The obvious solution is to implement a slashdot-like system with regards to reviews. By default, reviews will be given no clout, and it takes review by peers to validate them before they are even displayed. Thus "THIS TEACHER FUCKING SUCKS" which while possibly true offers no value will not end up being seen unless somebody is browsing at the troll level. That way constructive and critical comments will both be available, but only those that are thought out and respectable; anything below that can be taken as heresay.
Grade inflation is rampant in engineering too; don't get ahead of yourself. Here at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the engineering courses are just as affected by grade inflation as any liberal arts class. The only difference is that people assume that since the classes are stereotypically harder that the grading is difficult as well. You have to genuinely try to get below a B in most computer science course here, for example. The number of people failing classes is obviously inadequate, when you see how completely unprepared several students are once they reach upper-level courses and obviously have no command of the prerequisite material.
We've already heard about your excellent book from the previous Slashdot review. After picking up this book, and thoroughly devouring its contents, it leaves me wondering what books you consider essential? With so many books of recipes, dictionaries of ingredients, and encyclopedias of techniques, there must be a few choice texts that you find absolutely essential, both for learning how to cook, and for reference once one is an accomplished cook.
The biggest problem with this sort of system is going to be the lazy factor. WinNT/2000 with IIS is great in some regards, because it allows the average peon with a year of experience using 98 to set up an Internet server, without much thought. However, that same peon hasn't a clue how to maintain it, so his box is one of the first infected by Code Red, and one of the last cleaned.
Now, make it even easier, by making something an even lesser peon (one with virtually no computer experience) can just plug in and let run without ANY suggestions of maintenance of the beast, and it starts to form a pretty massive DDoS system, if you ask me.
Here I was beginning to finally be comfortable at a bookseller; it didn't have the awkward half-haughtiness and half-stupidity of B&N, and it was worlds better in selection and atmosphere than most mall shops. Yet now they've gone and implemented Big Brother facial recognition, and it's all downhill from there...
It's not that I have any fear of being identified as a known shoplifter, but this is just the type of stuff forecasted in a slew of dystopian novels, which scares me. I was truly hoping that we'd see the last of this type of technolgy at the superbowl, with the amount of public protest that developed in response. Sadly that does not seem to be the case. In the name of sales and inventory protection, what's a little civil rights violation?
Oh well, at least when I shop naked at Amaazon they can't see me and identify me as a known shoplifter... not that shoplifters pose much of a threat to the on-line businesses, at least in the traditional sense. I can see it now though, "In order to shop at this web site, you must have a webcam, so we can verify that you're not a known perpetrator of credit card fraud." Of course, when you point it at a picture of your latest pr0n, it's sure to generate some interesting results. Pretty soon their recommendations will be changing erratically based on your appearance in their web-cam analysis software.
While it's not exactly a typical textbook, per se, CODE: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold could be a handy reference. It tends to cover the history of computing relatively thoroughly, from a hardware conceptual level. It isn't a book with merely names and dates to memorize the material, instead it seeks to actually explain the insights and advances which allowed computing to take place. As the book progresses, it becomes much more technical, and perhaps not as relevant, but I'd imagine that most of the book could be useful for a course like this, if nothing else to give you some background/research material.
While I tend to generally agree with what has been said thus far, I think it's important to consider the individual universities, as each tends to have a differing approach. For example, at the University of Illinois, our Computer Science curriculum is part of the Engineering college, and as such is subject to many of the core engineering requirements. Additionally, we are required to take some lower-level ECE and hardware courses in order to gain more of an "engineer's" perspective.
Now, we also have Computer Science and Mathematics majors, which take many of the CS courses from the department, but as a supplement instead have to take courses in the arts and sciences, as well as a great deal more mathematics.
So we also have electrical engineers, who typically would deal with things a level abstracted from a computer geek's interests, yet many of them are designing processors, or even the next layer of software that interfaces with operating systems... which is a niche that you'd think a Computer Engineer might find themselves in. Yet the Computer Engineering program seems to be a mash of everything together, maintaining the focus of Electrical Engineering, while combining a more thorough low-level understanding of computer systems.
Of course, there are other options, such as Information Systems in the business curriculum, which deals more with applications and their place within an organization. My guess is that you would find something like this far too trivial (which isn't to say that IS/MIS is trivial, rather it's just not going to whet your interests in computers to the fullest extent).
