I'm imagining something like... setting a 0 to a 1 takes a particular amount of energy, and in current computers changing back to a 0 requires negating that charge, using an equal amount of energy; and released waste heat.
If instead of blowing away the charge that indicates a 1, you somehow moved the charge to a vacant holding area, the movement might take less energy than the negation. as mentioned, like moving the beads on an abucus, instead of moving pebbles in and out from a pile.
One simple method would be to simply use 2 cells for each bit; such that 01 becomes 1, and 10 becomes 0; the total energy in the system is constant and power is only required to flip bits. Much like the magnetic grains on a hard drive platter.
However, you would then need twice as many elements, which would lower production yeilds, and draw more power; possibly negating any benifit.
thinking of 2 charges in 4 cells, you could have 1100 1010 1001 0110 0101 0011 which is 6 states in twice the space of 2 states; perhaps efficency grows with size.
3 charges in 6 cells, 111000 110100 110010 110001 101100 101010 101001 100110 100101 100011 011100 011010 011001 010110 010101 010011 001110 001101 001011 000111 which is 20 states...
if 2 becomes 1, 4 becomes 6, and 6 becomes 20, and 8 becomes 70...(n factorial) / (((n/2) factiorial) ^2) maybe?
so applying that to 40 base bits gives 137846528820, and 38 gives 1767263190; so you need 40 cells to hold what 32 can in regular binary. but only 68 cells to hold what 64 regular binary bits can do; with the added bonus of error dectection.
but this is just storing and retrieving enumeratable patterns of bits; converting these values to and from binary, integers, text characters, and pixels; adding and multipling them, and doing neat things like XOR, bit masking, and such...
In reguards to reversable computing, The thing about Information is that is is not subject to the laws of thermodynamics; teaching someone how to do something does not reduce your ability to do it. It may lower the value of that information is a marketplace; but it may also increase it.
The real flaw, as I see it, with a fully reversable system, is that it would be basically useless for most encryption tasks; hash codes are basically irreversable; and even multipling two numbers together... 27*37 is easy, but finding the prime factors of 713 isn't quite so easy. You would have to store every single intermediate result, "occasionally you get more bits than you have space for" would be a hell of a lot of bits.
Pure Democracy is a terrible system of government, it's basically glorified mob rule, tending towards the opression of minorities. Also, having a public vote on every single matter would be an enormous waste of time and resources.
A representative government allows the people to select people to do that work for them; while an overriding constitution prevents them from abusing their power excessivly.
A consistant head of state, such as a President is needed for diplomatic reasons, and as a finalizer of decisions. Imagine having to send a congressional sub-commitee to Russia to discuss nuclear weapons; or having congressmen decide which of the required 51% signs a bill into law first or last? (I suppose having the house/senate physically sign bill might help some things)
The Diplomatic head of state also needs to be in command of the Military, otherwise when negotiating with other heads of state, he could never be sure that his army will back him up. (The only thing worse than a civilian in charge of the military, would be the military in charge of itself.)
You also can't change President willy-nilly, nor can he be subject to recall at a whim; at that rate we would be having a presidental election each month; and nothing would get done because any sitting president would be to busy trying to hang on to actually accomplish anything. Imagine the recent election problems occuring every single month! recount the recall! recall the recount!
Yes, origionally only Free Land Owning Males Over 21 could vote; it was the best comprimise they could accomplish; if you think about those days, there was no internet, no TV, and in fact, very little literacy. Your employer and landlord was a White Male Landowner; just being seen with a revolutionary terrorist could get you fired. and no welfare or unemployment; but there is Debtors Prisons. They were in charge, and they wouldn't give up their power without a fight.
The 'Founding Fathers' needed the support of the Landowners because they could control everyone else; this revolution was against English Rule, not the landowners, anglo-saxons, or freedom from slavery; "No taxation without representation"; hell, if England had granted the colonys seats in the House of Commons, maybe we'd be calling 'Truck's 'Lorry's.
