If you want that to change, you need to get Congress to rewrite copyright law. (and good luck with that)
Physical mass-media is dead, with the possible exception of the book since books store data in an extremely convenient form. Stupid restrictions like this will always be gotten around and will only delay the inevitable. Artists and content creators will still find ways to make money - after all, they did even before the rise of the 20th century mass-media industry. It's the recording and movie companies that'll either die or adapt. More likely, die and be replaced.
Just wait until the RIAA and its cronies get its hands on a company with REAL money...
MS is the only company out there that actually has the resources to fight the **AA's and potentially (legally) slam their faces into the pavement until they bleed to death. If only they'd do it, I'd actually respect them.
Besides, the limitation could be only made to apply to music that has a "copyright flag" of some type. Free music (which exists) should remain free. Thank god for custom firmware hackers with some real b@lls.
I think the most interesting thing about this conflict between two competitor's infrastructures is that it isn't happening out in some field somewhere. It's happening on the side of your house!
What if it wasn't a cable contractor employee working in his official capacity, but someone "casing" the neighborhood for a later burglary? He was asked to leave twice and didn't. I'd have at the very least called the cops on him. I hope that someone mistakes the fucker for a burglar one day even if he isn't and he gets his skull smashed with a lead pipe. That would be justice.
I went back out and found that this guy had pulled the base phone line connection down enough from the small housing next to my other meters to interrupt the phone connections.
The guy was obviously trespassing. Why didn't you take pictures of him, his truck's license plate, and what he was doing and call the cops? Better yet, depending on the state, you could have conceivably done a citizen's arrest since he was asked to leave twice and didn't. "Officer, I just caught a man attempting to burglarize my home."
I would have also suggested siccing an angry dog on the guy, but he might sue.
Don't they still have "private clubs" which can serve pretty much anything they want to (as opposed to weak piss-beer in normal bars)? You just need to pay a $5 or $10 "membership" fee at the door to "join". Not really worse than a cover charge in a bar elsewhere.
Then, in 2003, I lost almost everything when the customers for CM disappeared. I have about $2000 left from that disaster. At the point of bankruptcy, CM merged with another company in a completely unrelated technology.
Shit happens, even to good companies. That's why you diversify your investments! Had you invested $33k in CM, $33k in Company B, and $33k in Company C, you probably wouldn't be in the same situation as you are today. Blame no one but yourself for your investment practices.
Most people do not own their own shop to do extensive engine work. Same with computer/firmware work.
Releasing custom firmware would be more like starting a company that makes custom camshafts and seats. Then you either install the parts (firmware) yourself, or have a mechanic (computer shop) do it. Neither is particularly hard given good instructions.
when rival phone and electric companies would try to rip out each others' lines and sabotage their networks. Also, there were sometimes 10 different sets of wires with different owners on each electric pole! Those kinds of practices were why many cities went to public utilities in the first place.
This sounds like something that is limited to the east coast of the US. Union mafia types fooling around on the job.
Organized crime exists in other countries, including Asia and Russia. Ever heard of the Yakuza? The "Russian Mafiya?" I'm sure China has its own homegrown organized thugs along similar lines.
So, over here in the flyover country in a little state called Utah, a bunch of the cities have gotten together and done something great
Don't knock Utah, esp if you live there. It has a large Mormon population, and whatever else you say about them, Mormons are practical, hard-working, and (yet) community-oriented. This is actually one of the few places where something like that would work and go through without the large corporations lobbying it out of existence.
$45 for 15mb symmetric? I'm jealous, cos I'm paying about the same here for 3mb downstream from Verizon! Ah, good 'ol NJ:/
How is $(Random RIAA Member) going to make money off that?!
I know: sarcasm. But the RIAA is not a trade organization or licensing body. No musician leglly *has* to deal with them just to play or sell music. If they don't make money, it's because they're following an archaic business model. Too damn bad, but I don't see too many makers of buggy whips in the US either.
No, dude, you've got to register one. Now stop talking to me.
The average user will still think it's a non-intuitive install, regardless of whether you have to "register", "install", or "create" a.dll. This product should Just Work with all of MS's modern OSes (2000, XP, Vista).
Changing firmware isn't akin to pimping a ride. It's more like adding orthopaedic seats and replacing that camshaft that breaks every two weeks with a stronger non-factory part. Products that have mandatory DRM even for free tracks are inherently defective, plain and simple. Aftermarket firmware repairs that factory defect.
