Actually, I read this differently. It seems to me that they are (in cooperation with hardware) running a small block of code which intercepts running code from other OSes and prevents system calls it does not like. This would prevent someone tampering with Mac OS X code after installing Linux on the same box. System calls making accesses to 'tamper-resistant' parts of Mac OS can be cancelled. If so, I see this interacting very badly with other OSes, even if no tampering is intended.
Whatever happened to the idea that a patent application was supposed to be a full disclosure such that someone could actually implement the invention themselves after the patent expires? All they talk about is 'apply tamper resistant techniques' and nothing more specific. Without more specification, this is not novel. With more specification, it gives a roadmap for cracking it (all DRM depends utterly on obscurity). I wonder if a patent can be called into question on the basis of incomplete disclosure.
The real question is not how they can put up with what Sony did, but how they can write an OS which allows a vendor to implicitly and silently install a driver that roots the system. Why does Windows not put up a dialog box saying "Hey, this disk wants to install something. It is not signed and not certified. Do you want to allow it?"
If Windows did that much, then it would be so much easier to prevent this kind of crap. Heck, Mac puts up a warning just because an installer wants to run an external program.
I have heard/read that some very odd things happen with some types of salamanders if this is what you are referring to. With peer transmission, standard evolutionary principles apply, with the caveat that the peer must die before transmitting their hereditary info in order to be de-selected.
Limited Lamarkianism does not falsify evolution per se. We know that evolution does occur in the majority of cases we have seen. If Lamarkianism better describes certain traits in a handful of species, then great. It is another tool in the toolbox. We do know that his hypothesis was wrong in the cases he was looking at. Retroviruses can be considered to be a Lamarckian event in that the individual undergoes an experience which can permanently alter their heredity, but it is still not quite what Lamarck envisioned, being more concerned with giraffes stretching their necks and so forth. There are actually several diseases which have been shown to force speciation in insects.
Another possible case where evolution would not be useful is where intelligence (aliens, humans, god(s), whatever) micromanages the process, specifically through cloning, artificial insemination/implantation, etc.
One thing evolutionists still have some trouble explaining well is exactly where speciation occurs, to the extent that the species are still being reclassified all of the time. as a part time botanist with several generations of books, it can sometimes be difficult to keep up (was that cruciferae or brassicaceae?) I think it just comes down to that there is no hard and fast rules with the situation varying by species. Some species are separated by being genetically incompatible (extra chromosome), some by social or behavioral structure (different mating season).
I think the attitude you have is the simplest way of discrediting it, while many other theories need to be disproven with an alternative, like if I were to show you proof that every species you know was created by a traveling race of intelligent beings, it would throw evolution right out the window. I can't simply prove that evolution doesn't happen, because I would have to test it for an infinite period of time to be sure.
You need to understand exactly what a theory is, from a philosophical perspective. If I wanted to, I could claim that nothing, not even your own knowledge of yourself, is real knowledge, because it is based on observations you make as a human, which are subject to error. You're taking a similarly radical position when you claim that ID is not falsifiable. In this case you do the best you can to come to a rational conclusion, and many of the foundational questions in science have been answered with weak arguments. You go ask a true skeptic about either of the two topics and he/she will tell you there are two many unknowns at this point, to come to a solid conclusion, whichever side you take. There are a lot of good books on the subject, The Emergence of Life on Earth: A Historical and Scientific Overview, The Spark of Life: Darwin and the Primeval Soup, I've read the latter and recommend it, the former is next on my hit list.
First of all, evolution is falsifiable. It was one of several competing theories where evolution won out because it explained more and was not proven incorrect. Evolution has three basic statements:
Variation exists.
Genetic traits are inherited.
Natural selection selects which individuals pass on traits
Any of those statements is falsifiable. You can demonstrate that all individuals are functionally identical (variation does not exist), that they do not pass on their traits to offspring, or that premature death of an individual has no effect on traits passed to the next generation. Before we knew as much as we currently do about biology, any of those negatives might have been a sensible statement. Now that we can see mechanisms of inheritance in action, evolution is very hard to counter. Over time, it has gone from a predictive theory or guess to more of a simple description of what we see happen. Contrast Lamarkianism:
Individuals aquire traits through events that happen to them.
Aquired traits are inherited.
This is also a falsifiable alternative to evolution. The first statement is obviously true, but the second statement, that individuals can pass aquired traits on to their offspring, has been demonstrated as false. If a mouse gets its tail cut off, this has no effect on the length of its offsprings' tails. What is Intelligent Design's falsifiable statement?
Now, note that the statements about evolution above do not say anything about where life came from or how it happened. You can infer from watching evolution in action and looking at common gene sequences that life has a common origin, but this is not required by evolution. If we discover that space aliens created cats (I live with cats; this is believable;-) ), it does not derail evolution, it merely asserts that cats came from different stock.
Now, as to your statement that knowledge is not real and therefore any theory is as good as another, science deals with this very nicely: Occams Razor and the Doctrine of Utility. Put together, it comes down to this: one theory is better than another if it affords the most utility (explains and predicts the most) with the fewest assumptions. Science aknowledges that assumptions come in somewhere. Now, lets look at ID. It has one non-falsifiable statement, that (all) life was created by an intelligent agent. Great. What does that explain or predict? Absolutely nothing. Does knowing that life was designed tell you more about how frogs work? No. Does it tell you whether there is potential
That is at best an incomplete understanding of evolutionary theory. It has come a long way since Darwin.
Steven J Gould was a proponent of 'punctuated equilibrium': that species remain relatively static for long periods until something disturbs the equilibrium causing rapid speciation. An example would be a population which suddenly becomes isolated (disaster, changes in the location or depth of water, etc.), or a sudden pressure is put on one segment of the population (new predator, disease, etc.). This has become more or less mainstream evolution.
An example would be a species spread over a large area with healthy genetic variability. In the species central habitat, a new deadly disease comes on the scene (carried by an insect which only does well in the central belt). Suddenly, the two outlying areas are isolated from each other and begin to drift genetically. Small anomalies in the genetic composition of the outliers means that those populations will be instantaneously different from each other. They can no longer interbreed to re-mix the drifting genes.
A few individuals are resistant to the disease and can populate the central belt. The disease resistance comes at a cost; it is not uncommon for resistance to have negative side-effects. Resistant individuals cannot compete in the outlying (non-disease) areas, so their population drifts as well. Over a few generations, an eyblink in the fossil record, you end up with three new species.
Now climate change comes along and wipes out the mosquito which had carried the disease. The disease resistant population dies out, out-competed by the outliers. The outliers come back into contact but cannot interbreed successfully anymore because of excessive drift (mules). Either they exist as separate populations in the same area (goats and sheep, sambar and samovar, etc. etc.) or they compete with each other and one wins (Neanderthal and moderns?).
The point is, variations on evolutionary theory can explain a lot. The theory changes over time to match new data *as it should*. ID or creationism does not incorporate new data and does not deal with observable phenomena at all.
There is an old quote from Rachel Carson (author of Silent Spring, among others) from when she was visiting the ocean with her grandmother. The grandmother, exasperated with all of young Rachel's questions said:
"You know, Rachel, God created all of this."
