I was recently threatened with suspension and/or expulsion from my (British A-level) College when one of the members of staff discovered that I've written less than....promotional comments about one of my physics teachers (Sure...uranium 238 is fissile...I believe you) on my livejournal, along with a draft copy of a letter I'd written to the school.
Also, one of the people in the year above got suspended for creating [schoolname]sucks.com - 'tis mad, but common.
Formulaic video games coupled with formulaic movies:). Seriously though, having a great story does not a great game make. Most of the time the story is more than adequate - in my experience - it's the gameplay that lets you down, and that is, annoyingly, one of the areas where EA seem to be great at whacking the monkeys to produce lots of libLoadingScreen(), libBloat(), libJitter() as they're all cross platform. (And that's not mentioning the textures and models...)
To me, the whole idea of one distro magically becoming more secure than another is slightly strange - it's not really so much the kernel itself - it's what's ontop of the kernel, the default install, uh, defaults, and the entire chain-of-trust ontop of that. Any production server *should* be competently administered - and locked down fairly tight (e.g. NOT running an nwn dæmon, as a certain webserver I've come across did due to the sysadmin thinking he could get away with it....), and then the only security troubles you'll come up against are those that are totally PEBKAC. (Yes, I know must security problems lie BKAC, but this really does seem to me nothing other than a/. sponsored PR-stunt...)
The flipside of this is linux on the desktop - which is where redhat could earn this title. However, all that really means is making sure wine is b0rken enough with windows viruses, not allowing samba or ssh access from outside the local subnet, and removing all instances of "rm -rf/" from the man pages....
One thing you are certainly renowned for is creating deep, rich, involving strategy games - games that raise your eyebrows, challenge your intellect, and hopefully help your mind reign supreme. Unfortunately, they seem to all follow the same formulae, and while they tend to be thoroughly enjoyable waste of time, I found Civ-2 to be a longer Civ-1, Civ-3 a 3d Civ-2, and Railroad Tycoon great fun (;->), but not as long lasting as the others- I tired of it quickly for some reason.
How come you don't try different gaming styles? I know how great it is to feel brain-stretched, but I know it's nice to have to think in different ways! It's all well and good being able to conquer Europe - but what about having to run backwards dodging a chromatic dragon, firing arrows at targets at the right order on the walls? I am admittedly an RGP-nut, but I'm sure that if you tried an AD&D (2ed...please) game, it would invariably end up richer, more stimulating, prettier, better, and longer than competitors offerings.
I fail to see just how an open DRM system can work exactly. There is an inbuilt need for secrecy with DRM - I mean, if you 'opened' your private PGP keys, then, well, that would be acting to your detriment. If sun just opened the code, algorithims (sp?) and the like, but kept the keys hidden then I suppose that is probably the best idea (it will be cracked irrespecitive though:) ).
The real question - for me at least - is WHY THE HELL is sun going into DRM?
....Don't get me wrong, I love technology. I'm a computer science major and I still have lofty ambitions of improving the world through computer science. But a computer is a tool to learn information. It shouldn't be the information....(This was a rant that spiraled out of control quickly. I blame the caffeine...)
Yep, you're a computer science major alright!
Seriously, I cannot agree more. I'm british, and my school just spent some ungodly amount of money getting "interactive whiteboards" for the maths department.
The kids nick the styluses, so the teachers can't use them
Even if the teachers could actually turn them on, half of them don't know how.
Most of the time now, they just use the projector as a, uh, projector, and ignore the white board. Occasionally it is useful, like when doing stats coursework, but the majority of the time, it's low quality, low res, and is nowhere near as good as a good 'ol drywipe pen and a cloth. Most of them say that it's like tracing something with the handle of a spoon - the styluses (stylii?) give no feedback whatsoever, and the whole thing feels empty and wrong.
My, uh, 2 (I believe the expression is) is that my school should *stop* being a "Microsoft Partner School" - read: free publicity machine - and, instead of spending six figure sums on getting Bill another Jaguar manufacturing plant, they should replace the horrendously out of tune piano in the grand hall that everyone complains about, actually paint the darn building for the first time since 1967, provide food whose smell doesn't make me wretch, and fix their short staffing problem.
