I'm a professional geek, and it's how I got in computers in the first place. "How do these video games work?" "Well, there's this thing inside called a computer..." And the rest was history.
Add to that the Dvorak op-ed piece in the issue of PC Mag I got in the mail this week, wherein he points out that the MPAA is going down the same stupid road the RIAA took -- publicising something the mainstream public heretofore knew little-to-nothing of. "Hmm, $38... $27... $12... Hey, you can download movies on the Intarweb? Neato!"
You are also perfectly within your rights to take small pieces of white paper and glue them over the ads in your magazines before you read them. Just because it's reasonably convenient to actually do this with websites, people get their panties in a bunch. No one has the right to make you read/see/experience anything.[1]
What's really sad to me is that people are beginning to swallow the idea that IP holders are somehow gods and can dictate to you how you should hear/read/view their works. "Prohibited from viewing upside down/through a blue filter/using a magnifying glass/whatever? Great! I'll remember and be good from now on, Mr. Rights Holder!" Little by little, the RIAA/MPAA/etc. are convincing everyone that it's a sin to do as otherwise directed by our new copyright overlords (whom we should welcome, of course). Not only that, but I just used the term IP, meaning Intellectual Property, and I bet none of you so much as blinked. Hint: It's not property.Physical goods are property.
1. Be a Canadian. 2. Have a credit card. 3. Set up website (totally automated, eh) offering to buy people iTunes songs at cost plus 5%. 4. Advertise service in USA 5. Profit!
Of course I'm probably missing some DRM reason why this won't work. Not that I care.
All that spyware ain't gonna store itself, people!
"Of the corporations, by the corporations..."
on
U.S. to Get New IP Czar
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· Score: 3, Insightful
You hit the nail on the head. "Of the people, by the people, for the people" became "of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations" bit by bit as corporate personhood became the norm in the US. Since corporations are immortal and made of the labor of many people, however, they have a distinct advantage over the rest of us poor slobs.
You're right. But. If you have low-res video, which gradually and slowly moves around (as in, say, a handheld shot of almost any sort), you should be able to retrieve more information than any one frame has by combining many images which overlap and are offset from one another by sub-pixel amounts. A bit of Googling reveals that substantial work [PDF] has already been done in this area.
Check out a pretty good listing of construction toys here. I love Lego, of course, by Erector is a close follower. My personal favorite, though, is the much-neglected and rather underrated Capsela -- quirky plastic capsules with surprising possibilities (working pontoon swamp boat, anyone?)
I hope he really lets loose and does every crazy thing he imagines Jebus is telling him to do. I hope he gets on the radio every week and summarizes how that week's direct conversations with God went. I hope he and the Republicans attack more countries, enact more loathsome restrictive limitations to our freedoms, and blatantly whore our nation to the corporate overlords.
Maybe, just maybe, if they go far enough, the idiots who voted them in will start to see why they're wrong.
What if EULAs were to take the form of a checklist of (mostly) preset clauses? I.e., Clause #1 is "This is an agreement between [Company Name] and you, the user..." and so on; #35 is "Severability..." and so on; and after a while you have many standardized clauses with their EULA can signal by code. Your robolawyer would then just show you the checklist; any custom clauses would just be shown to you, possibly with warning tags pointing out unusual or consternation-causing strings ("hold harmless", "pay", "banana pudding", etc.). Wanna be extra geeky, make EULAs conform to an XML spec for these purposes.
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I'm a professional geek, and it's how I got in computers in the first place. "How do these video games work?" "Well, there's this thing inside called a computer..." And the rest was history.
Your analysis is stark and lucid.
Add to that the Dvorak op-ed piece in the issue of PC Mag I got in the mail this week, wherein he points out that the MPAA is going down the same stupid road the RIAA took -- publicising something the mainstream public heretofore knew little-to-nothing of. "Hmm, $38... $27... $12... Hey, you can download movies on the Intarweb? Neato!"
