There are id-card schemes in place mainly for the benefit of young looking 21 year olds. Alcohol is sold by a licencee if they sell to under 18's they risk losing thier livelyhood. Most will ask for ID if they are in any doubt of someone being of age. We already have charges like drunk & disorderly and Asbo's for anything that isn't specifically illegal, isn't a £5000 fine and 6 months in prison enough?
Better parenting would be ideal, youth clubs used to be in place to give the kids something to do and possibly a few role models to look up to. Unfortunately many have long since closed and the land redeveloped. It's a real shame council tax keeps growing at greater than inflation but the amount spent on things to give guidance to the young and keep em out of trouble seems to steadily decrease.
Still doesn't mean it will last, got a 1 gig usb flash drive here dead in less than 8 weeks and very few read and writes. It will not identify itself. It might have 99,900 write cycles left but its still trashed. Lets face it there is no reliable storage media, the only way to be safe is multiple copies.
"The legal age to drink alcohol in a pub (outside the strictly-defined bar area) is 16, provided they are accompanied by a parent who buys it for them. However, unless explicitly stated otherwise, those under 14 may not enter a pub (regardless of intentions of drinking alcohol or not) [5]. Persons aged 16 and over can drink beer, cider, perry or wine in a restaurant if the alcohol is purchased with a meal. Alcohol may be given by parents to children aged 5 or over in a private home or other establishment. [6]"
It's unlikely biometric ID will make much of an impact, apart from which British ID cards will not apply to non nationals. - sorry cant serve you your american... let alone the issues for irish nationals who can legally live in the uk and don't need to even carry a passport.
I am perfectly happy for you to choose to eat GM food, it is a valid choice as is organic, meat, no meat, no dairy, gluten free, low salt. All valid choices made for varying reasons.
george bush said "I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli."
like us all he decides what to eat, making a choice based on these tomato's are gm, these are not is reasonable.
What GM campainers really want is to know that what they are buying is GM free.
It might infuriate GM crop producers that many people do not want thier products, but that is the way it is.
the 9pm watershed is outdated when we have such a wide range of broadcasts. cable satellite. The simplest solution with digital broadcasts woiuld be an age rating flag.
let the user set the level they want to recieve and blank the channel when it exceeds thier set rating.
Parents would appreciate the ability to keep thier tv kidsafe when they want and allow the rest of us access to what we want to watch when we want to watch it.
some of us adults have to be up early in the morning, a 9 oclock watershed means limiting our viewing to family safe content. Do you really want your tv limited to broadcasting quiz shows sitcoms and soaps before 9 so called family entertainment?
of course kidsafe tv is open to the parents disabling it entirely it would also entail parents buying into the scheme (quite literally as it would require some new hardware). Of course this would mean an end to our tv regulators deciding what is suitable for us to see.
It also makes it possible to block tv licience funded broadcasts and make the tv licience opt in for viewers.
Of course self-regulation wouldnt be acceptable to the current regulators, would it .
extending this idea might allow users to block particular broadcasts. For example anything featuring michael barrymore or noel edmonds or chris moyles or janet street porter. They don't necessarily break any standards of decency but i'd rather not have them in my living room.
actually now this does present the real dilema. If a broadcaster flags a show as in a particular catagory you then are trusting that broadcaster to always be right. Thats the problem with giving them the control of censorship of your viewing. maybe the real solution is the off button and parents taking responsibility for thier choice of what is suitable for thier kids to see.
I do like the idea of perhaps dynamic self censorship. pick what offends you and have a database of the schedules flagging what you want or don't want to see.
maybe i just need to press the channel change on the remote.
Ok there isn't such a study yet that I know of, but I believe on average around 3% of music on ipods is from iTunes (about 22 tracks).
DRM is a disincentive to buy music, from itunes to the non audio cd's being passed off as audio cd's DRM is putting people off buying and the price is still a bit too high. Pop music should be sold like fast food. lots of it cheap and fast. whats a track worth? whats your local bar charge per track on the jukebox? That is the kind of price people are willing to pay for music without thinking.
Thats the kind of model that will work, here within 5 minutes great quality no worries about the RIAA. no dodgy tracks that sound great for the first 30 seconds and then flip out. ruining the mood of your party whatever, none of this here you can have whatever you want for x dollars a month providing you keep paying it crap.
maybe even do free bonus tracks of unknown artists the RIAA cartel can continue its role promoting new artists once they are known then they slip into the must pay catagory. They can take out ad space on the online music store highlight new talent...
quick fast hassle free music will sell by the billions and make 'pirated' copys not worth it. The RIAA can continue to shakedown p2p users upload worthless files as they do today.
The right price, fast and clean that will ensure a massive boost to download sales. Sure some people will freeload but then they always have. No amount of DRM on legal downloads will stop the same music being available without drm and without cost elsewhere.
I live near where a recent 'outbreak' of Avian Flu has occurred in England. Forgive me for perhaps not seeing the bigger picture, but what's the big deal? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu
perhaps that page may enlighten you. The problem with flu is it mutates and this is one which once infected 60% of the people so far have died and its hard to get so far.
It is extremely likely that this strain of flu will kill millions once it mutates into form that is passed between humans.
thats the big deal. This is quite likely to kill you.
Why would Apple want to lose DRM, even if they could? That would potentially break their iTunes-iPod monopoly (since you could play non-DRM'ed songs on other players besides the iPod).
