I'm not going to say what it's like. It *is* locking out competition; these companies rely on being a security blanket for their customers. The system upon which it works changes out from under them, and then refuses to document the changes. Then, coincidentally, they come out with their own product, that, in fair competition (ie: the documentation was forthcoming), would probably fall by the wayside as an inferior product.
Heh. Previous, current, future. I've heard the 'most secure OS ever' schtick before. Hype does not a good product make, and MS has pretty much proven itself the be more capable of the former than the latter.
It could be a prettied up XP with incomplete security packages and feature rot (which is what I've been hearing from beta testers who haven't been paid to say otherwise). It could be the One True OS that blows the rest of 'em out of the water. History points towards the former, but past results are not an indicator of future performance.
All in all, it's taken MS way too long to get the system out - this speaks to me of a development team that's gotten themselves lost in the details and started designing by committee. My opinion is that it's going to be worthless until about SP2 - right when all MS products start being useful.
I'm thinking of subscribing to series; a rate that comes to about $2 per episode of a given show?
Envision it: You press the 'Shows' button on your remote, which brings you to a listing of your favorite shows. You click the 'Scrubs' button, and the latest episode is downloaded and played simultaneously, as your CC is charged the nominal $2. Since it's using an mpeg-4 codec running at 640x480x29.97f/s with around 2mbit/s video and 192kbit/s audio (sum of about 280 kilobytes/sec), your 3 megabits of bandwidth is high enough to skip forward past the boring parts, or skip back to something you missed.
It's got all the normal PVR functions, and something else: Like the episode? Want to keep it? It's yours! Just pop a DVD in and it burns while you watch. Are you the archiving sort, but don'tlike those messy 5" discs? Store it on your computer's hard drive via wireless or lan!
When you click the 'save' button, it notifies you that your customer ID is steganographically embedded in the video stream; if you do share disrespectfully of the TV industry, they can find you and sue you, with hard evidence. No worries, though; you're a good user. You'll watch it, and maybe copy it to a friend or two - making sure to tell them not to copy it further; if they do, it's your ass. The tradeoff, of course, is that you have complete control over the content you paid for. You can play it on your iPod, your PDA, your PSP - anything with an mpeg4 decoder.
Bored with what you're watching? Fine, go watch something else! Your download placeholderis saved on the 80G drive, and will complete when you choose to watch it again, or while you're off doing something that isn't TV.
Meanwhile, want a discount? $0.10 off yourbill each time you press the 'commercial' button. Perfect for those of us who have trouble taking a piss without some inane jingle going on - or for those of us who like to watch the funny ones (I find myself saving things like the Katamari/Insurance company crossover commercial on my DVR from time to time... or the calico colored guinea pig... that was awesome)
I apologize to everyone else for feeding this troll.
"I speak only for the Truth."
Who's truth? Yours? The Pope's? Bin Laden's? Bobby Henderson's? Which God do you speak for?
"The problem is that it is not only your own soul that you are damming, you are bringing the anger of God onto every person you meet."
This could not possibly be true of a rational God who has given his children free will.
"But your refusal to offer gratitude to the Creator, or even to acknowledge Him as your Father is an extremely evil deed."
More evil than to bluntly state that no God exists? I have no belief, but that doesn't mean I couldn't be wrong; God, I'll admit, is possible by the very design of the concept ofan all-father. It's just that he's very improbable.
"I'm sorry you think obedience to God is 'lame,' but this kind of attitude just shows why you need to be removed from the community."
Why? My non-belief infringes on the existence of believers? You're fooling yourself if you think there's a valid justification for your earlier comment about decent countries having death penalties for atheism. Decent countries don't have death penalties.
Even putting it in perspective; the death penalty denies the atheist the opportunity to repent - an obvious affront to God. Why do you think the all-mighty hasn't taken the atheist's life already? Remember, man: the book of Exodus (common to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) says 'thou shalt not kill'. Those who feel they can ignore that have most certainly strayed from their chosen path.