No, the Zune's sole wireless feature is "squirting" -- I know, I know, it's Microsoft's term, not mine -- music and pictures to any other Zune device within direct Wi-Fi range. Even if the track is inherently free (like a podcast) the Zune wraps it in a DRM scheme that causes the track to self-destruct after three days or three plays, whichever comes first.
This is daft. Is the DRM imposed by the client or the server Zune? What if a band wants to promote their music by, for example, setting up free downloads of selected tracks after a concert? Why should everything go through the Zune store? Also, is there any way to get a server other than another Zune to interface with the thing wirelessly?
I hope this product does become popular enough for many different hacked firmwares to be released. Seems like a decent hardware with shitty firmware, but that's correctable:) - that's what I call "product support"...
Actually, I doubt you would actually beat one. Not meant as an insult, but I believe that you don't have what it takes. If you had, you'd already be either in jail, or a CEO, or chief of marketting or various other positions suited to people able to think "it's just business" when harming others. Or in his place making a good living sending spam and 419 mails.
Nah, I'd yell at one in public and give him a hug and a "thank you" in private. After all, I have a consulting company and we'd not have half of our business if it wasn't for malware authors!
There is a subhuman race that inhabits some areas of the UK called Chavs (or in Scotland, Neds).
Any city or country has a poor, uneducated underclass. I've been in the UK. There's nothing that makes British thugs special as compared to thugs in other countries. Besides, the money spent on cameras could be spent for better education or to develop cheaper manufacturing technology that would keep manufacturing jobs in Britain, thus alleviating unemployment.
... I love how the people who say that they don't want police cameras watching and listening for trouble are often the same people complaining that there aren't enough police officers on the streets watching and listening for trouble.
How so? If a human cop sees a crime, he can be on the scene basically immediately. A camera merely captures the event, to be hopefully solved after the fact. Cops can't respond immediately. Also, a human cop doesn't (unless he's carrying a camera) record footage of people's actions to be kept indefinately.
That said, I can think of only one really suitable place for this system: outside of football matches and in the subways. For those of you in the States that have never had to leave a subway station or get off a bus a few blocks from a football match that just let out, it's not exactly the most enjoyable way to spend one's evening taking a stroll. There are drunken neo-Nazis walking around in groups just waiting to let out their aggression from the game on whoever walks by.
The solution is not to spy on everyone. It's to issue concealed gun carry licenses to British people of good character. Once a few of those thugs catch a fast-moving case of lead poisoning, I think that they'd be a good deal less apt to fuck with random passers-by. An armed society is a polite one.
ince the end of the Cold War, continental Europe has been flooded with some of the stupidest, garbage-spewing, hate-filled Eastern Europeans (mostly East German and Polish) anyone can imagine.
Don't put it down to nationality, please. There are plenty of homegrown British football hooligans and thugs of various types as well. Most of the Polish people that go over there are just trying to work and help their families. "Doesn't speak English" != stupid. Polish and Italians had the same reputation in the US 60 years ago, but they're often quite successful now.
England has the highest violent crime rate of all western countries SINCE the cameras were widespread.
It's higher now than the US? I doubt it! I don't understand what the British government's problem is: a lot of the talk seems about "antisocial behaviour" - basically rowdyness while drinking. You all are saying that you can't handle a bunch of drunken asshat louts without spying on everyone? Those aren't master criminals or Al Qaeda that we're talking about, it's a bunch of mentally-impaired brawlers.
The fact is kids arnt punished enough in schools these days.
But the punishments should be immediate and painful or unpleasant - i.e. cleaning dirty stuff or having to "assume the position" or even being banned from sports and extracurriculars. Not calling the cops and having them deal with it (that just shows teachers as weak) or forcing kids to attend a whine-session with a shrink.
But there are countermeasures against locked phones, as there will be here. Either buy a phone direct from the manufacturer and insert your SIM (only a few hundred $), buy a used unlocked phone, or use a cell phone unlocking service.
In this case, both the teacher and students need to be suspended; and they all need counseling.
Counseling? Ugh, the dictatorship of the shrinks. No thanks.
Find out what really happened. If the teacher was in the wrong and yelled without any good reason or provocation, fire his arse and give the student a commendation.
If the student provoked the teacher, give him a week's worth of detention cleaning out the bathroom stalls with the janitor and possibly a few hits of a paddle in the posterior.
Counseling I'd almost consider cruel and unusual esp for a student of grade- or high-school age.
