At $1000+ a pop I think they were marketting this more towards the high end and "extreme" car audio enthusiast. Or at the very least people with a relatively high amount of disposable income. This same market segment is likely to already have amplifiers, signal processors, etc in their installations. And if they don't, what's another $200 for an amp? What is really odd is that this same market segment is also the group of people that will almost definitely hear the mp3 artifacts (or at least claim to) and would more than likely not want to have an "inferior" sound quality source device in their setups. So I wonder what the point of marketting to this segment was in the first place.
I think you are confusing intent to pirate or facilitate piracy with intent to circumvent CSS. They are not the same thing. 2b says the intent had to be to "break" CSS in this case. Derek didn't have to intend to copy the DVDs. He didn't have to intend to help others do so. He didn't have to even profit from any of this. The argument here is (and it is valid according to 2b's language) that he (and others) published source code and text information that intended to "get around" CSS (one of the copy protection methods used in DVD-Video). It does not matter if he intended it to be used for piracy or anything like that. Everyone involved could have had the most pure intentions of merely wanting to expand their understanding of the universe and it still wouldn't make much difference legally. The code's purpose was to implement CSS decryption, thus circumventing the copy protection provided by that encoding method. Yes the method was weak. Yes the MPAA and DVD-Forum were stupid for using it. Unfortunately that doesn't matter here.
That said, I think it is a shame that they are going after Derek and others with these malicious cease and desists and threatening legal action. Doing so doesn't make any examples out of anyone, really. Certainly no one is going to be swayed from continuing where Derek and others left off. On top of that, the movie industry's image is blemished by the whole big guy picking on the little guy situation this has turned into. The only thing that this type of action does is force the developers underground and increases their determination.
I'm not condoning the CSS cracks. I actually think that things were handled rather poorly by the development community. But I also feel the MPAA has made a big mistake in trying to attack and stop this from happening. They should have come around several months ago and offered a compromise of some sort, instead of resorting to their "my rules or else" attitude. The MPAA might think we're acting lawlessly or recklessly, but if they were objective in the least they would also see that they aren't being too reasonable in their policies and practices either.
Perhaps we should work with the MPAA and the DVD-Forum at this point? The CSS code is out and they have no hope of stoping it from finding its way into open source dvd player programs anymore (perhaps they never did). With the cat out of the bag, they have little to protect now so maybe they'll be more willing to work with us instead of against us. The initial reaction to thiS (from industry players and media) was that there would be a new method implemented in the near future or that the movie industry would drop support of the format. The later isn't going to happen, obviously. The former could, though. Now is the time to try and reason with the powers that be.
The AC-3 specs are public. ATSC A/52 is the document you want to look for. And there is a GPL'd AC-3 decoder available, created by Aaron Holtzman, for Linux. This is unlicensed though and as someone else pointed out, you will not be seeing it included in a commercialized distribution (or even noncommercial) due to the legal/licensing issues involved. Check out these sites for more info:
Important note, there is no indication or evidence suggesting that the encryption methods used in CSS are patented. The methods seem to be protected via "trade secret" and NDA, which suggested it has no patents. Same for the IFO/VOB data formats in the DVD Video Specifications books available from the DVD-Forum under NDA and for-cost licenses. The only patented parts of DVDs seem to be the mpeg-2, AC-3, SDDS, etc encoding schemes.
Yes this is the encryption that hides the raw mpeg-2 data (as well as AC-3 and subpicture and some navigation information).
This is not the only form of copy protection involved in DVD playback, in general, there is also regional management (although that is not a real problem now that the css code is available).
A standard mpeg player will play the data once decrypted, but some discs will be hard to watch due to the use of different camera angles and some other dvd specific features. Not to mention all the navigational features will not be available (interactive menus, playback navigational data, etc).
The only thing really preventing full playback is not having a public IFO file format spec and some of the dvd specific VOB stream fetures are still relatively unknown publicly (the features are known, how they are implemented isn't). Reverse engingeering those two things will be difficult. Much more difficult than CSS was. Even if someone tries to simply disassemble some working player it will be difficult due to how dense the information provided in the IFO files is and the ways it is used in the player. IT can be done though and I'm sure it will be done, just don't expect it all that soon.
