Date: the year 2250. Scenario: Ship on re-entry orbit to earth.
Officer: "Captain, you're not going to believe this, but we were just passed by a paper airplane...."
(I know, I know, even if it ended up in orbit, the orbit would have degraded in that much time, but I'd still like to see the expression on the guy's face when he sees it fly by the viewscreen."
Yes; I think in broad strokes your platform is pretty good. Unfortunately, the way it actually works out based on good intentions is often not so rosy -- this is why most of the world just wants the US to butt out, except for some parts of the world that want to use American gifts to gain an unfair local advantage.
This is an issue that plagues many charitable organizations. General consensus these days is that the most effective way to help others is to provide guidance and teaching tools to natives to the area, and empower them in spearheading the infrastructure improvement themselves.
You might want to avoid sending in seeds, as that can do more to destroy an area than guns and tanks ever could (Especially if they're Monsanto seeds). Instead, send in people to teach the locals how to take care of their land in a more responsible way and leverage local underutilized crops.
Believe me... sending in seeds could turn a struggling area into a wasteland in short order, as the seeds wreak havoc on the local ecology and the locals misuse them (including killing each other over them).
Knowing six languages on a beginners level isn't as good as knowing one ot two in-depth.
And, of course, that depends on what you see yourself doing. As someone who has to review a lot of code written by others but doesn't have to write much from scratch myself, I'm glad I know 6 languages at a beginners level AND one or two in-depth.
Of course, other than the memory management issues, "knowing a language" doesn't mean much -- as long as you know a few paradigms, any language should be easy to pick up. The trick is learning the development libraries being used wherever you plan to work.
If you're going after the Java jobs, you will be replaceable. Sure there are a lot of them right now, but the learning curve isn't all that high, so the jobs can be easily outsourced. Being the one person who can actually sit down, scrap all the Java code and write something dependable in C and ASM for specific hardware will bring you job security and a higher income.
The main thing to remember is that you have never arrived. You'll have to keep learning after you've left University; the school education just gives you a standardized jumping-off point.
Currently, pediatricians are calling for autism screening to be standardized and performed at 18 and 24 months of age. However, there is no current standard for testing or for the age to test.
Taking screening at 24 months (autism can take up to 19 months or so before it becomes evident), that means the test is using 6 years of data -- 6 years during which the testing times for screening autism have changed and the tests themselves have changed. This means that a lot of children who would not have been flagged as having autistic tendencies prior to 2001 (when the test results would have begun being relevant) are now found. Added to this, in 2001 I believe the age for testing was closer to 3 years, which means the data is not as useful there either.
Based on the above, we should be finding that the number of reported infant cases has increased over the past 9 years -- the fact that it hasn't seems to me to point to a drop in actual cases of autism.
In another 5 years we will probably have enough data to make a conclusive statement; right now the margin of error is still quite significant.
Right up to the moment they use an undelete tool on your laptop and find the formerly uninstalled encryption program on your hard drive....
I think you missed the point... TrueCrypt allows you to hide an encrypted volume in the same filespace as another innocuous encrypted volume. TrueCrypt can also run as a portable app... no registry entries etc; you can run the entire thing off of a USB drive or SD card. Of course, there will still be visible data in the OS's pagefiles....
The other trick TrueCrypt uses is that it doesn't leave recognizable headers, so you could have 10 truecrypt files with innocuous names hidden within other files, and unless you know they're there, there is no way to identify them. Use a standard TrueCrypt archive and the TrueCrypt software to store your home computer inventory or something similar, and you can show this to anyone who wonders why you've got an encrypted partition on your drive/USB drive.
Of course, as I mentioned elsewhere, the best way to go about this is to have a multilayer truecrypt drive file named DSCINDEX.TOC and store it on the SD card you keep in your digital camera. Such files are generally treated as junk files, and an examination of the file would make it look like junk... unless you tried to mount it with TrueCrypt after mounting the card on your computer desktop.