"I know that Grandma. What I want to know is *how* God created it."
The idea or belief of Intelligent Design does not excuse someone from trying to understand the design and our place in it. As you say, most ID supporters use faith as a cop-out to try to prevent people from asking questions. To somewhat paraphrase Kant, saying that God is good and what God commands is good is circular; it does not provide a foundation for moral thought or right-action. Belief in God does not free us from the need for either moral or scientific reasoning.
Sadly, under the PATRIOT Act they can just give you the letter, beat you, put you in a van and never show your face ever again. Or tell anyone they arrested you. Or even mention (to you or ANYONE) under what charges.
And even if you do get to the Supreme Court, it's becoming less certain it would actually give you justice.::sigh::
Jose {adilla certainly did not get any justice. It took him, what, a full year to get a lawyer, and only because the lawyer appointed herself and petitioned the court. After two years, he got to the Supreme Court and the high court threw it out because the habeas corpus writ was served in the wrong jurisdiction-- because the government secretly moved him part way through the process. The high court replied that, of course, the gov't couldn't have done that on purpose. So, the clock started all over for him.
It took another year for him to get to the 4th Circuit Court who said it was just fine for him to be held indefinitely without charges and thus far, he is still in prison.
OK, if the government is protecting us, and Padilla is a terrorist, then why can't them come up with coherent charges and a trial in almost four years. What keeps them from doing this to anyone else, say, a person who resists an NSL? They do not have to say why they are holding you and no one can talk about the NSL. Even if you do get out after five years or so, so what? Will you refuse the next NSL you get?
It's sad, the newspapers mentioned very little about this case. Most people just buy that the FBI caught a terrorist and that's good enough.
I don't know if a 'war' (vs "police action") has been declared by congress against "terrorists", but I know Bush declared victory over Iraq already. So I assume we are not in an actual state of war, other than the one the administration wants against 'terrorists' which doesn't count according to the constitution unless congress declares it, otherwise it's just a buzzwords to indefinitely oppress us (the people) of the US.
Perhaps the courts won't declare a University a house, but this may be more dependent whether said University is publicly funded or privately funded rather than what we think of a 'house.'
Yes, that is exactly the issue. First we have a 'War on Drugs', then a 'War on Terror'. The gov't has been desperate for some time to imply that we are continuously at war to justify all kinds of 'emergency measures'. Which leads to two obvious questions:
When will this 'war' end?
What will become of these 'emergency measures' at that time?
Bush was asked exactly these questions in a debate prior to the last election. He went on at some length, but somehow avoided answering either of them (Bush is not alone in this, however). We have had crime for a long time, since before the Revolutionary War, in fact, We have had terrorism and insurrection for a long time too. Our Founding Fathers were noted terrorists and insurrectionists themselves. Our Founding Fathers seemed to feel it unnecessary to spy on students. Somehow, I think that the Bill of Rights and little things like Habeas Corpus were intended to apply even when crime might occur or the nation might 'be in danger'.
Seriously, I would rather take my chances with terrorists. It does not matter to me what uniform an invader wears. Orwell had it on the mark: always at war, occasionally change the enemy, strip the freedoms one by one.
That's interesting, The Third Amendment (To the US Constitution, Bill of Rights) was specifically added to prevent the Quartering Act from recurring:
Amendment III
Quartering of soldiers: No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
I wonder to what extent some of the modern attempts at increasing police powers can be likened to an affront on the third ammendment. By requiring built-in-surveillance everywhere, they are essentially making each citizen walk around with a monkey on their back and foot the bill for the government to spy on them in the same way the British made the colonists house and feed their own oppressors. I do not want soldiers or police or cameras or anything of the sort in my home, work place or educational institution. I want to live in peace and be left alone.
Personally, I would rather take my chances with someone trying to drop a plane on my head (relatively rare) than empower further government corruption (relatively common) and being forced to be host to it is just salt in the wounds.
I think the trick is that you have to be motivated to network, socialize, and work on projects outside the degree structure, for instance, with internships, perhaps OpenSource project work, and lots of extra reading. If you cannot do that, then the online degree will not do much good. This is largely true even of brick-and-mortar CS degrees now as well though: you may learn next to nothing in the classes and the projects are a joke. At least on a campus, you increase accidental interactions which might be useful and you might be able to get connected with ongoing projects outside of class.
My wife is finishing her degree at the moment with mostly online courses, but we live well outside of town and have a newborn, so taking day-classes is not really workable. The classes consist of a lot of canned material, a lot of videos and recordings, etc., so it is nothing more than you could get by spending the day at a library or B&N or online going through the Safari bookshelf, but you can get financial aid for it (funding for self-learning is not readily available) and you get that all-important piece of paper. All-in-all, they are not any worse than the typical TA-taught course in most 'real' schools.
It need not stall mutation, but merely reduce the impact of deleterious mutations by encouraging heterozygosity.
Lets take a common human example: syckle-cell anemia.
Syckle-Cell is a mutation in the blood cells which causes them to be deformed and clog capillaries (amoung other things). The condition is fatal without treatment. However, having sycle-cell anemia also makes one resistant to malaria. How is this helpful?
If someone has only one gene for syckle-cell (they are heterozygous recessive), they are resistant to malaria but the anemia wont kill them. If they have both bad genes (they are homozygous recessive), they die of the anemia. If they are homozygous dominant (both functional genes), they die of malaria. In malaria hot-zones, you get a lot of heterozygous recessive individuals and a lot of children dying of one condition or the other.
Now, imagine that you had a mechanism to correct a deleterous mutation, but *only* if the mutation is homozygous. A homozygous dominant individual dies of malaria. A heterozygous recessive individual is mildly affected by the anemia but is protected from malaria. A homozygous recessive individual is *corrected to heterozygous* and is thereby protected from malaria without dying of anemia! You have a fourth of affected children dying instead of half.
Plants may use this to end up with a stable heterozygous population for deleterious mutations which have some benefit, say a root hair deformation which nevertheless protects from parasites. This can actually speed up genetic drift by preserving mutations which might otherwise die out. In the malaria example above, it is common for human populations to quickly lose the gene if the malaria threat is removed. In the case where a corrective mechanism exists, the anemia would not be as harmful and might stay in the population longer (for the next outbreak).
Not only does this not invalidate current ideas of evolution, it is obvious how a critter with such a mechanism would quickly have an advantage.
How about a binary *patch* to Windows (say, a security enhancement)?
Under at least DJB's interpretation, this would possibly fall under 17 USC 117, a narrow provision that applies only to computer programs and not to audiovisual works. Video games such as Privateer are often registered with the U.S. Copyright Office as audiovisual works instead of or in addition to registration as a computer program. In fact, even installing a PC game other than as directed by the EULA might violate copyright, as the backup exemption of 17 USC 117 doesn't apply to audiovisual works.
I would have to strongly disagree with that interpretation. I am not a lawyer, but I have been in IT for quite a while and been advised by them. There have been a number of distributions of software enhancements which have existed only in patch form specifically to protect them from status as derivative works. Various enhancements to UNIX spring to mind where the licensees could not distribute enhancements, but they could distribute patches which were essentially 'instructions for enhancing your own copy'. I have never heard of this practice being successfully challenged in court, even where the free enhancement competes with a competing non-free enhancement. Successfully stomped out using anti-competitive practices, yes, but stopped in court, no. I have seen this kind of patch distribution being practiced in very large companies under advice of very well-paid lawyers.