But, the english industrialists didn't want to compete with cheap american/other goods, and so they wanted extra taxes, such that even if tea was shipped directly from India to America, it would still have British taxes applied. -- Kinda how americans today don't want to have to compete with cheap international outsourced labor.
In any case, how we got here is unimportant. I bet most people don't give a damn if Canadian wheat is 10 cents a ton cheaper than American wheat; or even if their car is made in the US. We elect people who we think a) has a chance of winning, and b) we don't disagree with to badly. Usually, eighter the Democrats or Republicans manage to feild such candidates so one or the other gets elected, and proceeds to make some of these boring decisions for us. We lose some resources to corruption, But it's more than made up for by someone doing that work for us.
Sometimes even the majority disagrees with a decision they made, but you're welcome to run for office yourself, if you think you can do a better job.
Around 1:21 presidents have been killed in office; while around 1:100 US soliders sent to Iraq have been killed (can't find exact numbers), who's more in harms way? Who's house did the 9/11 attackers try to hit? (hint: it's white)
I believe that Bush lied to the american people in order to start a war in Iraq; but I guess the majority of adult, non-felon americans are ok with that, so off to war we go. I think that's pretty stupid, but at least I'm free to express that I think it's stupid, and try to convince others that it's wrong, without having to resort to violence to impose the will of the minority on the majority.
hell, people here in Washington (the state) voted against taxing themselves for the 'Medic One' program. AKA public ambulances. Thankfully, the legislature got it reworded, and back on the next ballot before service stopped.
... and that's the story of how King George (Washington) the First became our first beloved Monarch. Which brings us to King George (W. Bush) the Third, leading us on our holy crusade to enlighten the savages in the sandy wastelands of the Middle East.
If you liked this, you may enjoy other 'Alternate History' fiction, such as the 'Alvin Maker' series by Orson Scott Card, or 'Roma Eterna' by Robert Silverberg.
Identity theft is a real problem nowdays, so a common yet secure method of ID could be useful, however...
The more common, the bigger the target; erasers and cloners will be standard criminal equipment. Just as you can be arrested for a 'slim-jim' (used to unlock car doors) or various DMCA violating devices, these will quickly be considered 'criminal tools' and it'll be a felony to own one.
Clerks and such are often lazy, they rarly check my ID as it is, and they don't care if you use someone elses card anyway; say a man was arrested for using another mans card, and it turns out they are 'domestic partners', and he sues the store for a few million in 'Emotional Distress' and sexual preferance discrimination... think about the $2 bill stories... if your card fails, will you automatically become a suspect?
I believe the Broadcast flag would have killed HDTV adoption in the US; If my brother-in-law couldn't record his NASCAR to watch after work, what good would HDTV do him?
HDTV equipment couldn't be made in the US for export, because no other country would want broadcast flag equipped products, ensuring the ongoing death of manufacturing in America.
It would raise the cost of, and decrease the desirability of better HDTV, increasing the time until we can turn off the old signals.
The airwaves belong to the Public, and private interests should not be allowed to run rampant over the limited useful spectrum, all of the FCC's decisions should have a statement explaining exactly how it is expected to benifit the public, with respect to the spectrum used; just as with the EPA and Environmental Impact statements.
private encrypted tranmissions have a place (cell phones, military, wireless networking), and it other areas a balance can be struck (TV networks using satillites to send shows to affiliates should be protected) but government angencies should not profit from, or pander to business interests. (except from taxing their profits)
My thought of Time Travel, is that it would only be possible to travel from a sending device to a receiving device; and until the receiver is built; anyone attempting to arrive in a prior time would have their atoms scattered across the universe in a gaussian pattern so thin the best you could achieve is a scent of raw meat at the destination.
Ditto with Faster-than-light travel; without a reciever placed the old fashioned way you're gone.
I thought it was pretty good. I've read most all of Douglas Adam's books multiple times and it was comfortably familier, yet interestingly novel.