Probably easier just to use TrueCrypt to encrypt your laptop drive at the drive level though, and have two passwords to reveal two different sets of data. That way your pagefile will be encrypted too, and the only way to analyze the sensitive data would be to read the RAM chips with a special device. Of course, an examiner could still accidentally erase your real data while examining the device, which would be a shame.
Store your sensitive information in a truecrypt volume on your camera's SD card. Name the truecrypt volume DSCINDEX.TOC if you want a bit more security. In order for anyone to find the data, they'd have to:
1. remove your SD card from your digital camera and stick it in a computer, 2. notice that you have a 2GB index file, 3. recognize (somehow) that it is a truecrypt volume, 4. get you to enter the password that opens the hidden volume instead of the default innocuous volume.
There's lead in the keyboard, toxic flame retardants and antimony in the circuit boards, cadmium in the battery and the chips, all wrapped up in a casing of plastic that will release more deadly substances - furans and dioxins - when it's burned. I'm surprised customs hasn't taken this approach to confiscating technology yet.
You seem to be conflating infringement with copying. In this case, copying is the active verb, just as speeding is in your example. There is no question that copying has taken place; the issue is that no laws have been infringed/violated by that copying.
What we really need is an extra verb to describe the act of unauthorized copying (or maybe just use unauthorized copying) so as not to confuse it with either authorized copying or copying that infringes copyright. There is no question that "fair use" copying is unauthorized; it just doesn't happen to be infringement or in violation of the law (see quote from appropriate copyright law by NewYorkCountyLawyer above).
You do realize that the first person who rebutted this argument of yours is a copyright lawyer, don't you?
See http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=407182&cid=21937454
Fair Use IS NOT infringement. Yes, it is a defense to AN ACCUSATION OF INFRINGEMENT, but the court gets to decide if you actually infringed, and if you can claim fair use as a defense and it passes examination, you are not accused of infringement. Until the case is decided, you are not guilty, therefore there has been no legal infringement, just accusations of infringement.
This is why I prefer the word violation to infringement -- you are only in violation if the findings say so; without the law, there is no such thing as copyright in the first place to violate.
I can guess that someone's going to counter with "if you shoplift but didn't get caught, you still shoplifted" -- but dealing with information is not the same as dealing with property.
Wait until some breakthrough artist figures out they no longer need to be beholden to the record labels for their livelihoods.
Actually, artists have a limited choice -- the big this is: wait until some breakthrough recording studio figures out that they no longer need to be beholden to the record labels for their livelihoods. THEN we'll see a revolution in music distribution.
Just imagine -- a recording studio that will give you access to high quality recording and post-production tools, AND will handle your international distribution and publicity, completely side-stepping the labels. There are a few mid-size indie labels that operate somewhat along these lines, but all you really need for music distribution are the artists, the performers (usually the artists, although studio musicians also play a part), the recording studios and a recognizable internet presence.
Studios could even modify their recording contracts so that some of the costs to the artists would be offset by website advertising, and the studio takes a (small) cut of every song sold through their site. This gives the studio impetus for doing a good job on the post-production, but also lets artists eat the cost when necessary.
An interesting thing about MacPorts: it actually has software in it that has a native Aqua front end and installs into the Applications folder.
A while ago I installed the complete KDE package onto OS X, and found that I could actually connect to it via X, completely bypassing Aqua. All the terminal apps from the BSD subsystem and MacPorts were available from Konsole. I could even launch.app executables under Aqua from within Konqueror.
But I digress. What I meant to say is that anyone who wants to can submit a project to MacPorts and have it install via the ports system -- I've found a number of OSS OS X Aqua apps that way that I now use every day.
I do have a question -- the people who go back to Linux because OS X isn't developer friendly -- do you do the same thing with BSD OSes? I ask because I got fed up with the depth of non standardization in Linux and tend to stick to the BSD world where I know how config files are set up and where things will be stored. I still use Debian, but I don't develop anything new for it.
Speaking of that, a number of the packages I use on Debian aren't in a repository, and I have to config and compile them from scratch when I want to upgrade. On OS X, I can usually find a binary that I just have to copy to my HD.