It would be the same sort of thing where, if I (legally) had a copy of your program and added a subroutine to it. I could not distribute the derivative without honoring your copyright. I could, however, remove my subroutine, excise all traces of your work, and distribute the subroutine, or add it to a different product, legally, because I wrote it, not you. If I distribute (just) the subroutine with a note that tells someone how to add it to your product, it is still not covered by your copyright. If you try to distribute your work with my subroutine included, you must honor *my* copyright for the derivative work. This has been tested in court.
There is no magic contagion of copyright. Even in the case of GPL taint, the problem arises when the parts are distributed together and the breach can always be cured by separating them. This is also, BTW, why many non-GPL programs which use GPL libraries use dynamic-linking (although, this has been touchy, since, apparently, certain systems libraries were not sufficiently 'dynamic' in the past). The derivative work is created by the end user, not the distributor.
... I would be thrilled with the prospect of 'write once, revenue forever'
So I take it you supported the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, right?
Actually, I am a copyright ultraconservative. I want to see it revert to the original constitutional terms because the current regime is destructive to society as a whole.
From the narrow persective of the Privateer enhancement, however, there is little economic downside to supporting an active fan community, and, again, as Id has demonstrated, much upside. In fact, Id has demonstrated that they can continue to capitalize even while releasing the source code to their older games, so apparently, long copyright terms are not even necessary.
The thing is with games being such a high-risk publication (what is the figure, only 1 in 10 break even?), once you figure out what your userbase wants and is willing to pay for, why, for the love of small furry things, would you not take their money? Sure, start new franchises every so often just to diversify, but drive the fan frenzy on the existing games for all it's worth. Ship an enhancement (say a new story line) for the new Privateer engine for cripes sake.
The CTO of Loki gave a talk at a Linux Con a while back talking about software companies and open source. The big thing, according to him is "What is
However, this work is useful only when combined with Privateer, a copyrighted work. Using Privateer with this work creates a derivative work of Privateer on the end user's computer. Based on past court decisions, it seems that combining computer programs and audiovisual works is more likely to result in a derivative work than the case of a bookmark inserted in a copyrighted book. Distributing a work without a substantial non-infringing use is possibly a contributory infringement. Therefore, unless the developers can afford to finance a legal defense under section 107 or 117, can we be sure that the product has a substantial non-infringing use?
I still do not see that it has a substantial infringing use. Does a Windows application infringe Microsoft's copyright just because it can only be used with Windows? How about a binary *patch* to Windows (say, a security enhancement)? In neither case is anything copied and in neither case is the author distributing a derivative work.
In both cases, the thing which exists after installation might qualify as a derivative work, but the purchaser of the software (license) is entitled to create such, as long as they do not distribute the derivative. If someone installed Privateer, installed the 'remake', then distributed the whole, that's where things get hairy. That is why the authors bend over backwards to not even discuss the possibilty of downloading any part of Privateer
The other place people frequently get into trouble is when the "add-on" actually includes parts of the original by accident, such as linking to libraries (thus GPL vs. LGPL). Header or constant inclusion has been fair game so far as raw facts have no 'creative expression' and are therefore not copyrightable. This is a current legal climate which can change, however, and has come close to several times with various proposed laws about copyrighting databases (e.g. phonebooks).
Two words: Vault Disney. Tell me where I can pick up a new DVD of Pinocchio or Song of the South, and I'll believe you.
Bad example. Making a Pinocchio DVD involves actually copying the work. A better example would be, for instance, a tape-deck adapter for a CD-player which allows you to use a copyrighted work in a context where it was not designed to be used.
As a long time software developer and several times business owner, myself, I would be thrilled with the prospect of 'write once, revenue forever' and there is nothing technically illegal about what these folks are doing. In fact, look at the way that Id has hugely capitalized on the hobby programming crowd. That being said, once again: being sued is not always about whether any law is actually being broken (witness SCOG vs. IBM) and corporations are not always rational, but that is true no matter what you do.
Unauthorized derivative works violate copyright as well, unless they fall under the narrow "fair use" exemptions of 17 USC sections 107 through 122.
Different kind of extend. They do not actually ship any part of Privateer. They only ship something which can be used with Privateer. If you write a book and I ship a bookmark with original art inspired by the book and meant to be used with the book, there is no derivative work and there is no copyright because there is no copy.
Yes they can argue with that. Pressing a few copies of an older title would require maintaining another SKU (stock-keeping unit), with all the warehousing overhead, and it would compete with the newer titles that the company is trying to sell.
Against the same cost plus R&D, plus market risk for a new product?! You have to be kidding. An ancient product still generating revenue is any software seller's dream, especially since they do not even have to support the new engine. Very few new games ever even break even.
They do, in fact, require the original game to play the remake. The original game provides all of the data files (ship stats, plotlines, etc.). The remake just provides a modern engine to run it.
To my knowledge, it cannot violate copyright because they do not copy anything; they extend. If anything, the existence of the remake provides a revenue stream for a 12 year-old game that does not run anymore on most PCs. The 'classic' compilations of many of these old games can still be bought in many game stores. All a game producer needs to do to cash in is press a few CDs of the original game with no new development costs. Can't argue with that.
What games like this do sometimes run afoul of is *trademark*. By using 'Wing Commander: Privateer" in the game materials, they could arguably violate the original trademark, but 1) there is a world of difference in saying "this game *is* Privateer", and this game is "an add-on for Privateer, which, btw is a registered trademark of...". There is no way to market an add-on product without referencing the original trademark and this is usually considered fair game (think about an application for Microsoft Windows(tm)). 2) EA (or whoever currently owns the rights) would be insane to not grant the remake a license to use the trademark since they are making money off of it.
Notwithstanding, both law and corporations have been known to be irrational.
> if you lose your mac then play then in iTunes on windows? holy crap!!!!! or... or.. or.. play them in Mplayer!!!! OH MY GOD!!!
So, what, stealing a copy of Windows in order to avoid having to crack DRM is OK ?;=)
Besides, why in the hell would I want to run Windows?
> how else are you planing on keeping your music safe?
It takes a hell of a lot less space to back up MP3s/AACs than burning music CDs. When I bought a copy of the unabridged Lord of the Rings on audio CD, I ripped it to the hard drive, set the compression to something that will allow me to play decent portions of it on my 128MB el cheapo MP3 player, and burned backups to CD: 3 CDs from what was ~70 CDs.
It is the same with the audio books I buy online. There is no point in backing up an unabridged book to some 20 CDs when I can put the compressed copy on 1 or 2. Backing up the encrypted copy isn't any good though since I do not know what will be available to play them on if I lose the online files. If I lose my Mac, what am I going to do, load an AAC on my Linux box? I cannot afford a new Mac any time soon.
I am disabled. There are many days when I cannot do much more than listen to audio books. Protecting my investment is very important to me. I also cannot afford to go out and buy a new FairPlay or Audible capable device when one breaks. I just dropped my Audible Otis a couple months back and now have no way to play those books without lugging my laptop.
