The problem with using the GPU is that, while the ABI isn't as open as on the x86 architecture, it's still possible for any software to read from and write to the GPU. This means that it is still possible to debug at the GPU level and intercept the key or the decryption stream there.
I see them using a slightly more intelligent approach: the keys of the future will dictate resolution. Software players will get 320x240 resolution; certified hardware will get HD. That's what I'd do, anyway.
In other words, the difference is between making key information difficult to understand how to use and withholding information necessary for use. In security through obscurity, all the information required is present, just not easy to understand. With withholding, you have to guess what the missing information might be.
100% true... I only went back to the late '90s as I generally think of Akira and a growing fansub base as being the tipping point.
Without the decade of VHS duping, there would have been no media base on which the later movements could build.
Then again, without the invention of VHS and the cheap dubbers that came out of the Porn industry's adoption of the technology, the VHS Anime scene would never have been possible...
I think this argument could be taken all the way back to "When I was young, this guy in the cave across from me stuck a pointy rock on the end of a stick, and used it to kill animals. Without that pointy stick, it is arguable that people would never have even survived long enough to have existed in North America."
Our poor enjoy a standard of living which rivals the middle class in many countries, not just third world shit holes.
This is true for a subset of "our poor" in the USA. It depends on which poor you talk about, and which "many countries" you talk about, as well as what metrics you use to measure "standard of living".
Our poor own homes, cars, TVs, AC, computers and have cable TV subscriptions.
False to all but the cable TV subscriptions. In the US, very few of the poor own anything, except debt. Those who are poor and actually own anything tend to work at least two jobs and have no time to enjoy the things they own, except the TV subscription. The US is run on deficit and debt, and eventually it will be called in, or just collapse, as it did in the 1930's. However, the next time it collapses, the rest of the world will be ready to fill the void left by the implosion.
The difference between the US and the rest of the world is that in most parts of the world, empires have risen, fallen, and risen again. People have a history complete with being subject to invading empires and being leaders in an invading empire. This gives perspective. In the US, there has been a single empire since "westernization", and history before that point is almost wiped out, due to the fact that culture and history was imported from the rest of the world, and then mostly forgotten in the melting pot.
The end result? The US (as a whole) ignores the signs of a collapsing empire that others recognize immediately, and instead tries to shore up the predatory practices that have got the country to where it is. For examples more obvious to those living in the US, look to the RIAA and such organizations. The RIAA is making record profits too... that doesn't mean it isn't on the decline.
Funny thing... I haven't gone to a theater in around 5 years... I used to go when the re-runs were $2/movie, and went to the $14/movie screens when something was coming up that was a "big screen" experience. Then the $2/movie showings went up to $5, and then $7, and I stopped going to those, and rented the DVD instead, as it was cheaper. Eventually I realised my imagination was way more powerful than a large screen, and stopped going to the "big screen" movies too. I found that it was much more enjoyable to watch a projected movie with friends in the comfort of my own home with clean sofas, a pause feature for intermission, and cheap snacks. I also didn't have to worry about getting home after the movie -- you see, I had already become fed up with cars, so driving wasn't an option. I found that as long as I didn't watch movie ads or talk to other people about the "latest movie" coming out, when I went to rent movies, I could ask an employee's opinion (or check it out online) and get a "post-hype" opinion, and watching it was still seeing for the first time.
a market which was NOTHING until "piracy" saved it and brought Anime interest in the market. Do you think that Anime/Manga would exist if not for the huge black market in the US for the first few years? Now there is a growing market that exists WITHOUT big distributors enabling it to exist and blossom -- fans pay for what fans want to see more of.
I've heard this argument before and I still think it's a load of crap. The people who download anime freely are most often those who are least likely to buy it. People forget that there was huge, HUGE interest generated after Bandai and Pioneer (now Geneon) on Cartoon Network. Far more than the mediocre audience garnered by digisubs in 2000. In fact I'll wager the reverse was true, all the digisub groups experienced an explosion in popularity once people realized they could go on and download it without having to pay for it at all.
Actually, I think these two opposing arguments point out something interesting: when produced for an original audience, copyright-backed protection fosters investment. In the case of Anime, this applies to Japan as the original audience. Those investing want to recoup their losses in that market, and if they don't, they will fold up shop and go home.
However, the US is known internationally as a mass media dumper -- losses are recouped at home, and any sales abroad are pure profit, minus distribution costs (which are often picked up by foreign interests).
