of speech. All you have to do is write enough letters, go to enough school board meetings, or even sue, and things change."
This is, of course, exactly my point. School administrators are inundated with letters, phone calls, lawsuits, angry parents, from both sides every time any issue is brought up. It is therefore no small wonder that they go to extreme lengths to try and maintain a conflict free environment. They work for you just as much as they work for people who disagree with you on issues you are apparently so opinionated about. Thus they're usually stuck between two screaming parents, unable to side with one for fear of the other, trying endlessly to come up with a way to make everybody happy.
You apparently think that this little girl and her father should be allowed to do/say what ever they like at school, regardless of the desires of the other parents, whereas an administrator doesn't have that luxury. You're ignoring the pratical application of the principles your espousing. You're expecting schoolteachers to live up to your absolutes, just as people who disagree with you will, and logically they're not going to live up to the impossible dreams of both of you.
"I want school officials who are willing stand up to the politically correct whiners. I don't expect the people running a school with my tax money to put up a crucifix because someone complained. If your job is running a school, that includes standing up to a certain about of adult idiocy as well as student idiocy.
So I want those officials out. If they wanted a life without lawsuits and with no conflict and argument, they can get another job. "
We don't pay those people enough to deal with shit like this! The typical school superindent has enough problems trying to teach 80 kids with 40 books without worrying about whether this kid has a proper platform to make a political statement at her science fair.
If you went to the DMV and asked for a vanity plate that says "GODSUX", or "FUCK ME", you'd get turned down. Is that violating your right to free speech? No, because giving you a place to express yourself isn't their job. It's to tag your damn car. If you decided you wanted to make a statement by hanging out naked in the lobbies of large business buildings, you'd get arrested. Because the businesses aren't violating your right to expression.
It's the same thing here. You can't expect a school to allow something like this to stir up all kinds of crap, because they're the ones who have to clean it all up. You're just going to go in, make a huge mess, and slink out the back. It's not their job to give you a place to express yourself, and they're not infringing on your rights just because they don't.
Yeah, obviously it's the school district's fault. They're clearly trying to shut down anything remotely race-related and censor it. What evil bastards, right?
Wrong. All they're trying to do is keep themselves from being sued. If they let the little girl keep her science project up, some idiot would have seen it, decided it was racist, or sexist, or Barbie-ist and rallied more idiots to share the news. There would have been meetings, discussions, committees, and probably lawsuits. Angry, overblown speeches would have been made about the evils of racism and how it Must Be Kept Out of Our Schools at All Costs. By-laws would have been issued to make sure kids went to racial awareness classes the week before the Science Fair. Memos would be issued, and teachers admonished. In general, an orgy of useless discord.
So yeah, the school employees are obviously bastards for removing the little girl (who was probably acting on orders from her dad to stir up useless trouble). Clearly their fault.
"The problem isn't the individuals who get one of our CD's, copy it on a CD-burner and give it to a friend," he said. "The problem is the professionals, who are organized and do it in a huge way and have factories."
Ecuse me as I buy a foam bat and head for Germany. This guy desperately needs to be beaten about the head and shoulders with something. "The problem is the professionals"? Then why are you punishing everybody? Why are you levying unfair taxes on people for using everyday items when you know any criminal smart enough to set up a massive pirating operation is going to be smart enough to get around paying them?
All you're doing is bleeding everyday people for what a select group of criminals is doing to you! How the fuck is that fair? What the fuck is wrong with German people?!
"And while I'm sure no one is going to admit it, I do believe that there is scripting going on for some of the games and the confrontations between players."
I must disagree with this. There was no scripting of the outcome of the games. I'll give you two facts as proof:
1) Vegas is taking bets on the XFL. They are prohibited by law from taking bets on events with predetermined outcomes, and are very cautious about what they allow bets on. McMahon knows Vegas gives him credibility and wouldn't risk it by scripting the outcome at all.