If it were 100% faithfully sync'd with the books; there would be little point it seeing it if you had read them.
The pacing was good, the dialog enough to tell a story, and the visuals fantastic. I think it stand well enough on it's own; and as an addition to the books.
Folks like this is why there may never be an 'Ender's Game' movie, because someone will complain the that naked boy soap fight scene was missing...
Flat panels are still more expensive; so you'll still need power for tubes, or money for panels.
This would still be useful for those little print server boxes; standalone network disks; and for someone to plug in a hidden network sniffer to steal your passwords and confidential data.
Are your Ethernet cables laid in a safe way for such power? what do your local fire codes say? will your legacy card in your old 486 Firewall ironically combust?
"where-as 20 minutes with google would have produced facts"
I love Google and all, but that's dangerously close to the statement "It's on the Internet, it must be true."
What really matters in a Court of Law is reasonably provable documented evidence; Documents must not only be produced; they must be signed and witnessed for fullest weight.
Take for example the claim that SCO continued to publish Linux on their website. Did anyone print it out at the time?; along with authoritive domain registration information for the site that it was on, documentation of the clean network path between the client and the server, and such -- in the presense of a trusted witness, such as a Notary Public who would actually be willing to seal such an unusual request?
My family runs a Rubber Stamp business; not the fancy art stamps, but stamps for financial institutions; aerospace inspections; notary seals; 'VOID'/'CANCEL'/'MAILED'/'RECEIVED' are all big sellers. Paper documentation is alive and strong; Computers help us make more of it. Electronic Documents are neat, but when a dispute arises, Paper beats Electrons.
I see a lot of people speaking of Story, and that is very important, but for technical growth, Physics has a long way to go. I want to be able to blast holes in the ground, make a pile of dirt, control the flow of water...
Enemy AI; particularly Pathing in a 3d space, an NPC should be able to determine the best path to it's goal; given it's sensory field.
Multiplayer; 2 players needs 2 data flows through the server (12,21), 4 players needs 12 (12,13,14,21,23,24,31,32,34,41,42,43), 100 players 9900. That's why deathmatch style game servers are rarly set to the max players, and most MMOLRPG's are broken into sub-sections.
Sound; Currently, almost every game uses pre-recorded sounds. Speech generation is very far behind visuals.
I once walked into a computer lab with 21 PC's, power fans, cpu fans, hard drives all whirring; people talking, typing, etc. The moment I entered the room I knew something was wrong. I walked around a bit and quickly homed in on the file server, and gently touched it, it was blazing hot because it's main fan wasn't spinning. Somehow, subconsiously, that one noise being absent registered and gave useful information. It'll be a heck of a long time until a game can match the details that humans are capable of perceiving.
I started the application process for a Patent reguarding 3d shutter glasses and console games (no, that's not the whole patent, it was a specific way of using them), but I decided not to complete the filing because that was right around when the Pokemon Seizures happened.
I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a lawsuit for causing seizures in small children.
This is about as likely as Jack-In-The-Box deciding to offer extra rare patties; or Wendy's to start selling 'Chicken Fingers'
the price would scale by level, $0.10 for a level 1; $5.00 for a level 50...
reminds me of a 'potion vendor' I coded in a MUD:
stats were scaled from 1-20, if a stat reached 0, you would die.
my potions would add 4 to a stat for 100 turns, then subtract 1 for 2500 turns, once a stat was lowered, it made it more likely you would need to use a potion to survive a fight.
and the price formula increased the price the lower your stat. That shop made a lot of gold, and killed quite a few players.
If the RIAA authorized the free release and duplication of a product, for example titled 'New Boy Band - New Hot Song.mp3', and advertised it's parameters (size, bit rate, even a 'secure' hash value); havn't they effectively released the title with those parameters for public duplication?
