Re:Corrected link to 10,000,000 digits
on
Happy Pi Day!
·
· Score: 1
Is there any practical use to knowing PI with such precision or is it just a pissing contest among mathematicians?
An interesting question with an even more interesting answer. In a book by Petr Beckman, i think called "A History of Pi", he provides this example. The distance to the nearest star (proxima centauri) is a few lightyears (I think about 4 lightyears?) Suppose the sun and this star form a diameter of a huge sphere. Now further suppose this sphere is filled to the brim with tiny parameciums, I forget the size of these, but probably estimated as spherical at a few microns or so. Okay, you've now got a huge sphere teaming with googles of paramecia. Now let's take each paramecium and build a straight line with them, spacing each one apart by the few lightyears distance to proxima centauri. Such that you've now got an incomprehensibly large line out to intergalactic space. Now, suppose this incredibly huge line is the diameter of a circle, and the line's length is known to absolute precision. Thus, it is only the uncertainty of pi which prevents an accurate measure of the huge circle's circumference. If one knows pi to a mere 100 digits, the circumference can be calculated to a precision of a few microns!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is totally amazing, and crazy how quickly orders of magnitude can jettison out of our understanding. Basically, 10^100 is such a huge number, it would be an extraordinaly rare occurrance to need even close to this much precision. Note, I haven't checked the validity of these measurements, so they may be way off. But it's still something mind-numbing to think about!
From what I've heard (and I don't remember the source, but I think it may have been a radio interview with one of the show's writers or producers or something, but basically don't quote me on this) : the show was decided to be NC-17. So basically Matt and Trey figured why not make it even more over-the-top, so they added some pretty twisted stuff to it. Then, shortly before it hit the theaters, somehow it was reduced to R, which really shocked them, but they obviously didn't fight it.
Did you see last Sunday's episdode? (2/17/2000)? It may have been a re-run, but I've never seen it before. Anyway, basically they killed off Maude Flanders. Just like that, out of the blue. I totally wasn't expecting it. It was crazy. Anyway, besides that fact, the rest of the episode was totally funny, I was laughing out loud many many times, which I usually don't do on a 'typical' simpsons. if this is a newer episode, than they're still good for me (unless this was a freak good show, or something)...
I think you're missing alot of points here. Firstly you write: It's read with a laser, so it must go through digital processing. Where does laser reading imply digital processing? THe optical input they're using to read the laser is most probably a photodiode, which would give an analog waveform. Granted, they're using 5 lasers probably to get a better picture of the "grooves" which seems to hint at some fancy DSP, but just using a laser in no means automatically implies "digital".
This would seem to undermine the goal of listening to vinyl - that is, to avoid the "noise" that some audiophiles feel is added through digital processing. Ummmm, that's not why I listen to vinyl (I'm maybe semi audiophile). As far as I know, very vew albums are released not on Vinyl, most that are released are aimed for DJ's and spinners. I listen to vinyl because I'm into ALOT of the funky soul jazz from the 60's and 70's, much of which is very obscure and they'll never release the albums onto CD (probably because they'll sell 5 copies, one of which would be to me, but still not very profitable for them. Sucks...) If I could get most of this stuff on CD, I'd definitely go for it. In fact, once I get off my arse, I've got plans to lay out a decent analog-digital front-end for my computer such that I can sample the songs off my records onto MP3. THis leads me to the next point...
Seems like not much more than an expensive toy (obviously) to show your friends rather than a realistic audiophile piece. You're missing one point here. While CD's and DAT's are digital, and employ some sort of error-correcting methodology, records are inherently analog. And every time you play the record, you damage it slightly (ultimately governed by quantum physics - you can't measure a system without changing it). In CD's, at least you've got some hysteresis between 0's and 1's, but with a record every time you play that track the needle drags in the groove and rubs it down a little. Just listen to a record track that's been played a hundred times or so, it can sound horrible, even if care was used with good sharp needles. That's why this laser system is pretty cool, because you don't need much contact with the record, so this won't be an issue. Also much harder to scratch now that you've removed the needle altogether.
