And region-free players are technically illegal in some places.
At least in the US, they are never illegal to possess. The only illegality involved with region-free players is that the manufacturer of the player signed an agreement to obey region encoding in order to license the technology (MPEG2 decryption probably, plus to use the DVD consortium's trademarks). Thus, manufacturing a regionless player may or may not be illegal. Possessing one is definitely legal in the United States.
I'm sorry about replying to your comment instead of just replying to CowboyNeal's original post, but the "Reply" button is missing for some reason.
I am aware of user-level privileges and administrator privileges and such, but does Linux have a way to allow software to only modify it's own installation directory and data directory, and no other? For instance, if this program was a Linux program and you installed it with an illegal key, it would only be able to remove files in its installation directory or a temp directory, and nothing outside of that directory?
So, McSmarty, how do I
- position an image on page 4 of my document?
- add footnotes?
- embed fields (date, last editor...)?
- mark the embedded TOC as TOC so that it gets regenerated on reload?
I'm on your side in this debate, but as a web dev I have knowledge over these things which you apparently do not. To embed a field, how about <meta name="author" content="TheoMurpse">. As for marking the embedded TOC, how about <div id="TOC">? For positioning an image on page 4, well, I don't know if you've ever looked at a DOC or ODT file, but the file itself says nothing about where page 3 ends and page 4 begins. Instead, you see that once the word processor has rendered the file. Thus, I see no difference between HTML and any other format. Hell, I don't even know if you can say "put this on page 4" in a LaTeX document. First of all, you'd never want to put it on page 4. Instead, you'd want to put it in between other elements, which may end up placing it on page 4, but then when you update your text on page 3, it may cause the image to need to be on page 5.
Footnotes are easy, too: Text Text that needs a footnote.<div class="footnote">This is the footnote</div>. That's the same concept as in LaTeX, the best typesetting software out there.
I think this fellow's point is that HTML/CSS formats can store any information that a Word Processor might need to store, with no need to invoke new technologies.
There's a lot that the current HTML/CSS standard cannot do (I'm not including CSS 3.0, since it's not even finished yet, let alone supported). In particular, there is no vertically wrapping text. You cannot have multiple columns in HTML and CSS which will dynamically wrap to a second (or third) column. That's a pretty important thing in word processing.
Umm wut? I've asked it before, and I'll ask it again: where the hell do you guys shop that a DVD is $35 on average? If WalMart sells that DVD for $18 bucks (which it does for the average DVD), then anything you're paying beyond that is not the MPAA's price, but BestBuy/SamGoody/etc.'s price.
Cuba is part of the North American continental plate, in much the same way that Great Britain and Ireland are in Europe, Japan is in Asia, Madagascar is in Africa, and the Falklinds are in South America. (In case you're wondering, the Caribbean plate lies immediately south of Cuba.)
Hah. Funny. When I was in elementary school, I learned that GB and Ireland were part of Europe, Japan was part of Asia, and Madagascar was part of Africa. And I also learned the entirety of the Caribbean islands were part of North America. They sure as hell aren't part of South America, and those are the only two continents nearby!
I don't want to start a flame war here. I hope my tone comes across properly in this written medium, but in any case, my desire is to inform.
You succeeded quite well, and I'll attempt to be as courteous to you when answering your questions.
First, I want to preface this entire post with a thank-you, because I appreciate all development work that goes into gaim and don't want to make anyone think their work goes unnoticed or unappreciated. In any case, here I go...
October 12, 2005, Gaim news page - "On a related note, the gaim-vv projectwhich aimed to offer a framework for voice and video support in Gaimis being merged back into Gaim proper for hopeful incorporation into Gaim 2.0.0. This will be used to support Google Talk's voice as well as MSN and Yahoo! webcams."