So, the only things OS X is really missing from the linux world are: the kernel, GNOME and anything tied too tightly to either of those or to a specific Linux distro.
Of course, I'd love it if GNUStep would somehow merge with KDE/Qt and I could easily port OS X source code to a Linux environment that people actually use.
The plaintiff's argument in the case is that Apple had to actively disable WMA, which is what they consider to be a problem. However as WMA is not an industry standard and Apple had no license to use it, this argument doesn't hold water. Inventing random DRM schemes and suing because they aren't supported is a completely separate category of idiocy.
Once you buy something from the iTunes store you are locked into Apple's product. You are locked into Apple's product much the same way you are with Win32 software. The only difference is that there are equivalents for everything outside the (Apple) reservation.
Wrong. As the parent stated, all data you use with an iPod/from the iTunes store can be converted to any other commonly available format (including WMA). Sometimes it is just a two-step process. It isn't a question of equivalency, it is a question of using data you own. The scenario is more akin to opening your DRM'd WMA files -- they can't easily be converted into another format, but can be played in their current form on 1 OS and most portable media players. Or MS Word documents -- which often can't even be opened correctly by MS Word.
The barrier is not as bad but it's still there.
There is a barrier, but it is not the one you outline above. Basicly, Apple products will not play documents DRM'd by Microsoft software. That's it.
An iPod still has the same "we will screw around with your freedom of choice tomorrow" situation going on as Windows does.
How so? As the parent said, you can convert all your files, and choose to use them with another device in the future. Conversion isn't as convenient as it could be, but that's life.
Novice hostile workarounds don't count as "restoring free choice" here.
I hope you're not calling burning & ripping a hostile workaround -- it is documented on Apple's website as an approved workaround, and is also included in the help files in iTunes.
If an engineer (of the genuine licensed vareity) sees this as an exit barrier then it's an exit barriers.
So... if another licensed engineer says it isn't a barrier to exit, does that mean it suddenly isn't anymore? How about a licensed doctor? After all, you can't get a PEng in law (or Business or Computing Science for that matter) as far as I know.
DRM'd WMA and WMV have barriers to exit -- they CAN'T be converted to other formats by legal means. DRM'd AAC can be. Not to mention that Apple sells DRM-free versions of some of its offering.
To add to the thought puzzle: Does a gasoline-based automobile have exit barriers? Yes, but these are easily overcome. It IS possible to get alternative modes of transportation, even if you have to resort to walking.
Does breathing air have an exit barrier? Depends on how you look at it....
To be fair, iTunes *can* be configured to convert MP3s to AACs on the fly. It can also be configured to do the opposite, if you would rather have all your music in MP3 format. This, of course, doesn't apply to DRM'd tracks.
I think what all the bashers have continually tried to do is associate the first A in AAC with Apple (Apple Audio Codec) -- when we all SHOULD know that AAC is a public format included in MPEG-4 -- and Dolby holds the patents. This is probably why Apple tags AAC files as.m4a instead of.aac, to drive home the point that this is MPEG-4 Audio, not some Apple codec like Apple Lossless.
Windows media player used to support quicktime.
The support was removed in some service pack (windows 9x time I think) IIRC because apple sued them over it or something.
...and Apple, not wanting the reverse suit that would be brought by MS, isn't supporting Windows Media.
Gadgets ship with such "disabled" capabilities all the time. IC suppliers want to have the broadest possible market, but gadget manufacturers won't pay royalties for features that they don't think will affect their sales.
So... what you're saying is that we should really be filing a class action suit against the USPTO for artificially restricting use of existing technology;)
This suit has merit because you can't use any other MP3 player to download music from ITMS. If you could, then it wouldn't have merit. But since the music I pay for isn't portable to whatever device I use, it makes them a monopoly due to their market share. Same argument you bitches used against MS. Hope they win:)
Just so you know: you can't use an iPod to download music from iTMS either. You use iTunes, which is available for OS X and Windows. As you can download DRM-free AAC audio from iTMS, it can indeed be installed on any audio player that supports drive mode. Only DRM'd tracks can't be played on a non-Apple portable player. Instead, you have to burn them to (rewriteable) CD, re-rip them in a DRM-free format, and THEN install them to the player. Sure, not all tracks are DRM-free, but that's up to the record studio, not Apple.