It's like Sci-Fi; it's no good if it can't follow its own rules.
"What rights? You have no rights other than those God grants you..."
And, apparently, one of those is free will. So, yeah. You can argue tooth and nail about this, but in the end, I'm really not going to care.
Of course, there's a reason I call myself an 'apathist'. This is how religious conversations usually go: "Is there a God?" Well, I can't prove it one way or another, and people seem to be having the same hard time whether or not they believe in one, so really, does it matter? I can't see a reason why it should.
"How did the universe begin?" Well, religious tomes have their stories, and the scientific community has its evidence and theorys, but to be honest, it happened long before I was born, and probably won't carry any ill effects into my life. Once again, who cares?
"How did mankind come about?" Feh. All these questions. No, really, I'm here, I think, and I can do what I need to do to live. That's lucky; some aren't as. All these theocratic hypothetical questions are just wastes of my mind. I could be spending some time generating some social benefits, or improving my own situation. Instead, I'm sitting here answering stupid questions. Don't you have better things to do?
Example: I have no belief in God. Yet, oddly, most people I meet consider me to be one of the nicest persons they've ever met. And, while I don't care if I'm recognized for it or not, I will bend over backwards to assist a cause I think is noble and worthy, even if it's something as simple as helping someone who's gotten a flat tire on the highway.
So, if it's deeds, I'm going to whatever 'good' version of the afterlife there is - but that's not enough if I'm in a church-mandated government; I also have to go through the rediculous rituals, the lame on-your-knees begging for salvation, etc.
Not only is that an inconvenience, it's an infringement on my rights, as far as I'm concerned. Seriously. I consider evangelists to be something on the order of spammers and telemarketers: least-of-evils that, given the existence of Dante's hell and a rational God, would be placed in the outer circle with the unbaptised.
That's why I smile and shut the door on the religious salesmen you see everywhere; sure I'm going to hell. I'll see you there, spammer.
Well, something built-to-last would have a little mechanism to change the blade angle (normally locked inplace for shaving).
Though, I'm thinking there's be a flexibility issue; metal blades can bend, allowing them to form to your face. I get the feeling that a ceramic blade may have a 'skinning' issue.
Meanwhile, I'm holding out on shaving until they have 20 carbon nanotubes held taut across a razor head with no back (hair wouldn't get caught between the blades as easily). If nanotubes won't work well, nanosheets will do.
I wonder if the Music / Movie industry realizes the racket DRM programmers have going.
I mean, these guys deal with encryption, so the HAVE to know the fundamental flaw in DRM (ie: Bob==Carol). So why do DRM, rather than DCT-resistant steganography?
Seriously. It only takes one guy clever enough to break the DRM and distribute his findings to the world.
Simple: The programmers know the DRM *MUST* be broken, and usually in short order. It ensures continued incoming cash flow for the developers that make DRM systems. It's a primary concept of mercenary tactics: Get the job done, but make sure it needs done later.
Ok, I've seen flash in 8G, and it's not prohibitively expensive (in the $100 range). It's probably less so at volume pricing, especially if you're buying the flash chip by itself and building the USB interface.
Given things like Adobe CS2.3 come in the $1000 price range, it doesn't seem unreasonable to use some sort of DRM / dongle combo on a nice big 8G flash disk, (You don't install the program; it just runs from the dongle via USB 2.0).
Process: the only unencrypted file on the disk is the loader. The loader contacts adobe to verify your license (not by personally identifiable information, but by a unique ID embedded in the dongle, accessed via a special call), and obtains the private key for that dongle for decoding. It then checks to see that it's been loaded from a USB drive with the correct Vendor/Product ID, and looks for the right program files on that drive. It uses its private key to decrypt program and data files, on the fly, directly into memory (this is the hacker hole). The other Adobe programs also have the necessary libs to do this statically linked in to their fopen hooks, so that no extra programming is necessary.
