This isn't really pixel zooming, it "zooms" by determining which of the pictures of the scene it has is closest to the view selected by the user, and switching to that one, rather than zooming in on a specific image. So if you, for example, select to view the head of a statue from a picture of that statue, it looks for a picture of the head of statue, then views that. It's pretty neat.
Well, you are completely right, of course. The whole perception of these company stereotypes just bugs me, personally. "Apple products are always innovative!". "Microsoft products are always threats to privacy/threats to security/ripped off from Apple!".
Grumble grumble grumble. I think I'm mostly annoyed because it's Monday morning.:D
I think that their point was that it was quasi-innovative because it was ripped-off from OS X (which isn't true, but it appeared to be their viewpoint), and as we all know everything that Apple does, even if it's been done many times before, is innovative.
The reasoning, of course, would be all about preventing "piracy" and "hacking" and "kiddie porn", etc. because obviously anyone who would refuse to let Microsoft "trust" their computer is up to something no good. And the government would eat it right up, just like they've done with all the other shit big business has been spewing lately.
I dunno, I just can't see IBM or Sun Microsystems (or a host of other companies) taking nonsense like this lying down. They stand to lose a lot from such a move. I don't know if MS has enough to gain (I really don't think they do) to pressure such a thing. Media companies, however, might do so (with at least MS's symbolic support, if not in a genuine coalition).
The US government's approach to copyright law recently has saddened me quite a lot, though. It just seems to be the actions of a group of people who don't know and don't want to know about what they're legislating, deciding instead that whatever big business says is good must be good. Worrying.
I'm really not sure that a whole secured media platform will sell, though. I just don't see people being dumb enough to buy it, and I like to have some faith that Microsoft aren't all that stupid. I'm probably putting too much faith in people again, though;)
I'm fairly sure it's different, there, though. The remote attestation system reportedly proves ("unforgably" - we shall see) what software a user is running. Now this system can also, apparently, prove this to an outside source (I don't know how this works, but it apparently does), which would allow them to verify that you are running certain software versions or whatever. How useful this is to an ISP this is is another matter altogether, though. I doubt an ISP would demand you run specific software. But on a closed network the remote attestation feature of TPM could apparently be used to verify that all of the computers are running the same, approved, software stack and so on.
Worth also noting that I have no idea how TPM works (I assume there's some signed private key stored in hardware in some confusing unbreakable way, but I can't say I know what the hell that'd be), I'm just basing my answers on the assumption that it does what it's supposed to (and I'm using its Wikipedia page as a reference for that;)).
Now where was that DMCA II draft we were working on...
Argh, yes, well, of course idiots in government can always break the rules completely randomly. This is not an issue which should be dictated by law.
On a side-note, I don't think Microsoft would be the ones in favour of making use of TPM mandatory in computer systems. It doesn't meet their business needs (in fact, I'd think it'd be likely to harm them). The MPAA/RIAA are very much the driving force behind mandating its use.
"Original Post" would be my guess.
Aha! That makes sense! Thanks, that's been bugging me for a while.
The problem is, the users are NOT in the position to trust or distrust binaries!
Why isn't the user in the position to trust binaries? In a TPM-supporting Linux stack, the only people in control of the trust or distrust are the administrators of the system. The hardware doesn't block software, the software uses the hardware to authenticate it. The software can then block it based on the rules set up by the administrator.
Erlang variables are single-assignment, and so you don't have locking issues.
Ah! Of course, yeah, sorry. That was dumb of me, I should've know that.
Programming in an asynchronous message passing language is much easier than programming in a synchronous one.
It is the proverbial mindfuck to begin with, though. I think it's a more natural system that's just hard for some of us to think about simply because we're used to thinking in less natural ways about things like this...
(Better to pass by reference, with some mechanism to ensure the producer can't make more modifications after the consumer process gets the pointer.)
From my (limited) knowledge of Erlang, and the description given, this could quite easily be the way that the data is handled "behind the scenes". Just set it up so that sending data to another process really does mean sending it (and losing access to it in the sender).
