Either Sony is lying, or they have no idea of what their DRM vendor is up to.
The old/. article is misleading.
Assuming there is Mac DRM software on the CD, a user still has to (1) explicitly start the installer (no autorun on Mac), and (2) type in a password to authorize the installation of root-priviledged software. Thus, for once Sony is correct and only mildly spinning.
I'll spell this out even more clearly. I have written book X recently. They have an entire copy of my book sitting on their servers. (It may in fact be an index and hence a derivative work from which the complete original can be constructed, but that is still subject to copyright.) They are using their complete copy of X to make profit. I don't see a penny of this except maybe occasionally someone will buy my book X because Google mentioned it.
People have also made paper indices of publications, such as the books that index scientific publications, and list, for example, all papers that mention dihydryl oxide. There are other derived works: Bible concordances, concordances of Shakespeare's work, the legal profession no doubt has concordances, abstracts of popular books, reviews, etc. All these derived works do not require royalties. In many countries there are explict provisions in copyright law to support this. The reason is that generally these things are considered benifical.
I fail to see why Google is now suddenly evil for doing the same thing online. Yes, they probably have your book X online somewhere, but surely they got book X legally (perhaps even because your publisher gave it to them), so what's the problem? They don't publish it, they only show small fragments of it. Why is this abuse of copyright?
The argument that they use copies of copyrighted material for commercial benefit is weak. Anyone using information from an educational or reference book in a commercial context is doing the same thing.
In related news, India, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the Maldives, Gambia, Canada, Hong Kong, and all the other former British colonies banded together to send a message to the moon, Mars, and the other planets. It read "Watch out for these guys! They've got a flag!"
I understand the message was "Start learning cricket!"
Very poor analogy: only the US part of the internet is owned by the US. How about a neighbourhood where all private pools are connected by canals, and everyone has agreed to allow others in their pool?
Granted: quite a lot of the blueprints of these pools come from the US, but is that an argument for keeping control of a vital part of all these pools? The local houseowners club seems a more reasonable choice, even if there is a lot of bickering in in the clubhouse.
Don't extrapolate your poor reasoning to the rest of the American public.
Although you're probably right that oil wasn't the reason, this kind of speculation is understandable. The problem is that nobody has come up with a good reason to start the war in Iraq. Not even the guys that started it.
My personal theory is that Mr. Bush did it because he had to Do Something after 9/11.
It's like a bar fight. Osama gives George a totally unexpected kick in the pants and runs away. George, in his pain, hits Saddam because he happens to be near. Francois and Gerhard say that's unfair. George says Saddam is a murderer anyway. And before you can say `weapons of mass destruction' the whole bar is one big fight.
Make a dedicated reader that is lightweight, easy to use, and with sharp text (e.g. with these `electronic paper' displays). Low refresh rates and puny processors are no problem.
Make sure that mainstream text formats work on it: plain text, html, pdf,.doc
Add support for optional DRM
Sell in quantity for a reasonable price
Profit!!!
Any vendor following this path will get my money: I have lots of electronic texts that I would like to read comfortably, and if the readers are cheap enough I would even be willing to buy more than one, so that e.g. I can have several reference books ready at the same time.
And what about different display sizes? Sometimes a small display is better, sometimes a large one is more effective.
The problem is, vendors are always tempted to stray from this path to success: they make it a fullblown (and expensive and heavy) computer; they skimp on display quality; they make DRM compulsary to get a captive audience.
I truely believe that the first vendor to get a clue can make a killing. Apple would be a good candidate; they have followed essentially the same recipe with the iPod.
Re:Bought the t-shirt but didn't read the Che book
on
Is Your Boss a Psychopath?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The US military is not intentionally targetting innocent villagers.
Really? Even in the case where they bombed a restaurant because they thought Sadam was there? The odds that they'd hit Sadam were not that great, and they were virtually certain to hit someone innocent.
In what way is this not `deliberately putting innocent citizens in harm's way'? Because they didn't think of the consequences? At a certain point stupidity is no longer an excuse.
BTW, what everyone bitching about reality TV seems to forget that almost every popular American reality show is based on a prior British reality show. But their TV is better, right?
Big Brother is in fact originally Dutch. As a Dutchman, that makes me so proud (cough).
Thousands of sights on, aghast!, computer programming.