Finally, I've not heard the arguments about DSP adding to the noise, can anyone comment on the validity of this? As far as I know, once the analog waveform has been sampled (which is where most limitations are introduced), they use 24 or 32 bit wide DSP's to avoid introducing any noticable errors through the processing stages. Then at the Digital-Analog stage, the choice of output filter can affect the waveform too. But I didn't think the DSP was too much to blame.
This is why capitalistic America really pisses me off sometimes. Instead of the corporations (in these cases Fox) looking at what is a good show (ie, The Critic and Family Guy), they just look at what will sell the most and earn the most $$$. Which really sucks. They don't give a crap about quality, just money. Feed the corporatate machine...
I was so disappointed when they cancelled The Critic those many years ago, and put what in it's place? Another clone of all the other generic la-de-da brain-numbing crap that's out there. Why? Because some suits say, "hey, these reports indicate most people like 90210 and Melrose, so let's make another show like that. That will sell". And then it's a circular loop, because that's all there is on most tv, and thus that's what network executives strive to reproduce because it 'sells'.
Oh well. At least Comedy Central is still maintainning decent shows, and Critic Reruns (albeit there are only like 15 of The Critic episodes made).
I've got about 10 Linux install CD's, and two BSD CD's (well, distribution versions, as some are multi-CD). There are a few points to be made here about why you must account both ways to estimate linux install base. This is all probably obvious, but I'm listing it here anyway.
Firstly, I have not yet purchased an official Linux distro, so for reports such as this NT vs Linux article, I'm counted as a zero (Unless cheapbytes sales and downloads count, which I don't think they do.)
Secondly, as you have said, multiple versions and distros get bought for the same computer, which can over-estimate the number of linux boxes. However, isn't this also true of NT as well? Can one really assume that every version of NT that was purchased went to a newly acquired computer? Although most people are probably upgrading from Winxx to NT. Also, linux is probably re-installed more often, as the hardware requirements aren't as stringent as NT.
Thirdly, a single copy of linux can be LEGALLY installed on multiple computers. For instance, I've installed mandrake 6.1 on two computers at home, two at work, my brothers and his friend's computer (plus who knows how many more as they cloned the CD twice for themselves), and my father's computer. So, that's 7 installs off of this single Mandrake 6.1 CD so far, which wasn't even an official purchase. [Don't worry, once Mandrake gets its act together with Major Release 7 (ie, 7.1 or 7.2) I'll buy an offical copy or two of it]. Thus, there is a multiplier factor to account for.
Basically, my point is that you cannot really estimate the actual number of linux users out there (and also NT somewhat), and there are multiply/divide factors both ways that one must take into consideration. Also, expect more estimatation difficulties of NT's install base when win2k is released (ie, would one be upgrading to win2k, or installing on a whole new computer).
Don't underestimate Edison, it wasn't just dogs he electrocuted. All sorts of animals were killed. I just saw a documentary about some guy that developed alot of the execution apparatus in American prison systems, and during the movie they showed footage of Edison and others electrocuting an elephant. This is the stuff they don't teach you in elementary schools.
This is similar to the world of microelectronics (and hence computers). Everybody knows Bill Gates, for supposedly revolutionizing the field, but one rarely ever sees mention of Bardeen and Shockley and the third guy whose name escapes me right now, for inventing the solid-state transistor which made this all possible, 50 some-odd years ago.
You've obviously witnessed the hoopla the release of the DVD code has created in the movie industry, and it's effects of prosecutions and even your home being raided. Thus said, if before you released the DeCSS code, you knew of all these consequences and controversies that would be created, would you still have released it? Or, knowing these consequences, what other steps may you have taken to release the code to the public?
Sounds like a double-standard to me. You're comparing two things but using a different metric for each.