Steve Jobs may SAY he hates DRM, but only because he has nothing to lose by saying that. He knows the studios aren't going to cave on DRM, so he gets to keep DRM (and, hence, his iTunes-iPod monopoly) while simultaneously portraying himself as some sort of anti-DRM crusader.
If you want to see how Jobs *REALLY* feels about DRM, just look at how Apple treats indie artists and studios that specifically DON'T want their music DRM'ed. While companies like eMusic sell these same songs without DRM, Apple FORCES them to take DRM. Apple knows damn well that DRM is in their best interests. Jobs is just posturing.
-Eric
Number 1 reason to remove DRM is greater sales. If the average is 22 or some other lowish number, 3% of music on ipods as claimed else where then 97% of music on ipods are not bought from itunes (and could be on other music players anyway).
22 may infact be the average number of tracks bought before the average consumer realises the true cost of DRM. it is very very low. without DRM sales would probably be a lot higher. With such low sales it would seem that the iPod stands independently of iTunes the store.
If you accept this 3% figure, then what is the point of DRM protected tracks, It is obvious that the DRM material is available without DRM and people still choose to buy it!
Current deals with the big four probably insist that all media from itunes be DRM protected. After all can't have the kids buying non DRM material from itunes. The lack of DRM would make it more attractive to them and cut into the sales of the big four.
I think now Mr jobs is saying look i gave you DRM'd online music sales, it's achieving 3% of the potential sales to iPOD owners alone (let alone the other players) without DRM there is a potential to achieve a far greater percentage of online music sales. We have seen what Sales we achieve with DRM now is the time to remove DRM and get a far larger share of legal download sales. If sales do not increase significantly then DRM can be applied again, but it is obvious that DRM is affecting the bottom line for iTunes and the content providers.
As a potential customer I can see myself buying music from iTunes using iTunes as a virtual jukebox without DRM. Even better would be a service that once i had bought enough of an Album then for a small fee. I could be mailed the Album. The RIAA can keep up its pressure on illegal downloads as much as it likes if it pushes people to the iTunes store, but right now the DRM is keeping sales down. Personally If you take the jukebox analogy people don't complain about paying about what, 60 cents for a track to be played once in a pub or a bar. It seems an ideal price point for downloadable music especially since you get to keep it.
Legal music is overpriced and over protected once the recording industry realise this and adapt they will make far more money because the reality is they are stitching up thier customers and thier customers are fighting back with the convienience of a near instant legal download without DRM they will beat a 30 minute wait to get a particular track illegally and of inconsistant quality. (granted some will be a lot faster others might take hours).
you can have it now and keep it thats where the recording industry should be making a killing
Did you ever own a cassette player? Perhaps buy a cassette tape? When you switched to a CD player, did you buy a CD version of that music? Remember that while CD's were available for sale in the mid-late 80's, recordable cd-rom wasn't mainstream unitl mid 90's, so this [no, I just burned my own cd's] argument doesn't fly.
If you buy iTunes music today and switch platforms later, you now have to buy a different format of that same music. How is this different?
The only things that shackles you to an iPod are the headphones. That and perhaps your inability to read the article. Cassette tape never was a real commercial medium, if you wanted something of high quality you bought an LP and copied it to a C90 to protect the original. Anyone remember high speed dubbing? Did anyone use it much (I doubt I did more than a dozen times at most). I had a fair number of tapes usually containing Albums from My collection or friends LP's I bought loads of albums often 2nd hand and generally would tape my favourites to preserve them or maybe making up mix tapes for partys in car ect. Parties were and still are a medium for ruining albums and getting treasured albums stolen.
Tapes grow old fade stretch and drop out. The invention of the mobile phone also helped kill tapes even on playback mobiles could have the sound of an incoming message embed itself on a favourite tape.
over all tapes would provide an introduction to many great bands. Occasionally tapes had a value bootlegs of concerts were often only available on tape and these tapes were often treasured. Also some albums long deleted and hard to obtain the best you could do was have a taped copy.
I have bought commercial tapes over the years but not many, and not a significant part of my LP collection. as for the invention of the CD well it took a while to catch on for me but I did buy CD's of some stuff I had on tape but for the stuff that was on LP a lot never did get released on CD. The vast majority of my tapes rotted away a long time ago.
maybe the vast majority of the songs were not that great, maybe i just got old and my tastes changed. However the best music i had was on album and I still have it more than 20 years after some of it was bought. Some albums I have date back to the 60's (they are usually heavier and more durable than later recordings).
I don't think there are that many Albums worth buying twice the best example I can think of was Dark Side of the Moon. I did buy that a few times and a few others which became terminally scratched.
At present I wouldn't buy Drm'd tracks from Apple or anywhere else for that matter. However without DRM and at the US download price. It wouldn't be beyond belief to see me downloading music from itunes on a friday or saturday night on a regular basis just for convenience similar to an online jukebox. perhaps after buying enough of an album apple might be prepared to send me the entire album for a couple of dollars more on CD.
really it should be as easy to use as a jukebox if i make 5 selections say the third and fifth ones i don't own it should be seamless to download them from apple within the time it takes to play 1 or 2 tracks that i already own, in case of delay the software should be able to swop songs in from further down the playlist.