It would be like standing on a street corner, announcing "Free California Oranges!", while someone next to you hands out oranges... then when the 'customer' tries to leave you say "Hey! you owe me ten dollars! That was a Florida Orange"
Wouldn't downloadable/duplicated movies have all the keys and encryption stripped out anyway?
It's like the coin box on the Ms. Pac Man machine where I used to work; fancy round key, bulletproof case, freeze resistant... and 2 exposed phillips screws holding the hinge on the other side.
6 cubes of tennis balls, each 1000 tennis balls wide/across/deep, I'd guess a single ball is 3 inches?, so 3000 inches, or 250 feet each edge, almost the length of a football field.
The model-T wasn't designed for todays 10 lane, 75 MPH highways; that doesn't mean a personal automobile can't take advantage of them.
Its like this one software testing boss that wanted an excuse to fire me from my gig at Microsoft when I became moderatly disabled, so he told me that if I didn't find 10 bugs in the next week he would have to let me go. That wednesday at lunchtime, he fired me because I had only found 5 bugs by that point.
(I ended up getting a job in another department, so it's not MS in general)
give it time, dinosaurs take some evolution to start laying chicken eggs.
Everquest had the player characters 'eyes' adjust for many years now, when you step into a cave, the brightness slowly rises, when you step out, the glare slowly fades...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm imagining something like... setting a 0 to a 1 takes a particular amount of energy, and in current computers changing back to a 0 requires negating that charge, using an equal amount of energy; and released waste heat.
If instead of blowing away the charge that indicates a 1, you somehow moved the charge to a vacant holding area, the movement might take less energy than the negation. as mentioned, like moving the beads on an abucus, instead of moving pebbles in and out from a pile.
One simple method would be to simply use 2 cells for each bit; such that 01 becomes 1, and 10 becomes 0; the total energy in the system is constant and power is only required to flip bits. Much like the magnetic grains on a hard drive platter.
However, you would then need twice as many elements, which would lower production yeilds, and draw more power; possibly negating any benifit.
thinking of 2 charges in 4 cells, you could have 1100 1010 1001 0110 0101 0011 which is 6 states in twice the space of 2 states; perhaps efficency grows with size.
3 charges in 6 cells, 111000 110100 110010 110001 101100 101010 101001 100110 100101 100011 011100 011010 011001 010110 010101 010011 001110 001101 001011 000111 which is 20 states...
4 charges in 8 cells, 11110000 11101000 11100100 11100010 11100001 11011000 11010100 11010010 11010001 11001100
11001010 11001001 11000110 11000101 11000011 10111000 10110100 10110010 10110001 10101100
10101010 10101001 10100110 10100101 10100011 10011100 10011010 10011001 10010110 10010101
10010011 10001110 10001101 10001011 10000111 01111000 01110100 01110010 01110001 01101100
01101010 01101001 01100110 01100101 01100011 01011100 01011010 01011001 01010110 01010101
01010011 01001110 01001101 01001011 01000111 00111100 00111010 00111001 00110110 00110101
00110011 00101110 00101101 00101011 00100111 00011110 00011101 00011011 00010111 00001111
, which is 70 states...
if 2 becomes 1, 4 becomes 6, and 6 becomes 20, and 8 becomes 70...(n factorial) / (((n/2) factiorial) ^2) maybe?
so applying that to 40 base bits gives 137846528820, and 38 gives 1767263190; so you need 40 cells to hold what 32 can in regular binary.
but only 68 cells to hold what 64 regular binary bits can do; with the added bonus of error dectection.
but this is just storing and retrieving enumeratable patterns of bits; converting these values to and from binary, integers, text characters, and pixels; adding and multipling them, and doing neat things like XOR, bit masking, and such...
In reguards to reversable computing, The thing about Information is that is is not subject to the laws of thermodynamics; teaching someone how to do something does not reduce your ability to do it. It may lower the value of that information is a marketplace; but it may also increase it.