Meanwhile, potential holes:
The USB Special call can be captured and duplicated, and one could probably fake the VID/PID the USB bus returns, so that the license can be duplicated. This is bad for a large scale hack, as Adobe will quickly notice getting too many calls for each license. Prevention: this could be verified via challenge / response through the USB to prevent abuse. Moving on.
The decryption process can be captured, giving a limited number of files as cleartext. This would be tedious, requiring the user to poke at every file on the dongle to capture its cleartext. It might also be problematic for the hacker if Adobe only reads the headers to decide whether it should read in a whole file. The hacker would then have to try to load each and every.exe and.dll via the loader program, or hack it to expose the loader's libraries. Prevention: Keep a log of what is data and what is executable on the stick. Make the loader and all other programs able to load things from the stick aware of the difference (forcing the hacker into the more tedious version of events). Link the loader statically, so that its libs are unexposed (the individual programs should load each other only through the loader, and otherwise be only able to load data).
Once cleartext is obtained, hacking the other nasty bits out of the software (USB dongle check, loader requirement, Adobe callhome, etc) is easy using conventional cracking techniques.
A system like that could be made VERY difficult (but not impossible) to hack. Like all DRM, no matter how well you lock it down, it only takes one person who is sufficiently clever to break it, and your multi-million dollar piratesbane is rendered useless.
Still, the programming industry needs cash. Wasting a ton of money on DRM, however much I dislike it, is basically just handing us money.
And, like good mercenaries, once we have the cash, we'll go and undo our own work to ensure continued employment.
I wonder if the buyers of DRM systems _realize_ the scale to which they're being suckered...
Well, I've read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", "Time Enough for Love", "Stranger in a Strange Land", "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls", "The Number of the Beast",... Uh, the one where the old dude's brain gets transplanted into his young secretary's body... "The Rolling Stones" and a couple of others whose titles don't spring to mind.
So, I know who Lazarus Long is. To be honest, I didn't even know "Starship Troopers" was a Heinlein book, and not just a bad movie. Which is why I didn't get the "Roger Young" reference.
But thanks for the additional titles. I'll be looking for 'em. I need a break from my Niven kick anyways.
Cost of 1Gb SMT PROM:... I can't seem to find any - ROM, PROM, EPROM or EEPROM - even in the MBit range.
Could someone more familiar with component purchase look this up? We're trying to find a WORM type of chip, surface mount (to fit in a USB key), of lower cost than flash, and in the > 800MByte (6Gigabit) range.
Add on the necessity to call home to get the crypto key, and you can encrypt the entire program, and...
Oh, wait. B==C DRM doesn't work. As soon as a hacker figures out how to capture the private key or decrypted data, and distributes that method across the dark net, Joe User can now have a go, overconfident in the idea that Mr. Hacker's program will do its job without installing a botnet node on his computer.
Still, this is a case in which the use of a non Microsoft system for pre-loading the iPods would be the appropriate solution at the manufacturing end. Since all that's needed is the ability to create and write to a FAT32 filesystem, I don't see why Linux isn't used; it can even be done automatically on a headless machine that does the loading upon USB insertion.
Dada, I usually agree with you, but I've got to poke at this one:
"The equal free flow of information is absolutely UNNECESSARY and uncompetitive."
The SEC would disagree with you; they've got a number of regulations that ensure the free flow of information (transparency regulations), and severe punishments for those who would have information flow more freely for themselves than others (anti-insider trading laws).
But that's OK. You don't necessarily agree with existing laws and policies. Neither do I, so that's fair. Meanwhile, I have to say that the free flow of information is absolutely necessary for a working free market; given asymmetric information about a given good or service, the buyer or seller is in a position to be conned.