Don't we all want the abilty to be able to say yes thats my favourite too and have it delivered within 2 or 3 minutes of entering the track name and hitting the download button.
seriously there is a lot to be said for providing high quality drm glitch free music on demand. done right and music sales could go through the roof. DRM makes the basic error of assuming a DRM version is all thats available if the music companys could get over themselves accept that millions of copies they will get nothing for and embrace the instant satisfaction of providing music on demand which would make billions in sales. Everybody would win.
you make the assumption there that win32 calls are available, I'm running Linux.
It makes sense to try and keep the code as cross platform as possible. However the question we all have is why?
Possibilitys include user statistics, i would guess internet cafe's would have large numbers of accounts on a small number of PC's, but most accounts will be used at home or possibly on holiday. So maybe it is the marketing department that is interested.
A less sinister reason may be to combat fraud, recently I noticed that Skype have introduced monthly caps on the skype out credit you can buy. Perhaps there is an issue or potential issue of fraudulent use of credit cards to buy credit.
would be some protection for them if some user claims that his credit card details were stolen, and used to buy skype credit. With the bios code you could probably identify fraud on the part of that user when there is a dispute and the credit card company is refusing to pay. For skype to be able to say well we believe that user did incur these charges since we have it on record that the PC used was used both before and after the disputed dates for making calls on this account.
and finally lets face it skype isn't that secure all it takes is for you to know my username and password and you can make free calls on my account.
actually when you think about it attacking the username password system on skype should be fairly trivial at least it should be noticable when someone starts bruteforcing username password combinations.
when you think about it, take your wireless laptop or pda war driving.
connect to unsecured network brute force a username password make free calls world wide.
with the ability to blacklist the particular pc used for the attack it becomes a lot more difficult and expensive to compromise user accounts.
The myth that you can just walk into a problem and solve it is rubbish. That entirely depends on the nature of the problem, sometimes part of the problem is how you think about the problem. Your initial impulse will be to relate the current problem with past problems and past methods.
Training and indeed language restrict the approaches you take to a problem and when I talk of language I am thinking both of human and computer languages.
One of the obvious problems of translation is that some concepts do not translate very well in human languages and for that matter in computer languages.
to take the old saying if all you have is a hammer then all problems look like nails.
Someone with a different skillset will approach a problem differently, and often the different approach is what is needed. It might take a specialist to actually solve a problem but it may not be a specialist who sparks a new approach.
Actually some do, in Comet (a uk box shifter that mainly does washing machines and TV's and some PC's) I had a choice of 4 brands of usb flash drives and 2 of them said on the packaging they supported linux, I can't remember all the brands but one of them was definately LG the other might have been Trust but I can't remember the other two brands but the LG usb flash drive I bought is working fine. (with everything including an xbox) The LG also came with a usb extension cable which was handy for converting an xbox controller for pc use and using the flashdrive as a memory card for the xbox.
LG got my money because it did say it was Linux compatable (and osx and umpteen flavours of windows).
I will not buy windows only hardware anymore. Another good linux supporting brand is Edimax (mainly wireless networking products).
support linux supporting companies even if you run only windows now - it's a good bet they actively support thier products.
possibly but probably not. how about the following scenario:
There would be two phases to buying osx for pc. A try before you buy program to test if your hardware is good enough to run osx. perhaps it would generate a serial based on the tested hardware. If the hardware isn't upto the requirements then it would list the failing hardware and suggest solutions and maybe an equivilent macintosh.
with a serial you can make osx available to download possibly limiting hardware support to that configuration. with the amount of linux and bsd open source drivers around its possible third party developers / mac enthusiasts could produce community based drivers.
Apple would be getting paid for this so would have an income from the osx sales for a budget to enlarge osx support for other hardware.
There is no reason to suppose they would charge the same as for regular macs either a 100% premium wouldn't be out of order after all mac hardware does subsidise osx.
however just because something is possible, doesn't mean it will happen, what would it do to apple sales? Ensuring osx sells at a premium for generic pc hardware, would ensure that it would be cheaper to buy the equivilent mac rather than buy a 3rd party pc to put osx on.
The biggest block to this happening is Steve jobs and I doubt he could be persuaded. Then there are your mum and dad would they buy a software only solution.
In someways its kind of similar to the TomTom GPS situation you can run the software on a pda but its a lot simpler and more reliable to just buy a dedicated unit.
I'd like to point out that facts are not democraticly elected or the result of who prevails in an edit war. it's who prevails in a real war, history is written by the victors.
There are two principle reasons to care. first Security, windows biggest problem is trusting binaries not to rip a hole in your security model, why would you want to reduce linux to that level.
Second to do it better, you can't demand perfection from a commercial programmer but someone will want to tweak a CODEC for maximum performance on his or her hardware.
I've got a HTC universal, and the Linux port(s) gpe and opie are coming on nicely however using it on the phone network isn't possible this week under Linux, but it is possible to use the wifi to operate within your lan, Unfortunately your phone doesn't seem to be getting any Linux development. The universal port has been on the go for about a year and is being actively developed, I would get one quick as it appears that the phone companys are backing away from it and it is a much nicer price when it is subsidised by the phone company;) checkout http://forum.xda-developers.com/ for upto date info
It's the job of IT to secure the network. If doing something would harm you, then it's your job to make sure that they can't do it. If you think the "lusers" are too stupid to understand "opening attachments is bad", then block them at the firewall. If you don't think the users will understand that macros can carry a virus, disable macros when you install Word. There's no reason to force users to do IT work that they don't want to learn. ... If they are running windows.