But this is england. Why do simple things like that, when you can put another logo on your letterhead and show everyone that you're a "Technology College"? Despite the fact that the only way you actually teach technology is by letting the few geeks in the school (yours truly, and about 6 others in the sixth form) do an A+/CCNA/MCSE (Evil, I know)/ MCNA/iPro course in the lunch hour. Gah.
We have a little thing called "Legal Aid". It actually works. If you're being sued, and you can't afford a barrister or solicitor, you go to a Citizens' Advice Bureau, and sign up for legal aid. Also, in this country, looser pays costs. If he looses, the tax payer pays the other person's costs. Now then, below is an exert from the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations Act, 2003.....
296ZE Remedy where effective technological measures prevent permitted acts
(1) In this section -
"permitted act" means an act which may be done in relation to copyright works, notwithstanding the subsistence of copyright, by virtue of a provision of this Act listed in Part 1 of Schedule 5A;
"voluntary measure or agreement" means -
(a) any measure taken voluntarily by a copyright owner, his exclusive licensee or a person issuing copies of, or communicating to the public, a work other than a computer program, or
(b) any agreement between a copyright owner, his exclusive licensee or a person issuing copies of, or communicating to the public, a work other than a computer program and another party,
the effect of which is to enable a person to carry out a permitted act.
(2) Where the application of any effective technological measure to a copyright work other than a computer program prevents a person from carrying out a permitted act in relation to that work then that person or a person being a representative of a class of persons prevented from carrying out a permitted act may issue a notice of complaint to the Secretary of State.
[It then gets very long winded about how the Secretary of State can obligate the copyright holder to comply.]
Also, one other nice snippet from the same act:
" 50BA Observing, studying and testing of computer programs
(1) It is not an infringement of copyright for a lawful user of a copy of a computer program to observe, study or test the functioning of the program in order to determine the ideas and principles which underlie any element of the program if he does so while performing any of the acts of loading, displaying, running, transmitting or storing the program which he is entitled to do.
(2) Where an act is permitted under this section, it is irrelevant whether or not there exists any term or condition in an agreement which purports to prohibit or restrict the act (such terms being, by virtue of section 296A, void).".
And there is no way in hell that case would ever succeed. The whole 'free market' that we're lead to believe we have (though don't believe we actually have one) does kind of apply; it's identical to a shop buying products from someone else, and selling them on at profit. It's trade. It's commerce. I'm surprised the chamber(s) of commerce haven't got up in arms about this....
I do not think that it's legality has been fully established. While I know that in America you've got all kinds of fun draconian legislature trying to make it so, which is all well and good, but the multinational corps based in your fair land still shove it down everyone else on the planet. Even when it's not always legal - and usually isn't. I'm British, 16, and this is from the 2003 Copyright and Related Rights Regulations Act:
296ZE Remedy where effective technological measures prevent permitted acts
(1) In this section -
"permitted act" means an act which may be done in relation to copyright works, notwithstanding the subsistence of copyright, by virtue of a provision of this Act listed in Part 1 of Schedule 5A;
"voluntary measure or agreement" means -
(a) any measure taken voluntarily by a copyright owner, his exclusive licensee or a person issuing copies of, or communicating to the public, a work other than a computer program, or
(b) any agreement between a copyright owner, his exclusive licensee or a person issuing copies of, or communicating to the public, a work other than a computer program and another party,
the effect of which is to enable a person to carry out a permitted act.
(2) Where the application of any effective technological measure to a copyright work other than a computer program prevents a person from carrying out a permitted act in relation to that work then that person or a person being a representative of a class of persons prevented from carrying out a permitted act may issue a notice of complaint to the Secretary of State. [It then gets very long winded about how the Secretary of State can obligate the copyright holder to comply.]