CSS is designed to stop the everyday joe from making copies of discs. The authentication (or disc locking) is what really accomplishes that. The data encryption is a second part of CSS as a whole, and it is meant to prevent raw data copying after the disc has been unlocked (since the VOB data is supposed to be always encryped when travelling over an unsecured bus).
As to making copies with DVD-RAM, not possible unless you have the CSS decryption schemes as part of the DVD-RAM burning software. While you could technically unlock the drive with an external program (to the dvd-ram burning software) and then make a copy of the encrypted data, byte for byte, you still will not be able to copy the disc or title keys without involving special drive commands and CSS authentication in the dvd burning software. Of course, now that the authentication and decryption code is public (and the disc key's likely to be brute forced in a short time with the code), it will be relatively easy to write a program that burns unencrypted copies of the discs to dvd-ram.
Another important note, Dave, is that The April 2000 date is for alpha or possibly beta versions of the second phase player (software decoding support). The first phase one, hardware support only, will likely be out within a week or so of a dvd decoder card with Linux driver support hitting the market.
You are right to a certain extent. We do have some "big plans". We will not, however, necessarily be depending on other people's code to produce the second phase program (software decoding support). We already have a IFO parser all but done. VOB handling code is underway. And we have DVD specs access, which will allow us to work on the DVD Navigation API while we are getting the licensing we need to distribute the program. So we have more than simply "big plans", I would say. We will be opening up a web site soon that will go into what we have and what we are working toward specifically. We've also been active in the Livid project mailing list and helping on a "community" level.
Note however that we may be approaching Arron Holtzman and Joachim Koenig about working out some kind of special license (non-GPL) so that we can do two things:
1) Contribute back any optimizations that we make to the codecs. 2) Be able to not publish the full version of the codecs which may end up haivng CSS code weaved into them.
This all remains to be seen, though. We havce a few other things to get finished up first, before we start getting into some serious work on the software playback codecs.
I wouldn't go spouting your mouth off yet. We're still in development and the licensing processes that need to be gone through can be lengthy. Don't expect to the second phase program available for a while yet. The first phase one will likely be out shortly after a hardware vendor gets their decoder supported in linux, though.
There are possible copyright issues with the CSS disk unlocking code. The method is not patented, but since the code is based on a rip of disassembled code, I can see a strong argument for copyright infringment. I'm not a lawyer. This is only a laymans opinion.:)
It is not okay simply because I mentioned it:) It's not a secret how that code was obtained. The livid list archives clearly discuss how it was arrived at, the subsequent C conversion, and I think the original "anonymous" source's name is actually in there somewhere. I mentioned it because it is already public knowledge.
It never stops amazing me how often people drop the "c" from my last name. Oh well.
At any rate, I would be overly optimistic if I were claiming that we intend to give the LSDVD player away for free. I'm not, though. I am most certain that it will cost something. If we are lucky enoguh to find a company willing to eat the cost of royalties (assuming they get some greater value from the distribution of the player) then and only then will this be freely available.
I'm not sure what you're saying I'm being over optimistic about. If it is the patent issues, specifically with MPEG-2, I point you to the MEPGLA website: http://www.mpegla.com Their licensing structure is such that implementations of the mpeg-2 codecs are freely distributable. They don't want anything on them. But they do garnish royalties on use of an MPEG-2 codec in a player application. The per stream part is only really applicable to digital TV encoders/streamers and possible some really nifty multi-stream decoders. This does not apply to simple dvd playback.
I don't think anyone is saying we should deny future generations a better starting point than what we were dealt. I know that is not what I was arguing, at least.:) I was simply saying that I feel there are much bigger issues at stake than letting my children grow up without needing glasses or having zero chance of having sickle cell anemia or something. I think that it would be all to easy for the birthing of particular kinds of children to become a "fad" of sorts. If it were possible to tell parents, "You can only fix those genes which will cause a still birth or death in the first 3 years of life." Then that would be great... but there is no way to say that or enforce it. As such, I think that the human race, paticularly our children and their children etc, will do just fine making babies the old fashioned way. The method is not broke... lets refrain from attempting to fix it.
Not to be mean or anything, but if you are so concerned about your children being born with genetically attributable diseases or minor handicaps, then just maybe you should opt not to have children.
