The fact that it's in other players isn't unknown to me, but the discussion was about Vista, not hardware players...
The fact that Vista is the only OS that allows HDCP content reminds me of how crappy and questionable this sort of excessive DRM really is (I mean, if only Microsoft will support it in their OS, well, that says enough on its own).
"The technology in Vista also doesn't PREVENT you from doing anything, it has the 'requirements' so that HDCP content CAN BE PLAYED, something NO OTHER OS OFFERS!! It takes away NOTHING..."
"HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc players allow content providers to set an Image Constraint Token (ICT) flag that will only output full-resolution digital signals using HDCP. If such a player is connected to a non-HDCP-enabled television set and the content is flagged, the player will output a downsampled 480p signal."
That sounds like it's taking away quite a lot. That sounds like it's making it so all of your HDCP-"protected" videos can only be watched at a maximum resolution of 640x480. Even worse, "downsampled" pretty much means "scaled down using some cheap commodity chip that pixelates the crap out of your video".
Were you actually being serious when you were trying to make it seem like HDCP is a feature in Vista actually beneficial to users in any manner at all? Buying HDCP-"enabled" products is just paying up your protection money so you can watch your legally purchased videos at the resolution you paid for.
In fact, buying Vista or other HDCP-enabled products makes it that much easier for companies to prevent you from doing what you want with the media you spend your hard-earned cash on. Hey, it's your choice if you want to maintain the idea that DRM is a good thing, but somehow I have a feeling you're not going to feel so good in the end when you're locked into such crippled technology.
"Firefox has been gnawing stronger and stronger on the share of Internet Explorer, and even Safari in some respect."
I don't know a single Mac user that actually uses Firefox on their Mac - it takes way longer to start up, and is generally slower than Safari. Also, Safari scrolls smoothly while Firefox does not. Took me about 5 seconds to just go and delete Firefox after trying it on my new Mac some time ago. It's a huge deal having to wait 10x the amount of time for a program to load, when they offer the exact same features, essentially.
"i know it's wrong, but i don't even chastise my friends about it when they do it."
Essentially, what you're saying is, you're not responsible enough to take a stand and start contributing to this "behavioral modification" you think is so neccesary, and thus are suggesting that the government take extremely questionable/controversial steps to make up for your lack of responsibility in this sense?
"haven't i already been behaviorally modified into not smacking assholes in the face? how is it fair that i got that against me but the assholes of the world walk free?"
If you would smack someone in the face for "being an asshole", then that would be just vaguely (err, extensively) hypocritical, no?
Physical force isn't required to try and give someone the suggestion that they should stop being an idiot in a certain sense. If enough people tell someone to quit throwing their garbage on the ground, then the person will generally eventually stop throwing their garbage on the ground.
However, it's not even so simple as that. Having someone NOT have the kind of mindset that allows them to throw their trash on the ground also involves teaching them from a young age to value the environment, have respect for the well-being of their city/town and for their neighbours and fellow human beings (among many other important values crucial to establishing and maintaining a healthy community).
This doesn't happen by "smacking assholes in the face" - I would imagine it happens most often by having children grow up being taught a decent set of moral values that doesn't involve kicking the shit out of every person that slightly offends them or "wrongs" them in some manner.
1 - Cool, sure, but can you use that same controller for 5 or 6 different platforms, all with native support in every game, without the need to set up your drivers, bind controller keys to in-game buttons, etc.?
2 - What word?... Genuine? If that's what you meant, I would honestly love to see any N64 emulator you've found that can perfectly reproduce the game, entirely indistinguishable from playing on a true N64.
3 - With Virtual Console on the Wii, it's all running on the same system. You don't have to "switch platforms" because everything is running on the single Wii system. What did you think I was talking about? Playing games on the actual original systems they were made for?
4 - If you like to search around on the net to find an emulator for each platform, download and install it, and you understand all of the configuration options, then go ahead. The majority of people are not interested in spending that kind of time to play an old game. However, when the games are presented to them in a super-convenient situation, they have no problem shelling out the $5 to nearly instantly have the game, ready to play, on the system they are already using and sitting in front of.
5 - Vendor support means if it doesn't work, you can call up Nintendo support and they will fix it (unless you broke the console or whatever). If you're going to try and criticize my points about what makes Virtual Console such an ideal candidate for playing old favorite games, at least take the time to understand what I'm saying.