Problem number one is that the vast majority of users are using a badly flawed OS and the associated problems are concidered normal. Does Vista address these issues so that opening attachments isn't bad, can a word macro still carry an effective virus. There are alternatives, OSX or Linux or FreeBSD are much safer by default because there is a clear difference in roles between a user and admin.
Problem number two how many IT people wouldn't have a job without the flaws in Windows.
Living in the UK and being brought up with both metric and imperial systems, I find that both systems have merit. imperial for approximation and metric for accuracy. it all depends on what you need to know.
if you need a rough idea then imperial is great a foot for example is about the size of a typical male foot and a yard about an arms length. temperature is much easier to gauge in imperial 60 is about as cool as i like it 70 is warm and 80 I am sweating already. I couldnt tell you the equivilent metric values I do know that water boils at 100 and freezes at 0, 0 being the important one since it tends to mean ice on the road.
problem with inches is with fractions sometimes its 10ths of an inch sometimes 16ths, 12ths fractions are pretty easy to guestimate half quarter eighth. precision and converting units metric is easier ideal for precision engineering. raw materials are best selected using imperial.
However there are some problems with metric its not an easy fit for computers soon as that decimal point gets used accuracy is shot to pieces. imperial fractions fit right into the binary system.
it's purpose that determine the suitablity of the units pints, and pounds are ideal for food when you don't need scientific accuracy for example.
I've got one hooked to a webserver watching my Car and heres why. since 2002 I have had Astra broken into steering lock forced cavalier front wing dented by somebodys boot Escort front passenger door top half bent out to around a foot (3 youths disturbed while this was in progress) Nova not a lot other than the usual ariel bending Idiot. and now I have a car I like and don't want to suffer similar problems. It's not just me my nieghbors get similar problems. Problem really is the location there is a good chance you can be outside my house and not seen by any one, a few yards further up the road and it is certain.
So i put up a camera it records once a second and outputs to a webserver (I have a more sophisticated version in mind but this is functional).
So if you walk past my house you might get filmed if you damage my car I will be able to see you do it. Might even be able to identify you.
But to be honest I just want you to fuck off leave my Car alone and if you see the Camera you might be inclined to do so.
A little further up the road in either direction you will not get filmed. In an ideal situation more of my neighbors would do the same thing. Then perhaps stupid things like someone nicking the water pipe from my nieghbors outside toilet or further down the road a house has had a copper gas pipe pulled away from the wall its got hacksaw marks either end where someone tried to cut it and maybe had the sense to realise it was a gas pipe.
I know that all the camera does is deter criminals near my car but thats the point. There's plenty of other cars nearby that criminals could have a go at.
It's pretty inexpensive to setup the camera is lit at night outside with built in UV. cost me £50 for the camera it runs on 6volts so is quite cheap to run. I could have bought a cheaper one with similar features for £30. Software is free for windows there is dorgem, For linux there is zoneminder a fully featured application. The camera's running on my fileserver.
>This technique can easily be circumvented. A leech client can co-operate with another leech client. As soon as he >receives your rare packet, he can tell the other client to pretend to have it, too (without actually sending it).
why? if you need say 200 blocks and your friend pretends to send you say blocks 17 and 19 your short blocks 17 and 19 and you don't complete.
He didn't say random you did. So how about video games, most of them involve damaging something, but thats not real damage. Ever shot things at the fair? In particular I am thinking of the machine gun trying to shoot out a red star. shooting bottles, burning stuff perhaps. I'm not a hunter but I did like to fish so I guess I can't complain if you put a bullet in bambi...
Then there is the violence in movies or in the hanging of saddam husain, yes saddams death was real and so were the deaths of around 80 other iraqi's the same day. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/ 2003503163_iraq31.html I feel more sympathy for those 80 who were victims of saddams political career in one way or another.
I'm sorry to say the texas defence "he needed killin" applies to many politicians living and dead. There are too many people dead from the choices made by politicians, Do GW and Tony Blair keep count of the people killed by thier decisions I wonder.
Anyway straying a little too far from the point here, which is certain acts of violence are completely harmless and enjoyable. while others are most definately not. Video games are probably not harmful, unless your jack thompson. Boxing is an interesting form of controlled violence, I think most boxers enjoy it even when they lose.
I think I've explored the subject enough to show that the original proposal about violence made a basic error in suggesting the answer was either yes or no. It really does depend on circumstances and type of violence. From 2 children shouting bang bang at each other in a game of cowboys and indians to the Hanging of Saddam to the killing of animals in a slaughter house and the blowing up of random strangers. violence can be enjoyable, sexually pleasurable, traumatic abusive and terrifying and depraved. There is no hard and fast rule even in the extreme. Even in countrys without the death penalty are there any that don't authorise the use of deadly force in some circumstances? The answer appears to be it depends...
Finally does attacking someone elses viewpoint count as violence or harmless fun? Is this a violent post?
It is reasonable to assume Linux is viewed as competition by Microsoft, after all if you don't buy a Microsoft solution and you use an open source solution instead, then that solution cuts into thier profits. Which is the reason for microsoft existing in the first place to make money for thier shareholders.
When Open source threatens the Microsoft $ then Microsoft attacks OpenSource at many levels. How you feel about these attacks depends who you are and your situation.
Microsoft isn't my enemy as such because I use microsoft products and opensource, i am smart enough to use the best tool for the job. for Internet usage unless you can run OSX then your safer running Linux. For other things there is Microsoft.
funny thing is Microsoft actually encourages the development of opensource everytime Microsoft puts a barrier in place. Open source developers actively work to overcome it.