Additionally, while I'm at it, on hex editing:
M$ Eula:
You may not use access to the Service to obtain information necessary for you to design, develop or update unauthorized software that you use or provide to others to use to access the Service. [...] You will not disassemble, decompile, or reverse engineer the Software. All Software is protected by copyright laws and international treaty provisions
Look at Section 15, Part 1 of the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations Act, 2003 which states that:
"(1) It is not an infringement of copyright for a lawful user of a copy of a computer program to observe, study or test the functioning of the program in order to determine the ideas and principles which underlie any element of the program if he does so while performing any of the acts of loading, displaying, running, transmitting or storing the program which he is entitled to do.
(2) Where an act is permitted under this section, it is irrelevant whether or not there exists any term or condition in an agreement which purports to prohibit or restrict the act (such terms being, by virtue of section 296A, void)."
I just wish someone would try to enforce that over here - music DRM really annoys me. A lot.
While it's certainly worthy of comment that there have been so many things requiring patches, I think it's also worthy of note that apple does actually patch them quite well. I hadn't come across any of these obscure vulnerabilities, but I'm sure they're there - I'm just glad to see apple fixing them - and, it has to be said, giving credit where it's due (Thanks to $NAME for bringing this to our attention, etc)
While I can understand 'America's' fear of 'communism' because of the cold war, I think I should point out that there has never been a proper communist government. We've only had socio facists, who used the attractive philosophy, gain power, and then screw everyone (basically...).
Marx himself said that communism is unlikely to work because of humanity, unfortunately. The best example I've seen for a *true* communist, or marxist environment has been rather strange: Star Treck (TNG).
At any rate, to a non-american (I'm British), saying that the GPL is communistic - as an insult - just seems ever so slightly, ah, how do I say this without being modded troll....it seems rather idiotic.
If they're pingflooding you, can't you just configure the switches to drop IMCP? (You can ping over udp quite easily, but it's not known). If they're generating massive useless traffic, filter broadcasts, and multicasts?
Be more brutal with your firewall? Block all non 80/22/25/other-common-important-stuff, and then only open ports on request, for those who need them?
While that is the most common "non cable" connection I've come across, there are lots of others. I personally have a linksys ADSL one that dies fairly frequently (about twice a month), but my peer to peer activities managed to destroy a beklin router. Totally. Even after I reflashed the firmware it wouldn't give me more than 2 kbs down.
Still, for that price, why can't you buy a decent Cisco router and manually configure it?
Though I do like to see the inclusion of a gigabit switch. That alone is probably one reason why the price is so high, but....is it really needed? Reading from a CD is only about 600 megs/second, full gigabit is not really needed for anything but backbone, imo. Although, I daresay it will be used...
And I know somebody who, in all honesty, paid £150 more for a £2,500 5U rackmount case because it had blue monitoring LEDS.....
Incase of slashdotting (It's going a little slow for me) <br><br> I've cut off the references to be kind.... <br><br> <blockquote> <b>Abstract</b>
Canada is in the midst of a contentious copyright reform with advocates for stronger copyright protection maintaining that the Internet has led to widespread infringement that has harmed the economic interests of Canadian artists. The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) has emerged as the leading proponent of copyright reform, claiming that peer-to-peer file sharing has led to billions in lost sales in Canada.
This article examines CRIA's claims by conducting an analysis of industry figures. It concludes that loss claims have been greatly exaggerated and challenges the contention that recent sales declines are primarily attributable to file-sharing activities. Moreover, the article assesses the financial impact of declining sales on Canadian artists, concluding that revenue collected through a private copying levy system already adequately compensates Canadian artists for the private copying that occurs on peer-to-peer networks.
 
 
The Canadian government has been the target of intense lobbying for stronger copyright legislation in recent months. Led by the music industry, which claims that it has experienced significant financial losses due to music downloading, the campaign culminated in November 2004 with a lobby day on Parliament Hill [1].
The campaign is premised on three key pillars. First, that the Canadian recording industry has sustained significant financial losses in recent years due to decreased music sales. Second, that those losses can be attributed to peer-to-peer file sharing. Third, that the losses have materially harmed Canadian artists.