The nice, simple and cool alternative is if iPods were mp3-enabled. No DRM. Songs from any source can be used, except of few chosen ones that use DRM;)
I agree! We need a portable digital audio player that can do this! Like, say, EVERY SINGLE iPOD EVER MADE. The DRM is in the iTunes store, not the iPod. iPods can play MP3 just fine, as well as DRM-free AAC, Apple Lossless, and a number of other audio formats. The lawsuit is arguing that Apple DRM is the only DRM the iPods will decode; they won't decode Corporation X's scheme.
In order for this to be an issue at all, there needs to be a DRM scheme that is an open standard. Currently there isn't, so the lawsuit has exactly 0 legs to stand on. Apple decided to create their own DRM instead of licensing and implementing the DRM of a convicted monopolist who tends to randomly deprecate their old DRM products. The only thing Apple has a monopoly on is DRMed tracks on their music system. Apple sells DRM-free music, and DRM-free music from anywhere else can also be loaded on an iPod in a number of industry standard formats.
That said, I don't own an iPod as it doesn't have the feature set I want. I have no problems with Apple's iPod/iTS product offering though. It might be anticompetitive, but it isn't illegal and it definitely is not monopolistic. That'd be like saying Apple iMacs are monopolistic because they won't play DRM'd WMV files.
-I was flat broke out of work.... I do not use drugs, am not interested at all in recreational drugs. A friend of that time though was, and sold me some cocaine.
One of those sentences does not belong. However, you're probably right about the cocaine being cheaper, as pharma companies have just as big a cartel going as the illegal dealers, with less overhead to deal with "government oversight". Thank goodness most first world countries have subsidized medicare and put caps on drug prices.
Being able to print 2-dimensional, 3-dimensional, or even n-dimensional barcodes is useless no matter what software you have unless you already possess the inside info of knowing somebody's valid account number, data, etc. If somebody's gotten a hold of enough info to successfully print and use an illicit barcode, your security problem lies NOT with the barcode itself but with the system that allowed this information to get out in the first place.
The same situation exists with magnetic stripes. If you have valid account data you can write it to a magnetic stripe on a card and go to town with it. It's getting the data that's the hard part.
The problem with barcodes is that they contain *visible* data.
With a mag card you need to know a few things: the database format the card is linked to (same as barcode) _and_ the data encoded on the mag stripe. The last piece of information you need to obtain using a card reader at close range.
With a bar code, you can obtain the data via camera from anywhere line-of-sight with the bar code. Thus, bar codes are more closely related to RFID tags (but with easier readability/forgeability and longer range) than to mag stripe cards.
* You don't have a proper appreciation of how much or how little you are reading. Some people might think it's a plus, but other people need to manage their time more carefully.
* It's not as easy to take notes in e-books. So most books that require deep thought and pondering are out of the question.
Those are disadvantages to your particular e-book reader, not the concept of digital storage and retrieval of texts.
My e-book reader makes it very easy to make annotations (just tap where I want the annotation, enter the note, hit OK, and I'm done -- I can even cross reference), and it tracks my reading time, estimates how long it will take me to reach the end of the current text, has a progress bar, and keeps a log of when I've read my various texts. Can't do any of that with a paper book without doing it manually.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, taken from the other side, that would be a GOOD reason for the FBI to want to cover up its (illegal and misguided) involvement.
Date: the year 2250.
Scenario: Ship on re-entry orbit to earth.
Officer: "Captain, you're not going to believe this, but we were just passed by a paper airplane...."
(I know, I know, even if it ended up in orbit, the orbit would have degraded in that much time, but I'd still like to see the expression on the guy's face when he sees it fly by the viewscreen."