While Computer Engineering seems to pose the biggest compromise, a compromise might not be what you're looking for. If you really want to gain an understanding of computers that will allow you to understand the programming process (not necessarily learn how to program) at all levels, I would encourage Computer Science. If you are interested instead in creating the hardware and low-level interfaces to that hardware, Computer Engineering is your best bet. If you want to guarantee you maintain the computer influence, I would stay away from hardcore Electrical Engineering.
Yet again, this has all already been said. What I alluded to more in the beginning is that you need to look at the specific universities you are considering, and see what each program is like. Don't hesitate to ask the department for some current students to contact at those universities, in order to get their perspective. Don't hesitate to visit the departments (if possible), talk with the dean, and visit some classes, in order to get a better perspective on what exactly a specific program is like; I tend to think that you might want Computer Science at some schools, and Computer engineering at others.
Once you've made an educated decision based on these things, don't hesitate to change your major if you find out you made a choice that didn't work for you; the beauty of the Universities is that they'll be happy to keep teaching you as long as you keep paying; good luck!
If we were to just assume that Napster could somehow maintain 50 million users once they switch to a pay-only model, in order for them to survive, I'd be willing to imagine that they're going to charge a lot more than $1.67 per month... as they are going to need some sort of mechanism to make profit from their venture.
But, I think it's safe to assume that part of the appeal of Napster is that it makes it free and easy to get something for free that users would traditionally find themselves paying for... I still have a hard time seeing people suddenly becoming interested in paying for a service, and doing so en masse. I'm sure there will be a definite user base, and I'm sure that they could eventually make money, assuming all other determinants were held constant, but it's just downright impossible to think that they're going to be able to have $1 billion in excess funds that they can give to the industry... I don't think they'll rake in that much revenue in the next five years, even before costs.
However, all things aside, I think this points out an interesting business venture... if you want to make money, start an independent record label now, and get in on this $50 million/year deal from Napster. Please, where do I sign to accept the proposal?
So these are going to enzymatically reduce radionuclides and metal contaminants in the absence of air... So what happens when we leave the laboratory environment, and things start getting wacky. This is almost verbatim to the stuff from Stephenson's Zodiac about PCB-killing microbes...
As an introduction... In the U of I dorms, our usage policies are rather strict. We're permitted 500 mb per day (either direction) per MAC address. From there, we're limited to 4 MAC addresses per port, and there is one port per room. In some of the older networks in other dorms, you are limited to 500 mb per day per port. Additionally, access to Napster and Imesh has been blocked entirely (through traditional access, anyhow). There are talks of implementing a new system, which analyzes your traffic usage, and if you use more than a certain amount of bandwidth over a certain period of time (there's a 10 mbit switched line to each of the dorms, and ill usage would be something along the lines of 100 k/sec for more than 30 seconds or so), the system will throttle your connection. If you continue to use bandwidth, the system will continue to throttle your connection until the connection is made un-usable. The procedure reverses incrementally in a similar manner, so you get the idea. Many see this as an improvement, but I'm not so sure. Irregardless...
In any event, the administration contends that doing this isn't an invasion of privacy, and since we don't have a network usage fee, there's no reason we should complain, because using the resource for anything outside academic purposes is out of policy, and there is almost no way to justify high bandwidth usage (or high volume, their current, and much less accurate metric) save some very special exceptions, such as downloading Linux... and now they contend that since RedHat and Debian are mirrored locally, that isn't even such a good excuse. Regardless, even if your usage of bandwidth IS legitimate, they shut your port down first, and re-instate it only after you've talked to the security officer, whose role is essentially "Hey, were you trading mp3s? I think you are. One more time, and you get to talk to the dean."
So after visiting University of Michigan and some other universities where essentially the official policy is "It's not our business, if they use more bandwidth, then we'll give them more to use," do you, as a researched expert in the field, think that this type of policy is reasonable? You can view the posted policy, which also mentions that gaming and other activities are prohibited, as it may impact educational usage of the network. I'm interested in hearing how this relates to what else you've seen, and how fair of a policy you think this is.
In truth, regardless of the decision, the revolution, so to speak, has started. Even if Napster gets shut down, person to person technologies will end up dominating in the future. It might be a while, but distributed searching, storage, processing, and sharing is still going to be a huge thing. Whether modern systems such as freenet or gnutella will have any part in it is hard to say, but the potential of systems which facilitate these types of mechanisms is limitless.
So it's a victory for the recording industry... it's probably a victory for most of the industry, but it doesn't mean that P2P is dead. Just wait, things will change.