The real flaw, as I see it, with a fully reversable system, is that it would be basically useless for most encryption tasks; hash codes are basically irreversable; and even multipling two numbers together... 27*37 is easy, but finding the prime factors of 713 isn't quite so easy. You would have to store every single intermediate result, "occasionally you get more bits than you have space for" would be a hell of a lot of bits.
Pure Democracy is a terrible system of government, it's basically glorified mob rule, tending towards the opression of minorities. Also, having a public vote on every single matter would be an enormous waste of time and resources.
A representative government allows the people to select people to do that work for them; while an overriding constitution prevents them from abusing their power excessivly.
A consistant head of state, such as a President is needed for diplomatic reasons, and as a finalizer of decisions. Imagine having to send a congressional sub-commitee to Russia to discuss nuclear weapons; or having congressmen decide which of the required 51% signs a bill into law first or last? (I suppose having the house/senate physically sign bill might help some things)
The Diplomatic head of state also needs to be in command of the Military, otherwise when negotiating with other heads of state, he could never be sure that his army will back him up. (The only thing worse than a civilian in charge of the military, would be the military in charge of itself.)
You also can't change President willy-nilly, nor can he be subject to recall at a whim; at that rate we would be having a presidental election each month; and nothing would get done because any sitting president would be to busy trying to hang on to actually accomplish anything. Imagine the recent election problems occuring every single month! recount the recall! recall the recount!
Yes, origionally only Free Land Owning Males Over 21 could vote; it was the best comprimise they could accomplish; if you think about those days, there was no internet, no TV, and in fact, very little literacy. Your employer and landlord was a White Male Landowner; just being seen with a revolutionary terrorist could get you fired. and no welfare or unemployment; but there is Debtors Prisons. They were in charge, and they wouldn't give up their power without a fight.
The 'Founding Fathers' needed the support of the Landowners because they could control everyone else; this revolution was against English Rule, not the landowners, anglo-saxons, or freedom from slavery; "No taxation without representation"; hell, if England had granted the colonys seats in the House of Commons, maybe we'd be calling 'Truck's 'Lorry's.
But, the english industrialists didn't want to compete with cheap american/other goods, and so they wanted extra taxes, such that even if tea was shipped directly from India to America, it would still have British taxes applied. -- Kinda how americans today don't want to have to compete with cheap international outsourced labor.
In any case, how we got here is unimportant. I bet most people don't give a damn if Canadian wheat is 10 cents a ton cheaper than American wheat; or even if their car is made in the US. We elect people who we think a) has a chance of winning, and b) we don't disagree with to badly. Usually, eighter the Democrats or Republicans manage to feild such candidates so one or the other gets elected, and proceeds to make some of these boring decisions for us. We lose some resources to corruption, But it's more than made up for by someone doing that work for us.
Sometimes even the majority disagrees with a decision they made, but you're welcome to run for office yourself, if you think you can do a better job.
Around 1:21 presidents have been killed in office; while around 1:100 US soliders sent to Iraq have been killed (can't find exact numbers), who's more in harms way? Who's house did the 9/11 attackers try to hit? (hint: it's white)
I believe that Bush lied to the american people in order to start a war in Iraq; but I guess the majority of adult, non-felon americans are ok with that, so off to war we go. I think that's pretty stupid, but at least I'm free to express that I think it's stupid, and try to convince others that it's wrong, without having to resort to violence to impose the will of the minority on the majority.
hell, people here in Washington (the state) voted against taxing themselves for the 'Medic One' program. AKA public ambulances. Thankfully, the legislature got it reworded, and back on the next ballot before service stopped.
... and that's the story of how King George (Washington) the First became our first beloved Monarch. Which brings us to King George (W. Bush) the Third, leading us on our holy crusade to enlighten the savages in the sandy wastelands of the Middle East.
If you liked this, you may enjoy other 'Alternate History' fiction, such as the 'Alvin Maker' series by Orson Scott Card, or 'Roma Eterna' by Robert Silverberg.
Reading is Fundemental!