Saying that it is the parents' option to utilize genetic engineering or not and to use it responsibly is bordering on rediculous. The large majority of the people on this planet probably don't spend too much time in their lives thinking about these kinds of issues. Also, important to consider is that there is a minority percentage (but high enough to be of concern) of "unfit" parents. You suggest that these people should be left in control of the use of potentially race altering decisions? These are the same people who make pop music what it is today. These are the same people who elect fundamentalist christians to state school boards, who then make it an option for a teacher to not teach evolution. These are the same people who support escalation of international prick waving contests to include the use of nuclear missle development and testing. The list goes on. You really expect these same people to make responsible decisions as to what genetic engineering methods to use and to what lengths they wish to use them?
I'm not exept from those unable to make that kind of decision. I'm not that bright or enlightened on the possibilities either way. But I am bright enough to realize that there isn't really anyone that is capable of wielding that kind of power in a non-abusive and responsible way.
And another thing, which I'm sure has been brought up in later postings on this... who gets to utilize these technologies of genetic manipulation? Is this going to be a publicly available thing, subsidized by the governments of the world? Perhaps those who are fortunate enough to have a good HMO will have it available. Or, of course, only those who can afford it will have the option of using it.
There is almost no way that this can be used in a responsible and equitable way.
Well, I attend school at RIT. I'm in the Computer Engineering program, but I think I can speak to a possible reason for what you saw.
About five years ago RIT started their IT program. Previous to this it did not even exist. The enrollment for that program was something like 50 students I think. In two years time (when I first started attending) the enrollment was up to on the order of 150 freshman for 1996, I think. The next year enrollment in the freshman class was doubled. This caused the school to have to shuffle the IT classrooms around and to build an entirely new building to house the next years incoming IT class.
Point here is that the IT department was started on 50 students and a few professors as an experiment of sorts. The industry and demand for IT grads then exploded (very few actually saw this coming, especially those in control of programs at universities, etc), leaving RIT and many other schools, I suspect, scrambling to put together course plans, hire professors, find room for classes to be taught in, etc. Even last year and now, the department heads are still trying to come up with a solid IT curriculum. And to be fair, IT is a very agile and quick moving target. It has been for the past few years and it probably will continue to be for another few. Creating a solid and industry applicable curriculum is a hard thing to do, especially in these circumstances.
As an aside, RIT excells in their CE, EE, SE, and CS programs. Their imaging sciences related programs are top notch as well. Don't knock the entire school simply because it has a young and developing IT program of study.
Seems to me that the reason quoted for doing this paticular cloning is just what those against cloning have been saying isn't a good enough reason... ie. We do it because we can. or We do it because we're bored with the old hat sheep cloning thing.
I'm not against cloning, but I tend to agree that the reason that was quoted is simply not good enough. Cloning for the sake of cloning is asking for trouble. Moral and ethical issues aside, the tone of the argument suggests a blatant lack of consideration for the consequences and responsibilities that come along with trying to bring back a long dead creature, such as the mammoth. In the Seatle Times article they follow up the "Why not..." quote with another with another reason, to the effect of trying to find out what happened to the mammoth so we might be able to prevent it from happening to current species. While a more idealisting goal, I suppose, fail to see how the goal would be accomplished by this cloning.
Perhaps the second, more idealistic, reason is good enough. But the owner of the mindset that spawned the first argument probably should not be in the lead on this cloning project, nor any other. But then again neither should I, so who am I to say anything.:)
AMD is in a tough spot right now. They have the top chip out on the market. This is their chance to get their foot hold in the market or else slide out as Cyrix did. I really hope that they get that foot hold, but I fear that right now it looks like they won't. I have yet to see a real paper or TV ad for the K7. I could say AMD to my parents (who I think are of a relatively similar mindset to that of most of America's poulation) and they would maybe blink. AMD has to get on the stick and get their name out there. This means a head on media blitz. It also means getting salepeople at retailers and custom build shops to start talking about the K7 when a potential buyer walks in. Most people looking to get a computer know three companies: Microsoft, Apple, and Intel. There are no others. AMD needs to change that or else they might as well start selling off technology, patents, and building space right now.
As for a partnership with Compaq/Alpha... Bad move right now. Unless they can swing it for little cost, they should concentrate on selling what they have, not finding more/new technology to bring down with the company later.
It is? I must have had some increadible luck because I setup an IP masqing box for my home network with little trouble at all. Popped the 2 NICs in (3Com905's), booted it (both were recognized first go), modified the startup scripts to run the road runner daemon, dhcp client, and ipforwarding commands and it was done. 10-15 minutes actual working time tops.