That's because they are two different things that don't really compare well to each other, ie apples and oranges. They're both reaching for different goals, so comparing the successes of each to any single metric doesn't make much sense. Once again, IMHO.
Depends. If I measure success in terms of installed user base, feature-set, and profitability (secondary, but it's there), then proprietary software is still handily beating open source in a variety of areas.
I disagree with your view that success is measured in these corporate-type bench-marking terms with closed-source software. That may be useful when comparing two companies, say microsoft vs. corel, to determine who's more successful. But the case is entirely different with OSS, IMHO.
Many OSS packages exist because someone wanted to provide themselves with either some tool/program not available as closed-source, or to provide an open-source option for themselves and/or others. I don't believe many people are trying to actively compete with closed-source to be the better software package, as you seem to imply in your quote. Thus, the definition of success between open-source programmers, who are doing it for either themselves, the community, or the sheer joy of doing it, and closed-source programmers, mostly doing it for a job and to become the number-one software producer in their field, are entirely different.
Thus said, I would NOT judge the success of open source software in terms of user-base, and profitability, as you mention above. In other words, if a commercial company only has 100 customers, they're not making much money, and hence cannot stay in business. Thus, they aren't successful. OSS, however, is not competing like this, and if ONLY 100 people are HAPPILY using some OSS software, it's a success. The key word is HAPPILY. IMHO, of course.
Remember M.U.L.E.????? Hell's yeah!!! Loved that one back in '85. Last year, in fact, before I killed my windows box, I played it a bunch with my friend, using an Atari emulator (I think). If I looked hard enough, i could probably find the same emulator for linux, just don't have the time.:-)
Oh yeah, have you found the Archon port to linux?!? It's somewhere, if you search the linux games archives. X-Archon, i believe it's called. Trying to remain true to the original.
Oops, I should have proofread better. you probably know this, but it wasn't the mirror that was fixed during the first servicing mission, but another corrective lens was installed to fix the optical pathway.
FYI, that's not really true. The mirror wasn't warped, but just shaped wrong. At the time the mirror was made (not sure if it's still true), it was the MOST ACCURATE mirror ever designed. The problem was it was designed to the wrong standards. The testing apparatus to fine-tune the mirror's surface were incorrectly positioned from the mirror, so it was tuned VERY accurately to the wrong shape. It was the precise knowledge of the miscalculations which allowed the mirror to be fixed relatively easily.
Not a proof, but I did check it for all combinations of the first 10,000 primes (up to 104729), and it holds true so far. Don't have the computer power and/or time to optimize code to go beyond this right now, however.
Not sure how this helps crack the RSA's prime encryption technique, though. Doesn't cracking the scheme (if N*M=P) force you to find N and M, if given P (N and M prime, here)? Knowing that N*M +/- 1 mod 6 is 0, how does that help? I know nothing about these encryption methods, though.
Of course, no discussion of SETI@Home is complete without mentioning: "WHY WON"T THEY OPEN SOURCE IT?!?"
This may have been discussed previously, but I'll bite anyway. The problem with open-sourcing the SETI signal-processing code is the fact that this is a running experiment. With open-source operating systems, web-hosts, games, etc, you will be running these on your own computers and/or on your own networks. The SETI example is completely different. With SETI, you are contributing to their scientific experiment. Therefore, they want to know precisely how every resulting piece of data was processed. I cannot stress that enough. As a scientist, I can assure you that if you cannot verify the integrity of certain data, then you may as well throw that data out (or re-run the experiment at the least. As learned with the cold fusion people, DON'T PUBLISH if you're not certain of the validity of the data).
The problem with open-sourcing the code is that somebody on the client side could very well have changed the processing code, and introduced any number of possible errors. It could be something seemingly harmless, like using single-precision floats or linear interpolation, in some places instead of whatever methods were originally employed there, for a processing-speed gain. However, there is no way that the SETI folks can tell if the data they are receiving has been processed correctly or not. And one thing SETI cannot do is accept compromised data.