In THIS market, copyright is a hindrance, since the content is already created. This is similar to Anime being subbed and distributed in the US in the late 90's. If it had been sold directly from Japan to the US market, it would have bombed. However, as the cost was 0, the profit was already made, distribution-by-piracy actually increased the interest in the shows to the point where the US is now becoming part of the primary market for Anime.
The only way to purchase a copy of OS X is to buy Apple hardware. Anything else is a software update IIUC. This means that yes, it should be possible to buy a Mac, then transfer the OS over to a whitebox PC, and delete it from the Mac. It goes against part of the EULA, but that part would be deemed unenforceable in most nations (including the US) I think.
What could you do with the Mac? Well, you could install Linux on it, for starters:)
Actually, OS X is based on the Mach kernel, and sports a BSD userland. The Mach kernel was first invented at CMU, and was first introduced into commercial OSes with NeXTStep, IIRC.
To be sure, lots of Canadians use the levy as moral justification to pirate as much music as they can, often citing the fact that artists are compensated by the levy (the reality is that it largely goes to Canadian artists).
This is incorrect. The money goes to the RI... er, CRIA. There is a large body of Canadian artists (spearheaded currently by the Barenaked Ladies) called the CMCC that is opting out of the racket, as the CRIA charges the artists to be members. This means that on the one side, they're collecting money for each storage device imported, no matter what its intended use, and on the other, they're collecting money from the people they're supposed to be transferring the initial money to. The only time it becomes profitable for the artists is if they sell over a certain number of recordings per year. To reach that number, you have to go after the "top 40" listeners. To do this, you need your publisher to belong to the CRIA and to push your music, or else have phenomenal luck.
OSX has the biggest DRM of all, it can't be run on an non-Apple machine.
Er, I think you're confusing DRM with EULA. There are (at least) thousands of people illegally (according to the EULA) running OS X on non-Apple hardware. There are even a number of web sites dedicated to supporting people doing this. The only issue is the limited driver support.
I find it unlikely that in the event of a major pandemic folks would be denied medical assistance due to lack of insurance coverage. Besides, I'd suspect that medical bills would be the least of our concerns were that to happen.
Baroque and Gregorian chants are firmly entrenched in the Westerm Classical tradition.
So is Copland -- for that matter, so are The Beatles. You'll have to do better to define "Western Classical Tradition".
Most World music can be pigeonholed elsewhere, it is just a lazy name for "anything foreigner we know nothing about".
Indeed... most, by your definitions, would be labelled "Classical" if you label classical as anything not made since the invention of the Radio.
As for folk music, it is clearly popular music, one could make an argument about it being part of pop which coule be subdivide in commercial and folk kinds.
Really? So you would consider "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and "Greensleeves" to be popular music? I must not understand what you mean by popular.
In any case, the original point was well made. progressive metal is clearly a type of rock, as is rap and perhaps hip-hop, which could be pop.
You must have missed my point... Rock music is music you can do the "step step step, rock step" dance move to -- unless you have a more concrete definition of Rock music that is different. My guess is that progressive metal would be popular music, not rock music, as it's most likely not danceable, but is popular in a contemporary culture.
The problem is, ALL music either is, or has been, popular. Why not just label all music "Popular music of the xx century" and leave it at that?
Modenr musicians and popular culture critics create these unnecessary artificial descriptions based in minuscule differences of style.
The descriptions represent the heritage or use of the music, and are not unnecessary or artificial. "Progressive metal" means that the music features electric guitar (metal) (or really loud electric guitar if it's a shortened form of heavy metal) and has matured from the original "metal" style music. If you called it "Rock", I might try listening to it when I was looking for something of a similar style to the Beatles. If you called it "Pop" I might try listening to it thinking it was something similar to music by Wham! or nSync. I personally like to have a feeling for what will be assaulting my ears before I have to listen to it.
"Contemporary" musicians (by the way, "Modern" does not mean contemporary, it was a specific era in each of the arts, including music, which is why there is also post-modern music) and popular culture critics have ALWAYS made distinctions between types of music; this is nothing new. It is a way of talking about music in a manner beyond that of "sound that has some formal modulation". You could also argue that colours could all be summed up as red, yellow, green and blue. This would lead to some interesting arguments over whether orange is red or yellow, and graphic artists and their critics would be at a loss for how to describe their works.
Classical, jazz, pop and rock should be enough for anybody.