I'd stay away from 'consumer' audio hardware, like you tend to find at places like Circuit City, Best Buy, ABC Warehouse, etc.
I'd take a trip to your local high-end audio dealer, and start listening to stuff; they'll be happy to introduce you to the entry-level hifi theater gear, and I think you'll be much more satisfied with everything you can find there, by comparison. This isn't to say that there isn't consumer hardware that sounds good (there are some great things happening), but if you're looking for the most satisfying experience available for the money, you're unlikely to find it without a little work.
As far as particular brands/models, the best bet is to listen to everything, and then decide with what sounds best to you; each high-end dealer you visit is likely to carry different brands with different strenghts and weaknesses. Personally, I've had tremendous experience for value/performance with NAD -- the sound quality is excellent, the units uncluttered, and power/flexibility both ample. Models like their T770, T761, and even T751 receivers are sure to please (don't be scared by paper specifications, LISTEN).
On the other hand, you could look at seperates -- a clean 5.1-6.1 channel pre-amplifier and amplifier(s) as necessary to power the system... but if you're trying to also purchase speakers within your $1500 budget, that's going to start to get difficult.
Quite frankly, $1500 is not much to spend on a receiver/pre-amp,amp and speakers, especially if you're planning on buying seperate main, surround, center, and sub channel hardware. Again, the best thing you can do is go to a reputable hifi dealer, and listen to what's available. I realize that the money is likely burning a hole in your pocket right now, but if you can wait for a little while, buying just a few of the components at a time and saving for the next round will yield an overall more satisfying system... for example I might purchase a nice receiver now and try to pick up some economical main speakers. Next, I'd go after the surrounds, then the center channel, and a subwoofer as the funds become available. It will be hard to be without a full system at first, but I truly think you'll end up with a more versatile system that you can enjoy without exception in the end.
Again, as far as specific brand recommendations go for speakers, it's best to pick what sounds good. Personally, I've had good luck with the offerings from NHT.
Don't take my word for it, however. Take a look at different audio review magazines, web sites, and talk to your local hifi dealer; he/she can surely steer you in the right direction.
I bank online, and I'm relatively confident about it, but I don't pretend that I'm safe. Bank One seemed to think that by requiring 128-bit encryption, their security needs would be taken care of. I don't know much about the internals beyond that, but my guess would be that any sort of security issues that come about are going to be a result of people exploiting some code quirk, rather than decoding encryption on the fly.
No matter how careful they are, sooner or later somebody is either going to find or stumble upon some back hole into the system, whether it's some nasty SQL that's output that's displayed to the user or just a random glitch.
I fear you miss the point of what makes Napster so widespread and successful. IRC has some wonderful ways to facilitate the transferring of mp3s, but it's still nowhere near as user-friendly or mindless as Napster. Napster succeeds because it's easy, and because absolutely anybody can figure it out; it is a single-purpose tool, it is intuitive, and it brings quick and easy access to mp3s to every person with an Internet connection.
For the computer intellectuals, there will always be easy ways to get ahold of mp3s. Gnutella is nowhere near as user-friendly as napster (new clients that seek to fix this not-withstanding), but it is a means for getting the m3ps. There will always be lists of FTP sites, IRC channels, and other means for a certain class of users to attain what they want.
In truth, what makes Napster and other file-sharing technologies so exciting is that they allow everyone to harness the power of the Internet, to find exactly what they're looking for and to bring that content to their desktop in a simple, straightforward manner. It also allows people to share and contribute to the Internet, another capability from which the Internet novice is often precluded. It's still simplistic in what it shares and does, but as services like these grow, they provide a whole new means of access to the Internet, and another generation of user-friendliness that can't be obtained on dalnet.
I tend to think the protest is directly related to the accessibility of the medium. While DeCSS is indeed another important issue, and while the MPAA should receive similar treatment, the exposure is nowhere near as wide-spread.
There just isn't a level of access for movies like there is for mp3s. The medium doesn't exist to allow widespread piracy for movies, as there simply is not the bandwidth, storage, or patience in order to accomplish it on a similarly massive scale. People are going to protest what is tangible and apparent, and what affects them most at a given time. When and if Napster is disconnected, a lot of users will suddenly become angry, and it will take little more than a suggestion to protest the RIAA. However, when the plug is pulled on DeCSS, we fall into more of a conceptual violation of rights, where the effect isn't felt directly my nearly as many people; it's a problem for philosophers of the information age.