Now, in a perfect free market, the person in power wouldn't con their customer; they want repeat business, they want reputation, and, ultimately, they want continued cash flow. Meanwhile, a sufficient stream of businessmen aren't that intuitive. They're in it for the money, and they'll con their customer as soon as look at them. And, likely, quickly, they'll go out of business - only to be replaced at speed with a different man of similar intelligence and ideas.
Unfortunately, the free market does nothing to weed out used car salesmen.
So, sometimes we have transparency regulations, to correct the market failure of asymmetric information.
Your later example (a process by which your business operates) is protected by trade secret law, and not actually relevant to the labeling question. Still, given that your competitor knows what you do and how you do it, what's stopping him from improving the product? What stops you then from stealing the improvement and improving upon that? Free information flow, in this aspect, is hard to see as anticompetitive. That is, until you realize that the speed of the cycle of competition - and the costs associated with it - grow amazingly fast. Only those who are able to fund amazing amounts of R&D, or who are able to cut R&D costs dramatically, will survive. The result in either case is the same: a small group of large businesses in control of a market.
Of course, the paracontestable oligopoly market is apparent in a number of places, especially in the technological sector, where entry costs are high and rising. It shows up whether process information flow is free or not. However, when process information flow *IS* free, what comes out of the process of a new market developing into an oligopoly (and possibly monopoly) is that the market's technology advances far faster than with no information flow. This is, of course, just all the stuff that happens before the upstarts move in and render the paracontestable market contestable again, usually due to some advancement in an only peripherally related technology.
I'm getting more into the hippie 'information wants to be free, man' line. To be honest, I don't really believe that. Until it becomes economically desirable for information to be libre, the only free information will stem from those with a passion for spreading knowledge - even if it is socially beneficial for information to be free.
Tell me something I don't know (and didn't imply). All I'm saying is that I want an ARM with a comparable clock to a desktop - not because that will make it equal, implying that clock is the only measure of performance - but because a 2GHz ARM would make an Intel chip quiver in terror.
By the way, Clock x Instructions per Clock x Operations per Instruction = processor performance. There's other factors like... X-Play has just made me forget my point with a very disturbing parody of John Glenn and his inclination towards sexily anthropomorphized animals.
They've got the licensing on ZRAM, which I think is by itself enough to build a better processor.
Oddly enough, though, I really wish ARM would beat out a high-frequency chip (something in the multi-GHz range). For some reason, my Pocket PC with a measley 624MHz processor can run Playstation One games faster and more reliably than my 933 MHz Dell; I don't know how that counts as a benchmark, but I've seen similar things happen with ARMs; pound for pound, they always seem to be a faster chipset.
Of course, the entire world is entrenched in x86. Not that I think it's a shit processor, or anything. It gets the job done. It's just that ARMs could do it better, given the same R&D money.
I think he was talking about the price of new CDs (about $15) versus the price of CD duplication (about $1, if that). And you're right, that's not evidence of price fixing; it's evidence that the market is poorly informed about the cost of a good, and will, as such, bear a far higher price.
Though, I'd like to see if I can't see a list of music exec salaries versus exec salaries in other industries. Then, maybe, find some artists' contracts.
Unfortunately for the **AA, there's a very large contingent of both US tech-aware humans who will NEVER fear these jokers, and an even bigger contingent of humans in other countries that don't give half a shit what the **AA does.
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'requiring companies to operate in a single layer of the OSI model'
That's a shockingly good idea.
Thing is, it would DESTROY Apple.
It's, ah, nothing like that. Stop smoking crack.
I'm not going to say what it's like. It *is* locking out competition; these companies rely on being a security blanket for their customers. The system upon which it works changes out from under them, and then refuses to document the changes. Then, coincidentally, they come out with their own product, that, in fair competition (ie: the documentation was forthcoming), would probably fall by the wayside as an inferior product.
"crappy insecure code in previous MS products"
Heh. Previous, current, future. I've heard the 'most secure OS ever' schtick before. Hype does not a good product make, and MS has pretty much proven itself the be more capable of the former than the latter.