I do believe it is in the public interest to let others know the code processing and evaluating techniques, though. What could be done is run an open-source type development of a separate client system, and then release some sort of binary-only module for the actual runtime client (perhaps they'll not reveal the data-authentication routines, for instance). You may disagree completely with this, but please understand that from the point of view of a science experiment, they MUST in no way whatsoever receive data processed in a different method than they originally intended .
I installed RedHat 6.0 on my 485 66. I tried calling X once, but the whole box went into a massive paging mode, and just kept accessing and reaccising the disk. I couldn't even use a virtual terminal to kill the process. Other than that (i'll soon change from the default E/GNOME to a more simple WM and not use gnome) it's been okay.
You're right! Family Guy was phenomenal, I thought FOX moved it to a different night, where I'm usually not home, so i never got to see it again. The few I saw were really incredible. It's tooo bad they replaced it with Futurama. Futurama is okay, but let Groening use his fame to build that show's popularity in an awkward time slot, and let an actually GOOD show get popular in the key slot between simpsons and x-files.
This is a case of theft. The posting of the de-encryption formula is no different than making and then distributing unauthorized keys to a department store. The keys have no real purpose except to circumvent the locks that stand between the thief and the goods he or she targets.
This may be redundant, but I'll continue anyway. Writing the DVD decryption software cannot be considered stealing, as it hasn't even been used on a DVD! This is akin to accusing a manufacturer of crowbars of theft, because their product can be used to break into houses.
The MPAA is assuming that the software in question is playing a DVD that a user did NOT buy. Bullsh*t. Suppose I have a $20,000 entertainment system in my living room, complete with a legally-purchased DVD player. Also suppose I have 100 legally-purchased DVD's. Also suppose that in my study is a computer, dualbooted with NT and Linux. I have a windows DVD viewer installed on the windows partition. It is perfectly legal to bring a DVD from my living room to my bedroom, and view it with Windows. But, if I boot linux and watch the DVD with the software in question, now suddenly I am a criminal??? I have suddenly stolen the DVD from the companies filing the charges? What friggin' logic is this.
You've also probably noted that many scientific fields, people think of their field as the One True Field, and everyone else should be mercilessly abused.
ARRRRGGGHHHH!!! This comment looked perfectly fine in the preview, with neatly delimited paragraphs and all. Why the hell did slashdot choke when I submitted it? Dang, now I'll be surprised if anybody bothers to read it. The psychology of reading paragraphs looks much nicer than one big block of text. Dang!!!!!
Slashdot Mirror
Or, more interestingly, "pi seconds is a nanocentury". got that from a fortune. :-)
To avoid redundant redundancy, here is a to this same /. discussion but different thread (the 10,000,000 digits of pi thread), of an example of cosmological size, orders of magnitude, and how much precision of pi one may really need.
An interesting question with an even more interesting answer. In a book by Petr Beckman, i think called "A History of Pi", he provides this example. The distance to the nearest star (proxima centauri) is a few lightyears (I think about 4 lightyears?) Suppose the sun and this star form a diameter of a huge sphere. Now further suppose this sphere is filled to the brim with tiny parameciums, I forget the size of these, but probably estimated as spherical at a few microns or so. Okay, you've now got a huge sphere teaming with googles of paramecia. Now let's take each paramecium and build a straight line with them, spacing each one apart by the few lightyears distance to proxima centauri. Such that you've now got an incomprehensibly large line out to intergalactic space. Now, suppose this incredibly huge line is the diameter of a circle, and the line's length is known to absolute precision. Thus, it is only the uncertainty of pi which prevents an accurate measure of the huge circle's circumference. If one knows pi to a mere 100 digits, the circumference can be calculated to a precision of a few microns!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is totally amazing, and crazy how quickly orders of magnitude can jettison out of our understanding. Basically, 10^100 is such a huge number, it would be an extraordinaly rare occurrance to need even close to this much precision. Note, I haven't checked the validity of these measurements, so they may be way off. But it's still something mind-numbing to think about!