Slashdot Mirror
The obvious solution is to implement a slashdot-like system with regards to reviews. By default, reviews will be given no clout, and it takes review by peers to validate them before they are even displayed. Thus "THIS TEACHER FUCKING SUCKS" which while possibly true offers no value will not end up being seen unless somebody is browsing at the troll level. That way constructive and critical comments will both be available, but only those that are thought out and respectable; anything below that can be taken as heresay.
You do realize that Amazon owns IMDB, right?
Grade inflation is rampant in engineering too; don't get ahead of yourself. Here at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the engineering courses are just as affected by grade inflation as any liberal arts class. The only difference is that people assume that since the classes are stereotypically harder that the grading is difficult as well. You have to genuinely try to get below a B in most computer science course here, for example. The number of people failing classes is obviously inadequate, when you see how completely unprepared several students are once they reach upper-level courses and obviously have no command of the prerequisite material.
We've already heard about your excellent book from the previous Slashdot review. After picking up this book, and thoroughly devouring its contents, it leaves me wondering what books you consider essential? With so many books of recipes, dictionaries of ingredients, and encyclopedias of techniques, there must be a few choice texts that you find absolutely essential, both for learning how to cook, and for reference once one is an accomplished cook.
The biggest problem with this sort of system is going to be the lazy factor. WinNT/2000 with IIS is great in some regards, because it allows the average peon with a year of experience using 98 to set up an Internet server, without much thought. However, that same peon hasn't a clue how to maintain it, so his box is one of the first infected by Code Red, and one of the last cleaned.
Now, make it even easier, by making something an even lesser peon (one with virtually no computer experience) can just plug in and let run without ANY suggestions of maintenance of the beast, and it starts to form a pretty massive DDoS system, if you ask me.
For what it's worth, the GV (excepting GV-SP) can actually reach Mach .87, not just .8
Here I was beginning to finally be comfortable at a bookseller; it didn't have the awkward half-haughtiness and half-stupidity of B&N, and it was worlds better in selection and atmosphere than most mall shops. Yet now they've gone and implemented Big Brother facial recognition, and it's all downhill from there...
It's not that I have any fear of being identified as a known shoplifter, but this is just the type of stuff forecasted in a slew of dystopian novels, which scares me. I was truly hoping that we'd see the last of this type of technolgy at the superbowl, with the amount of public protest that developed in response. Sadly that does not seem to be the case. In the name of sales and inventory protection, what's a little civil rights violation?
Oh well, at least when I shop naked at Amaazon they can't see me and identify me as a known shoplifter ... not that shoplifters pose much of a threat to the on-line businesses, at least in the traditional sense. I can see it now though, "In order to shop at this web site, you must have a webcam, so we can verify that you're not a known perpetrator of credit card fraud." Of course, when you point it at a picture of your latest pr0n, it's sure to generate some interesting results. Pretty soon their recommendations will be changing erratically based on your appearance in their web-cam analysis software.
I digress...
While it's not exactly a typical textbook, per se, CODE: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold could be a handy reference. It tends to cover the history of computing relatively thoroughly, from a hardware conceptual level. It isn't a book with merely names and dates to memorize the material, instead it seeks to actually explain the insights and advances which allowed computing to take place. As the book progresses, it becomes much more technical, and perhaps not as relevant, but I'd imagine that most of the book could be useful for a course like this, if nothing else to give you some background/research material.
While I tend to generally agree with what has been said thus far, I think it's important to consider the individual universities, as each tends to have a differing approach. For example, at the University of Illinois, our Computer Science curriculum is part of the Engineering college, and as such is subject to many of the core engineering requirements. Additionally, we are required to take some lower-level ECE and hardware courses in order to gain more of an "engineer's" perspective.
Now, we also have Computer Science and Mathematics majors, which take many of the CS courses from the department, but as a supplement instead have to take courses in the arts and sciences, as well as a great deal more mathematics.
So we also have electrical engineers, who typically would deal with things a level abstracted from a computer geek's interests, yet many of them are designing processors, or even the next layer of software that interfaces with operating systems ... which is a niche that you'd think a Computer Engineer might find themselves in. Yet the Computer Engineering program seems to be a mash of everything together, maintaining the focus of Electrical Engineering, while combining a more thorough low-level understanding of computer systems.
Of course, there are other options, such as Information Systems in the business curriculum, which deals more with applications and their place within an organization. My guess is that you would find something like this far too trivial (which isn't to say that IS/MIS is trivial, rather it's just not going to whet your interests in computers to the fullest extent).