One thing that bugs me are the Microsoft fan bots who actively attack linux at every opportunity- why?
Using Linux doesn't mean you have to abstain from windows. In commercial environments the opposite may be true.
Is linux ready for Primetime I think that depends entirely on the individual and thier local support.
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There are id-card schemes in place mainly for the benefit of young looking 21 year olds. Alcohol is sold by a licencee if they sell to under 18's they risk losing thier livelyhood. Most will ask for ID if they are in any doubt of someone being of age. We already have charges like drunk & disorderly and Asbo's for anything that isn't specifically illegal, isn't a £5000 fine and 6 months in prison enough?
Better parenting would be ideal, youth clubs used to be in place to give the kids something to do and possibly a few role models to look up to. Unfortunately many have long since closed and the land redeveloped. It's a real shame council tax keeps growing at greater than inflation but the amount spent on things to give guidance to the young and keep em out of trouble seems to steadily decrease.
So better provision for the young in short.
Still doesn't mean it will last, got a 1 gig usb flash drive here dead in less than 8 weeks and very few read and writes. It will not identify itself. It might have 99,900 write cycles left but its still trashed.
Lets face it there is no reliable storage media, the only way to be safe is multiple copies.
and they get thier slightly older friends to buy it for them.
also from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age
"The legal age to drink alcohol in a pub (outside the strictly-defined bar area) is 16, provided they are accompanied by a parent who buys it for them. However, unless explicitly stated otherwise, those under 14 may not enter a pub (regardless of intentions of drinking alcohol or not) [5]. Persons aged 16 and over can drink beer, cider, perry or wine in a restaurant if the alcohol is purchased with a meal. Alcohol may be given by parents to children aged 5 or over in a private home or other establishment. [6]"
It's unlikely biometric ID will make much of an impact, apart from which British ID cards will not apply to non nationals. - sorry cant serve you your american... let alone the issues for irish nationals who can legally live in the uk and don't need to even carry a passport.
I am perfectly happy for you to choose to eat GM food, it is a valid choice as is organic, meat, no meat, no dairy, gluten free, low salt. All valid choices made for varying reasons.
george bush said
"I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli."
like us all he decides what to eat, making a choice based on these tomato's are gm, these are not is reasonable.
What GM campainers really want is to know that what they are buying is GM free.
It might infuriate GM crop producers that many people do not want thier products, but that is the way it is.
you don't force vegans to eat meat do you?
the 9pm watershed is outdated when we have such a wide range of broadcasts. cable satellite. The simplest solution with digital broadcasts woiuld be an age rating flag.
let the user set the level they want to recieve and blank the channel when it exceeds thier set rating.
Parents would appreciate the ability to keep thier tv kidsafe when they want and allow the rest of us access to what we want to watch when we want to watch it.
some of us adults have to be up early in the morning, a 9 oclock watershed means limiting our viewing to family safe content.
Do you really want your tv limited to broadcasting quiz shows sitcoms and soaps before 9 so called family entertainment?
of course kidsafe tv is open to the parents disabling it entirely it would also entail parents buying into the scheme (quite literally as it would require some new hardware). Of course this would mean an end to our tv regulators deciding what is suitable for us to see.
It also makes it possible to block tv licience funded broadcasts and make the tv licience opt in for viewers.
Of course self-regulation wouldnt be acceptable to the current regulators, would it .
extending this idea might allow users to block particular broadcasts. For example anything featuring michael barrymore or noel edmonds or chris moyles or janet street porter. They don't necessarily break any standards of decency but i'd rather not have them in my living room.
actually now this does present the real dilema. If a broadcaster flags a show as in a particular catagory you then are trusting that broadcaster to always be right. Thats the problem with giving them the control of censorship of your viewing.
maybe the real solution is the off button and parents taking responsibility for thier choice of what is suitable for thier kids to see.
I do like the idea of perhaps dynamic self censorship.
pick what offends you and have a database of the schedules flagging what you want or don't want to see.
maybe i just need to press the channel change on the remote.
Ok there isn't such a study yet that I know of, but I believe on average around 3% of music on ipods is from iTunes
(about 22 tracks).
DRM is a disincentive to buy music, from itunes to the non audio cd's being passed off as audio cd's DRM is putting people off buying and the price is still a bit too high.
Pop music should be sold like fast food. lots of it cheap and fast.
whats a track worth?
whats your local bar charge per track on the jukebox? That is the kind of price people are willing to pay for music without thinking.
Thats the kind of model that will work, here within 5 minutes great quality no worries about the RIAA.
no dodgy tracks that sound great for the first 30 seconds and then flip out. ruining the mood of your party whatever, none of this here you can have whatever you want for x dollars a month providing you keep paying it crap.
maybe even do free bonus tracks of unknown artists the RIAA cartel can continue its role promoting new artists
once they are known then they slip into the must pay catagory. They can take out ad space on the online music store highlight new talent...
quick fast hassle free music will sell by the billions and make 'pirated' copys not worth it. The RIAA can continue to shakedown p2p users upload worthless files as they do today.
The right price, fast and clean that will ensure a massive boost to download sales. Sure some people will freeload but then they always have. No amount of DRM on legal downloads will stop the same music being available without drm and without cost elsewhere.
perhaps that page may enlighten you. The problem with flu is it mutates and this is one which once infected 60% of the people so far have died and its hard to get so far.