The time has come to acknowledge that each of these pillars is a myth.
In speaking with Canadian government leaders, the industry played a familiar tune. Graham Henderson, president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), argued that music downloading has devastated the industry. While Canadian rock star Tom Cochrane indicated that he was uncomfortable suing individual file sharers, he nevertheless characterized Canada's laws as akin to those found in third world countries [2].
Amid the claims of industry losses, the industry failed to make the case that music downloading is significantly harmful to Canadian artists. Even Jim Cuddy, lead singer for the group Blue Rodeo, acknowledged that it was hard to determine whether music downloading has actually hurt his band [3]. In fact, a careful examination of CRIA's own numbers suggests that the financial impact of music downloading on Canadian artists is greatly exaggerated.
The actual financial impact of music downloading has long been difficult to ascertain. In August 2003, CRIA issued a press release claiming C$250 million in losses over the previous three years [4]. Three months later, another press release claimed C$425 million in losses [5]. Just weeks before the lobby day, CRIA General Counsel Richard Pfohl told a university audience that the figure was actually C$450 million per year since 1999, totaling roughly C$2 billion over the past five years [6].
 
Year Million (C$)
1999 699.9
2000 690.3
2001 645.8
2002 609.5
2003 559.7
2004 562.2
Table 1: Canadian CD sales (Source: CRIA).
In fact, the guesswork surrounding record sales is unnecessary since CRIA posts its members' monthly record sales data directly on its Web site. According to CRIA, Canadian CD sales in 1999 generated C$699.9 million. That figured declined annually to C$690.3 million (2000), C$645.8 million (2001), C$609.5 million (2002), and C$559.7 million (2003). In 2004, sales increased to C$562.2 million. Using CRIA's own numbers and 1999 as a benchmark, the cumulative decline in CD sales revenue in Cana
Ahh, okay. That makes a lot more sense. However, what about clustering your boxen, *then* running all your company's IT needs from it; thereby eliminating issues such as that? Couldn't you make damn sure everything you were using, and were likely to use, ran on that "One machine", then optimise it through the teeth to allow you to do more?
So, the point of this study is to show that Java is inefficient?
AHAhahahahahaahahacough *spluter*, er, *Ahem*, any decent programmer would tell you that while not having to memory manage is a blessing, the VM doesn't exactly make a textbook job of it. Specifically, well, opening Azerues on this mac sacrifices about a quarter of my ram to Java alone (I have a gig).
I don't mean to troll, but what is the point of having java as a dynamic deployment platform. All you need is pico and "PHP, perl, and MySQL for dummies";-P, much more efficient, and also quite a lot less messy.
I think the reason why I don't admin a huge corporate dynamic website is about to be pointed out though.....
If there is one kind of game that I think anyone on slashdot will love it is this:
The traditional, immersive, huge, excellent role-playing game
Seriously - if you're a person who wants to write a game for the joy of coding, then do something like that - The Baldur's Gate Series was created by black isle, whom are a group of enthusiasts basically (I mean that as a compliment, not as a flame...), and it is widely renowned as the best cRPG on this planet today. The whole series is about 500 hours long from top to bottom, and it's story is pure joy. There are more than enough Hack 'n' slash, fps's, random, violent, action-packed games out there simply because people say "I want to make a game. I want it to be easy. What can I do?" and out pops the answer - an FPS.
Don't do that. If you can't write a decent storyline to save you life, get someone else to - your wife, brother, someone from slashdot (*Cough*), go and buy some good 'ol creative juices (aka marijuana), whatever - but please, please, don't create something that has the tacked-on sub plot of a marketing department. If you're going to create a world when dreams can be reality, then show us your dreams. Explore them. Combine everything into one; have the joy of free flight in an immense world combine with spell-casting prowess to make Eliminster pleased, have the character *really* shooting a bow, *really* jumping over obstacles....ect. Be creative....