Yes; I think in broad strokes your platform is pretty good. Unfortunately, the way it actually works out based on good intentions is often not so rosy -- this is why most of the world just wants the US to butt out, except for some parts of the world that want to use American gifts to gain an unfair local advantage.
This is an issue that plagues many charitable organizations. General consensus these days is that the most effective way to help others is to provide guidance and teaching tools to natives to the area, and empower them in spearheading the infrastructure improvement themselves.
You might want to avoid sending in seeds, as that can do more to destroy an area than guns and tanks ever could (Especially if they're Monsanto seeds). Instead, send in people to teach the locals how to take care of their land in a more responsible way and leverage local underutilized crops.
Believe me... sending in seeds could turn a struggling area into a wasteland in short order, as the seeds wreak havoc on the local ecology and the locals misuse them (including killing each other over them).
And, of course, that depends on what you see yourself doing. As someone who has to review a lot of code written by others but doesn't have to write much from scratch myself, I'm glad I know 6 languages at a beginners level AND one or two in-depth.
Of course, other than the memory management issues, "knowing a language" doesn't mean much -- as long as you know a few paradigms, any language should be easy to pick up. The trick is learning the development libraries being used wherever you plan to work.
If you're going after the Java jobs, you will be replaceable. Sure there are a lot of them right now, but the learning curve isn't all that high, so the jobs can be easily outsourced. Being the one person who can actually sit down, scrap all the Java code and write something dependable in C and ASM for specific hardware will bring you job security and a higher income.
The main thing to remember is that you have never arrived. You'll have to keep learning after you've left University; the school education just gives you a standardized jumping-off point.
Currently, pediatricians are calling for autism screening to be standardized and performed at 18 and 24 months of age. However, there is no current standard for testing or for the age to test.
Taking screening at 24 months (autism can take up to 19 months or so before it becomes evident), that means the test is using 6 years of data -- 6 years during which the testing times for screening autism have changed and the tests themselves have changed. This means that a lot of children who would not have been flagged as having autistic tendencies prior to 2001 (when the test results would have begun being relevant) are now found. Added to this, in 2001 I believe the age for testing was closer to 3 years, which means the data is not as useful there either.
Based on the above, we should be finding that the number of reported infant cases has increased over the past 9 years -- the fact that it hasn't seems to me to point to a drop in actual cases of autism.
In another 5 years we will probably have enough data to make a conclusive statement; right now the margin of error is still quite significant.
I think you missed the point... TrueCrypt allows you to hide an encrypted volume in the same filespace as another innocuous encrypted volume. TrueCrypt can also run as a portable app... no registry entries etc; you can run the entire thing off of a USB drive or SD card. Of course, there will still be visible data in the OS's pagefiles....
The other trick TrueCrypt uses is that it doesn't leave recognizable headers, so you could have 10 truecrypt files with innocuous names hidden within other files, and unless you know they're there, there is no way to identify them. Use a standard TrueCrypt archive and the TrueCrypt software to store your home computer inventory or something similar, and you can show this to anyone who wonders why you've got an encrypted partition on your drive/USB drive.
Of course, as I mentioned elsewhere, the best way to go about this is to have a multilayer truecrypt drive file named DSCINDEX.TOC and store it on the SD card you keep in your digital camera. Such files are generally treated as junk files, and an examination of the file would make it look like junk... unless you tried to mount it with TrueCrypt after mounting the card on your computer desktop.
Probably easier just to use TrueCrypt to encrypt your laptop drive at the drive level though, and have two passwords to reveal two different sets of data. That way your pagefile will be encrypted too, and the only way to analyze the sensitive data would be to read the RAM chips with a special device. Of course, an examiner could still accidentally erase your real data while examining the device, which would be a shame.
Store your sensitive information in a truecrypt volume on your camera's SD card. Name the truecrypt volume DSCINDEX.TOC if you want a bit more security. In order for anyone to find the data, they'd have to:
1. remove your SD card from your digital camera and stick it in a computer,
2. notice that you have a 2GB index file,
3. recognize (somehow) that it is a truecrypt volume,
4. get you to enter the password that opens the hidden volume instead of the default innocuous volume.