What NICs were you trying to get going. Other brands/models might not have as easy a time depening on support in the drivers.
Just about any book out of that publisher is good. Forget Sams or Que, these books are some of the best money can buy. I picked this particular title up a little over three weeks ago and have used it a few times since then. As the review above said, it does indeed cover a lot of material and does so coherently and in an easy to digest manner. Highly recommended to the beginner and the seasoned professional just looking for a good reference on most major linux programming areas. If tied together with a good programming theory book the pair would be ideal for beginning to intermediate computer science courses.
As far as this book over looking Perl, it was probably a choice, not an oversight. There are already several books out there on Perl and many more books that touch on it in relation to other topics. There wasn't a good general "catch all" title out there though... they filled that void. Sure they could have thrown it in, but I don't think that it takes that much away from the value of the book.
There is a very big difference here between the Red Hat IPO and the various other "internet" stocks out there. Red Hat has some actual assets. They actually sell something. They are more than just some portal web site or something that deals entirely in the abstraction that is the web and banner ads.
And, they are the best positioned company, at least in the popular press's eyes, to give Microsoft a run for it's money. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft somehow managed to make sure that Red Hat did well, simply to foster the notion that there is OS market competition on the Intel/x86 platform.
Well, my local respresentitve (Jim Walsh) just happens to be the chairman of the VA-HUD subcommittee and senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, which encompases the NASA budget as well as 20-30 other programs and agencies (Veterans Medicare and pensions and Housing and Urban Development the biggies, obviously).
I've recieved some word back from his legislative aide and have got some names of who we should write to to get maximum effect:
1) Speaker Dennis Hastert of the 14th district in IL. http://www.house.gov/hastert/ 2) Majority Leader Dick Armey of the 26th district in TX. http://armey.house.gov/ 3) Appropriation Majority Whip Tom Delay of the 22nd district in TX. http://majoritywhip.house.gov/
These people are the ones who have control of when the appropriations bill goes to the floor, as well as what cuts make it to the bill.
Jim Wlash (25th district of New York, central new york area) would be good (http://www.house.gov/walsh/). And of course you're local representative.
We do not have everything needed to play an encrypted DVD. This CSS code does not provide the ability to decrypt the information, only to unlock disc. An encrypted blocks of a DVD disc are not even readable until the drive goes through an authentication process. That process is what this CSS code helps perform. We can not read decrypted data yet to feed to the MPEG-2 and AC-3 decoders.
On MPEG-2, you are right. Use in a system requires a $4 per device/software-copy royalty.
AC-3 is patented in both software and hardware. There is public AC-3 code available, produced by Arron Holtzman, but the legalities of that being offered publicly in an unlicensed form is unknown. It constitutes an implementation (under Dolby's licensing structure) and as such is potentially in need of a $10K one time licensing fee. Use of that AC-3 code/implementation in a system (hardware or software application) would require that the hardware or software producer pay a one time fee of $10K plus a variable royalty on each device/software-copy sold/distributed.
Would be cool, yes. And it would indeed require the 4-16 gigs of imaging space depending on the size of the disc you wanted to produce. While I don't think this could be implenmented as a file system (it's already been said that the FS and the dvd data layout are two seperate things) a linux based dvd authoring tool could be developed. Again, fee and open sourced are not likely due to the need to get NDAs for the DVD spec and pay for it. Unfortunate but the only way to go right now.
Yes, the people who run across it are not at fault, but the person(s) who put the code there in the first place are at fault. I'm wondering if there is a way for them to get the information out without being held liable for anything. A way around the RE clauses of software licneses.
And you are right, you can not patent an idea. As that statment applies to CSS: CSS is not patented technology. I'm guessing this is because the techniques used in a software or hardware implementation of this are already patented and/or in the public domain. Not to mention if they patented it they would have had to publicly release the information on how it was done, which is against their ideas, apparently, of how to secure data.
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At $1000+ a pop I think they were marketting this more towards the high end and "extreme" car audio enthusiast. Or at the very least people with a relatively high amount of disposable income. This same market segment is likely to already have amplifiers, signal processors, etc in their installations. And if they don't, what's another $200 for an amp? What is really odd is that this same market segment is also the group of people that will almost definitely hear the mp3 artifacts (or at least claim to) and would more than likely not want to have an "inferior" sound quality source device in their setups. So I wonder what the point of marketting to this segment was in the first place.