2) The worst game of the four presented last weekend was the one that was the showcase game of the week (Vegas vs. NY/NJ). It was a 19-0 shutout, whereas the rest of the games were close (decided by three points or less). If you're going to script it to make it more exciting, why have the most thrust-forward game be dull?
"Most of these people are no-names, so how did the broadcasters know which people to focus on in the opening bits?"
As for this, I can only say that there was a month of practice for them to get to know the mouthy players, and those players heavily interviewed were also very talkative during the introductions. It only makes sense to interview them first, before going on to the quiet ones.
Of course they have to be secret. Patents are ways to protect the idea you just came up with that no one knows about yet. If you tell everybody before you patent it, you've lost your new idea.
My current plan for the next for years is to finish my CS degree, move to Japan and work in some IT capacity while learning the culture and language, then move back to the states and settle down, commanding a nice salary with my 'puter skills and bilingual ability.
I always assumed I'd just find an American company with offices in Japan and go to work for them. I figured they'd put me through an immersion language course to refresh my three semesters of Japanese and off I'd go. Lately, though, I've begun to worry if this is even possible. I never did any research to find out if this sort of thing goes on, I just assumed it did.
Has anyone else done this/is anyone else doing it now? If so, who did you work for? I'd really like to know if my grand plan needs changing, or if not how best to go about getting a job over there, and where to live.
I saw a video of this once, where the plane went up into space, flipped over and shot downwards at a nasty terrorist guy.
Fortunately some guys got onboard the plane, replaced some of the ROMs and had the laser fire at a big ball of popcorn in one of the scientist's house, thereby notifying a Senator, and thus the free world. Whew!
"Guess what (usually) happens when an NT user finally "goes over" to Linux?"
He gets confused, whines, and then goes back to Windows. Microsoft caters to customers, not geeks, and that's where their strength lies. I haven't had a problem installing Windows in years; I still can't get Linux to work with my hardware because I don't know enoug to tweak it. My own fault? Probably, but it won't stop me from using Windows to save myself the trouble of learning to tweak my OS.
Don't dismiss anything MS does as an instant "bad idea". If MS decides to change their licensing scheme to include this protection against privacy, it's not some seat-of-the-pants decision. It's because they've studied the situation and how to act upon it and feel they can effectively make more money this way.
For all your talk about "eBay losing you as a customer", what are you going to do about it? Yahoo auctions? Amazon.com? I hope you like the items you're trying to sell getting viewed by all of three people.
For all the anti-monopoly sentiment that gets thrown around on/., you don't see much getting directed at eBay, even though they complete dominate their market, and can pull stuff like this crap without too much worry. I wonder why.
In order for the current copy-protection scheme used by DVD-producing movie studios to work, they must have control not only over the discs that have the movies on them, but the players as well. They accomplish this by maintaining copyright and patent control of the DVD format, making it illegal to produce a reader that works with the DVD format unless you obtain a license from them and agree to play by their rules. This has proved a fairly effective scheme, with only a few exceptions.
How will a scheme to add this "copy protection" to hard drives be enforced universally? What's to prevent smaller companies from trying to get into the market by producing rogue drives much like many businesses have carved a niche for themselves by selling cable decoding boxes and the like? Is there going to be a controlling group like the DVD-CCA? Will I have to get another bumper sticker that says "Fuck the Hard Drive Control Authority" to go along with my "Fuck the MPAA" sticker?
Chuck is probably speaking about racism in terms of who is in power in those industries. How many black sports team owners are there? How about black coaches? How many black executives of record companies have you ever seen, except for whatshisname that owns Def Jam (and started it himself from scratch)?
There's plenty of black talent in music and sports, but not much black power. That's probably what he's on about.
I don't mean to stand up for a company that's behaving like a bunch of assholes, but is it possible that Sprint has been forced to put out a TOS like this? Every time congress wants to do something nasty to internet freedom, they go after the ISP's (Carnivore hooks into an ISP, and one of the decency acts made ISP's liable).