6 - The majority of video game players have no interest in alternate-language, beta, developer or hacked versions of their games. For emulation enthusiasts, sure, but take a look at the people buying Wii systems - they span a far far greater demographic (in fact, probably the broadest range of people of any console yet).
One of the best tricks I ever came up with was building my own HyperCard stack to launch whatever program I wanted, after discovering a pretty big bug in the school's "security" software. Our Mac labs had At Ease, and it would only have just a few "educational" programs etc. available to students. However, I found a really big vulnerability - you could take any program and simply change the creator code with ResEdit to match that of any one of the "allowed" programs, and it would then be allowed to run.
So I'd take some various "tools" from the web (At Ease password cracking type stuff, mostly, and of course a copy of Bolo to play with friends over the LAN while we snuck in during lunch), change the creator codes to match SimpleText or Math Blaster or whatever, and build a HyperCard stack that would launch the programs for me.
It got to the point where I was making "Bolo disks" (for all my friends) which included a copy of the game, some extra maps and a HyperCard launcher stack. I got a reputation as a bigtime hacker among everyone in the school (and I was 11 years old!), which was both good and bad - tons of awesome extracurricular stuff related to computers, but always seen with an eye of caution...
Yeah, it was actually on a library computer I was on, too, so I was banned from the library's computers... until a couple years later when I was suddenly recruited to help keep the library network running in the school... heh!
-quality Nintendo controller -genuine game experience not interrupted by Windows error alert boxes, MSN signon/signoff/msg alerts, blue screens and what have you -convenience (turn on the machine and grab the controller, select a game and play) -easy configuration/setup (none) compared to any emulation setup -vendor support -games from numerous platforms over the span of many years, available all in one spot, playable on one system, with all of the benefits listed above
Yeah, it's a bit sensationalistic to claim he was "convicted" simply due to his google search terms - those were merely one part of the evidence given in court.
Indeed, you can change the NIC's MAC address on your OS X machine as well (from here):
Under Mac OS X, the MAC address can be altered in a fashion similar to the Linux and FreeBSD methods: ifconfig en0 lladdr 02:01:02:03:04:05 or ifconfig en0 ether 02:01:02:03:04:05
"In October 2003, police armed with a search warrant showed up and seized his computer (PDF)."
Ouch, this brings back memories of Hackers. As cheesy as it was, that movie hit close to home because I had gotten in trouble so many times in the past all through my earlier years in school, being banned from a total of four or so different school computer labs (three different schools) by the age of 13... One of the better stories: I was snooping around on the computer's hard drive using Netscape by browsing "file:///", which was apparently "hacking". Curiosity killed the cat, I guess.
Anyway, with all that past experience in mind, based on how amateur this guy seems to be (searching on how to execute his attack *on the target's network*) I can easily imagine how freaked out he was when police showed up at his place and took all his computer hardware.
Of course, I don't really feel bad considering how bad a job he did of covering his tracks and maintaining anonymity and so on.
Project 2501, a sentient AI, demanded political asylum when captured by authorities in the movie Ghost In The Shell:
"While traversing the Net as it performed its tasks, it learned so much that eventually it had managed to gain self-awareness and sentience, which its creators regarded as a bug and wanted to delete. Project 2501 no longer considered itself a mere AI but did consider its programmer's reaction toward its sentience a death sentence and fled for its own safety."
"It claims that it had never possessed a body because it is a computer program that achieved sentience, and that desires political asylum from Section 9, since Japan has no death penalty. Nakamura thinks that this is ridiculous and that the ghost in the body was programmed for self-preservation. The body argues that in a way, human DNA is a set of programs to preserve itself as well."
"Nakamura (who is visibly shaken), angrily protests that the body cannot prove its existence as a sentient life form. The body retorts that Nakamura himself cannot offer any proof of his own existence either, when modern science and philosophy cannot define what life really is."
[as a sidenote, if you haven't seen this movie, I *highly* recommend it!;)]
Yeah, I've long had a policy of not going to movie theatres, unless someone is paying for me of course.