DRM is about power. It's about taking power away from the consumer, removing the consumer's power over the box in front of them, and giving it to a big company in $LAIR. Now then, let's look at previous attempts of the aristocracy to control the masses by using their money to buy power.
French revolution anyone?
Okay, so that's a fairly extreme example. Look at the collapse of the soviet union; look at Gandhi, apartheid in south Africa; apartheid in America, the protection rackets of the 30's....etc, etc.
Quite frankly, if there is breath left in my body, ink left in my pen, and fingers attached to my keyboard^H^H^H^H^H hand, then DRM will not be on my boxes. All my ITMS purchases are DRM free; and will never be any different.
AMENDMENTS RELATED TO PORNOGRAPHIC
AND HARMFUL MATERIALS
I mean, come on. Porn is _not_ harmful. Bad parenting, however, is. Children who are under a certain "magic" (or "Evil" for the mormons) age will find looking at porn is just boring - they'd quickly loose interest and wander off. Children past the age would experience no ill affects....other than a slight rise in libido, of course. So why block it? I'm 16, and since I was about 6 I've had free access to information - and I've never looked back. Heck, in this country (the UK), the government sent a very nice leaflet home to all parents saying how "The internet was dangerous for children" but "trying to censor anything is an excise in futility, as tech-savvy kids can get around most blocks". It then went on to say that "talking to your children" is the best answer there is.
Or, better yet, put another site in their RSS client....much more efficient, less bandwidth wasting (and you can 'accidentally' subscribe to RSS feed of new torrents from empornium at the same time;-))
Slashdot Mirror
I was recently threatened with suspension and/or expulsion from my (British A-level) College when one of the members of staff discovered that I've written less than....promotional comments about one of my physics teachers (Sure...uranium 238 is fissile...I believe you) on my livejournal, along with a draft copy of a letter I'd written to the school.
:).
Also, one of the people in the year above got suspended for creating [schoolname]sucks.com - 'tis mad, but common.
Hence, my blog is now friends-only
Pity I can't send my school's 'Sysadmin' there for retraining. He might actually pick up a few new tips too.....
Formulaic video games coupled with formulaic movies :). Seriously though, having a great story does not a great game make. Most of the time the story is more than adequate - in my experience - it's the gameplay that lets you down, and that is, annoyingly, one of the areas where EA seem to be great at whacking the monkeys to produce lots of libLoadingScreen(), libBloat(), libJitter() as they're all cross platform. (And that's not mentioning the textures and models...)
(I still want my alien death ray though!)
To me, the whole idea of one distro magically becoming more secure than another is slightly strange - it's not really so much the kernel itself - it's what's ontop of the kernel, the default install, uh, defaults, and the entire chain-of-trust ontop of that. Any production server *should* be competently administered - and locked down fairly tight (e.g. NOT running an nwn dæmon, as a certain webserver I've come across did due to the sysadmin thinking he could get away with it....), and then the only security troubles you'll come up against are those that are totally PEBKAC. (Yes, I know must security problems lie BKAC, but this really does seem to me nothing other than a /. sponsored PR-stunt...)
/" from the man pages....
The flipside of this is linux on the desktop - which is where redhat could earn this title. However, all that really means is making sure wine is b0rken enough with windows viruses, not allowing samba or ssh access from outside the local subnet, and removing all instances of "rm -rf
One thing you are certainly renowned for is creating deep, rich, involving strategy games - games that raise your eyebrows, challenge your intellect, and hopefully help your mind reign supreme. Unfortunately, they seem to all follow the same formulae, and while they tend to be thoroughly enjoyable waste of time, I found Civ-2 to be a longer Civ-1, Civ-3 a 3d Civ-2, and Railroad Tycoon great fun (;->), but not as long lasting as the others- I tired of it quickly for some reason.
:P.
How come you don't try different gaming styles? I know how great it is to feel brain-stretched, but I know it's nice to have to think in different ways! It's all well and good being able to conquer Europe - but what about having to run backwards dodging a chromatic dragon, firing arrows at targets at the right order on the walls? I am admittedly an RGP-nut, but I'm sure that if you tried an AD&D (2ed...please) game, it would invariably end up richer, more stimulating, prettier, better, and longer than competitors offerings.