I think you are confusing intent to pirate or facilitate piracy with intent to circumvent CSS. They are not the same thing. 2b says the intent had to be to "break" CSS in this case. Derek didn't have to intend to copy the DVDs. He didn't have to intend to help others do so. He didn't have to even profit from any of this. The argument here is (and it is valid according to 2b's language) that he (and others) published source code and text information that intended to "get around" CSS (one of the copy protection methods used in DVD-Video). It does not matter if he intended it to be used for piracy or anything like that. Everyone involved could have had the most pure intentions of merely wanting to expand their understanding of the universe and it still wouldn't make much difference legally. The code's purpose was to implement CSS decryption, thus circumventing the copy protection provided by that encoding method. Yes the method was weak. Yes the MPAA and DVD-Forum were stupid for using it. Unfortunately that doesn't matter here.
That said, I think it is a shame that they are going after Derek and others with these malicious cease and desists and threatening legal action. Doing so doesn't make any examples out of anyone, really. Certainly no one is going to be swayed from continuing where Derek and others left off. On top of that, the movie industry's image is blemished by the whole big guy picking on the little guy situation this has turned into. The only thing that this type of action does is force the developers underground and increases their determination.
I'm not condoning the CSS cracks. I actually think that things were handled rather poorly by the development community. But I also feel the MPAA has made a big mistake in trying to attack and stop this from happening. They should have come around several months ago and offered a compromise of some sort, instead of resorting to their "my rules or else" attitude. The MPAA might think we're acting lawlessly or recklessly, but if they were objective in the least they would also see that they aren't being too reasonable in their policies and practices either.
Perhaps we should work with the MPAA and the DVD-Forum at this point? The CSS code is out and they have no hope of stoping it from finding its way into open source dvd player programs anymore (perhaps they never did). With the cat out of the bag, they have little to protect now so maybe they'll be more willing to work with us instead of against us. The initial reaction to thiS (from industry players and media) was that there would be a new method implemented in the near future or that the movie industry would drop support of the format. The later isn't going to happen, obviously. The former could, though. Now is the time to try and reason with the powers that be.
Paul Volcko
-LSDVD
Not for encryption strength reasons, it's only 40bit and a variant (from what I understand) of DES or RC4.
IT may be illegal for any kind of distribution whatsoever for copyright and perhaps reverce engineering reasons, however.
The AC-3 specs are public. ATSC A/52 is the document you want to look for. And there is a GPL'd AC-3 decoder available, created by Aaron Holtzman, for Linux. This is unlicensed though and as someone else pointed out, you will not be seeing it included in a commercialized distribution (or even noncommercial) due to the legal/licensing issues involved. Check out these sites for more info:
http://www.csh.rit.edu/lsdvd
http://livid.on.openprojects.net
http://linuxdvd.corepower.com
Important note, there is no indication or evidence suggesting that the encryption methods used in CSS are patented. The methods seem to be protected via "trade secret" and NDA, which suggested it has no patents. Same for the IFO/VOB data formats in the DVD Video Specifications books available from the DVD-Forum under NDA and for-cost licenses. The only patented parts of DVDs seem to be the mpeg-2, AC-3, SDDS, etc encoding schemes.
Yes this is the encryption that hides the raw mpeg-2 data (as well as AC-3 and subpicture and some navigation information).
This is not the only form of copy protection involved in DVD playback, in general, there is also regional management (although that is not a real problem now that the css code is available).
A standard mpeg player will play the data once decrypted, but some discs will be hard to watch due to the use of different camera angles and some other dvd specific features. Not to mention all the navigational features will not be available (interactive menus, playback navigational data, etc).
The only thing really preventing full playback is not having a public IFO file format spec and some of the dvd specific VOB stream fetures are still relatively unknown publicly (the features are known, how they are implemented isn't). Reverse engingeering those two things will be difficult. Much more difficult than CSS was. Even if someone tries to simply disassemble some working player it will be difficult due to how dense the information provided in the IFO files is and the ways it is used in the player. IT can be done though and I'm sure it will be done, just don't expect it all that soon.