Admit it... you just don't want to fill up your 640K of memory;)
Oh, and "Pop" music is the music that makes the top 40... much of which is currently "Rock" music. Unfortunately, it would be quite a challenge to perform the rock and roll step after which "Rock" music of today was named to said "Rock" music.
Personally, I listen to a fair bit of "Folk" and "World" music -- would that be filed under "Classical"? How about Baroque? Country Western? Trance? R&B? Gospel? Hip-Hop remixes? Rap? Gregorian Cantos? Avant Garde "Found" music? Beat poetry?
Having worked at companies that have used EULAs, I have to say that they appear to work like this:
The EULA is used to get the end user to agree to terms that protect the software manufacturer, and limit the rights the end user has beyond those given by bill-of-sale rights. This might not be completely legal, but companies work that angle this way: no end user wants to go to court, so unless they are inconvenienced more by agreeing to the EULA than they would be by going to court, they'll follow it.
This handles enterprise users, where someone on the IT staff actually has to read the license and agree to it. For consumer EULAs, FUD really *is* the word. You see, everything gets packed into the EULA, which nobody reads. Then, someone posts something on SlashDot about how such and such a thing is not allowed. Rather than reading the EULA, people for the most part comply.
Similarly, for small businesses, the EULA is generally used to grant the BSA the right to enter the premises and do whatever they want with your hardware and software. Again, this isn't legal, but if a small business owner feels they haven't done anything wrong, they'd prefer the BSA running an audit than to wage a legal battle with a large company. The costs, while still significant, are generally less than those of hiring a lawyer and going to court.
Why is the mainstream news media failing to report on this potential breakthrough?
Because this is a potential cure for cancer, not a proven one, and potential cures are a dime a dozen. If they made a big hooplah every time somebody came out with a potential cure, that's all they'd ever be reporting about.
Actually, it's because the mainstream news media was all over this a month ago, when it first made Slashdot's headlines. The story made large enough headlines that the U of A and the Alberta Government had to set up a special website to educate people on the fact that this was a potential, not fully tested, cure. People were going out and demanding that their doctors use this untested cure, and some doctors were even considering it.
Of course, considering this is a known drug with known (minimal) side effects, it probably wouldn't do much harm in most circumstances. But healtcare probably wouldn't cover the treatment; nor would private health insurance.
The interesting thing about this is that I tend to at least use digital signatures now, and started for one big reason:
I have to enter my passphrase before I send something I might regret. This has been a boon to me on innumerable occasions. It means I send fewer emails than I otherwise would, but I don't tend to send anything I'll regret years down the road.
What does communism have to do with Romania, which is a socialist democratic republic? Do you mean that they started pirating DOS under the soviet umbrella in the 80's, and haven't bothered to stop?
PC: Hi I'm a PC
Mac: and I'm a Mac
PC: I have a cool new feature called voice control.
Mac: That is stupid. I've had secure voice control for years
PC: Yes, but with your primitive voice control, the statements had to be in the right format, see?
Mac: OK, but that's why we call it secure. The user has to select a keyword that will trigger the commands.
PC:...
Mac: I hope he has his XP install CD handy....
And just how do you propose we be a beacon? We change our strategy to psychically knowing who is going to kill us?
It couldn't be any less effective than the current methods, could it?
So there are people out in the world who want to kill us. People like you complain about our government's methods all the time. These people would have us eliminate foreign threats by:
- Not using any kind of interrogation because innocents could be hurt
Do you agree that Americans should be tortured without anything but an accusation? How about Non-Americans? How about Jews in Nazi Germany (hides from Godwin)?
- Not fighting enemies on their soil because soldiers could die
I think this misses the point... the point is that they WOULDN'T BE enemies if the US wasn't on their soil. The ones that the US is claiming ARE enemies aren't recognized by the US as soldiers. You can't have it both ways.
- Decrease defense funding to solve global warming or some other heart-tugging cause
Now THERE's an idea. Instead of fighting a losing battle against a large portion of humanity while promoting destruction of the earth's resources, why not try to save the earth's resources?
Which leaves us with
- Diplomacy?
Yeah...history really has our backs on that one.
You definitely have a point here. The US is known as the country with the largest Diplomacy Budget in the world.
Meanwhile, the enemy will continue to exercise...interrogation, bombings, assasinations, propaganda (they are doing an INCREDIBLE job on that, and we're helping them by not saying the positive things going on in Iraq), and taking the fight to our soil (ever hear of 9/11?).