A couple months later, I went on the IRC forums curious as to why there hadn't been any update of gaim with these features. I was told by someone that one of the SoC programmers had changed the codebase so much that the gaim-vv guys were not able to incorporate the video and voice anymore, and no one wanted to try to make it work. A few months later, on January 24, 2006, we were treated to a news update which seemed to corroborate what I was told: "Gaim 2.0.0 beta 2 does not include voice or video ("vv") support for any protocols. We've done some work toward vv compatibility for Google Talk, but it isn't ready for the general public yet. It is unlikely this will change for the final release of Gaim 2.0.0, but vv will be a primary focus for the next major release of Gaim after that." Over a year later, and there still has not been the major release that's supposed to be the major release before the one that potentially would herald vv support.
So, in summation: vv support was tentatively "promised" for 2.0. Then it doesn't show up, and I ask why on freenode/#gaim, and I'm told that a SoC intern screwed stuff up so much that no one wanted to devote the time to getting vv to work (because the codebase of gaim and gaim-vv was at that point so different because of the SoC changes. Then a news update comes up saying that in the next major release (after v2) of gaim, vv might show up. Over a year later, v2 isn't even out yet.
Presumably, people have donated money to the project in hopes (or in expectance) of getting vv support in their favorite client.
I understand that most people work on gaim in their spare time for fun. My main gripe is the broken vv semi-promise, and that news updates are extremely few and far between. I guess perhaps I got spoiled back when gaim had a new non-beta release practically every 2 months. Could you suggest to whoever does the news updates to, say, post a news update once a month, even if it's nothing more than "nothing new"? I'm sure gaim would gain more mindshare, and perhaps more developers, if it seemed at first glance that gaim hadn't stagnated (I know it hasn't, but people just checking the site might think so if they afford it merely a cursory glance).
Yeah -- two years of Summer of Code funding for students working on gaim, and it still has yet to have a new (non-beta) release. It's getting close, to be fair. Also, from hearsay on the IRC dev channel on Freenode, the reason that video/voice hasn't been integrated into gaim like it was promised a year and a half ago is because one of the SOC workers changed the codebase so much that there was no way they could integrate v&v as easily as was originally planned.
So basically, from my POV as a pretty interested gaim user, SOC has prevented the integration of v&v into gaim and there has yet to be a new (non-beta) release since before SOC began. Screw any more features added to gaim except v&v and fixed file transfers. Those are the two things preventing many people from fully switching from the official clients of other protocols. I hate having Skype and AIM installed just so I can video chat with non-power users. For the same reason I cannot switch to Linux.
But hey, I guess Google taught the SOC coders well -- don't push out finished products; instead, just push out betas and keep them beta for years and when users complain: "Hey, it's just beta."
This issue has been legislated upon. The appropriate sections of the Uniform Commercial Code are here (says that words of an agreement trump numbers, and thus the text saying 50% off or whatever trumps the "final price of zero dollars". The instrument mentioned in the section is the sales contract.
Furthermore, under the Common Law of contracts, there was no consideration on the purchaser's part, so the DVD would be a "gift" which is revocable at any time. Also, the Common Law would also say that, because there was no "meeting of the minds", there was no contract.
Under Section 2-302, the contract is nullified because it is "unconscionable". Section 2-305(4) might invalidate the contract as well.
An entire community of Slashdot users posting that the internet will scale. A single Slashdot user claiming no more scaling is possible. Know who I'm throwing my support towards? That's right, the man with the 4-digit UID!
It may have been a money grab in this case, but as someone who studies modern lawsuits, I have to say that a lot of them work quite well in that huge financial burdens are more punitive toward the company than criminal charges. For example, whom would go to jail if MySpace was found criminally liable? The CEO? The programmers? Whomever went, it wouldn't punish the company as much as 30 million dollars would.
Just something to think about -- it probably was a money grab by the parents, but it sure as hell (if the merits were there, which they weren't in this case) would have punished the company more than criminal charges would have!
In Texas, all judges are elected to short terms (even justices of the two courts of last resort). Also, the voting body of Texans are primarily fiscal conservatives. Thus, it seems a better tactic for a politician (which is what judges in Texas are) to use a fiscally conservative rationale rather than a "parents [who elect me], stop being dumbasses" rationale.
The only people to blame in this case are the parents and the guy who committed the crime.
Don't forget the dumbass 13 year old as well! Do you not remember being 13? I remember that age, and I sure wasn't fucking stupid enough to meet someone in real life that I only knew online. Holy shit, get some common sense, whippersnappers!
