Linux is a leprosy; and is having a deleterious effect on the U.S. IT industry because it is steadily depreciating the value of the software industry sector. Software is also embedded in hardware, chips, printers and even consumer electronics. Should embedded software become 'free' too, it would be natural to conclude the value of hardware will spiral downward as well.
Ken Brown doesn't seem to know the difference between the terms "value" and "price."
...if this project makes the 2-week turnaround for re-launch required by the X-prize rules. Their launches to date have not been even close to the required frequency.
This launch, as I understand it, is just the first try. If it goes well they will prepare to do the 2 launches in 2 weeks. Still, the first manned commercial space flight is a momentous event. Go Scaled go!
I made this comment once before, but I think it is worth repeating. As soon as you listen to music, you have impinged on the copyright because you can remember the music; your brain has essentially stored this information.
Anyway, my somewhat-related point is to say that the easiest, most efficient, and undefeatable workaround is to simply play the "copy-protected" CD in your discman with a 2-ended 1/8th stereo cable running from the headset jack into the "Line In" port on your computer's sound card, record a.wav from that input, and encode that.wav as ogg/mp3. Then burn or share to your heart's content. It requires a.wav editor and a wav->mp3 encoder, but windows has a.wav editor built in, I think, and you can find Linux ones on sourceforge easily enough. and oggenc comes with most major distros (am I right), and I'm sure you can get a Windows executable mp3 or ogg encoder easily off the Internet too.
Unless they start encrypting how music sounds (thereby defeating the purpose of selling said music), you will always be able to copy music in this fashion. Will everyone go to the trouble? No. But I tell you that this beats buying a CD so god damn copy protected that you can't play it on your computer. Copy it to a.ogg file that you yourself encoded, and it won't have any identifying hashmarks, watermarks, or other system for the RIAA to track it after they hacked you for using P2P.
PS - you can copy music off the radio this way too, provided you are quick with the "record" button.
Speaking of that movie. I saw it on the weekend, and I and my friends had a nice long discussion about the difference between improbable and impossible. This movie skirts that line, to say the least.
NASA's web site has a short article called Sudden Climate Change which briefly discusses the plausibility of that movie's scenario. It goes to great lengths to avoid naming the movie but it deals with the possibility of sudden climate change (prossibly to avoid legal trouble?).
An interesting read for anyone wondering about it. Not very long though. The conclusion is essentially to not believe everything you see in the movies.
This may be modded as flamebait, but this guy has a point...
It really is a lost cause. But then again, they are not truelly [sic] battling for the survival of musicians (as I said; they will survive, just as they used to do), it's for their OWN survival they are fighting. There is no way in hell they are going to keep the giant profits that they have been gathering for the last decades.
The point being that musicians don't make money on CD sales, they make their money on touring. RIAA is doing this for themselves, as the above quotation points out.
So neurologists often compare the brain to a hard disk, storing data, etc. So how long until you think we get sued for listening to music and remembering it (illegal copying to another media). God forbid we try and hum a bit of it to a friend, or playing a song for a friend, because then we're guilty of transferring an unlicensed copy to another party.
"Dude, you gotta listen to this song." "Sorry, my brain uses Media Player 9... damn DRM!"
Indeed, such a stifling would be Joseph Schumpeter's worst nightmare. It would definitely slow down growth, under this model.
The day the networks died, starring Kevin Costner
on
The Future of Security
·
· Score: 1
This is the stuff Hollywood movies are made of. To paraphrase the old saying, 'the worst kind of lie is the one with a grain of truth.'
This is just alarmist paranoia, and it is more than somewhat untrue. It first posits that a massive breakdown of our infrastructure will instantly lead to massive chaos.
Just like the way the North-Eastern US and Ontario descended into chaos during the blackout in August. I recall being a victim of that unfortunate few days without power. I remember, the second I heard there was no power I got out of my car and started smashing windows and "bustin' heads," because, as they say, a widespread loss of infrastructure will lead to some sort of descent into complete madness, complete with the strong turning on each other.
In fact, ATMs were down, the banks couldn't possibly guarantee all deposits. But wait! There is this funny thing called deposit insurance. Oh yes, that's right. There are safeguards in place to keep runs on banks from happening. It turns out that banks that are a member of the Canadian Deposit Insurance Corporation have insurance! This means that deposits up to $60,000 are guaranteed, despite anything that happens to the bank itself. If you have more than $60k just rotting in some bank when it could be better invested (not to mention splitting it into multiple accounts), you deserve to lose anything above the $60k anyway.
"Deposit insurance protects eligible deposits at CDIC member institutions in case of the failure of a member institution. If a member institution should fail, CDIC will reimburse you for any insured deposits you have with the failed institution." (source: CDIC: How Deposit Insurance Works
OECD countries cooperate on banking regulations in order to harmonize regulations among those countries so that they can avoid collapse and contagion among them. The Basle Committee on Banking Supervision, which is part of the Bank of International Settlements, is a forum where experts formulate regulations and guidelines that are widely, and voluntarily, adopted by national central banks worldwide in order to stimulate investment and encourage prudent banking, and discourage failures of any magnitude.