It may be that Sprint isn't trying to limit our freedom for their own purposes, just that they're trying to make sure that if someone sets up a kiddie pr0n server using their broadband, they can point to the TOS and say they specifically had a policy against it, sparing them gov't headaches.
This is both stupid and intelligent. I don't see this mattering right now except to those too stupid or unwordly to purchase an HDTV receiver from a non-US source, but it's a step in the wrong direction.
Look at DVD. They put those nasty region codes on the discs to cut down on "piracy", with the end result that it hassled those of us who liked to buy import movies and shows. I wanted to watch my copies of the Friends DVD's sold by WB overseas, so I just bought a region-free DVD player made in some random Southeast Asian country where the DVD-CCA has no pull. It's going to be the same thing with this crap.
Unfortunately, this is only pointless in the short term. Most people won't care and/or won't know how to get ahold of a "renegade" receiver and will simply play by the rules of the networks and TW-AOL. They'll get used to these new infringements and accept them as the norm. Then, a few years down the road when the providers want to do something even more outrageous (and have expanded their legal powers to reach the entire globe), we'll all have forgotten how it used to be in the old days when you could tape things to watch later when you weren't home, and the new user-tracking scheme that monitors what we watch and when we watch it won't seem like such a big leap.
Freedom's stolen in little steps. This is one of them. I understand the people who make entertainment deserve to be paid, but there's a limit.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, got it. He meant all the little bits of protocol data that got sent along in addition to the 11,000,000 bits of payload data getting sent across the stream. Thanks.
--Brogdon
"Before we get to the numbers, I'd like to point out that even with the above fancy command, there was still a small amount of system overhead in actually getting the packets sent. As the exact amount is difficult to calculate but non-trivial, I decided to weigh the figures like this:
At 1 Mbps, it should take 11.00 seconds to transmit my 11 Mbit file, in the best possible case. On average (each test was sampled five times and averaged), it took 14.91 seconds to complete.
So, we have 3.91 seconds of unaccounted-for overhead (or 35 percent of the total transmission time.) For purposes of argument, we'll assume that the 1 Mbit speed is optimal, and deduct 35 percent from all transmission speeds (chalking it up to system overhead.) And so we are grading on a curve.
I may be crazy here, but why does the amount of non-transmission overhead vary indirectly with the speed of transmission? He mentions early in the article that there is a small amount of overhead in generating the bytes he's sending and timing the process, etc. because of CPU time and accessing the hard disk. Why then does he scale the overhead percentage-wise with each of his tests? That overhead time shouldn't disappear just because you're using a faster connection, it should stay exactly the same - the rest of the time should vary with the transmission speed. If you redo his calculations without scaling the overhead, the results look a lot more logical for the bandwidths he's using (bandwith and transfer time vary more correctly with each other, that is).
--Brogdon
"To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it."
When did we become Klingons? I'd like to think that life in America is peaceful enough that I don't need Mortal Combat 4 to train my kid to be violent enough to survive. Did Indiana somehow get zapped into being the evil, alternate Hill Valley from Back to the Future 2? I'm all for freedom of expression, and letting people do business without excessive regulation, but to hear a community leader defend violence in video games as a necessary part of the instruction of our youth makes me want move to Pennsylvania and become Amish.
--Brogdon
Dude, halfway down your post you go so wildly off-topic I don't think you remembered what your original point was.
This post is not about "we're going to make it illegal for you to see this" censorship, it's about "we're going to tag these naughty games so kids can't buy them on their own" censorship. The former is highly questionable, while the latter is a pragmatic solution to the problem of allowing adults the freedom to play whatever games they want, while protecting kids from seeing things that will warp their little minds.
Go back and read that message again, and see if you realize what I'm talking about with the off-topic and the ranting and so forth.