As an administrator, having the exploit published is extremely helpful.
1) It allows me to test a system myself to see whether it is vulnerbale, especially in a case where I have a non-default setup or other security measures in place. I may also need to know whether non-linux systems may also be vulnerable and have simply not been reported yet.
2) It gives me thorough understanding of how the vulnerability works, how a successful or attempted exploit might show up in my logs, and just how much damage can be done. Is this a 'open a telnet window and start typing root commands' situation or is this an hours long process of unravelling layers of security? Should I be concerned by these attempted connections to port 183? Am I already compromised?
3) It gives me an opportunity to disable relevent kernel functionality or make a patch (even if just crudely hacking out a feature temporarily) myself if I really feel the need and, and this is the important part *test* the change to make sure the exploit is *actually blocked*.
Without the exploit published, I *cannot do these things*. Now, *Do I* do these things? Sometimes. I have to pick my battles and pay attention to the worst exploits against the most critical targets. A defense in depth allows me to do that and the *published exploit* gives me the information I need to decide.
The same goes for a number of other layering technologies, including Qt, Tk on top of Python or Ruby, etc. Together with Java, they start to shield developers from these types of changes. People used to use these toolkits (mostly) to develop multi-platform apps (Windows/Mac/Unix). Now the trend may slide more to shielding people from changes within the Windows "platform".
If I write a Java or C++/Qt or Python/Tk app, when MS changes the API, it becomes largely Sun's or TrollTech's or the Tk Project's job to tweak the insulating layer to run on the new system. With a well-written toolkit, this is often surprisingly quick since they start before the new platform is released. It takes time to start optimizing the toolkit for the new platform, but the base toolkits tend to be available rapidly and, therefore, existing apps written to them can get a foothold rapidly.
There are a few things to watch out for. One is, of course, that you don't want your toolkit to go away or become unsupported. Open Source is a little safer in this respect because someone can pick it back up again, even you if it is important enough. The other is that even with a really good
abstraction layer, different platforms are different, especially in the way they respond to
bugs or marginally unsafe code in your product. Java programmers often get bitten by the threading model- it is surprising how little is (and can be) guaranteed by Java's threading model across platforms.
Another very nice advantage of the abstraction layer approach is that you can often choose your development platform according to how well it runs your development environment rather than how well it runs your apps. For instance, develop on Mac or Linux, use VM technology for quick tests, the actual target platform for integration tests, your development hardware for unit tests. Very few carpenters choose their tools by polling their customers. In the same way, it is important for the developer to not be restricted by what end users have on their desks.
Now, the end result of all this, is that once you start using this approach to protecting yourself from changes in MS APIs, you are an awful lot closer to deploying for another OS entirely. MS's strong-arm tactics become less effective. That is what will eventually bite them.
I am starting down this road myself with several sites. The problem I have a as a page designer (which I am hoping you can comment on) is that all of the examples I have seen do not accomplish the separation of content and layout which CSS seems to promise, or rather, that the separation is very much one way.
From my point of view, one of the biggest promises of CSS is that I can cleanly separate my page content from my page layout. I can write content and then decide how to display and decorate it via the CSS at a different point, possibly changing my mind at different times or even with different audiences. CSS Zen Garden demonstrates this very well. I can view the exact same content through multiple stylesheets and get a very different experience. I can switch on the fly, and I can even view the raw (X)HTML on a low capability device like my phone.
This is a big improvement over tables-for-page-layout, which royally screw up low capability devices. With tables, I forced into client-side include hacks which allow me to send a low-capability device to the individual chunks.
There is more to separation than just this however. In particular, I have to wonder what will happen to CSS Zen Garden if the content of the page is changed, say a paragraph is suddenly twice as long or goes away or an extra paragraph appears. From my read, all the style sheets break. There is even a warning to that effect on the site. The style sheets include knowledge of the content and depend on it to fit inside certain boundaries. The prevalant use of ID tags (rather than descriptive style tags) really seems to underscore this.
The problem here is that I want to be able to update my content with minor or even major edits and not have to redo all of my stylesheets. If I add a new paragraph or reorder some text, this should not throw everything off. I build up my content through multiple includes to centralize boilerplate text. The purpose is defeated if my stylesheets depend on it for positioning.
It seems like there should almost be three files: (at least) one for the content, one for general style rules, and one for local tweaks for the current page (laying out specific graphics). Can this be done well in CSS? Are there good examples which do this kind of thing right? Or am I back to manual positioning and font dependence?
The alternative is to account for the loss, like everyone else does, rather than attempting to mock up some elusive misdirected profit figure. For example:
I make a product; let's say it's a limited edition Newt Gingrich action figure. It costs me $2 worth of materials and I pay various employees about $1 worth of labor per item. Figure another buck in there for distribution costs. I sell these items for $28.50.
Now someone steals one of these little items. What have I lost? By normal accounting, approximately four bucks. By the RIAAs accounting, $28.50. Sure, $28.50 is what they list for, but does that mean that if I decide to list them for $285 each that my loss per item is now ten times as much, even though no one is buying them at that price? This is like those adds which throw in several free items and claim "A four hundred dollar value, only $19.95.". The only legitimate way to account for loss is by demonstrating what the item cost, not what you are asking for it. In fact, such accounting is circular, since the list price of a product invariably includes a markup to account for losses due to shoplifting.
Now, let's take this one step further. Someone sees one of my action figures in the store and, since they cannot afford one, goes home, looks at one the neighbor just bought and makes one which looks just like it. (My grandmother did this with Cabbage Patch Kids while I was growing up. She would make them for the kids whose parents could not buy them.) Now how much has the manufacturer lost? By any normal accounting, absolutely nothing: no materials, no labor, no distribution costs.
If this is done on a massive scale, then some loss of market can be alleged. On the other hand, most of the loss is not caused by the "theft", but by the fact that the manufacturer priced themselves out of a market. If those action figures where sold for $6 (a healthy 50% margin), someone would probably not waste time trying to duplicate it. My grandmother would not be making cottage industry Cabbage Patch Kids if they had sold for $10 apiece instead of $150+. This scenario only occurs when the price of an item is totally out of line with what it really costs to make the item.
Now, the unfortunate part of this, is that people should respond by supporting local, independent artists instead of copying RIAA distributed music. That may be, but you should recall that the RIAA has worked very hard to squash the distribution of anything they don't control. I happen to know a bunch of small-time musicians and performers and personally, I would rather support them then copy the crap that the RIAA publishes and, personally, I do. But, just like kids getting tormented in school for not having a Cabbage Patch Kid (and kids can be vicious, it is hard, even as adults, to not be mainstream and listen to mainstream things. The various cartels have made mainstream music and movies a requirement for participating in modern culture. If you don't have it, you aren't with it, you can wait outside.
Usually, I would leave one sitting on the fireplace mantel. Of late, I've been using flint and steel for practice. I find using primitive fire making techniques when it is not an emergency is very good for using modern techniques when it is an emergency. When using, e.g., a bow drill, the way you build the fire is important. If you build the fire wrong, and, for instance, your kindling burns out before the rest of your fuel catches, you have to start over. Having learned to build fires that will light with primitive tools under decent conditions, I can use matches to light fires in the sopping wet with half-frozen wood.