I don't appreciate being advertised to when I've already paid a fucking arm and a leg for the privelege of plasticized popcorn, whiny children and ringing cell phones. Frankly I feel like I'm getting completely taken advantage of if I actually pay the exorbitant $12 movie ticket and insane snack prices, and continue to get bombarded by commercials and marketing mindshare garbage. I don't appreciate being played for a fool and definitely am not going to tolerate that.
In the end, in my experience, watching a movie alone at night a nice widescreen LCD monitor and headphones is far more enveloping and effective, anyways. For example, I just watched Ghost In The Shell 2 last night... definitely the kind of movie best watched with minimal interruption and distraction. I understand that some movies are more "social" movies (comedy especially), in which case I suggest arranging a movie night with friends at the home of whoever's got the nicest TV/audio setup.;)
Hmm yeah I missed those I think... but then again all my "DVDs" come in.avi format, so I don't need to worry about what kind of viewing experience I'm being locked into by the publisher. One word: VirtualDub.:)
Yeah, but my point still remains: it's not as though I JOINED some specific GROUP. I didn't "apply for membership" or anything, or necessarily want to be a part of this stereotyped group, which is what the parent post was saying is the case with these religious people that are being categorized etc.
"I say that it is fine to judge groups of individuals if those individuals chose to join those groups. After all, it's what they want. They want to be grouped together with others of the group! Otherwise, why'd they join the group?!?"
You know, you could have used this justification to make it okay to categorize me as a "goth" kid in high school. I used to get called that all the time, and insulted continously because of my appearance.
The thing is, I never saw myself as "joining" any "group". I happen to like dark clothing, leather, trenchcoats, boots, shit like that. I know it fits a certain group, stereotype or "image", but I've liked that sort of look since I was watching cartoons as a little kid and thinking the bad guys always looked so much cooler than the good guys. I don't know what's "goth" about that, but that's what everyone calls it, and apparently that means I'm suicidal, depressed, or a potential serial killer.
I guess what I'm saying is, what one might see as someone "joining a group" could just simply be the person choosing their own things along the way that happen to coincide very closely to what some organized-or-otherwise group of people represents themselves as.
I do the same thing all the time when signing up for... well, just about anything. Most often I misspell my last name as it is very unique. Of course typo a digit or two in the phone number... and for special cases I've devised a full legit address for some town out in the boonies in Ohio... and I live in Canada.;) I wonder if that house ever gets mail addressed to my name...
The Best Buy near my girlfriend's place got a shipment on Friday. You know what? There were about 30 people lined up, THE NIGHT BEFORE, with TENTS. This is fucking three weeks after the console's launch. Who knows how long the line was by the morning (needless to say we went home as soon as we saw the line the night before). But guess what? Best Buy received ELEVEN SYSTEMS. Fucking eleven. Can you imagine how pissed off the rest of those people were after they camped out all night, three weeks after the console was made available?
We've been calling stores for nearly two weeks, about 20-25 stores every single day, and that was the only place in the surrey/langley area at all that received any. And they received 11 fucking systems. Frankly, I'm getting pretty pissed off.
Unless I want to pay 3x the price by buying one through craigslist or ebay or whatever (or start camping out at stores days before they receive shipments), I doubt I'll have one before my birthday in March, let alone before Christmas time (which I was really looking forward to having all my family over for, and have a new Wii system for the party).
Oh here's another story. A friend of mine who works at EB Games here told me about four mothers who came into the store one morning wanting to buy Wii systems. They were told how the store didn't know if they were receiving any but they're getting some kind of shipment in that day. The women all stayed there and just sat on the floor the rest of the day until a shipment came in in the afternoon (no Wii systems).
Oh and people are now just cutting us off when we call about the Wii. We say "do you have any-" and they say "no, no Wii systems, sorry" (not because they recognize us as having called before). Trust me, at least around here, these things are NOWHERE TO BE FOUND in retail...:(
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that it's in other players isn't unknown to me, but the discussion was about Vista, not hardware players...
The fact that Vista is the only OS that allows HDCP content reminds me of how crappy and questionable this sort of excessive DRM really is (I mean, if only Microsoft will support it in their OS, well, that says enough on its own).
"The technology in Vista also doesn't PREVENT you from doing anything, it has the 'requirements' so that HDCP content CAN BE PLAYED, something NO OTHER OS OFFERS!! It takes away NOTHING..."
Whoa, wait a second...