So, er, RPG us, god!
I fail to see just how an open DRM system can work exactly. There is an inbuilt need for secrecy with DRM - I mean, if you 'opened' your private PGP keys, then, well, that would be acting to your detriment. If sun just opened the code, algorithims (sp?) and the like, but kept the keys hidden then I suppose that is probably the best idea (it will be cracked irrespecitive though :) ).
The real question - for me at least - is WHY THE HELL is sun going into DRM?
Yep, you're a computer science major alright!
Seriously, I cannot agree more. I'm british, and my school just spent some ungodly amount of money getting "interactive whiteboards" for the maths department.
The kids nick the styluses, so the teachers can't use them
Even if the teachers could actually turn them on, half of them don't know how.
Most of the time now, they just use the projector as a, uh, projector, and ignore the white board. Occasionally it is useful, like when doing stats coursework, but the majority of the time, it's low quality, low res, and is nowhere near as good as a good 'ol drywipe pen and a cloth. Most of them say that it's like tracing something with the handle of a spoon - the styluses (stylii?) give no feedback whatsoever, and the whole thing feels empty and wrong.
My, uh, 2 (I believe the expression is) is that my school should *stop* being a "Microsoft Partner School" - read: free publicity machine - and, instead of spending six figure sums on getting Bill another Jaguar manufacturing plant, they should replace the horrendously out of tune piano in the grand hall that everyone complains about, actually paint the darn building for the first time since 1967, provide food whose smell doesn't make me wretch, and fix their short staffing problem.
But this is england. Why do simple things like that, when you can put another logo on your letterhead and show everyone that you're a "Technology College"? Despite the fact that the only way you actually teach technology is by letting the few geeks in the school (yours truly, and about 6 others in the sixth form) do an A+/CCNA/MCSE (Evil, I know)/ MCNA/iPro course in the lunch hour. Gah.
[It then gets very long winded about how the Secretary of State can obligate the copyright holder to comply.]
Also, one other nice snippet from the same act:
He should win. Although....
And there is no way in hell that case would ever succeed. The whole 'free market' that we're lead to believe we have (though don't believe we actually have one) does kind of apply; it's identical to a shop buying products from someone else, and selling them on at profit. It's trade. It's commerce. I'm surprised the chamber(s) of commerce haven't got up in arms about this....
Additionally, while I'm at it, on hex editing: M$ Eula: Look at Section 15, Part 1 of the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations Act, 2003 which states that: I just wish someone would try to enforce that over here - music DRM really annoys me. A lot.
I don't know (fully) about flac, but I know for certain that iTunes plays oggs - I've got several in my library.
It says the filetype is "Quicktime Movie File", implying that it uses QT to import them (I have the quicktime ogg/vorbis codec installed).
How do you get them in your library? Just drag them to the library, from the finder.
Am I really the only one to know this? Screenshots on request....
While it's certainly worthy of comment that there have been so many things requiring patches, I think it's also worthy of note that apple does actually patch them quite well. I hadn't come across any of these obscure vulnerabilities, but I'm sure they're there - I'm just glad to see apple fixing them - and, it has to be said, giving credit where it's due (Thanks to $NAME for bringing this to our attention, etc)
While I can understand 'America's' fear of 'communism' because of the cold war, I think I should point out that there has never been a proper communist government. We've only had socio facists, who used the attractive philosophy, gain power, and then screw everyone (basically...).
Marx himself said that communism is unlikely to work because of humanity, unfortunately. The best example I've seen for a *true* communist, or marxist environment has been rather strange: Star Treck (TNG).
At any rate, to a non-american (I'm British), saying that the GPL is communistic - as an insult - just seems ever so slightly, ah, how do I say this without being modded troll....it seems rather idiotic.
If they're pingflooding you, can't you just configure the switches to drop IMCP? (You can ping over udp quite easily, but it's not known). If they're generating massive useless traffic, filter broadcasts, and multicasts?