Anyway, the point is that a bow-drill is a hand-cranked fire lighting device. The native americans also had a nifty version which they used in long-term camps where you pre-wind it and then just pull a handle down the spindle (once) to get a consistent coal.
More or less. The added complexity is that the system needs to know when to look for the file. It does this by monitoring the changeline interrupt on the media. When the interrupt is triggered, the system checks the drive, figures out what is in it, and does something (hopefully) appropriate.
Considering that the purpose of the changeline interrupt is to implement features like autoplay, I can hardly see using a hardware feature for its intended purpose as 'novel'.
If you get flagged as doing something you are not, the traditional recourse of the police state is to lock you up anyway--- having to apologize is politically embarassing. Besides, with the tangle of laws being produced it is not likely that anyone is "completely innocent"; most people break laws in their daily life without thinking about them. They are small laws and usually either outdated or insignificant or so complex that even a consciencious citizen cannot be expected to follow them prefectly (e.g. IRS).
Most of the time, these things go unnoticed or unreported or simply no one in authority cares. They can be used as excuses to justify an otherwise "mistaken" incarceration though, and thus avoid potential embarassment.
Additionally, law enforcement people are just that: "people". Like all people, they have a mix of motivations. Some of them are good, some bad, most in-between. The new laws make it much easier for officials to use police power to go on private fishing expeditions to hurt rivals. They can use that information to drum up charges or can just make private use of the information to make your life hell, drive off your clients, make your employers nervous, etc.
How do you protect yourself when an FBI agent just doesn't like the way you look and is determined to find or *cause* a problem? Traditionally, that is why checks and balances are in place.
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Actually, I read this differently. It seems to me that they are (in cooperation with hardware) running a small block of code which intercepts running code from other OSes and prevents system calls it does not like. This would prevent someone tampering with Mac OS X code after installing Linux on the same box. System calls making accesses to 'tamper-resistant' parts of Mac OS can be cancelled. If so, I see this interacting very badly with other OSes, even if no tampering is intended.
Whatever happened to the idea that a patent application was supposed to be a full disclosure such that someone could actually implement the invention themselves after the patent expires? All they talk about is 'apply tamper resistant techniques' and nothing more specific. Without more specification, this is not novel. With more specification, it gives a roadmap for cracking it (all DRM depends utterly on obscurity). I wonder if a patent can be called into question on the basis of incomplete disclosure.
The real question is not how they can put up with what Sony did, but how they can write an OS which allows a vendor to implicitly and silently install a driver that roots the system. Why does Windows not put up a dialog box saying "Hey, this disk wants to install something. It is not signed and not certified. Do you want to allow it?"
If Windows did that much, then it would be so much easier to prevent this kind of crap. Heck, Mac puts up a warning just because an installer wants to run an external program.
I have heard/read that some very odd things happen with some types of salamanders if this is what you are referring to. With peer transmission, standard evolutionary principles apply, with the caveat that the peer must die before transmitting their hereditary info in order to be de-selected.
Limited Lamarkianism does not falsify evolution per se. We know that evolution does occur in the majority of cases we have seen. If Lamarkianism better describes certain traits in a handful of species, then great. It is another tool in the toolbox. We do know that his hypothesis was wrong in the cases he was looking at. Retroviruses can be considered to be a Lamarckian event in that the individual undergoes an experience which can permanently alter their heredity, but it is still not quite what Lamarck envisioned, being more concerned with giraffes stretching their necks and so forth. There are actually several diseases which have been shown to force speciation in insects.
Another possible case where evolution would not be useful is where intelligence (aliens, humans, god(s), whatever) micromanages the process, specifically through cloning, artificial insemination/implantation, etc.
One thing evolutionists still have some trouble explaining well is exactly where speciation occurs, to the extent that the species are still being reclassified all of the time. as a part time botanist with several generations of books, it can sometimes be difficult to keep up (was that cruciferae or brassicaceae?) I think it just comes down to that there is no hard and fast rules with the situation varying by species. Some species are separated by being genetically incompatible (extra chromosome), some by social or behavioral structure (different mating season).
First of all, evolution is falsifiable. It was one of several competing theories where evolution won out because it explained more and was not proven incorrect. Evolution has three basic statements:
Any of those statements is falsifiable. You can demonstrate that all individuals are functionally identical (variation does not exist), that they do not pass on their traits to offspring, or that premature death of an individual has no effect on traits passed to the next generation. Before we knew as much as we currently do about biology, any of those negatives might have been a sensible statement. Now that we can see mechanisms of inheritance in action, evolution is very hard to counter. Over time, it has gone from a predictive theory or guess to more of a simple description of what we see happen. Contrast Lamarkianism:
This is also a falsifiable alternative to evolution. The first statement is obviously true, but the second statement, that individuals can pass aquired traits on to their offspring, has been demonstrated as false. If a mouse gets its tail cut off, this has no effect on the length of its offsprings' tails. What is Intelligent Design's falsifiable statement?
Now, note that the statements about evolution above do not say anything about where life came from or how it happened. You can infer from watching evolution in action and looking at common gene sequences that life has a common origin, but this is not required by evolution. If we discover that space aliens created cats (I live with cats; this is believable ;-) ), it does not derail evolution, it merely asserts that cats came from different stock.
Now, as to your statement that knowledge is not real and therefore any theory is as good as another, science deals with this very nicely: Occams Razor and the Doctrine of Utility. Put together, it comes down to this: one theory is better than another if it affords the most utility (explains and predicts the most) with the fewest assumptions. Science aknowledges that assumptions come in somewhere. Now, lets look at ID. It has one non-falsifiable statement, that (all) life was created by an intelligent agent. Great. What does that explain or predict? Absolutely nothing. Does knowing that life was designed tell you more about how frogs work? No. Does it tell you whether there is potential
That is at best an incomplete understanding of evolutionary theory. It has come a long way since Darwin. Steven J Gould was a proponent of 'punctuated equilibrium': that species remain relatively static for long periods until something disturbs the equilibrium causing rapid speciation. An example would be a population which suddenly becomes isolated (disaster, changes in the location or depth of water, etc.), or a sudden pressure is put on one segment of the population (new predator, disease, etc.). This has become more or less mainstream evolution. An example would be a species spread over a large area with healthy genetic variability. In the species central habitat, a new deadly disease comes on the scene (carried by an insect which only does well in the central belt). Suddenly, the two outlying areas are isolated from each other and begin to drift genetically. Small anomalies in the genetic composition of the outliers means that those populations will be instantaneously different from each other. They can no longer interbreed to re-mix the drifting genes. A few individuals are resistant to the disease and can populate the central belt. The disease resistance comes at a cost; it is not uncommon for resistance to have negative side-effects. Resistant individuals cannot compete in the outlying (non-disease) areas, so their population drifts as well. Over a few generations, an eyblink in the fossil record, you end up with three new species. Now climate change comes along and wipes out the mosquito which had carried the disease. The disease resistant population dies out, out-competed by the outliers. The outliers come back into contact but cannot interbreed successfully anymore because of excessive drift (mules). Either they exist as separate populations in the same area (goats and sheep, sambar and samovar, etc. etc.) or they compete with each other and one wins (Neanderthal and moderns?). The point is, variations on evolutionary theory can explain a lot. The theory changes over time to match new data *as it should*. ID or creationism does not incorporate new data and does not deal with observable phenomena at all.