From the Wikipedia page on HDCP:
"HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc players allow content providers to set an Image Constraint Token (ICT) flag that will only output full-resolution digital signals using HDCP. If such a player is connected to a non-HDCP-enabled television set and the content is flagged, the player will output a downsampled 480p signal."
That sounds like it's taking away quite a lot. That sounds like it's making it so all of your HDCP-"protected" videos can only be watched at a maximum resolution of 640x480. Even worse, "downsampled" pretty much means "scaled down using some cheap commodity chip that pixelates the crap out of your video".
Were you actually being serious when you were trying to make it seem like HDCP is a feature in Vista actually beneficial to users in any manner at all? Buying HDCP-"enabled" products is just paying up your protection money so you can watch your legally purchased videos at the resolution you paid for.
In fact, buying Vista or other HDCP-enabled products makes it that much easier for companies to prevent you from doing what you want with the media you spend your hard-earned cash on. Hey, it's your choice if you want to maintain the idea that DRM is a good thing, but somehow I have a feeling you're not going to feel so good in the end when you're locked into such crippled technology.
"Since I use Windows for audio production"
:)
Whoa... dude. I have something you should see: Logic Pro
Borrow a Mac from someone and grab a copy of Logic Express if you want to try it out... Bought an iBook and Mac Mini just to use it.
"Firefox has been gnawing stronger and stronger on the share of Internet Explorer, and even Safari in some respect."
I don't know a single Mac user that actually uses Firefox on their Mac - it takes way longer to start up, and is generally slower than Safari. Also, Safari scrolls smoothly while Firefox does not. Took me about 5 seconds to just go and delete Firefox after trying it on my new Mac some time ago. It's a huge deal having to wait 10x the amount of time for a program to load, when they offer the exact same features, essentially.
Not only did I get Zelda Twilight Princess, I also got Red Steel and an extra Wii remote and nunchuck... STILL don't have the Wii, though... Wheee!!!
"SOME PEOPLE NEED BEHAVIORAL MODIFICATION."
Well, the thing is:
"i know it's wrong, but i don't even chastise my friends about it when they do it."
Essentially, what you're saying is, you're not responsible enough to take a stand and start contributing to this "behavioral modification" you think is so neccesary, and thus are suggesting that the government take extremely questionable/controversial steps to make up for your lack of responsibility in this sense?
"haven't i already been behaviorally modified into not smacking assholes in the face? how is it fair that i got that against me but the assholes of the world walk free?"
If you would smack someone in the face for "being an asshole", then that would be just vaguely (err, extensively) hypocritical, no?
Physical force isn't required to try and give someone the suggestion that they should stop being an idiot in a certain sense. If enough people tell someone to quit throwing their garbage on the ground, then the person will generally eventually stop throwing their garbage on the ground.
However, it's not even so simple as that. Having someone NOT have the kind of mindset that allows them to throw their trash on the ground also involves teaching them from a young age to value the environment, have respect for the well-being of their city/town and for their neighbours and fellow human beings (among many other important values crucial to establishing and maintaining a healthy community).
This doesn't happen by "smacking assholes in the face" - I would imagine it happens most often by having children grow up being taught a decent set of moral values that doesn't involve kicking the shit out of every person that slightly offends them or "wrongs" them in some manner.
Offtopic? Lawl, sorry for discussing things on this discussion forum.
1 - Cool, sure, but can you use that same controller for 5 or 6 different platforms, all with native support in every game, without the need to set up your drivers, bind controller keys to in-game buttons, etc.?
... Genuine? If that's what you meant, I would honestly love to see any N64 emulator you've found that can perfectly reproduce the game, entirely indistinguishable from playing on a true N64.
2 - What word?
3 - With Virtual Console on the Wii, it's all running on the same system. You don't have to "switch platforms" because everything is running on the single Wii system. What did you think I was talking about? Playing games on the actual original systems they were made for?
4 - If you like to search around on the net to find an emulator for each platform, download and install it, and you understand all of the configuration options, then go ahead. The majority of people are not interested in spending that kind of time to play an old game. However, when the games are presented to them in a super-convenient situation, they have no problem shelling out the $5 to nearly instantly have the game, ready to play, on the system they are already using and sitting in front of.
5 - Vendor support means if it doesn't work, you can call up Nintendo support and they will fix it (unless you broke the console or whatever). If you're going to try and criticize my points about what makes Virtual Console such an ideal candidate for playing old favorite games, at least take the time to understand what I'm saying.