Be more brutal with your firewall? Block all non 80/22/25/other-common-important-stuff, and then only open ports on request, for those who need them?
You do have a decent firewall, right?
What about ADSL?
While that is the most common "non cable" connection I've come across, there are lots of others. I personally have a linksys ADSL one that dies fairly frequently (about twice a month), but my peer to peer activities managed to destroy a beklin router. Totally. Even after I reflashed the firmware it wouldn't give me more than 2 kbs down.
Still, for that price, why can't you buy a decent Cisco router and manually configure it?
Though I do like to see the inclusion of a gigabit switch. That alone is probably one reason why the price is so high, but....is it really needed? Reading from a CD is only about 600 megs/second, full gigabit is not really needed for anything but backbone, imo. Although, I daresay it will be used...
And I know somebody who, in all honesty, paid £150 more for a £2,500 5U rackmount case because it had blue monitoring LEDS.....
Damnit, I never could remember to change the formatting option......
Incase of slashdotting (It's going a little slow for me)
<br><br>
I've cut off the references to be kind....
<br><br>
<blockquote>
<b>Abstract</b>
Canada is in the midst of a contentious copyright reform with advocates for stronger copyright protection maintaining that the Internet has led to widespread infringement that has harmed the economic interests of Canadian artists. The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) has emerged as the leading proponent of copyright reform, claiming that peer-to-peer file sharing has led to billions in lost sales in Canada.
This article examines CRIA's claims by conducting an analysis of industry figures. It concludes that loss claims have been greatly exaggerated and challenges the contention that recent sales declines are primarily attributable to file-sharing activities. Moreover, the article assesses the financial impact of declining sales on Canadian artists, concluding that revenue collected through a private copying levy system already adequately compensates Canadian artists for the private copying that occurs on peer-to-peer networks.
 
 
The Canadian government has been the target of intense lobbying for stronger copyright legislation in recent months. Led by the music industry, which claims that it has experienced significant financial losses due to music downloading, the campaign culminated in November 2004 with a lobby day on Parliament Hill [1].
The campaign is premised on three key pillars. First, that the Canadian recording industry has sustained significant financial losses in recent years due to decreased music sales. Second, that those losses can be attributed to peer-to-peer file sharing. Third, that the losses have materially harmed Canadian artists.
The time has come to acknowledge that each of these pillars is a myth.
In speaking with Canadian government leaders, the industry played a familiar tune. Graham Henderson, president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), argued that music downloading has devastated the industry. While Canadian rock star Tom Cochrane indicated that he was uncomfortable suing individual file sharers, he nevertheless characterized Canada's laws as akin to those found in third world countries [2].
Amid the claims of industry losses, the industry failed to make the case that music downloading is significantly harmful to Canadian artists. Even Jim Cuddy, lead singer for the group Blue Rodeo, acknowledged that it was hard to determine whether music downloading has actually hurt his band [3]. In fact, a careful examination of CRIA's own numbers suggests that the financial impact of music downloading on Canadian artists is greatly exaggerated.
The actual financial impact of music downloading has long been difficult to ascertain. In August 2003, CRIA issued a press release claiming C$250 million in losses over the previous three years [4]. Three months later, another press release claimed C$425 million in losses [5]. Just weeks before the lobby day, CRIA General Counsel Richard Pfohl told a university audience that the figure was actually C$450 million per year since 1999, totaling roughly C$2 billion over the past five years [6].
 
Year
Million (C$)
1999
699.9
2000
690.3
2001
645.8
2002
609.5
2003
559.7
2004
562.2
Table 1: Canadian CD sales (Source: CRIA).
In fact, the guesswork surrounding record sales is unnecessary since CRIA posts its members' monthly record sales data directly on its Web site. According to CRIA, Canadian CD sales in 1999 generated C$699.9 million. That figured declined annually to C$690.3 million (2000), C$645.8 million (2001), C$609.5 million (2002), and C$559.7 million (2003). In 2004, sales increased to C$562.2 million. Using CRIA's own numbers and 1999 as a benchmark, the cumulative decline in CD sales revenue in Cana
I am glad to see at last that someone has taken the time and decency to separate the spin from the yarn.