If you condone using the same methods as the "enemy", what, pray tell, makes you different from them?
The fact is, no country will ever be a beacon to the world because the criteria for it completely ignores human nature. We could round every moral citizen up into an island and call it Utopia, but it will inevitably be raided by a foreign aggressor given enough time.
You're imagining a beacon as if it is either on or off. Most "civilized" nations have a beacon that shines brighter than the American Beacon right now.
Look: the US has a large professional millitary, and each state has a millitia. If the US was invaded by another country by means of force (as opposed to by means of politics or business takeovers), the entire country would be able to defend itself. The problem is, the US now considers "defending itself" to include wiping out anyone who could be a possible FUTURE threat to the country's economic model. And no, I'm not talking about Oil, I'm talking about the country making a net profit. Most of the world looks at US Foreign policy the same way Slashdotters as a stereotype look at RIAA consumer policy.
If you "own" the CD you can do whatever you like with it, it's your property.
Actually, this is not true. If you "own" a book, you can give that book to anyone you want; you CANNOT make copies and give them to anyone you want (you CAN give them to some people, as outlined in copyright law). Audio CDs operate in the exact same way, unless copyright law in your country has added a clause specifically about Audio CDs. If it has, I'm sure it wasn't aimed at loosening copyright law on these items (unless you're Canadian).
I didn't realize downloading music was illegal in the US... I thought it was only uploading and making copies. If downloading is illegal, wouldn't that mean that a group like the AAP could swoop down upon students, point to their collection of photocopied handouts, and say, "Ahah! THIS person is guilty of copyright infringement!"?!? I thought it was the teacher who made the copies who was guilty in such a case.
On the other hand, I guess only people who have legitimate copies of MS software have really agreed to the EULA, as the EULA requires purchase of the software to be even slightly binding.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with using the GPU is that, while the ABI isn't as open as on the x86 architecture, it's still possible for any software to read from and write to the GPU. This means that it is still possible to debug at the GPU level and intercept the key or the decryption stream there.
I see them using a slightly more intelligent approach: the keys of the future will dictate resolution. Software players will get 320x240 resolution; certified hardware will get HD. That's what I'd do, anyway.
In other words, the difference is between making key information difficult to understand how to use and withholding information necessary for use. In security through obscurity, all the information required is present, just not easy to understand. With withholding, you have to guess what the missing information might be.
Without the decade of VHS duping, there would have been no media base on which the later movements could build.
Then again, without the invention of VHS and the cheap dubbers that came out of the Porn industry's adoption of the technology, the VHS Anime scene would never have been possible...
I think this argument could be taken all the way back to "When I was young, this guy in the cave across from me stuck a pointy rock on the end of a stick, and used it to kill animals. Without that pointy stick, it is arguable that people would never have even survived long enough to have existed in North America."
The difference between the US and the rest of the world is that in most parts of the world, empires have risen, fallen, and risen again. People have a history complete with being subject to invading empires and being leaders in an invading empire. This gives perspective. In the US, there has been a single empire since "westernization", and history before that point is almost wiped out, due to the fact that culture and history was imported from the rest of the world, and then mostly forgotten in the melting pot.
The end result? The US (as a whole) ignores the signs of a collapsing empire that others recognize immediately, and instead tries to shore up the predatory practices that have got the country to where it is. For examples more obvious to those living in the US, look to the RIAA and such organizations. The RIAA is making record profits too... that doesn't mean it isn't on the decline.
I don't miss driving or movie theatres at all.
However, the US is known internationally as a mass media dumper -- losses are recouped at home, and any sales abroad are pure profit, minus distribution costs (which are often picked up by foreign interests).
In THIS market, copyright is a hindrance, since the content is already created. This is similar to Anime being subbed and distributed in the US in the late 90's. If it had been sold directly from Japan to the US market, it would have bombed. However, as the cost was 0, the profit was already made, distribution-by-piracy actually increased the interest in the shows to the point where the US is now becoming part of the primary market for Anime.
What could you do with the Mac? Well, you could install Linux on it, for starters :)
Actually, OS X is based on the Mach kernel, and sports a BSD userland. The Mach kernel was first invented at CMU, and was first introduced into commercial OSes with NeXTStep, IIRC.
Sounds like "A Bug's Life II"
I guess you missed the story about Avian Flu in Indonesia yesterday?