There is an old quote from Rachel Carson (author of Silent Spring, among others) from when she was visiting the ocean with her grandmother. The grandmother, exasperated with all of young Rachel's questions said:
"You know, Rachel, God created all of this."
"I know that Grandma. What I want to know is *how* God created it."
The idea or belief of Intelligent Design does not excuse someone from trying to understand the design and our place in it. As you say, most ID supporters use faith as a cop-out to try to prevent people from asking questions. To somewhat paraphrase Kant, saying that God is good and what God commands is good is circular; it does not provide a foundation for moral thought or right-action. Belief in God does not free us from the need for either moral or scientific reasoning.
Jose {adilla certainly did not get any justice. It took him, what, a full year to get a lawyer, and only because the lawyer appointed herself and petitioned the court. After two years, he got to the Supreme Court and the high court threw it out because the habeas corpus writ was served in the wrong jurisdiction-- because the government secretly moved him part way through the process. The high court replied that, of course, the gov't couldn't have done that on purpose. So, the clock started all over for him.
It took another year for him to get to the 4th Circuit Court who said it was just fine for him to be held indefinitely without charges and thus far, he is still in prison.
OK, if the government is protecting us, and Padilla is a terrorist, then why can't them come up with coherent charges and a trial in almost four years. What keeps them from doing this to anyone else, say, a person who resists an NSL? They do not have to say why they are holding you and no one can talk about the NSL. Even if you do get out after five years or so, so what? Will you refuse the next NSL you get?
It's sad, the newspapers mentioned very little about this case. Most people just buy that the FBI caught a terrorist and that's good enough.
Yes, that is exactly the issue. First we have a 'War on Drugs', then a 'War on Terror'. The gov't has been desperate for some time to imply that we are continuously at war to justify all kinds of 'emergency measures'. Which leads to two obvious questions:
Bush was asked exactly these questions in a debate prior to the last election. He went on at some length, but somehow avoided answering either of them (Bush is not alone in this, however). We have had crime for a long time, since before the Revolutionary War, in fact, We have had terrorism and insurrection for a long time too. Our Founding Fathers were noted terrorists and insurrectionists themselves. Our Founding Fathers seemed to feel it unnecessary to spy on students. Somehow, I think that the Bill of Rights and little things like Habeas Corpus were intended to apply even when crime might occur or the nation might 'be in danger'.
Seriously, I would rather take my chances with terrorists. It does not matter to me what uniform an invader wears. Orwell had it on the mark: always at war, occasionally change the enemy, strip the freedoms one by one.
That's interesting, The Third Amendment (To the US Constitution, Bill of Rights) was specifically added to prevent the Quartering Act from recurring:
I wonder to what extent some of the modern attempts at increasing police powers can be likened to an affront on the third ammendment. By requiring built-in-surveillance everywhere, they are essentially making each citizen walk around with a monkey on their back and foot the bill for the government to spy on them in the same way the British made the colonists house and feed their own oppressors. I do not want soldiers or police or cameras or anything of the sort in my home, work place or educational institution. I want to live in peace and be left alone.
Personally, I would rather take my chances with someone trying to drop a plane on my head (relatively rare) than empower further government corruption (relatively common) and being forced to be host to it is just salt in the wounds.
I think the trick is that you have to be motivated to network, socialize, and work on projects outside the degree structure, for instance, with internships, perhaps OpenSource project work, and lots of extra reading. If you cannot do that, then the online degree will not do much good. This is largely true even of brick-and-mortar CS degrees now as well though: you may learn next to nothing in the classes and the projects are a joke. At least on a campus, you increase accidental interactions which might be useful and you might be able to get connected with ongoing projects outside of class.
My wife is finishing her degree at the moment with mostly online courses, but we live well outside of town and have a newborn, so taking day-classes is not really workable. The classes consist of a lot of canned material, a lot of videos and recordings, etc., so it is nothing more than you could get by spending the day at a library or B&N or online going through the Safari bookshelf, but you can get financial aid for it (funding for self-learning is not readily available) and you get that all-important piece of paper. All-in-all, they are not any worse than the typical TA-taught course in most 'real' schools.
It need not stall mutation, but merely reduce the impact of deleterious mutations by encouraging heterozygosity.
Lets take a common human example: syckle-cell anemia.
Syckle-Cell is a mutation in the blood cells which causes them to be deformed and clog capillaries (amoung other things). The condition is fatal without treatment. However, having sycle-cell anemia also makes one resistant to malaria. How is this helpful?
If someone has only one gene for syckle-cell (they are heterozygous recessive), they are resistant to malaria but the anemia wont kill them. If they have both bad genes (they are homozygous recessive), they die of the anemia. If they are homozygous dominant (both functional genes), they die of malaria. In malaria hot-zones, you get a lot of heterozygous recessive individuals and a lot of children dying of one condition or the other.
Now, imagine that you had a mechanism to correct a deleterous mutation, but *only* if the mutation is homozygous. A homozygous dominant individual dies of malaria. A heterozygous recessive individual is mildly affected by the anemia but is protected from malaria. A homozygous recessive individual is *corrected to heterozygous* and is thereby protected from malaria without dying of anemia! You have a fourth of affected children dying instead of half.
Plants may use this to end up with a stable heterozygous population for deleterious mutations which have some benefit, say a root hair deformation which nevertheless protects from parasites. This can actually speed up genetic drift by preserving mutations which might otherwise die out. In the malaria example above, it is common for human populations to quickly lose the gene if the malaria threat is removed. In the case where a corrective mechanism exists, the anemia would not be as harmful and might stay in the population longer (for the next outbreak).
Not only does this not invalidate current ideas of evolution, it is obvious how a critter with such a mechanism would quickly have an advantage.
I would have to strongly disagree with that interpretation. I am not a lawyer, but I have been in IT for quite a while and been advised by them. There have been a number of distributions of software enhancements which have existed only in patch form specifically to protect them from status as derivative works. Various enhancements to UNIX spring to mind where the licensees could not distribute enhancements, but they could distribute patches which were essentially 'instructions for enhancing your own copy'. I have never heard of this practice being successfully challenged in court, even where the free enhancement competes with a competing non-free enhancement. Successfully stomped out using anti-competitive practices, yes, but stopped in court, no. I have seen this kind of patch distribution being practiced in very large companies under advice of very well-paid lawyers.
It would be the same sort of thing where, if I (legally) had a copy of your program and added a subroutine to it. I could not distribute the derivative without honoring your copyright. I could, however, remove my subroutine, excise all traces of your work, and distribute the subroutine, or add it to a different product, legally, because I wrote it, not you. If I distribute (just) the subroutine with a note that tells someone how to add it to your product, it is still not covered by your copyright. If you try to distribute your work with my subroutine included, you must honor *my* copyright for the derivative work. This has been tested in court.