It could be a prettied up XP with incomplete security packages and feature rot (which is what I've been hearing from beta testers who haven't been paid to say otherwise). It could be the One True OS that blows the rest of 'em out of the water. History points towards the former, but past results are not an indicator of future performance.
All in all, it's taken MS way too long to get the system out - this speaks to me of a development team that's gotten themselves lost in the details and started designing by committee. My opinion is that it's going to be worthless until about SP2 - right when all MS products start being useful.
I'm thinking of subscribing to series; a rate that comes to about $2 per episode of a given show?
Envision it:
You press the 'Shows' button on your remote, which brings you to a listing of your favorite shows. You click the 'Scrubs' button, and the latest episode is downloaded and played simultaneously, as your CC is charged the nominal $2. Since it's using an mpeg-4 codec running at 640x480x29.97f/s with around 2mbit/s video and 192kbit/s audio (sum of about 280 kilobytes/sec), your 3 megabits of bandwidth is high enough to skip forward past the boring parts, or skip back to something you missed.
It's got all the normal PVR functions, and something else: Like the episode? Want to keep it? It's yours! Just pop a DVD in and it burns while you watch. Are you the archiving sort, but don'tlike those messy 5" discs? Store it on your computer's hard drive via wireless or lan!
When you click the 'save' button, it notifies you that your customer ID is steganographically embedded in the video stream; if you do share disrespectfully of the TV industry, they can find you and sue you, with hard evidence. No worries, though; you're a good user. You'll watch it, and maybe copy it to a friend or two - making sure to tell them not to copy it further; if they do, it's your ass. The tradeoff, of course, is that you have complete control over the content you paid for. You can play it on your iPod, your PDA, your PSP - anything with an mpeg4 decoder.
Bored with what you're watching? Fine, go watch something else! Your download placeholderis saved on the 80G drive, and will complete when you choose to watch it again, or while you're off doing something that isn't TV.
Meanwhile, want a discount? $0.10 off yourbill each time you press the 'commercial' button. Perfect for those of us who have trouble taking a piss without some inane jingle going on - or for those of us who like to watch the funny ones (I find myself saving things like the Katamari/Insurance company crossover commercial on my DVR from time to time... or the calico colored guinea pig... that was awesome)
Feh. You know what they say. Heaven for the weather, hell for the company.
Seriously. I wouldn't want to share a heaven with a lunatic like yourself.
I apologize to everyone else for feeding this troll.
"I speak only for the Truth."
Who's truth? Yours? The Pope's? Bin Laden's? Bobby Henderson's? Which God do you speak for?
"The problem is that it is not only your own soul that you are damming, you are bringing the anger of God onto every person you meet."
This could not possibly be true of a rational God who has given his children free will.
"But your refusal to offer gratitude to the Creator, or even to acknowledge Him as your Father is an extremely evil deed."
More evil than to bluntly state that no God exists? I have no belief, but that doesn't mean I couldn't be wrong; God, I'll admit, is possible by the very design of the concept ofan all-father. It's just that he's very improbable.
"I'm sorry you think obedience to God is 'lame,' but this kind of attitude just shows why you need to be removed from the community."
Why? My non-belief infringes on the existence of believers? You're fooling yourself if you think there's a valid justification for your earlier comment about decent countries having death penalties for atheism. Decent countries don't have death penalties.
Even putting it in perspective; the death penalty denies the atheist the opportunity to repent - an obvious affront to God. Why do you think the all-mighty hasn't taken the atheist's life already? Remember, man: the book of Exodus (common to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) says 'thou shalt not kill'. Those who feel they can ignore that have most certainly strayed from their chosen path.
It's like Sci-Fi; it's no good if it can't follow its own rules.
"What rights? You have no rights other than those God grants you..."
And, apparently, one of those is free will. So, yeah. You can argue tooth and nail about this, but in the end, I'm really not going to care.