Hmm...
Taken from http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/science/toxic-tech.html If you have [an LCD monitor, it] contains phosphor, as well as mercury, a heavy metal that can damage the brain.
There's lead in the keyboard, toxic flame retardants and antimony in the circuit boards, cadmium in the battery and the chips, all wrapped up in a casing of plastic that will release more deadly substances - furans and dioxins - when it's burned. I'm surprised customs hasn't taken this approach to confiscating technology yet.
It's called TrueCrypt and is available for Windows, Linux and to some degree for OS X.
Main Features:
* Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk.
* Encrypts an entire hard disk partition or a storage device such as USB flash drive.
* Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.
* Provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password:
1) Hidden volume (steganography - more information may be found here).
2) No TrueCrypt volume can be identified (volumes cannot be distinguished from random data).
* Encryption algorithms: AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish. Mode of operation: LRW.
Further information regarding features of the software may be found in the documentation.
You seem to be conflating infringement with copying. In this case, copying is the active verb, just as speeding is in your example. There is no question that copying has taken place; the issue is that no laws have been infringed/violated by that copying.
What we really need is an extra verb to describe the act of unauthorized copying (or maybe just use unauthorized copying) so as not to confuse it with either authorized copying or copying that infringes copyright. There is no question that "fair use" copying is unauthorized; it just doesn't happen to be infringement or in violation of the law (see quote from appropriate copyright law by NewYorkCountyLawyer above).
You do realize that the first person who rebutted this argument of yours is a copyright lawyer, don't you?
See http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=407182&cid=21937454 Fair Use IS NOT infringement. Yes, it is a defense to AN ACCUSATION OF INFRINGEMENT, but the court gets to decide if you actually infringed, and if you can claim fair use as a defense and it passes examination, you are not accused of infringement. Until the case is decided, you are not guilty, therefore there has been no legal infringement, just accusations of infringement. This is why I prefer the word violation to infringement -- you are only in violation if the findings say so; without the law, there is no such thing as copyright in the first place to violate. I can guess that someone's going to counter with "if you shoplift but didn't get caught, you still shoplifted" -- but dealing with information is not the same as dealing with property.
Actually, artists have a limited choice -- the big this is: wait until some breakthrough recording studio figures out that they no longer need to be beholden to the record labels for their livelihoods. THEN we'll see a revolution in music distribution.
Just imagine -- a recording studio that will give you access to high quality recording and post-production tools, AND will handle your international distribution and publicity, completely side-stepping the labels. There are a few mid-size indie labels that operate somewhat along these lines, but all you really need for music distribution are the artists, the performers (usually the artists, although studio musicians also play a part), the recording studios and a recognizable internet presence.
Studios could even modify their recording contracts so that some of the costs to the artists would be offset by website advertising, and the studio takes a (small) cut of every song sold through their site. This gives the studio impetus for doing a good job on the post-production, but also lets artists eat the cost when necessary.
An interesting thing about MacPorts: it actually has software in it that has a native Aqua front end and installs into the Applications folder.
.app executables under Aqua from within Konqueror.
A while ago I installed the complete KDE package onto OS X, and found that I could actually connect to it via X, completely bypassing Aqua. All the terminal apps from the BSD subsystem and MacPorts were available from Konsole. I could even launch
But I digress. What I meant to say is that anyone who wants to can submit a project to MacPorts and have it install via the ports system -- I've found a number of OSS OS X Aqua apps that way that I now use every day.
I do have a question -- the people who go back to Linux because OS X isn't developer friendly -- do you do the same thing with BSD OSes? I ask because I got fed up with the depth of non standardization in Linux and tend to stick to the BSD world where I know how config files are set up and where things will be stored. I still use Debian, but I don't develop anything new for it.
Speaking of that, a number of the packages I use on Debian aren't in a repository, and I have to config and compile them from scratch when I want to upgrade. On OS X, I can usually find a binary that I just have to copy to my HD.