--Brogdon
It troubles me that the state of Linux is such that the porting of a few ten-year-old DOS games to everyone's favorite OS is a newsworthy event. How about someone other than Carmack porting/making his new game run on Linux? As much as I loved the Sierra Quest games, The fact that this is such a big deal depresses me.
--Brogdon
We're allowed to have social lives? Awright, I'm trying that....
--Brogdon
Isn't there an upper limit to how much information the brain is ready to handle from the optic nerve? I know in my own experience (and those of my friends), when our vision has been over-corrected to 20/15 or even 20/10, headaches are the usual result, because the brain isn't used to dealing with what it's getting. Is this completely unrelated, or is it something the developers have thought about?
--Brogdon
I suppose I had that coming... :)
--Brogdon
"But really. We are an average planet around an average star. The hubris required to think that we are along in the universe is almost unmeasurable." That's an assumption based on our own solar system and the stars we can see. We've yet to find planets in a system that resembles our own (in fact scientists are rethinking the standard solar system model because of it). So yes, assuming we're the only ones out here is jumping to conclusions, but so is assuming the universe falls neatly into the Heliocentric solar system model, don't you think?
--Brogdon
Why is it that when scientists are scoping out the universe for life, they're always looking for the things that make our form of life possible? Just because we've observed the forms of life around as being carbon-based doesn't mean that's the only option, does it?
:)
I'm reminded of back when scientists were sure that all life on this planet was based in some way on the photosynthesis cycle. Plants use the sun to make their energy, animals eat the plants for energy, decay puts materials back into the soil for plants to use as raw materials, and they engergize the whole system once again. They had this set in their minds as the paradigm of life, and then one day someone found organisms at the bottom of the sea living off the energy of a vent in the sea floor (chemosynthesis). Blew their minds.
Anybody else a litle nervous about us searching space looking for our own form of life? Remeber in Stranger in a Strange Land when the scientists decided there couldn't be any life on Mars because there wasn't any oxygen? Let's learn from our Sci-fi, guys!
--Brogdon
"There are two sides to careerists, of course. If you give them enough trouble for censoring, then they will discover the freedom of speech. All you have to do is write enough letters, go to enough school board meetings, or even sue, and things change."
This is, of course, exactly my point. School administrators are inundated with letters, phone calls, lawsuits, angry parents, from both sides every time any issue is brought up. It is therefore no small wonder that they go to extreme lengths to try and maintain a conflict free environment. They work for you just as much as they work for people who disagree with you on issues you are apparently so opinionated about. Thus they're usually stuck between two screaming parents, unable to side with one for fear of the other, trying endlessly to come up with a way to make everybody happy.
You apparently think that this little girl and her father should be allowed to do/say what ever they like at school, regardless of the desires of the other parents, whereas an administrator doesn't have that luxury. You're ignoring the pratical application of the principles your espousing. You're expecting schoolteachers to live up to your absolutes, just as people who disagree with you will, and logically they're not going to live up to the impossible dreams of both of you.
--Brogdon
"I want school officials who are willing stand up to the politically correct whiners. I don't expect the people running a school with my tax money to put up a crucifix because someone complained. If your job is running a school, that includes standing up to a certain about of adult idiocy as well as student idiocy.
So I want those officials out. If they wanted a life without lawsuits and with no conflict and argument, they can get another job. " We don't pay those people enough to deal with shit like this! The typical school superindent has enough problems trying to teach 80 kids with 40 books without worrying about whether this kid has a proper platform to make a political statement at her science fair. If you went to the DMV and asked for a vanity plate that says "GODSUX", or "FUCK ME", you'd get turned down. Is that violating your right to free speech? No, because giving you a place to express yourself isn't their job. It's to tag your damn car. If you decided you wanted to make a statement by hanging out naked in the lobbies of large business buildings, you'd get arrested. Because the businesses aren't violating your right to expression. It's the same thing here. You can't expect a school to allow something like this to stir up all kinds of crap, because they're the ones who have to clean it all up. You're just going to go in, make a huge mess, and slink out the back. It's not their job to give you a place to express yourself, and they're not infringing on your rights just because they don't.