The argument that Panic is a key part of a digital Pearl Harbor is, I suppose, plausible, except there would be no panic. "Panicking" Wall Street, thus "destabilizing the financial sector" is this funny plot mechanism that people who don't understand economics (but have a thumbnail view of from the econ 100 that they dropped out of halfway through the first semester) will use in their Hollywood screenplays of those apocalyptic movies that have a frightening tendency to star Kevin Costner. This article really does read like a treatment of some ridiculous movie, with all the theatrics about "if you don't have cash, you go hungry. Then the lights wink out. Everywhere. And then it begins to get cold." Do people in 2008 not have sweaters? In this time far into the future, are all the trees deforested so no one can build a fire?
Assuming that the global financial system is so fragile that everything would just collapse is wrong, and not really worth the time I'm putting into this comment. Witness the Asian crisis of 1997-98. I must be getting senile in my old age, but I forget how many people tragically lost their lives because of the panic that ensued after the world's banking sectors collapsed. Oh right, there was a slowdown of investment, and some investors lost their shirts and some banks in Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea and Malaysia were closed or consolidated, and some people did tragically lose all their savings, but nothing close to the chaos described in this article happened. Those governments got smart, implemented tougher restrictions and accounting standards that kept banks fr
It's just important to differentiate because security lapses are not a result of adoption of a particular standard but rather the result of the widespread adoption of a system with well-publicized vulnerabilities.
Would logic not suggest, then, that for a standard to be considered the equivalent of a monoculture, that a standard would be as vulnerable to these exploits as would an implementation? If so, then a virus would have to affect all systems equally.
If a virus does not have a universal effect, then it cannot, logically, affect the standard.
A monoculture (one homogeneous group that is identical) is a group were the constituent parts are very very similar if not the same.
A standard is simply a language that disparate entities use to communicate. A standard is a minimum similarity that can be used as a reference point.
A standard language around the world is English. Many francophone Quebecois speak English, but they are not anglophone like British or Americans. They simply establish a minimum point of reference in order to communicate and do business.
Similarly, Windows computers employ TCP/IP to communicate over the Internet, as do Linux computers, but they have radically different filesystems, user and permission structures, and basic architecture. They have that minimum point of reference (TCP/IP) but they do not share the same vulnerabilities. No monoculture are they!
Now the overwhelming prevalence of Windows loaded on computers connected to the internet does suggest that there is an inherent vulnerability, but that does not mean that the standard of communication is the proximate cause of vulnerability.
The arguement that a standard is the same as a monoculture is therefore false.
Slashdot Mirror
...if this project makes the 2-week turnaround for re-launch required by the X-prize rules. Their launches to date have not been even close to the required frequency.
This launch, as I understand it, is just the first try. If it goes well they will prepare to do the 2 launches in 2 weeks. Still, the first manned commercial space flight is a momentous event. Go Scaled go!
I made this comment once before, but I think it is worth repeating. As soon as you listen to music, you have impinged on the copyright because you can remember the music; your brain has essentially stored this information.
.wav from that input, and encode that .wav as ogg/mp3. Then burn or share to your heart's content. It requires a .wav editor and a wav->mp3 encoder, but windows has a .wav editor built in, I think, and you can find Linux ones on sourceforge easily enough. and oggenc comes with most major distros (am I right), and I'm sure you can get a Windows executable mp3 or ogg encoder easily off the Internet too.
.ogg file that you yourself encoded, and it won't have any identifying hashmarks, watermarks, or other system for the RIAA to track it after they hacked you for using P2P.
Anyway, my somewhat-related point is to say that the easiest, most efficient, and undefeatable workaround is to simply play the "copy-protected" CD in your discman with a 2-ended 1/8th stereo cable running from the headset jack into the "Line In" port on your computer's sound card, record a
Unless they start encrypting how music sounds (thereby defeating the purpose of selling said music), you will always be able to copy music in this fashion. Will everyone go to the trouble? No. But I tell you that this beats buying a CD so god damn copy protected that you can't play it on your computer. Copy it to a
PS - you can copy music off the radio this way too, provided you are quick with the "record" button.
Speaking of that movie. I saw it on the weekend, and I and my friends had a nice long discussion about the difference between improbable and impossible. This movie skirts that line, to say the least.
NASA's web site has a short article called Sudden Climate Change which briefly discusses the plausibility of that movie's scenario. It goes to great lengths to avoid naming the movie but it deals with the possibility of sudden climate change (prossibly to avoid legal trouble?).
An interesting read for anyone wondering about it. Not very long though. The conclusion is essentially to not believe everything you see in the movies.
The point being that musicians don't make money on CD sales, they make their money on touring. RIAA is doing this for themselves, as the above quotation points out.