I'm sorry to be a spelling Nazi, but typos like this really are an obstacle to efficient communication. This one left me wondering what rifle sights, sight seeing, or some other obscure use of the word sight, had to with computer programming.
I updated to Tiger and Spotlight didn't stop indexing. I mean, after an hour, it said "ok I'm done now", but then one started typing in a query and it restarted with indexing, forgetting your query.
Then after a few more hours, it sometimes didn't immediately started re-indexing, so results apeared. [snip]
I have seen the same behaviour, but only immediately after I installed Tiger. The problem is, indexing harddisks takes LOTS of time. Twelve hours of work for a 60 GB disk is perfectly reasonable, and for older systems it may well take longer.
The problem is that during that time Spotlight sometimes thinks it has indexed enough to be helpful, and allows user queries. It then has problems coping with the queries. It should be more strict.
In short: give Spotlight time to do its job and these problems will go away.
Search: `locate`, even find but I think what theyre talking about is more locate-like.
No, locate is just for file names, not for file contents. Both the Mac finder and Windows 'Find' already have that. It's more like google for your local files.
Scripting: bash, perl, python.
Although you've ordered them in increasing user-friendlyness, even Python is not something you can expect Joe Public to write scripts in. Apple thinks it can deliver something that is accessible enough.
64-Bit Support: They act like this is new.
For a consumer OS it probably is. You could argue Linux was first, but is Linux a consumer OS, as opposed to a server (and geeks) OS?
The potential is there for thousands of developers to participate in any given OSS project, but the fact is that for probably 99.9% of OSS projects, it's still just one guy in his basement hacking away.
Although you're absolutely right, the situation is the same in the Windows world. There 99.9% of the projects are shareware, even if they look like the author just finished VB for dummies in 24 hours made easy.
There's too much of it in Wikipedia, which is good, because it guarantee's that anyone with a brain reading it will never, ever, forget that it's an amateur hack-job.
Care to give some examples? All the entries I have seen are balanced and informative, including the ones on controversial subjects such as George W. Bush and evolution. Yes, some entries are longer or shorter than I would like to see, or lack a particular piece of information I was looking for, but the same goes for professional encyclopedia.
I'm still amazed a community encyclopedia works, but it does.
P.S.
Researching this reply revealed one flaw in Wikipedia: it does not have an entry for `proof by vehement assertion'. (And yeah, I'm too lazy to add it.)
A 10 second bout of googling and I found The Gimp color manager which lets you use ICC color profiles. You'll find the relevant profiles on your Epson driver disk.
Ah yes, the use Google answer. Google is great, but after you've waded through all the websites with pre-alpha software and dead projects it is sometimes nice to just ask for someone who has been there, done that, and got the T-shirt.
The website you point to is actually a good illustration. Just take a look at the first few paragraphs:
2-May-2000
Right, that means that the project website has not been updated for over four years. Inspires confidence, that.
The source file color_manager.c contains the code for the Gimp Color Manager plugin. This plugin can be used to color correct images with ICC color profiles.
Which means that you must be familiar with Gimp plugins, and it looks like there is no manual to help you integrate this in Gimp, or to explain its use. And how likely is it that this will work with modern versions of Gimp? Would you trust your color management to a piece of software in this state? Is it worthwile to even read this website any further, unless you want to modify the software?
At this time the functionaliy is very limited, the plugin e.g. accepts only RGB images. There is more to come...
(Cough.)
Don't get me wrong, it is very nice that someone has posted this software for all to use, but at some point you must be realistic.
And it looks to me you picked the best of a rather sorry bunch of results from this particular google.
Sorry everyone for the off-topic posting, but this is a mission of mercy: saving an iBook!:-)
All this is from memory. I opened the LCD compartment (not the main unit), and soldered a pullup resistor directly on the surface-mount wires of a connector on a PCB in there. That connector receives the wireloom that passes through the hinge. One side of the resistor goes to the +, which is on one extreme end of the connector, and the other side of the resistor goes to the pin that carries the PWM signal for the backlight intensity. As far as I remember it is the second pin counting from the other side of the connector. A standard miniature axial resistor, with one of its wires bent back, fits the required pitch quite naturally.