You don't need the hardware to be networked in order to do key revokation - all the current discs continue to work just fine, but future discs will be encoded so they cannot be decoded with this key (this is the basis of AACS key revokation).
That was GP's point -- that a bunch of players are offline, and so there is no way to patch them to make them able to play newer discs. Thus, the offline players will not be able to play any disc pressed after X date.
It's a well known fact that Norwegian blue content is easily blocked.
Owner: No no he's not censored, he's, he's timed out! Remarkable content, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful bits! Mr. Praline: The bits don't enter into it. It's stone censored. Owner: Nononono, no, no! 'E's timed out! Mr. Praline: All right then, if he's timed out, I'll contact the host! (shouting at the router) 'Ello, Mister Chrissy Content! I've got a lovely fresh hard drive for you if you show...
(owner hits the modem) Owner: There, he refreshed! Mr. Praline: No, he didn't, that was you reloading from the cache! Owner: I never!! Mr. Praline: Yes, you did!
Let's have a moment of silence for the death of a teacher, because every time you multiply X by 1 and get something other than X, a calculus professor kicks the bucket.
Whether you are breaking the law and whether you feel guity for copying CDs are two different matters. We Americans want to know: Is "piracy" legal in Canada because of this?
So I'm not the only one who thought it was funny that the US would have a presidential candidate whose names rhyme with "Osama" and "Iraq".
Nope. The Daily Show pulled that joke over two weeks ago. CNN made the mistake of calling Osama "Obama" in a headline a week ago. Fox News has made a big deal out of it as well. And I'm sure people on Slashdot have already discussed how his first name rhymes with "Iraq", last name rhymes with "Osama", and middle name is "Hussein".
I know I've seen quotes online such as "I don't like him. His names rhymes with 'Iraq Osama'" as if that made one bit of sense to base your vote on that. It's fucking ridiculous what some people will use as justification for not voting for a person. Seriously, I hope those people don't breed.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, these guys saw what I did with Windows and copied it!
I'm sorry about replying to your comment instead of just replying to CowboyNeal's original post, but the "Reply" button is missing for some reason.
I am aware of user-level privileges and administrator privileges and such, but does Linux have a way to allow software to only modify it's own installation directory and data directory, and no other? For instance, if this program was a Linux program and you installed it with an illegal key, it would only be able to remove files in its installation directory or a temp directory, and nothing outside of that directory?
Footnotes are easy, too: Text Text that needs a footnote.<div class="footnote">This is the footnote</div>. That's the same concept as in LaTeX, the best typesetting software out there.
First, I want to preface this entire post with a thank-you, because I appreciate all development work that goes into gaim and don't want to make anyone think their work goes unnoticed or unappreciated. In any case, here I go...
October 12, 2005, Gaim news page - "On a related note, the gaim-vv projectwhich aimed to offer a framework for voice and video support in Gaimis being merged back into Gaim proper for hopeful incorporation into Gaim 2.0.0. This will be used to support Google Talk's voice as well as MSN and Yahoo! webcams."
A couple months later, I went on the IRC forums curious as to why there hadn't been any update of gaim with these features. I was told by someone that one of the SoC programmers had changed the codebase so much that the gaim-vv guys were not able to incorporate the video and voice anymore, and no one wanted to try to make it work. A few months later, on January 24, 2006, we were treated to a news update which seemed to corroborate what I was told: "Gaim 2.0.0 beta 2 does not include voice or video ("vv") support for any protocols. We've done some work toward vv compatibility for Google Talk, but it isn't ready for the general public yet. It is unlikely this will change for the final release of Gaim 2.0.0, but vv will be a primary focus for the next major release of Gaim after that." Over a year later, and there still has not been the major release that's supposed to be the major release before the one that potentially would herald vv support.
So, in summation: vv support was tentatively "promised" for 2.0. Then it doesn't show up, and I ask why on freenode/#gaim, and I'm told that a SoC intern screwed stuff up so much that no one wanted to devote the time to getting vv to work (because the codebase of gaim and gaim-vv was at that point so different because of the SoC changes. Then a news update comes up saying that in the next major release (after v2) of gaim, vv might show up. Over a year later, v2 isn't even out yet.