--Brogdon
Yeah, obviously it's the school district's fault. They're clearly trying to shut down anything remotely race-related and censor it. What evil bastards, right?
Wrong. All they're trying to do is keep themselves from being sued. If they let the little girl keep her science project up, some idiot would have seen it, decided it was racist, or sexist, or Barbie-ist and rallied more idiots to share the news. There would have been meetings, discussions, committees, and probably lawsuits. Angry, overblown speeches would have been made about the evils of racism and how it Must Be Kept Out of Our Schools at All Costs. By-laws would have been issued to make sure kids went to racial awareness classes the week before the Science Fair. Memos would be issued, and teachers admonished. In general, an orgy of useless discord.
So yeah, the school employees are obviously bastards for removing the little girl (who was probably acting on orders from her dad to stir up useless trouble). Clearly their fault.
Whatever.
--Brogdon
"The problem isn't the individuals who get one of our CD's, copy it on a CD-burner and give it to a friend," he said. "The problem is the professionals, who are organized and do it in a huge way and have factories."
Ecuse me as I buy a foam bat and head for Germany. This guy desperately needs to be beaten about the head and shoulders with something. "The problem is the professionals"? Then why are you punishing everybody? Why are you levying unfair taxes on people for using everyday items when you know any criminal smart enough to set up a massive pirating operation is going to be smart enough to get around paying them?
All you're doing is bleeding everyday people for what a select group of criminals is doing to you! How the fuck is that fair? What the fuck is wrong with German people?!
AARRRRGH!
Where's the closest foam bat store?!
--Brogdon
"And while I'm sure no one is going to admit it, I do believe that there is scripting going on for some of the games and the confrontations between players."
I must disagree with this. There was no scripting of the outcome of the games. I'll give you two facts as proof:
1) Vegas is taking bets on the XFL. They are prohibited by law from taking bets on events with predetermined outcomes, and are very cautious about what they allow bets on. McMahon knows Vegas gives him credibility and wouldn't risk it by scripting the outcome at all.
2) The worst game of the four presented last weekend was the one that was the showcase game of the week (Vegas vs. NY/NJ). It was a 19-0 shutout, whereas the rest of the games were close (decided by three points or less). If you're going to script it to make it more exciting, why have the most thrust-forward game be dull?
"Most of these people are no-names, so how did the broadcasters know which people to focus on in the opening bits?"
As for this, I can only say that there was a month of practice for them to get to know the mouthy players, and those players heavily interviewed were also very talkative during the introductions. It only makes sense to interview them first, before going on to the quiet ones.
--Brogdon
Of course they have to be secret. Patents are ways to protect the idea you just came up with that no one knows about yet. If you tell everybody before you patent it, you've lost your new idea.
--Brogdon
My current plan for the next for years is to finish my CS degree, move to Japan and work in some IT capacity while learning the culture and language, then move back to the states and settle down, commanding a nice salary with my 'puter skills and bilingual ability.
I always assumed I'd just find an American company with offices in Japan and go to work for them. I figured they'd put me through an immersion language course to refresh my three semesters of Japanese and off I'd go. Lately, though, I've begun to worry if this is even possible. I never did any research to find out if this sort of thing goes on, I just assumed it did.
Has anyone else done this/is anyone else doing it now? If so, who did you work for? I'd really like to know if my grand plan needs changing, or if not how best to go about getting a job over there, and where to live.
--Brogdon
I saw a video of this once, where the plane went up into space, flipped over and shot downwards at a nasty terrorist guy. Fortunately some guys got onboard the plane, replaced some of the ROMs and had the laser fire at a big ball of popcorn in one of the scientist's house, thereby notifying a Senator, and thus the free world. Whew!