Identity theft is a real problem nowdays, so a common yet secure method of ID could be useful, however...
The more common, the bigger the target; erasers and cloners will be standard criminal equipment. Just as you can be arrested for a 'slim-jim' (used to unlock car doors) or various DMCA violating devices, these will quickly be considered 'criminal tools' and it'll be a felony to own one.
Clerks and such are often lazy, they rarly check my ID as it is, and they don't care if you use someone elses card anyway; say a man was arrested for using another mans card, and it turns out they are 'domestic partners', and he sues the store for a few million in 'Emotional Distress' and sexual preferance discrimination... think about the $2 bill stories... if your card fails, will you automatically become a suspect?
I believe the Broadcast flag would have killed HDTV adoption in the US; If my brother-in-law couldn't record his NASCAR to watch after work, what good would HDTV do him?
HDTV equipment couldn't be made in the US for export, because no other country would want broadcast flag equipped products, ensuring the ongoing death of manufacturing in America.
It would raise the cost of, and decrease the desirability of better HDTV, increasing the time until we can turn off the old signals.
The airwaves belong to the Public, and private interests should not be allowed to run rampant over the limited useful spectrum, all of the FCC's decisions should have a statement explaining exactly how it is expected to benifit the public, with respect to the spectrum used; just as with the EPA and Environmental Impact statements.
private encrypted tranmissions have a place (cell phones, military, wireless networking), and it other areas a balance can be struck (TV networks using satillites to send shows to affiliates should be protected) but government angencies should not profit from, or pander to business interests. (except from taxing their profits)
That why I try do avoid using my mod points on the basis of agreement or disagreement with the content of the comment.
Could Castro Pardon all the gitmo detainees then?
My thought of Time Travel, is that it would only be possible to travel from a sending device to a receiving device; and until the receiver is built; anyone attempting to arrive in a prior time would have their atoms scattered across the universe in a gaussian pattern so thin the best you could achieve is a scent of raw meat at the destination.
Ditto with Faster-than-light travel; without a reciever placed the old fashioned way you're gone.
Has anybody really tried to fight one of these suits yet?
Those used to be free from Microsoft in Netmeeting; but Netmeeting is blocked from running on XP.
I thought it was pretty good. I've read most all of Douglas Adam's books multiple times and it was comfortably familier, yet interestingly novel.
If it were 100% faithfully sync'd with the books; there would be little point it seeing it if you had read them.
The pacing was good, the dialog enough to tell a story, and the visuals fantastic. I think it stand well enough on it's own; and as an addition to the books.
Folks like this is why there may never be an 'Ender's Game' movie, because someone will complain the that naked boy soap fight scene was missing...
Flat panels are still more expensive; so you'll still need power for tubes, or money for panels.
This would still be useful for those little print server boxes; standalone network disks; and for someone to plug in a hidden network sniffer to steal your passwords and confidential data.
Are your Ethernet cables laid in a safe way for such power? what do your local fire codes say? will your legacy card in your old 486 Firewall ironically combust?
"where-as 20 minutes with google would have produced facts"
I love Google and all, but that's dangerously close to the statement "It's on the Internet, it must be true."
What really matters in a Court of Law is reasonably provable documented evidence; Documents must not only be produced; they must be signed and witnessed for fullest weight.
Take for example the claim that SCO continued to publish Linux on their website.
Did anyone print it out at the time?; along with authoritive domain registration information for the site that it was on, documentation of the clean network path between the client and the server, and such -- in the presense of a trusted witness, such as a Notary Public who would actually be willing to seal such an unusual request?
My family runs a Rubber Stamp business; not the fancy art stamps, but stamps for financial institutions; aerospace inspections; notary seals; 'VOID'/'CANCEL'/'MAILED'/'RECEIVED' are all big sellers. Paper documentation is alive and strong; Computers help us make more of it. Electronic Documents are neat, but when a dispute arises, Paper beats Electrons.