CSS is designed to stop the everyday joe from making copies of discs. The authentication (or disc locking) is what really accomplishes that. The data encryption is a second part of CSS as a whole, and it is meant to prevent raw data copying after the disc has been unlocked (since the VOB data is supposed to be always encryped when travelling over an unsecured bus).
As to making copies with DVD-RAM, not possible unless you have the CSS decryption schemes as part of the DVD-RAM burning software. While you could technically unlock the drive with an external program (to the dvd-ram burning software) and then make a copy of the encrypted data, byte for byte, you still will not be able to copy the disc or title keys without involving special drive commands and CSS authentication in the dvd burning software. Of course, now that the authentication and decryption code is public (and the disc key's likely to be brute forced in a short time with the code), it will be relatively easy to write a program that burns unencrypted copies of the discs to dvd-ram.
Doing so would be a case of *massive* overkill. We're talking about 40bit encryption, here.
-Paul Volcko
Another important note, Dave, is that The April 2000 date is for alpha or possibly beta versions of the second phase player (software decoding support). The first phase one, hardware support only, will likely be out within a week or so of a dvd decoder card with Linux driver support hitting the market.
-Paul Volcko
You are right to a certain extent. We do have some "big plans". We will not, however, necessarily be depending on other people's code to produce the second phase program (software decoding support). We already have a IFO parser all but done. VOB handling code is underway. And we have DVD specs access, which will allow us to work on the DVD Navigation API while we are getting the licensing we need to distribute the program. So we have more than simply "big plans", I would say. We will be opening up a web site soon that will go into what we have and what we are working toward specifically. We've also been active in the Livid project mailing list and helping on a "community" level.
Note however that we may be approaching Arron Holtzman and Joachim Koenig about working out some kind of special license (non-GPL) so that we can do two things:
1) Contribute back any optimizations that we make to the codecs.
2) Be able to not publish the full version of the codecs which may end up haivng CSS code weaved into them.
This all remains to be seen, though. We havce a few other things to get finished up first, before we start getting into some serious work on the software playback codecs.
- Paul Volcko
I wouldn't go spouting your mouth off yet. We're still in development and the licensing processes that need to be gone through can be lengthy. Don't expect to the second phase program available for a while yet. The first phase one will likely be out shortly after a hardware vendor gets their decoder supported in linux, though.
-Paul Volcko
There are possible copyright issues with the CSS disk unlocking code. The method is not patented, but since the code is based on a rip of disassembled code, I can see a strong argument for copyright infringment. I'm not a lawyer. This is only a laymans opinion. :)
:) It's not a secret how that code was obtained. The livid list archives clearly discuss how it was arrived at, the subsequent C conversion, and I think the original "anonymous" source's name is actually in there somewhere. I mentioned it because it is already public knowledge.
It is not okay simply because I mentioned it
-Paul Volcko
It never stops amazing me how often people drop the "c" from my last name. Oh well.
At any rate, I would be overly optimistic if I were claiming that we intend to give the LSDVD player away for free. I'm not, though. I am most certain that it will cost something. If we are lucky enoguh to find a company willing to eat the cost of royalties (assuming they get some greater value from the distribution of the player) then and only then will this be freely available.
I'm not sure what you're saying I'm being over optimistic about. If it is the patent issues, specifically with MPEG-2, I point you to the MEPGLA website: http://www.mpegla.com Their licensing structure is such that implementations of the mpeg-2 codecs are freely distributable. They don't want anything on them. But they do garnish royalties on use of an MPEG-2 codec in a player application. The per stream part is only really applicable to digital TV encoders/streamers and possible some really nifty multi-stream decoders. This does not apply to simple dvd playback.
- Paul Volcko
I don't think anyone is saying we should deny future generations a better starting point than what we were dealt. I know that is not what I was arguing, at least. :) I was simply saying that I feel there are much bigger issues at stake than letting my children grow up without needing glasses or having zero chance of having sickle cell anemia or something. I think that it would be all to easy for the birthing of particular kinds of children to become a "fad" of sorts. If it were possible to tell parents, "You can only fix those genes which will cause a still birth or death in the first 3 years of life." Then that would be great... but there is no way to say that or enforce it. As such, I think that the human race, paticularly our children and their children etc, will do just fine making babies the old fashioned way. The method is not broke... lets refrain from attempting to fix it.