While Computer Engineering seems to pose the biggest compromise, a compromise might not be what you're looking for. If you really want to gain an understanding of computers that will allow you to understand the programming process (not necessarily learn how to program) at all levels, I would encourage Computer Science. If you are interested instead in creating the hardware and low-level interfaces to that hardware, Computer Engineering is your best bet. If you want to guarantee you maintain the computer influence, I would stay away from hardcore Electrical Engineering.
Yet again, this has all already been said. What I alluded to more in the beginning is that you need to look at the specific universities you are considering, and see what each program is like. Don't hesitate to ask the department for some current students to contact at those universities, in order to get their perspective. Don't hesitate to visit the departments (if possible), talk with the dean, and visit some classes, in order to get a better perspective on what exactly a specific program is like; I tend to think that you might want Computer Science at some schools, and Computer engineering at others.
Once you've made an educated decision based on these things, don't hesitate to change your major if you find out you made a choice that didn't work for you; the beauty of the Universities is that they'll be happy to keep teaching you as long as you keep paying; good luck!
If we were to just assume that Napster could somehow maintain 50 million users once they switch to a pay-only model, in order for them to survive, I'd be willing to imagine that they're going to charge a lot more than $1.67 per month ... as they are going to need some sort of mechanism to make profit from their venture.
But, I think it's safe to assume that part of the appeal of Napster is that it makes it free and easy to get something for free that users would traditionally find themselves paying for... I still have a hard time seeing people suddenly becoming interested in paying for a service, and doing so en masse. I'm sure there will be a definite user base, and I'm sure that they could eventually make money, assuming all other determinants were held constant, but it's just downright impossible to think that they're going to be able to have $1 billion in excess funds that they can give to the industry ... I don't think they'll rake in that much revenue in the next five years, even before costs.
However, all things aside, I think this points out an interesting business venture ... if you want to make money, start an independent record label now, and get in on this $50 million/year deal from Napster. Please, where do I sign to accept the proposal?
So these are going to enzymatically reduce radionuclides and metal contaminants in the absence of air ... So what happens when we leave the laboratory environment, and things start getting wacky. This is almost verbatim to the stuff from Stephenson's Zodiac about PCB-killing microbes...
As an introduction... In the U of I dorms, our usage policies are rather strict. We're permitted 500 mb per day (either direction) per MAC address. From there, we're limited to 4 MAC addresses per port, and there is one port per room. In some of the older networks in other dorms, you are limited to 500 mb per day per port. Additionally, access to Napster and Imesh has been blocked entirely (through traditional access, anyhow). There are talks of implementing a new system, which analyzes your traffic usage, and if you use more than a certain amount of bandwidth over a certain period of time (there's a 10 mbit switched line to each of the dorms, and ill usage would be something along the lines of 100 k/sec for more than 30 seconds or so), the system will throttle your connection. If you continue to use bandwidth, the system will continue to throttle your connection until the connection is made un-usable. The procedure reverses incrementally in a similar manner, so you get the idea. Many see this as an improvement, but I'm not so sure. Irregardless...
In any event, the administration contends that doing this isn't an invasion of privacy, and since we don't have a network usage fee, there's no reason we should complain, because using the resource for anything outside academic purposes is out of policy, and there is almost no way to justify high bandwidth usage (or high volume, their current, and much less accurate metric) save some very special exceptions, such as downloading Linux ... and now they contend that since RedHat and Debian are mirrored locally, that isn't even such a good excuse. Regardless, even if your usage of bandwidth IS legitimate, they shut your port down first, and re-instate it only after you've talked to the security officer, whose role is essentially "Hey, were you trading mp3s? I think you are. One more time, and you get to talk to the dean."
So after visiting University of Michigan and some other universities where essentially the official policy is "It's not our business, if they use more bandwidth, then we'll give them more to use," do you, as a researched expert in the field, think that this type of policy is reasonable? You can view the posted policy, which also mentions that gaming and other activities are prohibited, as it may impact educational usage of the network. I'm interested in hearing how this relates to what else you've seen, and how fair of a policy you think this is.
In truth, regardless of the decision, the revolution, so to speak, has started. Even if Napster gets shut down, person to person technologies will end up dominating in the future. It might be a while, but distributed searching, storage, processing, and sharing is still going to be a huge thing. Whether modern systems such as freenet or gnutella will have any part in it is hard to say, but the potential of systems which facilitate these types of mechanisms is limitless.
... it's probably a victory for most of the industry, but it doesn't mean that P2P is dead. Just wait, things will change.