(at least until TrustRank comes out of beta)
I see a lot of people speaking of Story, and that is very important, but for technical growth, Physics has a long way to go. I want to be able to blast holes in the ground, make a pile of dirt, control the flow of water...
Enemy AI; particularly Pathing in a 3d space, an NPC should be able to determine the best path to it's goal; given it's sensory field.
Multiplayer; 2 players needs 2 data flows through the server (12,21), 4 players needs 12 (12,13,14,21,23,24,31,32,34,41,42,43), 100 players 9900. That's why deathmatch style game servers are rarly set to the max players, and most MMOLRPG's are broken into sub-sections.
Sound; Currently, almost every game uses pre-recorded sounds. Speech generation is very far behind visuals.
I once walked into a computer lab with 21 PC's, power fans, cpu fans, hard drives all whirring; people talking, typing, etc. The moment I entered the room I knew something was wrong. I walked around a bit and quickly homed in on the file server, and gently touched it, it was blazing hot because it's main fan wasn't spinning. Somehow, subconsiously, that one noise being absent registered and gave useful information. It'll be a heck of a long time until a game can match the details that humans are capable of perceiving.
I started the application process for a Patent reguarding 3d shutter glasses and console games (no, that's not the whole patent, it was a specific way of using them), but I decided not to complete the filing because that was right around when the Pokemon Seizures happened.
I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a lawsuit for causing seizures in small children.
This is about as likely as Jack-In-The-Box deciding to offer extra rare patties; or Wendy's to start selling 'Chicken Fingers'
I wonder how many people were offended that the 'urban' black character basically chaufferred the 'smart' white guy around.
Is a good action movie with Bale, go rent it.
the price would scale by level, $0.10 for a level 1; $5.00 for a level 50...
reminds me of a 'potion vendor' I coded in a MUD:
stats were scaled from 1-20, if a stat reached 0, you would die.
my potions would add 4 to a stat for 100 turns, then subtract 1 for 2500 turns, once a stat was lowered, it made it more likely you would need to use a potion to survive a fight.
and the price formula increased the price the lower your stat. That shop made a lot of gold, and killed quite a few players.
If the RIAA authorized the free release and duplication of a product, for example titled 'New Boy Band - New Hot Song.mp3', and advertised it's parameters (size, bit rate, even a 'secure' hash value); havn't they effectively released the title with those parameters for public duplication?
It would be like standing on a street corner, announcing "Free California Oranges!", while someone next to you hands out oranges... then when the 'customer' tries to leave you say "Hey! you owe me ten dollars! That was a Florida Orange"
Fonts are basically not Copyrightable.
You can trademark their names, patent processes for manipulating them, but you cannot sue someone over the shape of their letters.
That's why McDonald's logo is 'The Golden Arches', instead of 'The Big Yellow 'M''
Wouldn't downloadable/duplicated movies have all the keys and encryption stripped out anyway?
It's like the coin box on the Ms. Pac Man machine where I used to work; fancy round key, bulletproof case, freeze resistant... and 2 exposed phillips screws holding the hinge on the other side.
6 cubes of tennis balls, each 1000 tennis balls wide/across/deep, I'd guess a single ball is 3 inches?, so 3000 inches, or 250 feet each edge, almost the length of a football field.
The model-T wasn't designed for todays 10 lane, 75 MPH highways; that doesn't mean a personal automobile can't take advantage of them.
Its like this one software testing boss that wanted an excuse to fire me from my gig at Microsoft when I became moderatly disabled, so he told me that if I didn't find 10 bugs in the next week he would have to let me go. That wednesday at lunchtime, he fired me because I had only found 5 bugs by that point.
(I ended up getting a job in another department, so it's not MS in general)
give it time, dinosaurs take some evolution to start laying chicken eggs.
Everquest had the player characters 'eyes' adjust for many years now, when you step into a cave, the brightness slowly rises, when you step out, the glare slowly fades...