Of course, there's a reason I call myself an 'apathist'. This is how religious conversations usually go:
"Is there a God?"
Well, I can't prove it one way or another, and people seem to be having the same hard time whether or not they believe in one, so really, does it matter? I can't see a reason why it should.
"How did the universe begin?"
Well, religious tomes have their stories, and the scientific community has its evidence and theorys, but to be honest, it happened long before I was born, and probably won't carry any ill effects into my life. Once again, who cares?
"How did mankind come about?"
Feh. All these questions. No, really, I'm here, I think, and I can do what I need to do to live. That's lucky; some aren't as. All these theocratic hypothetical questions are just wastes of my mind. I could be spending some time generating some social benefits, or improving my own situation. Instead, I'm sitting here answering stupid questions. Don't you have better things to do?
It should say 'transparent interface'.
'cos, seriously... that was REALLY cool.
Speakfor yourself, zealot.
Example: I have no belief in God. Yet, oddly, most people I meet consider me to be one of the nicest persons they've ever met. And, while I don't care if I'm recognized for it or not, I will bend over backwards to assist a cause I think is noble and worthy, even if it's something as simple as helping someone who's gotten a flat tire on the highway.
So, if it's deeds, I'm going to whatever 'good' version of the afterlife there is - but that's not enough if I'm in a church-mandated government; I also have to go through the rediculous rituals, the lame on-your-knees begging for salvation, etc.
Not only is that an inconvenience, it's an infringement on my rights, as far as I'm concerned. Seriously. I consider evangelists to be something on the order of spammers and telemarketers: least-of-evils that, given the existence of Dante's hell and a rational God, would be placed in the outer circle with the unbaptised.
That's why I smile and shut the door on the religious salesmen you see everywhere; sure I'm going to hell. I'll see you there, spammer.
I do believe he's quoting something, man.
Meanwhile, please keep assuming that anyone who you disagree with is some kind of basement dwelling uber geek.
You make me ill, troll.
Well, something built-to-last would have a little mechanism to change the blade angle (normally locked inplace for shaving).
Though, I'm thinking there's be a flexibility issue; metal blades can bend, allowing them to form to your face. I get the feeling that a ceramic blade may have a 'skinning' issue.
Why not make the blades out of ceramics? Tungsten carbide's a good one; you just need a mold that will stably hold its shape to a microscopic vertex.
It would never break. You could make it now, shave your face for thirty years, and still accidentally slash your wrists with it.
Hm. Moore's law of razor blades, huh?
I can't wait to see the advert for the Mach 20.
Wait, I think I have... Thanks, Spishak!
Meanwhile, I'm holding out on shaving until they have 20 carbon nanotubes held taut across a razor head with no back (hair wouldn't get caught between the blades as easily). If nanotubes won't work well, nanosheets will do.
I wonder if the Music / Movie industry realizes the racket DRM programmers have going.
I mean, these guys deal with encryption, so the HAVE to know the fundamental flaw in DRM (ie: Bob==Carol). So why do DRM, rather than DCT-resistant steganography?
Seriously. It only takes one guy clever enough to break the DRM and distribute his findings to the world.
Simple: The programmers know the DRM *MUST* be broken, and usually in short order. It ensures continued incoming cash flow for the developers that make DRM systems. It's a primary concept of mercenary tactics: Get the job done, but make sure it needs done later.
Hm.
.exe and .dll via the loader program, or hack it to expose the loader's libraries. Prevention: Keep a log of what is data and what is executable on the stick. Make the loader and all other programs able to load things from the stick aware of the difference (forcing the hacker into the more tedious version of events). Link the loader statically, so that its libs are unexposed (the individual programs should load each other only through the loader, and otherwise be only able to load data).
Ok, I've seen flash in 8G, and it's not prohibitively expensive (in the $100 range). It's probably less so at volume pricing, especially if you're buying the flash chip by itself and building the USB interface.