There is no magic contagion of copyright. Even in the case of GPL taint, the problem arises when the parts are distributed together and the breach can always be cured by separating them. This is also, BTW, why many non-GPL programs which use GPL libraries use dynamic-linking (although, this has been touchy, since, apparently, certain systems libraries were not sufficiently 'dynamic' in the past). The derivative work is created by the end user, not the distributor.
Actually, I am a copyright ultraconservative. I want to see it revert to the original constitutional terms because the current regime is destructive to society as a whole.
From the narrow persective of the Privateer enhancement, however, there is little economic downside to supporting an active fan community, and, again, as Id has demonstrated, much upside. In fact, Id has demonstrated that they can continue to capitalize even while releasing the source code to their older games, so apparently, long copyright terms are not even necessary.
The thing is with games being such a high-risk publication (what is the figure, only 1 in 10 break even?), once you figure out what your userbase wants and is willing to pay for, why, for the love of small furry things, would you not take their money? Sure, start new franchises every so often just to diversify, but drive the fan frenzy on the existing games for all it's worth. Ship an enhancement (say a new story line) for the new Privateer engine for cripes sake.
The CTO of Loki gave a talk at a Linux Con a while back talking about software companies and open source. The big thing, according to him is "What is
I still do not see that it has a substantial infringing use. Does a Windows application infringe Microsoft's copyright just because it can only be used with Windows? How about a binary *patch* to Windows (say, a security enhancement)? In neither case is anything copied and in neither case is the author distributing a derivative work.
In both cases, the thing which exists after installation might qualify as a derivative work, but the purchaser of the software (license) is entitled to create such, as long as they do not distribute the derivative. If someone installed Privateer, installed the 'remake', then distributed the whole, that's where things get hairy. That is why the authors bend over backwards to not even discuss the possibilty of downloading any part of Privateer
The other place people frequently get into trouble is when the "add-on" actually includes parts of the original by accident, such as linking to libraries (thus GPL vs. LGPL). Header or constant inclusion has been fair game so far as raw facts have no 'creative expression' and are therefore not copyrightable. This is a current legal climate which can change, however, and has come close to several times with various proposed laws about copyrighting databases (e.g. phonebooks).
Bad example. Making a Pinocchio DVD involves actually copying the work. A better example would be, for instance, a tape-deck adapter for a CD-player which allows you to use a copyrighted work in a context where it was not designed to be used.
As a long time software developer and several times business owner, myself, I would be thrilled with the prospect of 'write once, revenue forever' and there is nothing technically illegal about what these folks are doing. In fact, look at the way that Id has hugely capitalized on the hobby programming crowd. That being said, once again: being sued is not always about whether any law is actually being broken (witness SCOG vs. IBM) and corporations are not always rational, but that is true no matter what you do.
Different kind of extend. They do not actually ship any part of Privateer. They only ship something which can be used with Privateer. If you write a book and I ship a bookmark with original art inspired by the book and meant to be used with the book, there is no derivative work and there is no copyright because there is no copy.
Against the same cost plus R&D, plus market risk for a new product?! You have to be kidding. An ancient product still generating revenue is any software seller's dream, especially since they do not even have to support the new engine. Very few new games ever even break even.
They do, in fact, require the original game to play the remake. The original game provides all of the data files (ship stats, plotlines, etc.). The remake just provides a modern engine to run it.
...". There is no way to market an add-on product without referencing the original trademark and this is usually considered fair game (think about an application for Microsoft Windows(tm)). 2) EA (or whoever currently owns the rights) would be insane to not grant the remake a license to use the trademark since they are making money off of it.
To my knowledge, it cannot violate copyright because they do not copy anything; they extend. If anything, the existence of the remake provides a revenue stream for a 12 year-old game that does not run anymore on most PCs. The 'classic' compilations of many of these old games can still be bought in many game stores. All a game producer needs to do to cash in is press a few CDs of the original game with no new development costs. Can't argue with that.
What games like this do sometimes run afoul of is *trademark*. By using 'Wing Commander: Privateer" in the game materials, they could arguably violate the original trademark, but 1) there is a world of difference in saying "this game *is* Privateer", and this game is "an add-on for Privateer, which, btw is a registered trademark of
Notwithstanding, both law and corporations have been known to be irrational.
> if you lose your mac then play then in iTunes on windows? holy crap!!!!! or ... or.. or.. play them in Mplayer!!!! OH MY GOD!!!
So, what, stealing a copy of Windows in order to avoid having to crack DRM is OK ? ;=)
Besides, why in the hell would I want to run Windows?
> how else are you planing on keeping your music safe?
It takes a hell of a lot less space to back up MP3s/AACs than burning music CDs. When I bought a copy of the unabridged Lord of the Rings on audio CD, I ripped it to the hard drive, set the compression to something that will allow me to play decent portions of it on my 128MB el cheapo MP3 player, and burned backups to CD: 3 CDs from what was ~70 CDs.
It is the same with the audio books I buy online. There is no point in backing up an unabridged book to some 20 CDs when I can put the compressed copy on 1 or 2. Backing up the encrypted copy isn't any good though since I do not know what will be available to play them on if I lose the online files. If I lose my Mac, what am I going to do, load an AAC on my Linux box? I cannot afford a new Mac any time soon.
I am disabled. There are many days when I cannot do much more than listen to audio books. Protecting my investment is very important to me. I also cannot afford to go out and buy a new FairPlay or Audible capable device when one breaks. I just dropped my Audible Otis a couple months back and now have no way to play those books without lugging my laptop.
As an administrator, having the exploit published is extremely helpful.
1) It allows me to test a system myself to see whether it is vulnerbale, especially in a case where I have a non-default setup or other security measures in place. I may also need to know whether non-linux systems may also be vulnerable and have simply not been reported yet.
2) It gives me thorough understanding of how the vulnerability works, how a successful or attempted exploit might show up in my logs, and just how much damage can be done. Is this a 'open a telnet window and start typing root commands' situation or is this an hours long process of unravelling layers of security? Should I be concerned by these attempted connections to port 183? Am I already compromised?
3) It gives me an opportunity to disable relevent kernel functionality or make a patch (even if just crudely hacking out a feature temporarily) myself if I really feel the need and, and this is the important part *test* the change to make sure the exploit is *actually blocked*.
Without the exploit published, I *cannot do these things*. Now, *Do I* do these things? Sometimes. I have to pick my battles and pay attention to the worst exploits against the most critical targets. A defense in depth allows me to do that and the *published exploit* gives me the information I need to decide.
The same goes for a number of other layering technologies, including Qt, Tk on top of Python or Ruby, etc. Together with Java, they start to shield developers from these types of changes. People used to use these toolkits (mostly) to develop multi-platform apps (Windows/Mac/Unix). Now the trend may slide more to shielding people from changes within the Windows "platform".
If I write a Java or C++/Qt or Python/Tk app, when MS changes the API, it becomes largely Sun's or TrollTech's or the Tk Project's job to tweak the insulating layer to run on the new system. With a well-written toolkit, this is often surprisingly quick since they start before the new platform is released. It takes time to start optimizing the toolkit for the new platform, but the base toolkits tend to be available rapidly and, therefore, existing apps written to them can get a foothold rapidly.