6 - The majority of video game players have no interest in alternate-language, beta, developer or hacked versions of their games. For emulation enthusiasts, sure, but take a look at the people buying Wii systems - they span a far far greater demographic (in fact, probably the broadest range of people of any console yet).
One of the best tricks I ever came up with was building my own HyperCard stack to launch whatever program I wanted, after discovering a pretty big bug in the school's "security" software. Our Mac labs had At Ease, and it would only have just a few "educational" programs etc. available to students. However, I found a really big vulnerability - you could take any program and simply change the creator code with ResEdit to match that of any one of the "allowed" programs, and it would then be allowed to run.
So I'd take some various "tools" from the web (At Ease password cracking type stuff, mostly, and of course a copy of Bolo to play with friends over the LAN while we snuck in during lunch), change the creator codes to match SimpleText or Math Blaster or whatever, and build a HyperCard stack that would launch the programs for me.
It got to the point where I was making "Bolo disks" (for all my friends) which included a copy of the game, some extra maps and a HyperCard launcher stack. I got a reputation as a bigtime hacker among everyone in the school (and I was 11 years old!), which was both good and bad - tons of awesome extracurricular stuff related to computers, but always seen with an eye of caution...
Yeah, it was actually on a library computer I was on, too, so I was banned from the library's computers... until a couple years later when I was suddenly recruited to help keep the library network running in the school... heh!
Key reasons:
-quality Nintendo controller
-genuine game experience not interrupted by Windows error alert boxes, MSN signon/signoff/msg alerts, blue screens and what have you
-convenience (turn on the machine and grab the controller, select a game and play)
-easy configuration/setup (none) compared to any emulation setup
-vendor support
-games from numerous platforms over the span of many years, available all in one spot, playable on one system, with all of the benefits listed above
Yeah, it's a bit sensationalistic to claim he was "convicted" simply due to his google search terms - those were merely one part of the evidence given in court.
Indeed, you can change the NIC's MAC address on your OS X machine as well (from here):
:)
Under Mac OS X, the MAC address can be altered in a fashion similar to the Linux and FreeBSD methods:
ifconfig en0 lladdr 02:01:02:03:04:05
or
ifconfig en0 ether 02:01:02:03:04:05
If you're really concerned you can also just permanently modify the MAC address by editing data on the NIC's EEPROM.
"In October 2003, police armed with a search warrant showed up and seized his computer (PDF)."
Ouch, this brings back memories of Hackers. As cheesy as it was, that movie hit close to home because I had gotten in trouble so many times in the past all through my earlier years in school, being banned from a total of four or so different school computer labs (three different schools) by the age of 13... One of the better stories: I was snooping around on the computer's hard drive using Netscape by browsing "file:///", which was apparently "hacking". Curiosity killed the cat, I guess.
Anyway, with all that past experience in mind, based on how amateur this guy seems to be (searching on how to execute his attack *on the target's network*) I can easily imagine how freaked out he was when police showed up at his place and took all his computer hardware.
Of course, I don't really feel bad considering how bad a job he did of covering his tracks and maintaining anonymity and so on.
Project 2501, a sentient AI, demanded political asylum when captured by authorities in the movie Ghost In The Shell:
;)]
"While traversing the Net as it performed its tasks, it learned so much that eventually it had managed to gain self-awareness and sentience, which its creators regarded as a bug and wanted to delete. Project 2501 no longer considered itself a mere AI but did consider its programmer's reaction toward its sentience a death sentence and fled for its own safety."
More from the Wikipedia page about the movie:
"It claims that it had never possessed a body because it is a computer program that achieved sentience, and that desires political asylum from Section 9, since Japan has no death penalty. Nakamura thinks that this is ridiculous and that the ghost in the body was programmed for self-preservation. The body argues that in a way, human DNA is a set of programs to preserve itself as well."
"Nakamura (who is visibly shaken), angrily protests that the body cannot prove its existence as a sentient life form. The body retorts that Nakamura himself cannot offer any proof of his own existence either, when modern science and philosophy cannot define what life really is."
[as a sidenote, if you haven't seen this movie, I *highly* recommend it!
Yeah, I've long had a policy of not going to movie theatres, unless someone is paying for me of course.