It is extremely likely that this strain of flu will kill millions once it mutates into form that is passed between humans.
thats the big deal. This is quite likely to kill you.
Steve Jobs may SAY he hates DRM, but only because he has nothing to lose by saying that. He knows the studios aren't going to cave on DRM, so he gets to keep DRM (and, hence, his iTunes-iPod monopoly) while simultaneously portraying himself as some sort of anti-DRM crusader.
If you want to see how Jobs *REALLY* feels about DRM, just look at how Apple treats indie artists and studios that specifically DON'T want their music DRM'ed. While companies like eMusic sell these same songs without DRM, Apple FORCES them to take DRM. Apple knows damn well that DRM is in their best interests. Jobs is just posturing.
Number 1 reason to remove DRM is greater sales.-Eric
If the average is 22 or some other lowish number, 3% of music on ipods as claimed else where then 97% of music on ipods are not bought from itunes (and could be on other music players anyway).
22 may infact be the average number of tracks bought before the average consumer realises the true cost of DRM.
it is very very low. without DRM sales would probably be a lot higher. With such low sales it would seem that the iPod stands independently of iTunes the store.
If you accept this 3% figure, then what is the point of DRM protected tracks, It is obvious that the DRM material is available without DRM and people still choose to buy it!
Current deals with the big four probably insist that all media from itunes be DRM protected. After all can't have the kids buying non DRM material from itunes. The lack of DRM would make it more attractive to them and cut into the sales of the big four.
I think now Mr jobs is saying look i gave you DRM'd online music sales, it's achieving 3% of the potential sales to iPOD owners alone (let alone the other players) without DRM there is a potential to achieve a far greater percentage of online music sales. We have seen what Sales we achieve with DRM now is the time to remove DRM and get a far larger share of legal download sales. If sales do not increase significantly then DRM can be applied again, but it is obvious that DRM is affecting the bottom line for iTunes and the content providers.
As a potential customer I can see myself buying music from iTunes using iTunes as a virtual jukebox without DRM.
Even better would be a service that once i had bought enough of an Album then for a small fee. I could be mailed the Album. The RIAA can keep up its pressure on illegal downloads as much as it likes if it pushes people to the iTunes store, but right now the DRM is keeping sales down. Personally If you take the jukebox analogy people don't complain about paying about what, 60 cents for a track to be played once in a pub or a bar. It seems an ideal price point for downloadable music especially since you get to keep it.
Legal music is overpriced and over protected once the recording industry realise this and adapt they will make far more money because the reality is they are stitching up thier customers and thier customers are fighting back with the convienience of a near instant legal download without DRM they will beat a 30 minute wait to get a particular track illegally and of inconsistant quality. (granted some will be a lot faster others might take hours).
you can have it now and keep it thats where the recording industry should be making a killing
If you buy iTunes music today and switch platforms later, you now have to buy a different format of that same music. How is this different?
The only things that shackles you to an iPod are the headphones. That and perhaps your inability to read the article. Cassette tape never was a real commercial medium, if you wanted something of high quality you bought an LP and copied it to a C90 to protect the original. Anyone remember high speed dubbing? Did anyone use it much (I doubt I did more than a dozen times at most). I had a fair number of tapes usually containing Albums from My collection or friends LP's I bought loads of albums often 2nd hand and generally would tape my favourites to preserve them or maybe making up mix tapes for partys in car ect. Parties were and still are a medium for ruining albums and getting treasured albums stolen.
Tapes grow old fade stretch and drop out. The invention of the mobile phone also helped kill tapes even on playback mobiles could have the sound of an incoming message embed itself on a favourite tape.
over all tapes would provide an introduction to many great bands. Occasionally tapes had a value bootlegs of concerts were often only available on tape and these tapes were often treasured. Also some albums long deleted and hard to obtain the best you could do was have a taped copy.
I have bought commercial tapes over the years but not many, and not a significant part of my LP collection.
as for the invention of the CD well it took a while to catch on for me but I did buy CD's of some stuff I had on tape but for the stuff that was on LP a lot never did get released on CD. The vast majority of my tapes rotted away a long time ago.
maybe the vast majority of the songs were not that great, maybe i just got old and my tastes changed. However the best music i had was on album and I still have it more than 20 years after some of it was bought. Some albums I have date back to the 60's (they are usually heavier and more durable than later recordings).
I don't think there are that many Albums worth buying twice the best example I can think of was Dark Side of the Moon. I did buy that a few times and a few others which became terminally scratched.
At present I wouldn't buy Drm'd tracks from Apple or anywhere else for that matter.
However without DRM and at the US download price. It wouldn't be beyond belief to see me downloading music from itunes on a friday or saturday night on a regular basis just for convenience similar to an online jukebox. perhaps after buying enough of an album apple might be prepared to send me the entire album for a couple of dollars more on CD.
really it should be as easy to use as a jukebox if i make 5 selections say the third and fifth ones i don't own it should be seamless to download them from apple within the time it takes to play 1 or 2 tracks that i already own, in case of delay the software should be able to swop songs in from further down the playlist.
Don't we all want the abilty to be able to say yes thats my favourite too and have it delivered within 2 or 3 minutes of entering the track name and hitting the download button.
seriously there is a lot to be said for providing high quality drm glitch free music on demand. done right and music sales could go through the roof. DRM makes the basic error of assuming a DRM version is all thats available if the music companys could get over themselves accept that millions of copies they will get nothing for and embrace the instant satisfaction of providing music on demand which would make billions in sales. Everybody would win.
you make the assumption there that win32 calls are available, I'm running Linux.