So it's a victory for the recording industry
I'd stay away from 'consumer' audio hardware, like you tend to find at places like Circuit City, Best Buy, ABC Warehouse, etc.
I'd take a trip to your local high-end audio dealer, and start listening to stuff; they'll be happy to introduce you to the entry-level hifi theater gear, and I think you'll be much more satisfied with everything you can find there, by comparison. This isn't to say that there isn't consumer hardware that sounds good (there are some great things happening), but if you're looking for the most satisfying experience available for the money, you're unlikely to find it without a little work.
As far as particular brands/models, the best bet is to listen to everything, and then decide with what sounds best to you; each high-end dealer you visit is likely to carry different brands with different strenghts and weaknesses. Personally, I've had tremendous experience for value/performance with NAD -- the sound quality is excellent, the units uncluttered, and power/flexibility both ample. Models like their T770, T761, and even T751 receivers are sure to please (don't be scared by paper specifications, LISTEN).
On the other hand, you could look at seperates -- a clean 5.1-6.1 channel pre-amplifier and amplifier(s) as necessary to power the system ... but if you're trying to also purchase speakers within your $1500 budget, that's going to start to get difficult.
Quite frankly, $1500 is not much to spend on a receiver/pre-amp,amp and speakers, especially if you're planning on buying seperate main, surround, center, and sub channel hardware. Again, the best thing you can do is go to a reputable hifi dealer, and listen to what's available. I realize that the money is likely burning a hole in your pocket right now, but if you can wait for a little while, buying just a few of the components at a time and saving for the next round will yield an overall more satisfying system ... for example I might purchase a nice receiver now and try to pick up some economical main speakers. Next, I'd go after the surrounds, then the center channel, and a subwoofer as the funds become available. It will be hard to be without a full system at first, but I truly think you'll end up with a more versatile system that you can enjoy without exception in the end.
Again, as far as specific brand recommendations go for speakers, it's best to pick what sounds good. Personally, I've had good luck with the offerings from NHT.
Don't take my word for it, however. Take a look at different audio review magazines, web sites, and talk to your local hifi dealer; he/she can surely steer you in the right direction.
I bank online, and I'm relatively confident about it, but I don't pretend that I'm safe. Bank One seemed to think that by requiring 128-bit encryption, their security needs would be taken care of. I don't know much about the internals beyond that, but my guess would be that any sort of security issues that come about are going to be a result of people exploiting some code quirk, rather than decoding encryption on the fly.
No matter how careful they are, sooner or later somebody is either going to find or stumble upon some back hole into the system, whether it's some nasty SQL that's output that's displayed to the user or just a random glitch.
I fear you miss the point of what makes Napster so widespread and successful. IRC has some wonderful ways to facilitate the transferring of mp3s, but it's still nowhere near as user-friendly or mindless as Napster. Napster succeeds because it's easy, and because absolutely anybody can figure it out; it is a single-purpose tool, it is intuitive, and it brings quick and easy access to mp3s to every person with an Internet connection.
For the computer intellectuals, there will always be easy ways to get ahold of mp3s. Gnutella is nowhere near as user-friendly as napster (new clients that seek to fix this not-withstanding), but it is a means for getting the m3ps. There will always be lists of FTP sites, IRC channels, and other means for a certain class of users to attain what they want.
In truth, what makes Napster and other file-sharing technologies so exciting is that they allow everyone to harness the power of the Internet, to find exactly what they're looking for and to bring that content to their desktop in a simple, straightforward manner. It also allows people to share and contribute to the Internet, another capability from which the Internet novice is often precluded. It's still simplistic in what it shares and does, but as services like these grow, they provide a whole new means of access to the Internet, and another generation of user-friendliness that can't be obtained on dalnet.
I tend to think the protest is directly related to the accessibility of the medium. While DeCSS is indeed another important issue, and while the MPAA should receive similar treatment, the exposure is nowhere near as wide-spread.
There just isn't a level of access for movies like there is for mp3s. The medium doesn't exist to allow widespread piracy for movies, as there simply is not the bandwidth, storage, or patience in order to accomplish it on a similarly massive scale. People are going to protest what is tangible and apparent, and what affects them most at a given time. When and if Napster is disconnected, a lot of users will suddenly become angry, and it will take little more than a suggestion to protest the RIAA. However, when the plug is pulled on DeCSS, we fall into more of a conceptual violation of rights, where the effect isn't felt directly my nearly as many people; it's a problem for philosophers of the information age.