Perhaps this will act to sober their crusade against "copyright infringement" in the states?
Ahh, okay. That makes a lot more sense. However, what about clustering your boxen, *then* running all your company's IT needs from it; thereby eliminating issues such as that? Couldn't you make damn sure everything you were using, and were likely to use, ran on that "One machine", then optimise it through the teeth to allow you to do more?
Though I do really see where you're coming from.
So, the point of this study is to show that Java is inefficient?
;-P, much more efficient, and also quite a lot less messy.
AHAhahahahahaahahacough *spluter*, er, *Ahem*, any decent programmer would tell you that while not having to memory manage is a blessing, the VM doesn't exactly make a textbook job of it. Specifically, well, opening Azerues on this mac sacrifices about a quarter of my ram to Java alone (I have a gig).
I don't mean to troll, but what is the point of having java as a dynamic deployment platform. All you need is pico and "PHP, perl, and MySQL for dummies"
I think the reason why I don't admin a huge corporate dynamic website is about to be pointed out though.....
If there is one kind of game that I think anyone on slashdot will love it is this:
;-).
The traditional, immersive, huge, excellent role-playing game
Seriously - if you're a person who wants to write a game for the joy of coding, then do something like that - The Baldur's Gate Series was created by black isle, whom are a group of enthusiasts basically (I mean that as a compliment, not as a flame...), and it is widely renowned as the best cRPG on this planet today. The whole series is about 500 hours long from top to bottom, and it's story is pure joy. There are more than enough Hack 'n' slash, fps's, random, violent, action-packed games out there simply because people say "I want to make a game. I want it to be easy. What can I do?" and out pops the answer - an FPS.
Don't do that. If you can't write a decent storyline to save you life, get someone else to - your wife, brother, someone from slashdot (*Cough*), go and buy some good 'ol creative juices (aka marijuana), whatever - but please, please, don't create something that has the tacked-on sub plot of a marketing department. If you're going to create a world when dreams can be reality, then show us your dreams. Explore them. Combine everything into one; have the joy of free flight in an immense world combine with spell-casting prowess to make Eliminster pleased, have the character *really* shooting a bow, *really* jumping over obstacles....ect. Be creative....
And release it under the GPL
I have two words for you:
Des Proxy
(It's a method to tunnel obscure ports over 80)
DRM is about power. It's about taking power away from the consumer, removing the consumer's power over the box in front of them, and giving it to a big company in $LAIR. Now then, let's look at previous attempts of the aristocracy to control the masses by using their money to buy power.
French revolution anyone?
Okay, so that's a fairly extreme example. Look at the collapse of the soviet union; look at Gandhi, apartheid in south Africa; apartheid in America, the protection rackets of the 30's....etc, etc.
Quite frankly, if there is breath left in my body, ink left in my pen, and fingers attached to my keyboard^H^H^H^H^H hand, then DRM will not be on my boxes. All my ITMS purchases are DRM free; and will never be any different.
I mean, come on. Porn is _not_ harmful. Bad parenting, however, is. Children who are under a certain "magic" (or "Evil" for the mormons) age will find looking at porn is just boring - they'd quickly loose interest and wander off. Children past the age would experience no ill affects....other than a slight rise in libido, of course. So why block it? I'm 16, and since I was about 6 I've had free access to information - and I've never looked back. Heck, in this country (the UK), the government sent a very nice leaflet home to all parents saying how "The internet was dangerous for children" but "trying to censor anything is an excise in futility, as tech-savvy kids can get around most blocks". It then went on to say that "talking to your children" is the best answer there is.
Can't you do that over there?
And I want that list....
Or, better yet, put another site in their RSS client....much more efficient, less bandwidth wasting (and you can 'accidentally' subscribe to RSS feed of new torrents from empornium at the same time ;-))