Again, all this is from memory, so you'd better check. And the repair is a pretty desparate one. I remember that for a few days I could still dim the backlight if the iBook was in the right mood, but then it got stuck on maximal forever, so I've probably blown the output of the video chip with this repair. (But it's better than stuck on minimal, which was what happened without the repair.)
Oh, and the resistor was something like 33K, but that's probably not very critical.
Dude, computers have not been even *close* to Von Neumann for several decades.
But everything has been done to keep up the illusion. A lot of hardware in modern processors is used for exactly that. The reason is that languages like C and Java only work well on such an architecture, witness the terrible problems there are in compiling mainstream languages to VLIW processors.
Slashdot Mirror
The old /. article is misleading.
Assuming there is Mac DRM software on the CD, a user still has to (1) explicitly start the installer (no autorun on Mac), and (2) type in a password to authorize the installation of root-priviledged software. Thus, for once Sony is correct and only mildly spinning.
People have also made paper indices of publications, such as the books that index scientific publications, and list, for example, all papers that mention dihydryl oxide. There are other derived works: Bible concordances, concordances of Shakespeare's work, the legal profession no doubt has concordances, abstracts of popular books, reviews, etc. All these derived works do not require royalties. In many countries there are explict provisions in copyright law to support this. The reason is that generally these things are considered benifical.
I fail to see why Google is now suddenly evil for doing the same thing online. Yes, they probably have your book X online somewhere, but surely they got book X legally (perhaps even because your publisher gave it to them), so what's the problem? They don't publish it, they only show small fragments of it. Why is this abuse of copyright?
The argument that they use copies of copyrighted material for commercial benefit is weak. Anyone using information from an educational or reference book in a commercial context is doing the same thing.
Ah yes, like the classical Brittish paper headline: ``Fog in the channel. Europe isolated.''
I understand the message was "Start learning cricket!"
Very poor analogy: only the US part of the internet is owned by the US. How about a neighbourhood where all private pools are connected by canals, and everyone has agreed to allow others in their pool?
Granted: quite a lot of the blueprints of these pools come from the US, but is that an argument for keeping control of a vital part of all these pools? The local houseowners club seems a more reasonable choice, even if there is a lot of bickering in in the clubhouse.
Although you're probably right that oil wasn't the reason, this kind of speculation is understandable. The problem is that nobody has come up with a good reason to start the war in Iraq. Not even the guys that started it.
My personal theory is that Mr. Bush did it because he had to Do Something after 9/11.
It's like a bar fight. Osama gives George a totally unexpected kick in the pants and runs away. George, in his pain, hits Saddam because he happens to be near. Francois and Gerhard say that's unfair. George says Saddam is a murderer anyway. And before you can say `weapons of mass destruction' the whole bar is one big fight.
- Make a dedicated reader that is lightweight, easy to use, and with sharp text (e.g. with these `electronic paper' displays). Low refresh rates and puny processors are no problem.
- Make sure that mainstream text formats work on it: plain text, html, pdf,
.doc
- Add support for optional DRM
- Sell in quantity for a reasonable price
- Profit!!!
Any vendor following this path will get my money: I have lots of electronic texts that I would like to read comfortably, and if the readers are cheap enough I would even be willing to buy more than one, so that e.g. I can have several reference books ready at the same time. And what about different display sizes? Sometimes a small display is better, sometimes a large one is more effective.The problem is, vendors are always tempted to stray from this path to success: they make it a fullblown (and expensive and heavy) computer; they skimp on display quality; they make DRM compulsary to get a captive audience.
I truely believe that the first vendor to get a clue can make a killing. Apple would be a good candidate; they have followed essentially the same recipe with the iPod.
Really? Even in the case where they bombed a restaurant because they thought Sadam was there? The odds that they'd hit Sadam were not that great, and they were virtually certain to hit someone innocent.
In what way is this not `deliberately putting innocent citizens in harm's way'? Because they didn't think of the consequences? At a certain point stupidity is no longer an excuse.
Big Brother is in fact originally Dutch. As a Dutchman, that makes me so proud (cough).
I'm sorry to be a spelling Nazi, but typos like this really are an obstacle to efficient communication. This one left me wondering what rifle sights, sight seeing, or some other obscure use of the word sight, had to with computer programming.
Probably not Celsius.
If it would really help the Beeb, this dirty foreigner would happily pay the fee.