From what I've heard (and I don't remember the source, but I think it may have been a radio interview with one of the show's writers or producers or something, but basically don't quote me on this) : the show was decided to be NC-17. So basically Matt and Trey figured why not make it even more over-the-top, so they added some pretty twisted stuff to it. Then, shortly before it hit the theaters, somehow it was reduced to R, which really shocked them, but they obviously didn't fight it.
Did you see last Sunday's episdode? (2/17/2000)? It may have been a re-run, but I've never seen it before. Anyway, basically they killed off Maude Flanders. Just like that, out of the blue. I totally wasn't expecting it. It was crazy. Anyway, besides that fact, the rest of the episode was totally funny, I was laughing out loud many many times, which I usually don't do on a 'typical' simpsons. if this is a newer episode, than they're still good for me (unless this was a freak good show, or something)...
Nah, we'd all be using CP/M
;-)
Check out Circuit Cellar Ink , and Embedded Systems Programming. Both of these are pretty decent techie print rags. Good stuff, by and for hackers.
It's read with a laser, so it must go through digital processing.
Where does laser reading imply digital processing? THe optical input they're using to read the laser is most probably a photodiode, which would give an analog waveform. Granted, they're using 5 lasers probably to get a better picture of the "grooves" which seems to hint at some fancy DSP, but just using a laser in no means automatically implies "digital".
This would seem to undermine the goal of listening to vinyl - that is, to avoid the "noise" that some audiophiles feel is added through digital processing.
Ummmm, that's not why I listen to vinyl (I'm maybe semi audiophile). As far as I know, very vew albums are released not on Vinyl, most that are released are aimed for DJ's and spinners. I listen to vinyl because I'm into ALOT of the funky soul jazz from the 60's and 70's, much of which is very obscure and they'll never release the albums onto CD (probably because they'll sell 5 copies, one of which would be to me, but still not very profitable for them. Sucks...) If I could get most of this stuff on CD, I'd definitely go for it. In fact, once I get off my arse, I've got plans to lay out a decent analog-digital front-end for my computer such that I can sample the songs off my records onto MP3. THis leads me to the next point...
Seems like not much more than an expensive toy (obviously) to show your friends rather than a realistic audiophile piece.
You're missing one point here. While CD's and DAT's are digital, and employ some sort of error-correcting methodology, records are inherently analog. And every time you play the record, you damage it slightly (ultimately governed by quantum physics - you can't measure a system without changing it). In CD's, at least you've got some hysteresis between 0's and 1's, but with a record every time you play that track the needle drags in the groove and rubs it down a little. Just listen to a record track that's been played a hundred times or so, it can sound horrible, even if care was used with good sharp needles. That's why this laser system is pretty cool, because you don't need much contact with the record, so this won't be an issue. Also much harder to scratch now that you've removed the needle altogether.
Finally, I've not heard the arguments about DSP adding to the noise, can anyone comment on the validity of this? As far as I know, once the analog waveform has been sampled (which is where most limitations are introduced), they use 24 or 32 bit wide DSP's to avoid introducing any noticable errors through the processing stages. Then at the Digital-Analog stage, the choice of output filter can affect the waveform too. But I didn't think the DSP was too much to blame.
I was so disappointed when they cancelled The Critic those many years ago, and put what in it's place? Another clone of all the other generic la-de-da brain-numbing crap that's out there. Why? Because some suits say, "hey, these reports indicate most people like 90210 and Melrose, so let's make another show like that. That will sell". And then it's a circular loop, because that's all there is on most tv, and thus that's what network executives strive to reproduce because it 'sells'.
Oh well. At least Comedy Central is still maintainning decent shows, and Critic Reruns (albeit there are only like 15 of The Critic episodes made).