Of course, all of this was illegal. Have these people been arrested? How is "Legal" supposed to be enforced? Trust? Yeah, right. Nobody since about 1830 relies on "trust" to stay in business. And I think that guy went bankrupt like he deserved.
Too late. The barn door is open. The horse is running free, halfway across the State. Locking it now ain't gonna help any.
Content has become cheaper and easier to distribute. Just like when the printing press came out 500 years ago which removed the need for scribes - content creators will have to adapt or die. Book authors can adapt in one of several ways: release books in serial form with the understanding that if enough people don't pay for one chapter, the next one isn't coming out. Possibly a return to the idea of the literary magazine. Sure it can be pirated, but not quickly. Also it could even be free and supported with unobstusive advertising.
Movie producers can write for the theatre, and people *will* pay to see live performances. People will also go to the movie theatres to see movies, and theatres can be policed pretty well as far as respecting copyright. Maybe there'll also be fewer inane movies that are made solely for money since there'll be less easy money in production.
Musicians will still have live performances, concerts, etc. Perhaps tickets will be more expensive than today, but people will still go watch as they do now.
I'm not saying that those changes are for the better, but like it or not, mass media as it has worked for the past 75 years or so is dead. Passing obtrusive laws and locking down computers will only delay the inevitable. There are two choices: adapt or die.
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Physical mass-media is dead, with the possible exception of the book since books store data in an extremely convenient form. Stupid restrictions like this will always be gotten around and will only delay the inevitable. Artists and content creators will still find ways to make money - after all, they did even before the rise of the 20th century mass-media industry. It's the recording and movie companies that'll either die or adapt. More likely, die and be replaced.
-b.
MS is the only company out there that actually has the resources to fight the **AA's and potentially (legally) slam their faces into the pavement until they bleed to death. If only they'd do it, I'd actually respect them.
Besides, the limitation could be only made to apply to music that has a "copyright flag" of some type. Free music (which exists) should remain free. Thank god for custom firmware hackers with some real b@lls.
-b.
What if it wasn't a cable contractor employee working in his official capacity, but someone "casing" the neighborhood for a later burglary? He was asked to leave twice and didn't. I'd have at the very least called the cops on him. I hope that someone mistakes the fucker for a burglar one day even if he isn't and he gets his skull smashed with a lead pipe. That would be justice.
-b.
The guy was obviously trespassing. Why didn't you take pictures of him, his truck's license plate, and what he was doing and call the cops? Better yet, depending on the state, you could have conceivably done a citizen's arrest since he was asked to leave twice and didn't. "Officer, I just caught a man attempting to burglarize my home."
I would have also suggested siccing an angry dog on the guy, but he might sue.
-b.
Don't they still have "private clubs" which can serve pretty much anything they want to (as opposed to weak piss-beer in normal bars)? You just need to pay a $5 or $10 "membership" fee at the door to "join". Not really worse than a cover charge in a bar elsewhere.
-b.
Shit happens, even to good companies. That's why you diversify your investments! Had you invested $33k in CM, $33k in Company B, and $33k in Company C, you probably wouldn't be in the same situation as you are today. Blame no one but yourself for your investment practices.
-b.
Releasing custom firmware would be more like starting a company that makes custom camshafts and seats. Then you either install the parts (firmware) yourself, or have a mechanic (computer shop) do it. Neither is particularly hard given good instructions.
-b.
-b.
Organized crime exists in other countries, including Asia and Russia. Ever heard of the Yakuza? The "Russian Mafiya?" I'm sure China has its own homegrown organized thugs along similar lines.
-b.
Don't knock Utah, esp if you live there. It has a large Mormon population, and whatever else you say about them, Mormons are practical, hard-working, and (yet) community-oriented. This is actually one of the few places where something like that would work and go through without the large corporations lobbying it out of existence.
$45 for 15mb symmetric? I'm jealous, cos I'm paying about the same here for 3mb downstream from Verizon! Ah, good 'ol NJ :/
-b.
I know: sarcasm. But the RIAA is not a trade organization or licensing body. No musician leglly *has* to deal with them just to play or sell music. If they don't make money, it's because they're following an archaic business model. Too damn bad, but I don't see too many makers of buggy whips in the US either.
-b.
The average user will still think it's a non-intuitive install, regardless of whether you have to "register", "install", or "create" a .dll. This product should Just Work with all of MS's modern OSes (2000, XP, Vista).
-b.