So, the only things OS X is really missing from the linux world are: the kernel, GNOME and anything tied too tightly to either of those or to a specific Linux distro.
Of course, I'd love it if GNUStep would somehow merge with KDE/Qt and I could easily port OS X source code to a Linux environment that people actually use.
The plaintiff's argument in the case is that Apple had to actively disable WMA, which is what they consider to be a problem. However as WMA is not an industry standard and Apple had no license to use it, this argument doesn't hold water. Inventing random DRM schemes and suing because they aren't supported is a completely separate category of idiocy.
I think you'll find that it actually is.
Wrong. As the parent stated, all data you use with an iPod/from the iTunes store can be converted to any other commonly available format (including WMA). Sometimes it is just a two-step process. It isn't a question of equivalency, it is a question of using data you own. The scenario is more akin to opening your DRM'd WMA files -- they can't easily be converted into another format, but can be played in their current form on 1 OS and most portable media players. Or MS Word documents -- which often can't even be opened correctly by MS Word.
There is a barrier, but it is not the one you outline above. Basicly, Apple products will not play documents DRM'd by Microsoft software. That's it.
How so? As the parent said, you can convert all your files, and choose to use them with another device in the future. Conversion isn't as convenient as it could be, but that's life.
I hope you're not calling burning & ripping a hostile workaround -- it is documented on Apple's website as an approved workaround, and is also included in the help files in iTunes.
So... if another licensed engineer says it isn't a barrier to exit, does that mean it suddenly isn't anymore? How about a licensed doctor? After all, you can't get a PEng in law (or Business or Computing Science for that matter) as far as I know.
DRM'd WMA and WMV have barriers to exit -- they CAN'T be converted to other formats by legal means. DRM'd AAC can be. Not to mention that Apple sells DRM-free versions of some of its offering.
To add to the thought puzzle: Does a gasoline-based automobile have exit barriers? Yes, but these are easily overcome. It IS possible to get alternative modes of transportation, even if you have to resort to walking.
Does breathing air have an exit barrier? Depends on how you look at it....
I think what all the bashers have continually tried to do is associate the first A in AAC with Apple (Apple Audio Codec) -- when we all SHOULD know that AAC is a public format included in MPEG-4 -- and Dolby holds the patents. This is probably why Apple tags AAC files as .m4a instead of .aac, to drive home the point that this is MPEG-4 Audio, not some Apple codec like Apple Lossless.
In order for this to be an issue at all, there needs to be a DRM scheme that is an open standard. Currently there isn't, so the lawsuit has exactly 0 legs to stand on. Apple decided to create their own DRM instead of licensing and implementing the DRM of a convicted monopolist who tends to randomly deprecate their old DRM products. The only thing Apple has a monopoly on is DRMed tracks on their music system. Apple sells DRM-free music, and DRM-free music from anywhere else can also be loaded on an iPod in a number of industry standard formats.
That said, I don't own an iPod as it doesn't have the feature set I want. I have no problems with Apple's iPod/iTS product offering though. It might be anticompetitive, but it isn't illegal and it definitely is not monopolistic. That'd be like saying Apple iMacs are monopolistic because they won't play DRM'd WMV files.
The problem with barcodes is that they contain *visible* data.
With a mag card you need to know a few things: the database format the card is linked to (same as barcode) _and_ the data encoded on the mag stripe. The last piece of information you need to obtain using a card reader at close range.
With a bar code, you can obtain the data via camera from anywhere line-of-sight with the bar code. Thus, bar codes are more closely related to RFID tags (but with easier readability/forgeability and longer range) than to mag stripe cards.
Those are disadvantages to your particular e-book reader, not the concept of digital storage and retrieval of texts.
My e-book reader makes it very easy to make annotations (just tap where I want the annotation, enter the note, hit OK, and I'm done -- I can even cross reference), and it tracks my reading time, estimates how long it will take me to reach the end of the current text, has a progress bar, and keeps a log of when I've read my various texts. Can't do any of that with a paper book without doing it manually.