Firstly, I have not yet purchased an official Linux distro, so for reports such as this NT vs Linux article, I'm counted as a zero (Unless cheapbytes sales and downloads count, which I don't think they do.)
Secondly, as you have said, multiple versions and distros get bought for the same computer, which can over-estimate the number of linux boxes. However, isn't this also true of NT as well? Can one really assume that every version of NT that was purchased went to a newly acquired computer? Although most people are probably upgrading from Winxx to NT. Also, linux is probably re-installed more often, as the hardware requirements aren't as stringent as NT.
Thirdly, a single copy of linux can be LEGALLY installed on multiple computers. For instance, I've installed mandrake 6.1 on two computers at home, two at work, my brothers and his friend's computer (plus who knows how many more as they cloned the CD twice for themselves), and my father's computer. So, that's 7 installs off of this single Mandrake 6.1 CD so far, which wasn't even an official purchase. [Don't worry, once Mandrake gets its act together with Major Release 7 (ie, 7.1 or 7.2) I'll buy an offical copy or two of it]. Thus, there is a multiplier factor to account for.
Basically, my point is that you cannot really estimate the actual number of linux users out there (and also NT somewhat), and there are multiply/divide factors both ways that one must take into consideration. Also, expect more estimatation difficulties of NT's install base when win2k is released (ie, would one be upgrading to win2k, or installing on a whole new computer).
Don't underestimate Edison, it wasn't just dogs he electrocuted. All sorts of animals were killed. I just saw a documentary about some guy that developed alot of the execution apparatus in American prison systems, and during the movie they showed footage of Edison and others electrocuting an elephant. This is the stuff they don't teach you in elementary schools.
This is similar to the world of microelectronics (and hence computers). Everybody knows Bill Gates, for supposedly revolutionizing the field, but one rarely ever sees mention of Bardeen and Shockley and the third guy whose name escapes me right now, for inventing the solid-state transistor which made this all possible, 50 some-odd years ago.
You've obviously witnessed the hoopla the release of the DVD code has created in the movie industry, and it's effects of prosecutions and even your home being raided. Thus said, if before you released the DeCSS code, you knew of all these consequences and controversies that would be created, would you still have released it? Or, knowing these consequences, what other steps may you have taken to release the code to the public?
That's because they are two different things that don't really compare well to each other, ie apples and oranges. They're both reaching for different goals, so comparing the successes of each to any single metric doesn't make much sense. Once again, IMHO.
I disagree with your view that success is measured in these corporate-type bench-marking terms with closed-source software. That may be useful when comparing two companies, say microsoft vs. corel, to determine who's more successful. But the case is entirely different with OSS, IMHO.
Many OSS packages exist because someone wanted to provide themselves with either some tool/program not available as closed-source, or to provide an open-source option for themselves and/or others. I don't believe many people are trying to actively compete with closed-source to be the better software package, as you seem to imply in your quote. Thus, the definition of success between open-source programmers, who are doing it for either themselves, the community, or the sheer joy of doing it, and closed-source programmers, mostly doing it for a job and to become the number-one software producer in their field, are entirely different.
Thus said, I would NOT judge the success of open source software in terms of user-base, and profitability, as you mention above. In other words, if a commercial company only has 100 customers, they're not making much money, and hence cannot stay in business. Thus, they aren't successful. OSS, however, is not competing like this, and if ONLY 100 people are HAPPILY using some OSS software, it's a success. The key word is HAPPILY. IMHO, of course.
Oh yeah, have you found the Archon port to linux?!? It's somewhere, if you search the linux games archives. X-Archon, i believe it's called. Trying to remain true to the original.
Oops, I should have proofread better. you probably know this, but it wasn't the mirror that was fixed during the first servicing mission, but another corrective lens was installed to fix the optical pathway.