The problem is, ALL music either is, or has been, popular. Why not just label all music "Popular music of the xx century" and leave it at that?
The descriptions represent the heritage or use of the music, and are not unnecessary or artificial. "Progressive metal" means that the music features electric guitar (metal) (or really loud electric guitar if it's a shortened form of heavy metal) and has matured from the original "metal" style music. If you called it "Rock", I might try listening to it when I was looking for something of a similar style to the Beatles. If you called it "Pop" I might try listening to it thinking it was something similar to music by Wham! or nSync. I personally like to have a feeling for what will be assaulting my ears before I have to listen to it.
"Contemporary" musicians (by the way, "Modern" does not mean contemporary, it was a specific era in each of the arts, including music, which is why there is also post-modern music) and popular culture critics have ALWAYS made distinctions between types of music; this is nothing new. It is a way of talking about music in a manner beyond that of "sound that has some formal modulation". You could also argue that colours could all be summed up as red, yellow, green and blue. This would lead to some interesting arguments over whether orange is red or yellow, and graphic artists and their critics would be at a loss for how to describe their works.
Oh, and "Pop" music is the music that makes the top 40... much of which is currently "Rock" music. Unfortunately, it would be quite a challenge to perform the rock and roll step after which "Rock" music of today was named to said "Rock" music.
Personally, I listen to a fair bit of "Folk" and "World" music -- would that be filed under "Classical"? How about Baroque? Country Western? Trance? R&B? Gospel? Hip-Hop remixes? Rap? Gregorian Cantos? Avant Garde "Found" music? Beat poetry?
The EULA is used to get the end user to agree to terms that protect the software manufacturer, and limit the rights the end user has beyond those given by bill-of-sale rights. This might not be completely legal, but companies work that angle this way: no end user wants to go to court, so unless they are inconvenienced more by agreeing to the EULA than they would be by going to court, they'll follow it.
This handles enterprise users, where someone on the IT staff actually has to read the license and agree to it. For consumer EULAs, FUD really *is* the word. You see, everything gets packed into the EULA, which nobody reads. Then, someone posts something on SlashDot about how such and such a thing is not allowed. Rather than reading the EULA, people for the most part comply.
Similarly, for small businesses, the EULA is generally used to grant the BSA the right to enter the premises and do whatever they want with your hardware and software. Again, this isn't legal, but if a small business owner feels they haven't done anything wrong, they'd prefer the BSA running an audit than to wage a legal battle with a large company. The costs, while still significant, are generally less than those of hiring a lawyer and going to court.
Of course, considering this is a known drug with known (minimal) side effects, it probably wouldn't do much harm in most circumstances. But healtcare probably wouldn't cover the treatment; nor would private health insurance.
I have to enter my passphrase before I send something I might regret. This has been a boon to me on innumerable occasions. It means I send fewer emails than I otherwise would, but I don't tend to send anything I'll regret years down the road.
What does communism have to do with Romania, which is a socialist democratic republic? Do you mean that they started pirating DOS under the soviet umbrella in the 80's, and haven't bothered to stop?
PC: Hi I'm a PC ...
Mac: I hope he has his XP install CD handy....
Mac: and I'm a Mac
PC: I have a cool new feature called voice control.
Mac: That is stupid. I've had secure voice control for years
PC: Yes, but with your primitive voice control, the statements had to be in the right format, see?
Mac: OK, but that's why we call it secure. The user has to select a keyword that will trigger the commands.
PC:
Look: the US has a large professional millitary, and each state has a millitia. If the US was invaded by another country by means of force (as opposed to by means of politics or business takeovers), the entire country would be able to defend itself. The problem is, the US now considers "defending itself" to include wiping out anyone who could be a possible FUTURE threat to the country's economic model. And no, I'm not talking about Oil, I'm talking about the country making a net profit. Most of the world looks at US Foreign policy the same way Slashdotters as a stereotype look at RIAA consumer policy.
I didn't realize downloading music was illegal in the US... I thought it was only uploading and making copies. If downloading is illegal, wouldn't that mean that a group like the AAP could swoop down upon students, point to their collection of photocopied handouts, and say, "Ahah! THIS person is guilty of copyright infringement!"?!? I thought it was the teacher who made the copies who was guilty in such a case.
On the other hand, I guess only people who have legitimate copies of MS software have really agreed to the EULA, as the EULA requires purchase of the software to be even slightly binding.