Presumably, people have donated money to the project in hopes (or in expectance) of getting vv support in their favorite client.
I understand that most people work on gaim in their spare time for fun. My main gripe is the broken vv semi-promise, and that news updates are extremely few and far between. I guess perhaps I got spoiled back when gaim had a new non-beta release practically every 2 months. Could you suggest to whoever does the news updates to, say, post a news update once a month, even if it's nothing more than "nothing new"? I'm sure gaim would gain more mindshare, and perhaps more developers, if it seemed at first glance that gaim hadn't stagnated (I know it hasn't, but people just checking the site might think so if they afford it merely a cursory glance).
Yeah -- two years of Summer of Code funding for students working on gaim, and it still has yet to have a new (non-beta) release. It's getting close, to be fair. Also, from hearsay on the IRC dev channel on Freenode, the reason that video/voice hasn't been integrated into gaim like it was promised a year and a half ago is because one of the SOC workers changed the codebase so much that there was no way they could integrate v&v as easily as was originally planned.
So basically, from my POV as a pretty interested gaim user, SOC has prevented the integration of v&v into gaim and there has yet to be a new (non-beta) release since before SOC began. Screw any more features added to gaim except v&v and fixed file transfers. Those are the two things preventing many people from fully switching from the official clients of other protocols. I hate having Skype and AIM installed just so I can video chat with non-power users. For the same reason I cannot switch to Linux.
But hey, I guess Google taught the SOC coders well -- don't push out finished products; instead, just push out betas and keep them beta for years and when users complain: "Hey, it's just beta."
This issue has been legislated upon. The appropriate sections of the Uniform Commercial Code are here (says that words of an agreement trump numbers, and thus the text saying 50% off or whatever trumps the "final price of zero dollars". The instrument mentioned in the section is the sales contract.
Furthermore, under the Common Law of contracts, there was no consideration on the purchaser's part, so the DVD would be a "gift" which is revocable at any time. Also, the Common Law would also say that, because there was no "meeting of the minds", there was no contract.
Under Section 2-302, the contract is nullified because it is "unconscionable". Section 2-305(4) might invalidate the contract as well.
An entire community of Slashdot users posting that the internet will scale. A single Slashdot user claiming no more scaling is possible. Know who I'm throwing my support towards? That's right, the man with the 4-digit UID!
Just something to think about -- it probably was a money grab by the parents, but it sure as hell (if the merits were there, which they weren't in this case) would have punished the company more than criminal charges would have!
In Texas, all judges are elected to short terms (even justices of the two courts of last resort). Also, the voting body of Texans are primarily fiscal conservatives. Thus, it seems a better tactic for a politician (which is what judges in Texas are) to use a fiscally conservative rationale rather than a "parents [who elect me], stop being dumbasses" rationale.
Well, I'm pretty sure he studied genetics in medical school -- I know my girlfriend had to.
Mr. Praline: The bits don't enter into it. It's stone censored.
Owner: Nononono, no, no! 'E's timed out!
Mr. Praline: All right then, if he's timed out, I'll contact the host! (shouting at the router) 'Ello, Mister Chrissy Content! I've got a lovely fresh hard drive for you if you show...
(owner hits the modem)
Owner: There, he refreshed!
Mr. Praline: No, he didn't, that was you reloading from the cache!
Owner: I never!!
Mr. Praline: Yes, you did!
How do you live in Poland (here in Poland), but say something 40 years old is post-communist, when Poland was communist until 1989?
Of course I jest.
Somebody please tell me why I haven't acquired Canadian hosting to pirate the shit out of the recording industry!
I know I've seen quotes online such as "I don't like him. His names rhymes with 'Iraq Osama'" as if that made one bit of sense to base your vote on that. It's fucking ridiculous what some people will use as justification for not voting for a person. Seriously, I hope those people don't breed.
Actually, I'd rather it be the Heavy Metal Umlaut entry.