FYI, that's not really true. The mirror wasn't warped, but just shaped wrong. At the time the mirror was made (not sure if it's still true), it was the MOST ACCURATE mirror ever designed. The problem was it was designed to the wrong standards. The testing apparatus to fine-tune the mirror's surface were incorrectly positioned from the mirror, so it was tuned VERY accurately to the wrong shape. It was the precise knowledge of the miscalculations which allowed the mirror to be fixed relatively easily.
Not sure how this helps crack the RSA's prime encryption technique, though. Doesn't cracking the scheme (if N*M=P) force you to find N and M, if given P (N and M prime, here)? Knowing that N*M +/- 1 mod 6 is 0, how does that help? I know nothing about these encryption methods, though.
This may have been discussed previously, but I'll bite anyway. The problem with open-sourcing the SETI signal-processing code is the fact that this is a running experiment. With open-source operating systems, web-hosts, games, etc, you will be running these on your own computers and/or on your own networks. The SETI example is completely different. With SETI, you are contributing to their scientific experiment. Therefore, they want to know precisely how every resulting piece of data was processed. I cannot stress that enough. As a scientist, I can assure you that if you cannot verify the integrity of certain data, then you may as well throw that data out (or re-run the experiment at the least. As learned with the cold fusion people, DON'T PUBLISH if you're not certain of the validity of the data).
The problem with open-sourcing the code is that somebody on the client side could very well have changed the processing code, and introduced any number of possible errors. It could be something seemingly harmless, like using single-precision floats or linear interpolation, in some places instead of whatever methods were originally employed there, for a processing-speed gain. However, there is no way that the SETI folks can tell if the data they are receiving has been processed correctly or not. And one thing SETI cannot do is accept compromised data.
I do believe it is in the public interest to let others know the code processing and evaluating techniques, though. What could be done is run an open-source type development of a separate client system, and then release some sort of binary-only module for the actual runtime client (perhaps they'll not reveal the data-authentication routines, for instance). You may disagree completely with this, but please understand that from the point of view of a science experiment, they MUST in no way whatsoever receive data processed in a different method than they originally intended .
I installed RedHat 6.0 on my 485 66. I tried calling X once, but the whole box went into a massive paging mode, and just kept accessing and reaccising the disk. I couldn't even use a virtual terminal to kill the process. Other than that (i'll soon change from the default E/GNOME to a more simple WM and not use gnome) it's been okay.
You're right!
Family Guy was phenomenal, I thought FOX moved it to a different night, where I'm usually not home, so i never got to see it again. The few I saw were really incredible. It's tooo bad they replaced it with Futurama. Futurama is okay, but let Groening use his fame to build that show's popularity in an awkward time slot, and let an actually GOOD show get popular in the key slot between simpsons and x-files.
This may be redundant, but I'll continue anyway. Writing the DVD decryption software cannot be considered stealing, as it hasn't even been used on a DVD! This is akin to accusing a manufacturer of crowbars of theft, because their product can be used to break into houses.
The MPAA is assuming that the software in question is playing a DVD that a user did NOT buy. Bullsh*t. Suppose I have a $20,000 entertainment system in my living room, complete with a legally-purchased DVD player. Also suppose I have 100 legally-purchased DVD's. Also suppose that in my study is a computer, dualbooted with NT and Linux. I have a windows DVD viewer installed on the windows partition. It is perfectly legal to bring a DVD from my living room to my bedroom, and view it with Windows. But, if I boot linux and watch the DVD with the software in question, now suddenly I am a criminal??? I have suddenly stolen the DVD from the companies filing the charges? What friggin' logic is this.
You've also probably noted that many scientific fields, people think of their field as the One True Field, and everyone else should be mercilessly abused.
ARRRRGGGHHHH!!! This comment looked perfectly fine in the preview, with neatly delimited paragraphs and all. Why the hell did slashdot choke when I submitted it? Dang, now I'll be surprised if anybody bothers to read it. The psychology of reading paragraphs looks much nicer than one big block of text. Dang!!!!!