Changing firmware isn't akin to pimping a ride. It's more like adding orthopaedic seats and replacing that camshaft that breaks every two weeks with a stronger non-factory part. Products that have mandatory DRM even for free tracks are inherently defective, plain and simple. Aftermarket firmware repairs that factory defect.
-b.
This is daft. Is the DRM imposed by the client or the server Zune? What if a band wants to promote their music by, for example, setting up free downloads of selected tracks after a concert? Why should everything go through the Zune store? Also, is there any way to get a server other than another Zune to interface with the thing wirelessly?
I hope this product does become popular enough for many different hacked firmwares to be released. Seems like a decent hardware with shitty firmware, but that's correctable :) - that's what I call "product support"...
-b.
Nah, I'd yell at one in public and give him a hug and a "thank you" in private. After all, I have a consulting company and we'd not have half of our business if it wasn't for malware authors!
-b.
Any city or country has a poor, uneducated underclass. I've been in the UK. There's nothing that makes British thugs special as compared to thugs in other countries. Besides, the money spent on cameras could be spent for better education or to develop cheaper manufacturing technology that would keep manufacturing jobs in Britain, thus alleviating unemployment.
-b.
How so? If a human cop sees a crime, he can be on the scene basically immediately. A camera merely captures the event, to be hopefully solved after the fact. Cops can't respond immediately. Also, a human cop doesn't (unless he's carrying a camera) record footage of people's actions to be kept indefinately.
-b.
The solution is not to spy on everyone. It's to issue concealed gun carry licenses to British people of good character. Once a few of those thugs catch a fast-moving case of lead poisoning, I think that they'd be a good deal less apt to fuck with random passers-by. An armed society is a polite one.
ince the end of the Cold War, continental Europe has been flooded with some of the stupidest, garbage-spewing, hate-filled Eastern Europeans (mostly East German and Polish) anyone can imagine.
Don't put it down to nationality, please. There are plenty of homegrown British football hooligans and thugs of various types as well. Most of the Polish people that go over there are just trying to work and help their families. "Doesn't speak English" != stupid. Polish and Italians had the same reputation in the US 60 years ago, but they're often quite successful now.
-b.
It's higher now than the US? I doubt it! I don't understand what the British government's problem is: a lot of the talk seems about "antisocial behaviour" - basically rowdyness while drinking. You all are saying that you can't handle a bunch of drunken asshat louts without spying on everyone? Those aren't master criminals or Al Qaeda that we're talking about, it's a bunch of mentally-impaired brawlers.
-b.
But the punishments should be immediate and painful or unpleasant - i.e. cleaning dirty stuff or having to "assume the position" or even being banned from sports and extracurriculars. Not calling the cops and having them deal with it (that just shows teachers as weak) or forcing kids to attend a whine-session with a shrink.
-b.
But there are countermeasures against locked phones, as there will be here. Either buy a phone direct from the manufacturer and insert your SIM (only a few hundred $), buy a used unlocked phone, or use a cell phone unlocking service.
-b.
Counseling? Ugh, the dictatorship of the shrinks. No thanks.
Find out what really happened. If the teacher was in the wrong and yelled without any good reason or provocation, fire his arse and give the student a commendation.
If the student provoked the teacher, give him a week's worth of detention cleaning out the bathroom stalls with the janitor and possibly a few hits of a paddle in the posterior.
Counseling I'd almost consider cruel and unusual esp for a student of grade- or high-school age.
-b.
-b.
Too late. The barn door is open. The horse is running free, halfway across the State. Locking it now ain't gonna help any.
Content has become cheaper and easier to distribute. Just like when the printing press came out 500 years ago which removed the need for scribes - content creators will have to adapt or die. Book authors can adapt in one of several ways: release books in serial form with the understanding that if enough people don't pay for one chapter, the next one isn't coming out. Possibly a return to the idea of the literary magazine. Sure it can be pirated, but not quickly. Also it could even be free and supported with unobstusive advertising.
Movie producers can write for the theatre, and people *will* pay to see live performances. People will also go to the movie theatres to see movies, and theatres can be policed pretty well as far as respecting copyright. Maybe there'll also be fewer inane movies that are made solely for money since there'll be less easy money in production.
Musicians will still have live performances, concerts, etc. Perhaps tickets will be more expensive than today, but people will still go watch as they do now.
I'm not saying that those changes are for the better, but like it or not, mass media as it has worked for the past 75 years or so is dead. Passing obtrusive laws and locking down computers will only delay the inevitable. There are two choices: adapt or die.
-b.
Does that include calculators?
-b.