Given things like Adobe CS2.3 come in the $1000 price range, it doesn't seem unreasonable to use some sort of DRM / dongle combo on a nice big 8G flash disk, (You don't install the program; it just runs from the dongle via USB 2.0).
Process: the only unencrypted file on the disk is the loader. The loader contacts adobe to verify your license (not by personally identifiable information, but by a unique ID embedded in the dongle, accessed via a special call), and obtains the private key for that dongle for decoding. It then checks to see that it's been loaded from a USB drive with the correct Vendor/Product ID, and looks for the right program files on that drive. It uses its private key to decrypt program and data files, on the fly, directly into memory (this is the hacker hole). The other Adobe programs also have the necessary libs to do this statically linked in to their fopen hooks, so that no extra programming is necessary.
Meanwhile, potential holes:
The USB Special call can be captured and duplicated, and one could probably fake the VID/PID the USB bus returns, so that the license can be duplicated. This is bad for a large scale hack, as Adobe will quickly notice getting too many calls for each license. Prevention: this could be verified via challenge / response through the USB to prevent abuse. Moving on.
The decryption process can be captured, giving a limited number of files as cleartext. This would be tedious, requiring the user to poke at every file on the dongle to capture its cleartext. It might also be problematic for the hacker if Adobe only reads the headers to decide whether it should read in a whole file. The hacker would then have to try to load each and every
Once cleartext is obtained, hacking the other nasty bits out of the software (USB dongle check, loader requirement, Adobe callhome, etc) is easy using conventional cracking techniques.
A system like that could be made VERY difficult (but not impossible) to hack. Like all DRM, no matter how well you lock it down, it only takes one person who is sufficiently clever to break it, and your multi-million dollar piratesbane is rendered useless.
Still, the programming industry needs cash. Wasting a ton of money on DRM, however much I dislike it, is basically just handing us money.
And, like good mercenaries, once we have the cash, we'll go and undo our own work to ensure continued employment.
I wonder if the buyers of DRM systems _realize_ the scale to which they're being suckered...
Well, I've read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", "Time Enough for Love", "Stranger in a Strange Land", "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls", "The Number of the Beast", ... Uh, the one where the old dude's brain gets transplanted into his young secretary's body... "The Rolling Stones" and a couple of others whose titles don't spring to mind.
So, I know who Lazarus Long is. To be honest, I didn't even know "Starship Troopers" was a Heinlein book, and not just a bad movie. Which is why I didn't get the "Roger Young" reference.
But thanks for the additional titles. I'll be looking for 'em. I need a break from my Niven kick anyways.
I guess I lose cred. What's that from?
Cost of 1Gb SMT PROM: ... I can't seem to find any - ROM, PROM, EPROM or EEPROM - even in the MBit range.
Could someone more familiar with component purchase look this up? We're trying to find a WORM type of chip, surface mount (to fit in a USB key), of lower cost than flash, and in the > 800MByte (6Gigabit) range.
That's a really good idea, you know.
Add on the necessity to call home to get the crypto key, and you can encrypt the entire program, and...
Oh, wait. B==C DRM doesn't work. As soon as a hacker figures out how to capture the private key or decrypted data, and distributes that method across the dark net, Joe User can now have a go, overconfident in the idea that Mr. Hacker's program will do its job without installing a botnet node on his computer.
Oh, well. Nice idea while it lasted.
Still, this is a case in which the use of a non Microsoft system for pre-loading the iPods would be the appropriate solution at the manufacturing end. Since all that's needed is the ability to create and write to a FAT32 filesystem, I don't see why Linux isn't used; it can even be done automatically on a headless machine that does the loading upon USB insertion.
Dada, I usually agree with you, but I've got to poke at this one:
"The equal free flow of information is absolutely UNNECESSARY and uncompetitive."