So neurologists often compare the brain to a hard disk, storing data, etc. So how long until you think we get sued for listening to music and remembering it (illegal copying to another media). God forbid we try and hum a bit of it to a friend, or playing a song for a friend, because then we're guilty of transferring an unlicensed copy to another party. "Dude, you gotta listen to this song." "Sorry, my brain uses Media Player 9... damn DRM!"
The price of Trivial Pursuit will go up exponentially as they begin to be bombarded by invoices from encyclopedia licence owners.
And Jeopardy! will be run into the ground. Each question will cost them a fortune.
"The sky is Blue."(C)
(C) International Business Machines, Inc. 2004
Maybe this "research race" will result in better services for the lowly Internet user. One can dream.
Indeed, such a stifling would be Joseph Schumpeter's worst nightmare. It would definitely slow down growth, under this model.
This is the stuff Hollywood movies are made of. To paraphrase the old saying, 'the worst kind of lie is the one with a grain of truth.'
This is just alarmist paranoia, and it is more than somewhat untrue. It first posits that a massive breakdown of our infrastructure will instantly lead to massive chaos.
Just like the way the North-Eastern US and Ontario descended into chaos during the blackout in August. I recall being a victim of that unfortunate few days without power. I remember, the second I heard there was no power I got out of my car and started smashing windows and "bustin' heads," because, as they say, a widespread loss of infrastructure will lead to some sort of descent into complete madness, complete with the strong turning on each other.
In fact, ATMs were down, the banks couldn't possibly guarantee all deposits. But wait! There is this funny thing called deposit insurance. Oh yes, that's right. There are safeguards in place to keep runs on banks from happening. It turns out that banks that are a member of the Canadian Deposit Insurance Corporation have insurance! This means that deposits up to $60,000 are guaranteed, despite anything that happens to the bank itself. If you have more than $60k just rotting in some bank when it could be better invested (not to mention splitting it into multiple accounts), you deserve to lose anything above the $60k anyway.
"Deposit insurance protects eligible deposits at CDIC member institutions in case of the failure of a member institution. If a member institution should fail, CDIC will reimburse you for any insured deposits you have with the failed institution." (source: CDIC: How Deposit Insurance Works
OECD countries cooperate on banking regulations in order to harmonize regulations among those countries so that they can avoid collapse and contagion among them. The Basle Committee on Banking Supervision, which is part of the Bank of International Settlements, is a forum where experts formulate regulations and guidelines that are widely, and voluntarily, adopted by national central banks worldwide in order to stimulate investment and encourage prudent banking, and discourage failures of any magnitude.
The argument that Panic is a key part of a digital Pearl Harbor is, I suppose, plausible, except there would be no panic. "Panicking" Wall Street, thus "destabilizing the financial sector" is this funny plot mechanism that people who don't understand economics (but have a thumbnail view of from the econ 100 that they dropped out of halfway through the first semester) will use in their Hollywood screenplays of those apocalyptic movies that have a frightening tendency to star Kevin Costner. This article really does read like a treatment of some ridiculous movie, with all the theatrics about "if you don't have cash, you go hungry. Then the lights wink out. Everywhere. And then it begins to get cold." Do people in 2008 not have sweaters? In this time far into the future, are all the trees deforested so no one can build a fire?
Assuming that the global financial system is so fragile that everything would just collapse is wrong, and not really worth the time I'm putting into this comment. Witness the Asian crisis of 1997-98. I must be getting senile in my old age, but I forget how many people tragically lost their lives because of the panic that ensued after the world's banking sectors collapsed. Oh right, there was a slowdown of investment, and some investors lost their shirts and some banks in Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea and Malaysia were closed or consolidated, and some people did tragically lose all their savings, but nothing close to the chaos described in this article happened. Those governments got smart, implemented tougher restrictions and accounting standards that kept banks fr
I suppose.
It's just important to differentiate because security lapses are not a result of adoption of a particular standard but rather the result of the widespread adoption of a system with well-publicized vulnerabilities.
Would logic not suggest, then, that for a standard to be considered the equivalent of a monoculture, that a standard would be as vulnerable to these exploits as would an implementation? If so, then a virus would have to affect all systems equally.
If a virus does not have a universal effect, then it cannot, logically, affect the standard.
A monoculture (one homogeneous group that is identical) is a group were the constituent parts are very very similar if not the same.
A standard is simply a language that disparate entities use to communicate. A standard is a minimum similarity that can be used as a reference point.
A standard language around the world is English. Many francophone Quebecois speak English, but they are not anglophone like British or Americans. They simply establish a minimum point of reference in order to communicate and do business.
Similarly, Windows computers employ TCP/IP to communicate over the Internet, as do Linux computers, but they have radically different filesystems, user and permission structures, and basic architecture. They have that minimum point of reference (TCP/IP) but they do not share the same vulnerabilities. No monoculture are they!
Now the overwhelming prevalence of Windows loaded on computers connected to the internet does suggest that there is an inherent vulnerability, but that does not mean that the standard of communication is the proximate cause of vulnerability.
The arguement that a standard is the same as a monoculture is therefore false.