That's my point. A lot of people seem to be implying that mandatory use is a given, when I'm really not certain that it will ever come around. It doesn't look like a smart business decision for anyone, to me.
...in contrast to the way in which MS systems will use it to enhance the trust that content providers have in the platform.
I personally think of this as FUD to some degree, simply because if one does not buy DRMed media, it doesn't affect MS users in any way. People seem to confuse a system supporting something with its mandatory use, which hasn't even been proposed.
Bullshit... you cannot modify the code, compile it and still have it be "trusted". Yet more disingenous crap from the trusted computing shills.
Of course it's not still trusted. It's different. You can't change your password and have it still verify to the same hash either, can you? The hash proves what kernel you loaded, if you load a different kernel, it'll be a different hash. What you can do, if you are in the position to trust or distrust binaries, is just mark the new kernel as trusted. No problem.
The idea of TC is to verify what software is running. If you could run different software and still pass verification, it'd be completely useless, wouldn't it?
I don't have a problem with adoption so long as its use is not mandatory. I don't believe I've seen a single proposal which would make the use of this technology in a way that could undermine the end-user mandatory. Sure, it might be used to tighten up existing DRM systems. But I don't use DRM, and have no intention of doing so in the future. So why should this bother me?
Yes, that's a fair enough point. On the other hand, technically ActiveX controls aren't browser-specific either (ActiveX support is available for Mozilla, believe it or not), but ActiveX and things based on it are a lot more platform-dependent than the plugin architecture used by other browsers.
I quite like BackSlash, it often gives a good summary of stuff without having to go back to each article to check that a particularly good discussion didn't break out. Obviously if one is interested and has a lot of spare time one can monitor the threads, but that's not always an option, and I quite like having the little summaries posted when good stuff has emerged in comments.
If you're not one of the ones who'd appreciate BackSlash, though, you can remove it from your homepage using the "Homepage" subsection of your Preferences. Not sure if that affects RSS if that's what you use, though.:)
You can set it to not download things (to notify you, then download when you approve them), but the default behaviour is just to download everything because it's set up to use background bandwidth and doesn't disrupt other use of the network. I suppose if you were on a really strict bandwidth quota or something you'd possibly want to sort that out, though.
Slashdot Mirror
hugin does photo-stitching pretty well, I find, and is open source.
This isn't really pixel zooming, it "zooms" by determining which of the pictures of the scene it has is closest to the view selected by the user, and switching to that one, rather than zooming in on a specific image. So if you, for example, select to view the head of a statue from a picture of that statue, it looks for a picture of the head of statue, then views that. It's pretty neat.
*lashes out violently and without warning*
:D
Well, you are completely right, of course. The whole perception of these company stereotypes just bugs me, personally. "Apple products are always innovative!". "Microsoft products are always threats to privacy/threats to security/ripped off from Apple!".
Grumble grumble grumble. I think I'm mostly annoyed because it's Monday morning. :D
I think that their point was that it was quasi-innovative because it was ripped-off from OS X (which isn't true, but it appeared to be their viewpoint), and as we all know everything that Apple does, even if it's been done many times before, is innovative.
Truly we are witnessing the fall of civilisation ;)
I dunno, I just can't see IBM or Sun Microsystems (or a host of other companies) taking nonsense like this lying down. They stand to lose a lot from such a move. I don't know if MS has enough to gain (I really don't think they do) to pressure such a thing. Media companies, however, might do so (with at least MS's symbolic support, if not in a genuine coalition).
The US government's approach to copyright law recently has saddened me quite a lot, though. It just seems to be the actions of a group of people who don't know and don't want to know about what they're legislating, deciding instead that whatever big business says is good must be good. Worrying.
I'm really not sure that a whole secured media platform will sell, though. I just don't see people being dumb enough to buy it, and I like to have some faith that Microsoft aren't all that stupid. I'm probably putting too much faith in people again, though ;)
I'm fairly sure it's different, there, though. The remote attestation system reportedly proves ("unforgably" - we shall see) what software a user is running. Now this system can also, apparently, prove this to an outside source (I don't know how this works, but it apparently does), which would allow them to verify that you are running certain software versions or whatever. How useful this is to an ISP this is is another matter altogether, though. I doubt an ISP would demand you run specific software. But on a closed network the remote attestation feature of TPM could apparently be used to verify that all of the computers are running the same, approved, software stack and so on.