Good going, MPAA.
Then let this be our final battle!
Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh...
Dih-dih-dih-dih-dih...
Shu-shu-shu-shu-shu...
What...one with a 10,000RPM scale, as opposed to the one with only 6,000RPM?
"...a different tack".
(Hey, if there were ever a better opportunity than this thread to jump on English errors, I don't know what it was.)
You are also perfectly within your rights to take small pieces of white paper and glue them over the ads in your magazines before you read them. Just because it's reasonably convenient to actually do this with websites, people get their panties in a bunch. No one has the right to make you read/see/experience anything.[1]
What's really sad to me is that people are beginning to swallow the idea that IP holders are somehow gods and can dictate to you how you should hear/read/view their works. "Prohibited from viewing upside down/through a blue filter/using a magnifying glass/whatever? Great! I'll remember and be good from now on, Mr. Rights Holder!" Little by little, the RIAA/MPAA/etc. are convincing everyone that it's a sin to do as otherwise directed by our new copyright overlords (whom we should welcome, of course). Not only that, but I just used the term IP, meaning Intellectual Property, and I bet none of you so much as blinked. Hint: It's not property. Physical goods are property.
[1] Yet.
Don't tell Sony that!
"I, uh, yeah, got my memory card erased by...that one demo, whachamacallit. Can I get my free games now?"
1. Be a Canadian.
2. Have a credit card.
3. Set up website (totally automated, eh) offering to buy people iTunes songs at cost plus 5%.
4. Advertise service in USA
5. Profit!
Of course I'm probably missing some DRM reason why this won't work. Not that I care.
Try looking for "sucks". It's in there -- twice. Yay for governmental immortalization of public comment!
What will they do with all those photos of people with wide grins standing next to loudspeakers?
All that spyware ain't gonna store itself, people!
You hit the nail on the head. "Of the people, by the people, for the people" became "of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations" bit by bit as corporate personhood became the norm in the US. Since corporations are immortal and made of the labor of many people, however, they have a distinct advantage over the rest of us poor slobs.
...storm the offices of the **AAs with tar and feathers.
The software industry has had a legal solution to this for a long time. It would just need slight tweaking to fit this software situation.
It would start: "By opening this car's door, you agree to the following EULA..."
You're right. But. If you have low-res video, which gradually and slowly moves around (as in, say, a handheld shot of almost any sort), you should be able to retrieve more information than any one frame has by combining many images which overlap and are offset from one another by sub-pixel amounts. A bit of Googling reveals that substantial work [PDF] has already been done in this area.
I was just about to rant and rave about "begging the question", but, funnily enough, Wikipedia comes to the rescue.
In the Jargon File entry for Candygrammar.
Mach numbers are about as international as you can get.
How about yo-yos?
Check out a pretty good listing of construction toys here. I love Lego, of course, by Erector is a close follower. My personal favorite, though, is the much-neglected and rather underrated Capsela -- quirky plastic capsules with surprising possibilities (working pontoon swamp boat, anyone?)
I hope he really lets loose and does every crazy thing he imagines Jebus is telling him to do. I hope he gets on the radio every week and summarizes how that week's direct conversations with God went. I hope he and the Republicans attack more countries, enact more loathsome restrictive limitations to our freedoms, and blatantly whore our nation to the corporate overlords.
Maybe, just maybe, if they go far enough, the idiots who voted them in will start to see why they're wrong.
What if EULAs were to take the form of a checklist of (mostly) preset clauses? I.e., Clause #1 is "This is an agreement between [Company Name] and you, the user..." and so on; #35 is "Severability..." and so on; and after a while you have many standardized clauses with their EULA can signal by code. Your robolawyer would then just show you the checklist; any custom clauses would just be shown to you, possibly with warning tags pointing out unusual or consternation-causing strings ("hold harmless", "pay", "banana pudding", etc.). Wanna be extra geeky, make EULAs conform to an XML spec for these purposes.