Exactly! For the same reason I never vacuum my house; I wait until we have beter technology.
Then after a few more hours, it sometimes didn't immediately started re-indexing, so results apeared. [snip]
I have seen the same behaviour, but only immediately after I installed Tiger. The problem is, indexing harddisks takes LOTS of time. Twelve hours of work for a 60 GB disk is perfectly reasonable, and for older systems it may well take longer.
The problem is that during that time Spotlight sometimes thinks it has indexed enough to be helpful, and allows user queries. It then has problems coping with the queries. It should be more strict.
In short: give Spotlight time to do its job and these problems will go away.
No, locate is just for file names, not for file contents. Both the Mac finder and Windows 'Find' already have that. It's more like google for your local files.
Scripting: bash, perl, python.
Although you've ordered them in increasing user-friendlyness, even Python is not something you can expect Joe Public to write scripts in. Apple thinks it can deliver something that is accessible enough.
64-Bit Support: They act like this is new.
For a consumer OS it probably is. You could argue Linux was first, but is Linux a consumer OS, as opposed to a server (and geeks) OS?
Longhorn: It Works for Me
Although you're absolutely right, the situation is the same in the Windows world. There 99.9% of the projects are shareware, even if they look like the author just finished VB for dummies in 24 hours made easy.
The Mac software scene is slightly better.
Care to give some examples? All the entries I have seen are balanced and informative, including the ones on controversial subjects such as George W. Bush and evolution. Yes, some entries are longer or shorter than I would like to see, or lack a particular piece of information I was looking for, but the same goes for professional encyclopedia.
I'm still amazed a community encyclopedia works, but it does.
P.S.
Researching this reply revealed one flaw in Wikipedia: it does not have an entry for `proof by vehement assertion'. (And yeah, I'm too lazy to add it.)
Probably both.
Ah yes, the use Google answer. Google is great, but after you've waded through all the websites with pre-alpha software and dead projects it is sometimes nice to just ask for someone who has been there, done that, and got the T-shirt.
The website you point to is actually a good illustration. Just take a look at the first few paragraphs:
2-May-2000
Right, that means that the project website has not been updated for over four years. Inspires confidence, that.
The source file color_manager.c contains the code for the Gimp Color Manager plugin. This plugin can be used to color correct images with ICC color profiles.
Which means that you must be familiar with Gimp plugins, and it looks like there is no manual to help you integrate this in Gimp, or to explain its use. And how likely is it that this will work with modern versions of Gimp? Would you trust your color management to a piece of software in this state? Is it worthwile to even read this website any further, unless you want to modify the software?
At this time the functionaliy is very limited, the plugin e.g. accepts only RGB images. There is more to come ...
(Cough.)
Don't get me wrong, it is very nice that someone has posted this software for all to use, but at some point you must be realistic.
And it looks to me you picked the best of a rather sorry bunch of results from this particular google.
All this is from memory. I opened the LCD compartment (not the main unit), and soldered a pullup resistor directly on the surface-mount wires of a connector on a PCB in there. That connector receives the wireloom that passes through the hinge. One side of the resistor goes to the +, which is on one extreme end of the connector, and the other side of the resistor goes to the pin that carries the PWM signal for the backlight intensity. As far as I remember it is the second pin counting from the other side of the connector. A standard miniature axial resistor, with one of its wires bent back, fits the required pitch quite naturally.
Again, all this is from memory, so you'd better check. And the repair is a pretty desparate one. I remember that for a few days I could still dim the backlight if the iBook was in the right mood, but then it got stuck on maximal forever, so I've probably blown the output of the video chip with this repair. (But it's better than stuck on minimal, which was what happened without the repair.)
Oh, and the resistor was something like 33K, but that's probably not very critical.
Anyway, good luck.
--
Vote for a Man, Vote for Bush! Not a liberatarian flipflop hippie.
Whereas, americans have no cultural oddities at all! No sirree. None. And as rational as a Vulcan.
Ouch. Think of the insights we would miss if Slashdot would have a spelling checker...
No, the UN thought it was the best that could be agreed upon.
And they were optimists.
But everything has been done to keep up the illusion. A lot of hardware in modern processors is used for exactly that. The reason is that languages like C and Java only work well on such an architecture, witness the terrible problems there are in compiling mainstream languages to VLIW processors.