It makes sense to try and keep the code as cross platform as possible.
However the question we all have is why?
Possibilitys include user statistics, i would guess internet cafe's would have large numbers of accounts on a small number of PC's, but most accounts will be used at home or possibly on holiday. So maybe it is the marketing department that is interested.
A less sinister reason may be to combat fraud, recently I noticed that Skype have introduced monthly caps on the skype out credit you can buy. Perhaps there is an issue or potential issue of fraudulent use of credit cards to buy credit.
would be some protection for them if some user claims that his credit card details were stolen, and used to buy skype credit. With the bios code you could probably identify fraud on the part of that user when there is a dispute and the credit card company is refusing to pay. For skype to be able to say well we believe that user did incur these charges since we have it on record that the PC used was used both before and after the disputed dates for making calls on this account.
and finally lets face it skype isn't that secure all it takes is for you to know my username and password and you can make free calls on my account.
actually when you think about it attacking the username password system on skype should be fairly trivial at least it should be noticable when someone starts bruteforcing username password combinations.
when you think about it, take your wireless laptop or pda war driving.
connect to unsecured network
brute force a username password
make free calls world wide.
with the ability to blacklist the particular pc used for the attack it becomes a lot more difficult and expensive
to compromise user accounts.
Training and indeed language restrict the approaches you take to a problem and when I talk of language I am thinking both of human and computer languages.
One of the obvious problems of translation is that some concepts do not translate very well in human languages and for that matter in computer languages.
to take the old saying if all you have is a hammer then all problems look like nails.
Someone with a different skillset will approach a problem differently, and often the different approach is what is needed. It might take a specialist to actually solve a problem but it may not be a specialist who sparks a new approach.
Of course this isn't true for all problems.
Actually some do,
in Comet (a uk box shifter that mainly does washing machines and TV's and some PC's) I had a choice of 4 brands of usb flash drives and 2 of them said on the packaging they supported linux, I can't remember all the brands but one of them was definately LG the other might have been Trust but I can't remember the other two brands but the LG usb flash drive I bought is working fine. (with everything including an xbox) The LG also came with a usb extension cable which was handy for converting an xbox controller for pc use and using the flashdrive as a memory card for the xbox.
LG got my money because it did say it was Linux compatable (and osx and umpteen flavours of windows).
I will not buy windows only hardware anymore.
Another good linux supporting brand is Edimax (mainly wireless networking products).
support linux supporting companies even if you run only windows now - it's a good bet they actively support thier products.
possibly
but probably not.
how about the following scenario:
There would be two phases to buying osx for pc.
A try before you buy program to test if your hardware is good enough to run osx.
perhaps it would generate a serial based on the tested hardware. If the hardware isn't upto the requirements then it would list the failing hardware and suggest solutions and maybe an equivilent macintosh.
with a serial you can make osx available to download possibly limiting hardware support to that configuration.
with the amount of linux and bsd open source drivers around its possible third party developers / mac enthusiasts could produce community based drivers.
Apple would be getting paid for this so would have an income from the osx sales for a budget to enlarge osx support for other hardware.
There is no reason to suppose they would charge the same as for regular macs either a 100% premium wouldn't be out of order after all mac hardware does subsidise osx.
however just because something is possible, doesn't mean it will happen, what would it do to apple sales?
Ensuring osx sells at a premium for generic pc hardware, would ensure that it would be cheaper to buy the equivilent mac rather than buy a 3rd party pc to put osx on.
The biggest block to this happening is Steve jobs and I doubt he could be persuaded.
Then there are your mum and dad would they buy a software only solution.
In someways its kind of similar to the TomTom GPS situation you can run the software on a pda but its a lot simpler and more reliable to just buy a dedicated unit.
There are two principle reasons to care.
first
Security, windows biggest problem is trusting binaries not to rip a hole in your security model, why would you want to reduce linux to that level.
Second
to do it better, you can't demand perfection from a commercial programmer but someone will want to tweak a CODEC for maximum performance on his or her hardware.
I've got a HTC universal, and the Linux port(s) gpe and opie are coming on nicely however using it on the phone network isn't possible this week under Linux, but it is possible to use the wifi to operate within your lan, ;)
Unfortunately your phone doesn't seem to be getting any Linux development. The universal port has been on the go for about a year and is being actively developed, I would get one quick as it appears that the phone companys are backing away from it and it is a much nicer price when it is subsidised by the phone company
checkout http://forum.xda-developers.com/ for upto date info
Problem number one is that the vast majority of users are using a badly flawed OS and the associated problems are concidered normal.
Does Vista address these issues so that opening attachments isn't bad, can a word macro still carry an effective virus. There are alternatives, OSX or Linux or FreeBSD are much safer by default because there is a clear difference in roles between a user and admin.
Problem number two
how many IT people wouldn't have a job without the flaws in Windows.
Living in the UK and being brought up with both metric and imperial systems, I find that both systems have merit.
imperial for approximation and metric for accuracy.
it all depends on what you need to know.
if you need a rough idea then imperial is great a foot for example is about the size of a typical male foot and a yard about an arms length. temperature is much easier to gauge in imperial 60 is about as cool as i like it 70 is warm and 80 I am sweating already. I couldnt tell you the equivilent metric values I do know that water boils at 100 and freezes at 0, 0 being the important one since it tends to mean ice on the road.
problem with inches is with fractions sometimes its 10ths of an inch sometimes 16ths, 12ths fractions are pretty easy to guestimate half quarter eighth.
precision and converting units metric is easier ideal for precision engineering.
raw materials are best selected using imperial.