There are a few things to watch out for. One is, of course, that you don't want your toolkit to go away or become unsupported. Open Source is a little safer in this respect because someone can pick it back up again, even you if it is important enough. The other is that even with a really good abstraction layer, different platforms are different, especially in the way they respond to bugs or marginally unsafe code in your product. Java programmers often get bitten by the threading model- it is surprising how little is (and can be) guaranteed by Java's threading model across platforms.
Another very nice advantage of the abstraction layer approach is that you can often choose your development platform according to how well it runs your development environment rather than how well it runs your apps. For instance, develop on Mac or Linux, use VM technology for quick tests, the actual target platform for integration tests, your development hardware for unit tests. Very few carpenters choose their tools by polling their customers. In the same way, it is important for the developer to not be restricted by what end users have on their desks.
Now, the end result of all this, is that once you start using this approach to protecting yourself from changes in MS APIs, you are an awful lot closer to deploying for another OS entirely. MS's strong-arm tactics become less effective. That is what will eventually bite them.
I am starting down this road myself with several sites. The problem I have a as a page designer (which I am hoping you can comment on) is that all of the examples I have seen do not accomplish the separation of content and layout which CSS seems to promise, or rather, that the separation is very much one way.
From my point of view, one of the biggest promises of CSS is that I can cleanly separate my page content from my page layout. I can write content and then decide how to display and decorate it via the CSS at a different point, possibly changing my mind at different times or even with different audiences. CSS Zen Garden demonstrates this very well. I can view the exact same content through multiple stylesheets and get a very different experience. I can switch on the fly, and I can even view the raw (X)HTML on a low capability device like my phone.
This is a big improvement over tables-for-page-layout, which royally screw up low capability devices. With tables, I forced into client-side include hacks which allow me to send a low-capability device to the individual chunks.
There is more to separation than just this however. In particular, I have to wonder what will happen to CSS Zen Garden if the content of the page is changed, say a paragraph is suddenly twice as long or goes away or an extra paragraph appears. From my read, all the style sheets break. There is even a warning to that effect on the site. The style sheets include knowledge of the content and depend on it to fit inside certain boundaries. The prevalant use of ID tags (rather than descriptive style tags) really seems to underscore this.
The problem here is that I want to be able to update my content with minor or even major edits and not have to redo all of my stylesheets. If I add a new paragraph or reorder some text, this should not throw everything off. I build up my content through multiple includes to centralize boilerplate text. The purpose is defeated if my stylesheets depend on it for positioning.
It seems like there should almost be three files: (at least) one for the content, one for general style rules, and one for local tweaks for the current page (laying out specific graphics). Can this be done well in CSS? Are there good examples which do this kind of thing right? Or am I back to manual positioning and font dependence?
The alternative is to account for the loss, like everyone else does, rather than attempting to mock up some elusive misdirected profit figure. For example:
I make a product; let's say it's a limited edition Newt Gingrich action figure. It costs me $2 worth of materials and I pay various employees about $1 worth of labor per item. Figure another buck in there for distribution costs. I sell these items for $28.50.
Now someone steals one of these little items. What have I lost? By normal accounting, approximately four bucks. By the RIAAs accounting, $28.50. Sure, $28.50 is what they list for, but does that mean that if I decide to list them for $285 each that my loss per item is now ten times as much, even though no one is buying them at that price? This is like those adds which throw in several free items and claim "A four hundred dollar value, only $19.95.". The only legitimate way to account for loss is by demonstrating what the item cost, not what you are asking for it. In fact, such accounting is circular, since the list price of a product invariably includes a markup to account for losses due to shoplifting.
Now, let's take this one step further. Someone sees one of my action figures in the store and, since they cannot afford one, goes home, looks at one the neighbor just bought and makes one which looks just like it. (My grandmother did this with Cabbage Patch Kids while I was growing up. She would make them for the kids whose parents could not buy them.) Now how much has the manufacturer lost? By any normal accounting, absolutely nothing: no materials, no labor, no distribution costs.
If this is done on a massive scale, then some loss of market can be alleged. On the other hand, most of the loss is not caused by the "theft", but by the fact that the manufacturer priced themselves out of a market. If those action figures where sold for $6 (a healthy 50% margin), someone would probably not waste time trying to duplicate it. My grandmother would not be making cottage industry Cabbage Patch Kids if they had sold for $10 apiece instead of $150+. This scenario only occurs when the price of an item is totally out of line with what it really costs to make the item.
Now, the unfortunate part of this, is that people should respond by supporting local, independent artists instead of copying RIAA distributed music. That may be, but you should recall that the RIAA has worked very hard to squash the distribution of anything they don't control. I happen to know a bunch of small-time musicians and performers and personally, I would rather support them then copy the crap that the RIAA publishes and, personally, I do. But, just like kids getting tormented in school for not having a Cabbage Patch Kid (and kids can be vicious, it is hard, even as adults, to not be mainstream and listen to mainstream things. The various cartels have made mainstream music and movies a requirement for participating in modern culture. If you don't have it, you aren't with it, you can wait outside.
Usually, I would leave one sitting on the fireplace mantel. Of late, I've been using flint and steel for practice. I find using primitive fire making techniques when it is not an emergency is very good for using modern techniques when it is an emergency. When using, e.g., a bow drill, the way you build the fire is important. If you build the fire wrong, and, for instance, your kindling burns out before the rest of your fuel catches, you have to start over. Having learned to build fires that will light with primitive tools under decent conditions, I can use matches to light fires in the sopping wet with half-frozen wood.
Anyway, the point is that a bow-drill is a hand-cranked fire lighting device. The native americans also had a nifty version which they used in long-term camps where you pre-wind it and then just pull a handle down the spindle (once) to get a consistent coal.
They've had one for thousands of years. It's called a bow drill.
The wonderful thing about them is you can make one from scratch very quickly.
More or less. The added complexity is that the system needs to know when to look for the file. It does this by monitoring the changeline interrupt on the media. When the interrupt is triggered, the system checks the drive, figures out what is in it, and does something (hopefully) appropriate. Considering that the purpose of the changeline interrupt is to implement features like autoplay, I can hardly see using a hardware feature for its intended purpose as 'novel'.
If you get flagged as doing something you are not, the traditional recourse of the police state is to lock you up anyway--- having to apologize is politically embarassing. Besides, with the tangle of laws being produced it is not likely that anyone is "completely innocent"; most people break laws in their daily life without thinking about them. They are small laws and usually either outdated or insignificant or so complex that even a consciencious citizen cannot be expected to follow them prefectly (e.g. IRS).
Most of the time, these things go unnoticed or unreported or simply no one in authority cares. They can be used as excuses to justify an otherwise "mistaken" incarceration though, and thus avoid potential embarassment.
Additionally, law enforcement people are just that: "people". Like all people, they have a mix of motivations. Some of them are good, some bad, most in-between. The new laws make it much easier for officials to use police power to go on private fishing expeditions to hurt rivals. They can use that information to drum up charges or can just make private use of the information to make your life hell, drive off your clients, make your employers nervous, etc.
How do you protect yourself when an FBI agent just doesn't like the way you look and is determined to find or *cause* a problem? Traditionally, that is why checks and balances are in place.