Not to be mean or anything, but if you are so concerned about your children being born with genetically attributable diseases or minor handicaps, then just maybe you should opt not to have children.
Saying that it is the parents' option to utilize genetic engineering or not and to use it responsibly is bordering on rediculous. The large majority of the people on this planet probably don't spend too much time in their lives thinking about these kinds of issues. Also, important to consider is that there is a minority percentage (but high enough to be of concern) of "unfit" parents. You suggest that these people should be left in control of the use of potentially race altering decisions? These are the same people who make pop music what it is today. These are the same people who elect fundamentalist christians to state school boards, who then make it an option for a teacher to not teach evolution. These are the same people who support escalation of international prick waving contests to include the use of nuclear missle development and testing. The list goes on. You really expect these same people to make responsible decisions as to what genetic engineering methods to use and to what lengths they wish to use them?
I'm not exept from those unable to make that kind of decision. I'm not that bright or enlightened on the possibilities either way. But I am bright enough to realize that there isn't really anyone that is capable of wielding that kind of power in a non-abusive and responsible way.
And another thing, which I'm sure has been brought up in later postings on this... who gets to utilize these technologies of genetic manipulation? Is this going to be a publicly available thing, subsidized by the governments of the world? Perhaps those who are fortunate enough to have a good HMO will have it available. Or, of course, only those who can afford it will have the option of using it.
There is almost no way that this can be used in a responsible and equitable way.
Well, I attend school at RIT. I'm in the Computer Engineering program, but I think I can speak to a possible reason for what you saw.
About five years ago RIT started their IT program. Previous to this it did not even exist. The enrollment for that program was something like 50 students I think. In two years time (when I first started attending) the enrollment was up to on the order of 150 freshman for 1996, I think. The next year enrollment in the freshman class was doubled. This caused the school to have to shuffle the IT classrooms around and to build an entirely new building to house the next years incoming IT class.
Point here is that the IT department was started on 50 students and a few professors as an experiment of sorts. The industry and demand for IT grads then exploded (very few actually saw this coming, especially those in control of programs at universities, etc), leaving RIT and many other schools, I suspect, scrambling to put together course plans, hire professors, find room for classes to be taught in, etc. Even last year and now, the department heads are still trying to come up with a solid IT curriculum. And to be fair, IT is a very agile and quick moving target. It has been for the past few years and it probably will continue to be for another few. Creating a solid and industry applicable curriculum is a hard thing to do, especially in these circumstances.
As an aside, RIT excells in their CE, EE, SE, and CS programs. Their imaging sciences related programs are top notch as well. Don't knock the entire school simply because it has a young and developing IT program of study.
Seems to me that the reason quoted for doing this paticular cloning is just what those against cloning have been saying isn't a good enough reason... ie. We do it because we can. or We do it because we're bored with the old hat sheep cloning thing.
:)
I'm not against cloning, but I tend to agree that the reason that was quoted is simply not good enough. Cloning for the sake of cloning is asking for trouble. Moral and ethical issues aside, the tone of the argument suggests a blatant lack of consideration for the consequences and responsibilities that come along with trying to bring back a long dead creature, such as the mammoth. In the Seatle Times article they follow up the "Why not..." quote with another with another reason, to the effect of trying to find out what happened to the mammoth so we might be able to prevent it from happening to current species. While a more idealisting goal, I suppose, fail to see how the goal would be accomplished by this cloning.
Perhaps the second, more idealistic, reason is good enough. But the owner of the mindset that spawned the first argument probably should not be in the lead on this cloning project, nor any other. But then again neither should I, so who am I to say anything.
AMD is in a tough spot right now. They have the top chip out on the market. This is their chance to get their foot hold in the market or else slide out as Cyrix did. I really hope that they get that foot hold, but I fear that right now it looks like they won't. I have yet to see a real paper or TV ad for the K7. I could say AMD to my parents (who I think are of a relatively similar mindset to that of most of America's poulation) and they would maybe blink. AMD has to get on the stick and get their name out there. This means a head on media blitz. It also means getting salepeople at retailers and custom build shops to start talking about the K7 when a potential buyer walks in. Most people looking to get a computer know three companies: Microsoft, Apple, and Intel. There are no others. AMD needs to change that or else they might as well start selling off technology, patents, and building space right now.