--Brogdon
"Guess what (usually) happens when an NT user finally "goes over" to Linux?" He gets confused, whines, and then goes back to Windows. Microsoft caters to customers, not geeks, and that's where their strength lies. I haven't had a problem installing Windows in years; I still can't get Linux to work with my hardware because I don't know enoug to tweak it. My own fault? Probably, but it won't stop me from using Windows to save myself the trouble of learning to tweak my OS.
--Brogdon
Don't dismiss anything MS does as an instant "bad idea". If MS decides to change their licensing scheme to include this protection against privacy, it's not some seat-of-the-pants decision. It's because they've studied the situation and how to act upon it and feel they can effectively make more money this way.
Sure they're evil, but they're good at it.
--Brogdon
For all your talk about "eBay losing you as a customer", what are you going to do about it? Yahoo auctions? Amazon.com? I hope you like the items you're trying to sell getting viewed by all of three people.
/., you don't see much getting directed at eBay, even though they complete dominate their market, and can pull stuff like this crap without too much worry. I wonder why.
For all the anti-monopoly sentiment that gets thrown around on
--Brogdon
In order for the current copy-protection scheme used by DVD-producing movie studios to work, they must have control not only over the discs that have the movies on them, but the players as well. They accomplish this by maintaining copyright and patent control of the DVD format, making it illegal to produce a reader that works with the DVD format unless you obtain a license from them and agree to play by their rules. This has proved a fairly effective scheme, with only a few exceptions. How will a scheme to add this "copy protection" to hard drives be enforced universally? What's to prevent smaller companies from trying to get into the market by producing rogue drives much like many businesses have carved a niche for themselves by selling cable decoding boxes and the like? Is there going to be a controlling group like the DVD-CCA? Will I have to get another bumper sticker that says "Fuck the Hard Drive Control Authority" to go along with my "Fuck the MPAA" sticker?
--Brogdon
Chuck is probably speaking about racism in terms of who is in power in those industries. How many black sports team owners are there? How about black coaches? How many black executives of record companies have you ever seen, except for whatshisname that owns Def Jam (and started it himself from scratch)? There's plenty of black talent in music and sports, but not much black power. That's probably what he's on about.
--Brogdon
I don't mean to stand up for a company that's behaving like a bunch of assholes, but is it possible that Sprint has been forced to put out a TOS like this? Every time congress wants to do something nasty to internet freedom, they go after the ISP's (Carnivore hooks into an ISP, and one of the decency acts made ISP's liable). It may be that Sprint isn't trying to limit our freedom for their own purposes, just that they're trying to make sure that if someone sets up a kiddie pr0n server using their broadband, they can point to the TOS and say they specifically had a policy against it, sparing them gov't headaches.
--Brogdon
This is both stupid and intelligent. I don't see this mattering right now except to those too stupid or unwordly to purchase an HDTV receiver from a non-US source, but it's a step in the wrong direction. Look at DVD. They put those nasty region codes on the discs to cut down on "piracy", with the end result that it hassled those of us who liked to buy import movies and shows. I wanted to watch my copies of the Friends DVD's sold by WB overseas, so I just bought a region-free DVD player made in some random Southeast Asian country where the DVD-CCA has no pull. It's going to be the same thing with this crap. Unfortunately, this is only pointless in the short term. Most people won't care and/or won't know how to get ahold of a "renegade" receiver and will simply play by the rules of the networks and TW-AOL. They'll get used to these new infringements and accept them as the norm. Then, a few years down the road when the providers want to do something even more outrageous (and have expanded their legal powers to reach the entire globe), we'll all have forgotten how it used to be in the old days when you could tape things to watch later when you weren't home, and the new user-tracking scheme that monitors what we watch and when we watch it won't seem like such a big leap. Freedom's stolen in little steps. This is one of them. I understand the people who make entertainment deserve to be paid, but there's a limit.
--Brogdon