However there are some problems with metric its not an easy fit for computers soon as that decimal point gets used accuracy is shot to pieces. imperial fractions fit right into the binary system.
it's purpose that determine the suitablity of the units pints, and pounds are ideal for food when you don't need scientific accuracy for example.
do you have a link for this?
I checked tesco's website and i couldnt find it.
searching on froogle the price seems to be around £50.
I've got one hooked to a webserver watching my Car and heres why.
since 2002
I have had
Astra broken into steering lock forced
cavalier front wing dented by somebodys boot
Escort front passenger door top half bent out to around a foot (3 youths disturbed while this was in progress)
Nova not a lot other than the usual ariel bending Idiot.
and now I have a car I like and don't want to suffer similar problems. It's not just me my nieghbors get similar problems. Problem really is the location there is a good chance you can be outside my house and not seen by any one, a few yards further up the road and it is certain.
So i put up a camera it records once a second and outputs to a webserver (I have a more sophisticated version in mind but this is functional).
So if you walk past my house you might get filmed if you damage my car I will be able to see you do it.
Might even be able to identify you.
But to be honest I just want you to fuck off leave my Car alone and if you see the Camera you might be inclined to do so.
A little further up the road in either direction you will not get filmed. In an ideal situation more of my neighbors would do the same thing. Then perhaps stupid things like someone nicking the water pipe from my nieghbors outside toilet or further down the road a house has had a copper gas pipe pulled away from the wall its got hacksaw marks either end where someone tried to cut it and maybe had the sense to realise it was a gas pipe.
I know that all the camera does is deter criminals near my car but thats the point. There's plenty of other cars nearby that criminals could have a go at.
It's pretty inexpensive to setup the camera is lit at night outside with built in UV.
cost me £50 for the camera it runs on 6volts so is quite cheap to run. I could have bought a cheaper one with similar features for £30. Software is free for windows there is dorgem, For linux there is zoneminder a fully featured application. The camera's running on my fileserver.
Don't you think you should get one too?
sorry I don't quite understand,
>This technique can easily be circumvented. A leech client can co-operate with another leech client. As soon as he >receives your rare packet, he can tell the other client to pretend to have it, too (without actually sending it).
why? if you need say 200 blocks and your friend pretends to send you say blocks 17 and 19 your short blocks 17 and 19 and you don't complete.
please explain how this is an advantage
He didn't say random you did.
/ 2003503163_iraq31.html
So how about video games, most of them involve damaging something, but thats not real damage. Ever shot things at the fair? In particular I am thinking of the machine gun trying to shoot out a red star. shooting bottles, burning stuff perhaps. I'm not a hunter but I did like to fish so I guess I can't complain if you put a bullet in bambi...
Then there is the violence in movies or in the hanging of saddam husain, yes saddams death was real and so were the deaths of around 80 other iraqi's the same day. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld
I feel more sympathy for those 80 who were victims of saddams political career in one way or another.
I'm sorry to say the texas defence "he needed killin" applies to many politicians living and dead. There are too many people dead from the choices made by politicians, Do GW and Tony Blair keep count of the people killed by thier decisions I wonder.
Anyway straying a little too far from the point here, which is certain acts of violence are completely harmless and enjoyable. while others are most definately not. Video games are probably not harmful, unless your jack thompson. Boxing is an interesting form of controlled violence, I think most boxers enjoy it even when they lose.
I think I've explored the subject enough to show that the original proposal about violence made a basic error in suggesting the answer was either yes or no. It really does depend on circumstances and type of violence. From 2 children shouting bang bang at each other in a game of cowboys and indians to the Hanging of Saddam to the killing of animals in a slaughter house and the blowing up of random strangers. violence can be enjoyable, sexually pleasurable, traumatic abusive and terrifying and depraved. There is no hard and fast rule even in the extreme. Even in countrys without the death penalty are there any that don't authorise the use of deadly force in some circumstances? The answer appears to be it depends...
Finally does attacking someone elses viewpoint count as violence or harmless fun? Is this a violent post?
http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/D/6/5D6EA F2B-7DDF-476B-93DC-7CF0072878E6/output_protect.doc
fud is it ?
Edimax uses ralink and are a reasonable price.
how about the opposition or perhaps competitors?
It is reasonable to assume Linux is viewed as competition by Microsoft, after all if you don't buy a Microsoft solution and you use an open source solution instead, then that solution cuts into thier profits. Which is the reason for microsoft existing in the first place to make money for thier shareholders.
When Open source threatens the Microsoft $ then Microsoft attacks OpenSource at many levels.
How you feel about these attacks depends who you are and your situation.
Microsoft isn't my enemy as such because I use microsoft products and opensource, i am smart enough to use the best tool for the job. for Internet usage unless you can run OSX then your safer running Linux. For other things there is Microsoft.
funny thing is Microsoft actually encourages the development of opensource everytime Microsoft puts a barrier in place. Open source developers actively work to overcome it.
One thing that bugs me are the Microsoft fan bots who actively attack linux at every opportunity- why?
Using Linux doesn't mean you have to abstain from windows. In commercial environments the opposite may be true.
Is linux ready for Primetime I think that depends entirely on the individual and thier local support.