The SEC would disagree with you; they've got a number of regulations that ensure the free flow of information (transparency regulations), and severe punishments for those who would have information flow more freely for themselves than others (anti-insider trading laws).
But that's OK. You don't necessarily agree with existing laws and policies. Neither do I, so that's fair. Meanwhile, I have to say that the free flow of information is absolutely necessary for a working free market; given asymmetric information about a given good or service, the buyer or seller is in a position to be conned.
Now, in a perfect free market, the person in power wouldn't con their customer; they want repeat business, they want reputation, and, ultimately, they want continued cash flow. Meanwhile, a sufficient stream of businessmen aren't that intuitive. They're in it for the money, and they'll con their customer as soon as look at them. And, likely, quickly, they'll go out of business - only to be replaced at speed with a different man of similar intelligence and ideas.
Unfortunately, the free market does nothing to weed out used car salesmen.
So, sometimes we have transparency regulations, to correct the market failure of asymmetric information.
Your later example (a process by which your business operates) is protected by trade secret law, and not actually relevant to the labeling question. Still, given that your competitor knows what you do and how you do it, what's stopping him from improving the product? What stops you then from stealing the improvement and improving upon that? Free information flow, in this aspect, is hard to see as anticompetitive. That is, until you realize that the speed of the cycle of competition - and the costs associated with it - grow amazingly fast. Only those who are able to fund amazing amounts of R&D, or who are able to cut R&D costs dramatically, will survive. The result in either case is the same: a small group of large businesses in control of a market.
Of course, the paracontestable oligopoly market is apparent in a number of places, especially in the technological sector, where entry costs are high and rising. It shows up whether process information flow is free or not. However, when process information flow *IS* free, what comes out of the process of a new market developing into an oligopoly (and possibly monopoly) is that the market's technology advances far faster than with no information flow. This is, of course, just all the stuff that happens before the upstarts move in and render the paracontestable market contestable again, usually due to some advancement in an only peripherally related technology.
I'm getting more into the hippie 'information wants to be free, man' line. To be honest, I don't really believe that. Until it becomes economically desirable for information to be libre, the only free information will stem from those with a passion for spreading knowledge - even if it is socially beneficial for information to be free.
Tell me something I don't know (and didn't imply). All I'm saying is that I want an ARM with a comparable clock to a desktop - not because that will make it equal, implying that clock is the only measure of performance - but because a 2GHz ARM would make an Intel chip quiver in terror.
... X-Play has just made me forget my point with a very disturbing parody of John Glenn and his inclination towards sexily anthropomorphized animals.
By the way, Clock x Instructions per Clock x Operations per Instruction = processor performance. There's other factors like
geh...
Give 'em a bit.
They've got the licensing on ZRAM, which I think is by itself enough to build a better processor.
Oddly enough, though, I really wish ARM would beat out a high-frequency chip (something in the multi-GHz range). For some reason, my Pocket PC with a measley 624MHz processor can run Playstation One games faster and more reliably than my 933 MHz Dell; I don't know how that counts as a benchmark, but I've seen similar things happen with ARMs; pound for pound, they always seem to be a faster chipset.
Of course, the entire world is entrenched in x86. Not that I think it's a shit processor, or anything. It gets the job done. It's just that ARMs could do it better, given the same R&D money.
I think he was talking about the price of new CDs (about $15) versus the price of CD duplication (about $1, if that). And you're right, that's not evidence of price fixing; it's evidence that the market is poorly informed about the cost of a good, and will, as such, bear a far higher price.
Though, I'd like to see if I can't see a list of music exec salaries versus exec salaries in other industries. Then, maybe, find some artists' contracts.
Here goes the hunting through DEF 14As.
Double Jeopardy only counts for criminal cases. RIAA lawsuits are civil.
Unfortunately for the **AA, there's a very large contingent of both US tech-aware humans who will NEVER fear these jokers, and an even bigger contingent of humans in other countries that don't give half a shit what the **AA does.