As for a partnership with Compaq/Alpha... Bad move right now. Unless they can swing it for little cost, they should concentrate on selling what they have, not finding more/new technology to bring down with the company later.
It is? I must have had some increadible luck because I setup an IP masqing box for my home network with little trouble at all. Popped the 2 NICs in (3Com905's), booted it (both were recognized first go), modified the startup scripts to run the road runner daemon, dhcp client, and ipforwarding commands and it was done. 10-15 minutes actual working time tops.
What NICs were you trying to get going. Other brands/models might not have as easy a time depening on support in the drivers.
Just about any book out of that publisher is good. Forget Sams or Que, these books are some of the best money can buy. I picked this particular title up a little over three weeks ago and have used it a few times since then. As the review above said, it does indeed cover a lot of material and does so coherently and in an easy to digest manner. Highly recommended to the beginner and the seasoned professional just looking for a good reference on most major linux programming areas. If tied together with a good programming theory book the pair would be ideal for beginning to intermediate computer science courses.
As far as this book over looking Perl, it was probably a choice, not an oversight. There are already several books out there on Perl and many more books that touch on it in relation to other topics. There wasn't a good general "catch all" title out there though... they filled that void. Sure they could have thrown it in, but I don't think that it takes that much away from the value of the book.
There is a very big difference here between the Red Hat IPO and the various other "internet" stocks out there. Red Hat has some actual assets. They actually sell something. They are more than just some portal web site or something that deals entirely in the abstraction that is the web and banner ads.
And, they are the best positioned company, at least in the popular press's eyes, to give Microsoft a run for it's money. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft somehow managed to make sure that Red Hat did well, simply to foster the notion that there is OS market competition on the Intel/x86 platform.
Well, my local respresentitve (Jim Walsh) just happens to be the chairman of the VA-HUD subcommittee and senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, which encompases the NASA budget as well as 20-30 other programs and agencies (Veterans Medicare and pensions and Housing and Urban Development the biggies, obviously).
I've recieved some word back from his legislative aide and have got some names of who we should write to to get maximum effect:
1) Speaker Dennis Hastert of the 14th district in IL. http://www.house.gov/hastert/
2) Majority Leader Dick Armey of the 26th district in TX. http://armey.house.gov/
3) Appropriation Majority Whip Tom Delay of the 22nd district in TX. http://majoritywhip.house.gov/
These people are the ones who have control of when the appropriations bill goes to the floor, as well as what cuts make it to the bill.
Jim Wlash (25th district of New York, central new york area) would be good (http://www.house.gov/walsh/). And of course you're local representative.
We do not have everything needed to play an encrypted DVD. This CSS code does not provide the ability to decrypt the information, only to unlock disc. An encrypted blocks of a DVD disc are not even readable until the drive goes through an authentication process. That process is what this CSS code helps perform. We can not read decrypted data yet to feed to the MPEG-2 and AC-3 decoders.
On MPEG-2, you are right. Use in a system requires a $4 per device/software-copy royalty.
AC-3 is patented in both software and hardware. There is public AC-3 code available, produced by Arron Holtzman, but the legalities of that being offered publicly in an unlicensed form is unknown. It constitutes an implementation (under Dolby's licensing structure) and as such is potentially in need of a $10K one time licensing fee. Use of that AC-3 code/implementation in a system (hardware or software application) would require that the hardware or software producer pay a one time fee of $10K plus a variable royalty on each device/software-copy sold/distributed.
Would be cool, yes. And it would indeed require the 4-16 gigs of imaging space depending on the size of the disc you wanted to produce. While I don't think this could be implenmented as a file system (it's already been said that the FS and the dvd data layout are two seperate things) a linux based dvd authoring tool could be developed. Again, fee and open sourced are not likely due to the need to get NDAs for the DVD spec and pay for it. Unfortunate but the only way to go right now.
Yes, the people who run across it are not at fault, but the person(s) who put the code there in the first place are at fault. I'm wondering if there is a way for them to get the information out without being held liable for anything. A way around the RE clauses of software licneses.
And you are right, you can not patent an idea. As that statment applies to CSS: CSS is not patented technology. I'm guessing this is because the techniques used in a software or hardware implementation of this are already patented and/or in the public domain. Not to mention if they patented it they would have had to publicly release the information on how it was done, which is against their ideas, apparently, of how to secure data.