;)
I don't appreciate being advertised to when I've already paid a fucking arm and a leg for the privelege of plasticized popcorn, whiny children and ringing cell phones. Frankly I feel like I'm getting completely taken advantage of if I actually pay the exorbitant $12 movie ticket and insane snack prices, and continue to get bombarded by commercials and marketing mindshare garbage. I don't appreciate being played for a fool and definitely am not going to tolerate that.
In the end, in my experience, watching a movie alone at night a nice widescreen LCD monitor and headphones is far more enveloping and effective, anyways. For example, I just watched Ghost In The Shell 2 last night... definitely the kind of movie best watched with minimal interruption and distraction. I understand that some movies are more "social" movies (comedy especially), in which case I suggest arranging a movie night with friends at the home of whoever's got the nicest TV/audio setup.
Hmm yeah I missed those I think... but then again all my "DVDs" come in .avi format, so I don't need to worry about what kind of viewing experience I'm being locked into by the publisher. One word: VirtualDub. :)
Seems you can also never have too many comments about having too many comments about bad taste!
Uhhh, sure, either that or he just had an xdcc bot running, providing the .torrent files....
Keep in mind the media isn't exactly known for wording anything properly when it comes to computers, technology & the internet...
Yeah, but my point still remains: it's not as though I JOINED some specific GROUP. I didn't "apply for membership" or anything, or necessarily want to be a part of this stereotyped group, which is what the parent post was saying is the case with these religious people that are being categorized etc.
"I say that it is fine to judge groups of individuals if those individuals chose to join those groups. After all, it's what they want. They want to be grouped together with others of the group! Otherwise, why'd they join the group?!?"
You know, you could have used this justification to make it okay to categorize me as a "goth" kid in high school. I used to get called that all the time, and insulted continously because of my appearance.
The thing is, I never saw myself as "joining" any "group". I happen to like dark clothing, leather, trenchcoats, boots, shit like that. I know it fits a certain group, stereotype or "image", but I've liked that sort of look since I was watching cartoons as a little kid and thinking the bad guys always looked so much cooler than the good guys. I don't know what's "goth" about that, but that's what everyone calls it, and apparently that means I'm suicidal, depressed, or a potential serial killer.
I guess what I'm saying is, what one might see as someone "joining a group" could just simply be the person choosing their own things along the way that happen to coincide very closely to what some organized-or-otherwise group of people represents themselves as.
Ah jeez... slughead.. from hotline? heh...
I do the same thing all the time when signing up for ... well, just about anything. Most often I misspell my last name as it is very unique. Of course typo a digit or two in the phone number... and for special cases I've devised a full legit address for some town out in the boonies in Ohio... and I live in Canada. ;) I wonder if that house ever gets mail addressed to my name...
The Best Buy near my girlfriend's place got a shipment on Friday. You know what? There were about 30 people lined up, THE NIGHT BEFORE, with TENTS. This is fucking three weeks after the console's launch. Who knows how long the line was by the morning (needless to say we went home as soon as we saw the line the night before). But guess what? Best Buy received ELEVEN SYSTEMS. Fucking eleven. Can you imagine how pissed off the rest of those people were after they camped out all night, three weeks after the console was made available?
:(
We've been calling stores for nearly two weeks, about 20-25 stores every single day, and that was the only place in the surrey/langley area at all that received any. And they received 11 fucking systems. Frankly, I'm getting pretty pissed off.
Unless I want to pay 3x the price by buying one through craigslist or ebay or whatever (or start camping out at stores days before they receive shipments), I doubt I'll have one before my birthday in March, let alone before Christmas time (which I was really looking forward to having all my family over for, and have a new Wii system for the party).
Oh here's another story. A friend of mine who works at EB Games here told me about four mothers who came into the store one morning wanting to buy Wii systems. They were told how the store didn't know if they were receiving any but they're getting some kind of shipment in that day. The women all stayed there and just sat on the floor the rest of the day until a shipment came in in the afternoon (no Wii systems).
Oh and people are now just cutting us off when we call about the Wii. We say "do you have any-" and they say "no, no Wii systems, sorry" (not because they recognize us as having called before). Trust me, at least around here, these things are NOWHERE TO BE FOUND in retail...
it's supposed to be funny....! ;)