Worth also noting that I have no idea how TPM works (I assume there's some signed private key stored in hardware in some confusing unbreakable way, but I can't say I know what the hell that'd be), I'm just basing my answers on the assumption that it does what it's supposed to (and I'm using its Wikipedia page as a reference for that ;)).
Argh, yes, well, of course idiots in government can always break the rules completely randomly. This is not an issue which should be dictated by law.
On a side-note, I don't think Microsoft would be the ones in favour of making use of TPM mandatory in computer systems. It doesn't meet their business needs (in fact, I'd think it'd be likely to harm them). The MPAA/RIAA are very much the driving force behind mandating its use.
Aha! That makes sense! Thanks, that's been bugging me for a while.
Why isn't the user in the position to trust binaries? In a TPM-supporting Linux stack, the only people in control of the trust or distrust are the administrators of the system. The hardware doesn't block software, the software uses the hardware to authenticate it. The software can then block it based on the rules set up by the administrator.
Ah! Of course, yeah, sorry. That was dumb of me, I should've know that.
It is the proverbial mindfuck to begin with, though. I think it's a more natural system that's just hard for some of us to think about simply because we're used to thinking in less natural ways about things like this...
I mean, a sensible proposal. Although I suppose idiocy backed by law has worked before.
From my (limited) knowledge of Erlang, and the description given, this could quite easily be the way that the data is handled "behind the scenes". Just set it up so that sending data to another process really does mean sending it (and losing access to it in the sender).
Really not sure this is how Erlang works, though.
That's my point. A lot of people seem to be implying that mandatory use is a given, when I'm really not certain that it will ever come around. It doesn't look like a smart business decision for anyone, to me.
Aside: Does "OP" stand for "Old Parent"?
Touché.
I personally think of this as FUD to some degree, simply because if one does not buy DRMed media, it doesn't affect MS users in any way. People seem to confuse a system supporting something with its mandatory use, which hasn't even been proposed.
Of course it's not still trusted. It's different. You can't change your password and have it still verify to the same hash either, can you? The hash proves what kernel you loaded, if you load a different kernel, it'll be a different hash. What you can do, if you are in the position to trust or distrust binaries, is just mark the new kernel as trusted. No problem.
The idea of TC is to verify what software is running. If you could run different software and still pass verification, it'd be completely useless, wouldn't it?
I don't have a problem with adoption so long as its use is not mandatory. I don't believe I've seen a single proposal which would make the use of this technology in a way that could undermine the end-user mandatory. Sure, it might be used to tighten up existing DRM systems. But I don't use DRM, and have no intention of doing so in the future. So why should this bother me?
Please do not feed the trolls :)
Yes, that's a fair enough point. On the other hand, technically ActiveX controls aren't browser-specific either (ActiveX support is available for Mozilla, believe it or not), but ActiveX and things based on it are a lot more platform-dependent than the plugin architecture used by other browsers.
Any website requiring Java.
Any website requiring Flash
I think you're confused between extensions (which just add functionality from the browser) and plugins.
I quite like BackSlash, it often gives a good summary of stuff without having to go back to each article to check that a particularly good discussion didn't break out. Obviously if one is interested and has a lot of spare time one can monitor the threads, but that's not always an option, and I quite like having the little summaries posted when good stuff has emerged in comments.
If you're not one of the ones who'd appreciate BackSlash, though, you can remove it from your homepage using the "Homepage" subsection of your Preferences. Not sure if that affects RSS if that's what you use, though. :)
ActiveX controls are, however, fairly comparable to Firefox/Mozilla plugins.
You can set it to not download things (to notify you, then download when you approve them), but the default behaviour is just to download everything because it's set up to use background bandwidth and doesn't disrupt other use of the network. I suppose if you were on a really strict bandwidth quota or something you'd possibly want to sort that out, though.