Hmmm... the player must store the revocation list in firmware... what happens if you create a DVD that fills up the list with garbage keys? Or does it reset the list everytime a new DVD is inserted?
Ah, no, the Americans did invent the internet, and indeed Al Gore was an important figure in this. Who can argue with that? But the web, the thing that made the internet what it is today, was the invention of Professor Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, KBE, FRS.
I just read Cory Doctorow's delightful Eastern Standard Tribe, and in it he postulates that this is the unanticipated factor that will prevent the "global village". My job should really be in Montreal, but it isn't, because I live in London and it's a bitch of a commute.;-) I do adjust my hours to get more overlap, and this suits me as I'm not really a morning person, but it is still a problem.
Well, it's tricky. Your argument about the Treo is a little off-beam - there is a big difference between a push e-mail device and a pull device; of course for many, including me, that difference is the reason we don't want one!
Well, in my case it's also that I'm the messaging admin so I don't want to have to deploy enterprise server.
But of course with some work you can make any modern smartphone do push e-mail.
I think the selling point of the crackberry has always been that it works out of the box.
With other devices there is always a degree of tweaking and configuration involved. For me, I'd far sooner have my P910i because it can do so much more, but hey! I'm a geek. A PHB or a rap star prefers something that just works.
I think he's trying to emphasise that the cuts are needed by the business, since if they were just random the tendency would be to cut people you don't know.
Let's see, the article says they'll be left with 55000, that means they're cutting almost 4% of the combined workforce. woo.
Ah, you wacky americans with your primitive cellphone technology;-) I think I have to go back 4-5 phones to find one that couldn't do this. My current one can do it via IR, Bluetooth, SMS, MMS, or e-mail.
In fact, a couple of phones ago I transfered all my contacts from old to new by beaming.
That should read "DRM can not work". (Not being a grammar nazi, making a point).
And of course this has the interesting side effect that DRM increases "piracy".
Bob wants to put the new Celine Dion CD on his iPod Alice's DRM stops him. Bob googles around for a way to get round this restriction, and discovers Bittorrent Bob downloads Celine just to get it on his iPod Bob notices her entire back catalogue linked on the same page
This is to my mind why this argument is one of the most important there is at the moment. In the grand scheme of things, of course, whether or not you can play a Celine Dion CD is not critically important.
But I believe there is a good chance that sooner or later we'll have 3-D printers of such quality and ability that the marginal cost of physical artifacts drops to near zero, just like it has for music now. And when that happens we'd better have some of the economics of 0mc goods worked out, or else it's going to be nasty. When you can copy chairs over the internet just as easily as you can copy MP3s, the world is going to be a radically different place...
How about a cheap small, 800x600 say, LCD panel, with a built-in USB video card, nothing fancy, that you can plug into your PC to get a mini second display without any trouble?
It's not for people who want programable keys, it's for people who want programable keys with displays in them. You don't map volume mute to it, or firefox, because they don't need displays.
how about if you configure Button one to display the album art for your currently playing song in WinAmp, that does a pause when you hit it. Perhaps a second that shows you the next track's name, that skips forward when you press it. That leaves the last to show you unread e-mail totals, that opens mail when you hit it. An arrangement like that would have value, wouldn't it?
While admittedly this specific suggestion is probably not a good idea (bit hard to tell without the details), I'm glad to see some thinking going on in the music industry. Of the many things wrong with the music and movie industries at the moment, the one that worrys me most is that there is no long-term thinking going on. Technology has, basically, destroyed their business model, which largely comprises distributing recorded performances. Now that any bozo with a copy of Garageband and a web page can do this, they are stuffed. Even the non-distribution bits of their business, which are also important, are stuffed, because it was the distribution component that collected the customer's money. Their response has been to run amok trying to keep that model alive. Sueing your customers and breaking their media players is clearly insane, but they can't think of anything else that will keep up the pretence that ther business model isn't dead. What they, and we, and the creative artists need, is for someone to come along and come up with a new 21st century business model, where music gets made, creators get paid, and we get to listen to it in the ways we want. But almost no-one is thinking about this. (In part this is because this is a hard problem) Is a sort of download tax, which may be what WB are proposing, the answer? Hard to say. How well does the performing rights society do with distributing royalties on public performances of work? (I think an independant body should be in charge of such a scheme, rather than the record companies) How would they cope in a situation where every bozo with a web page is a music publisher?
Indeed, I always make a deliberate effort to use my Mod points in stories that didn't make it to the front page. (Disclaimer: There is a degree of self interest in this as there's less crap to mod down in the sections, and I prefer modding up as it is more interesting)
Ah, I'm from Northern Ireland, where everyone is Green or Orange. We never really had any other colors when I was growing up: cf Joyce - "Ireland never had any problems with the Jews because she never let them in in the first place"
Though sadly it appears, from recent incidents, that now that we are starting to get people of different colors, we're perfectly capable of being horrible to them too. It's sort of like a feature upgrade - "Wow, now you can get people to discriminate against that come in easy-to-identify colors"
I've always had a problem with understanding racism because I simply cannot get myself into a mindset where I can see why you would ever judge someone on the color of their skin rather than the content of their character.
Think about it - other media players only handle a limited set of formats and even then they often choke and complain that you haven't got the right codec etc. But VLC just plays everything. So either everything else is crap, or they've made some sort of a deal with Satan.
Examples: I was having trouble watching the MacWorld keynote, for example, with Quicktime spluttering, and was about to give up when I thought "hang on, try VLC". Worked a treat. I also had a problem with a 1Gb MP2 file from my PVR that I needed to move to another computer - with no DVD burner avaialble. Messed about for a while, then tried VLC. Transcoded it down to 150Mb (quality was not an issue) and popped it onto a USB memory stick.
He is to ask Congress to pass a law allowing him to order the type of wiretap you describe, or he can accept legal advice that he is able to do anything he likes under his wartime powers, which he is able to invoke because there is a "War on Terror".
Option 2 is probably slightly easier, and appears to be the one he is going for, although it has the minor side effect of turning the US into a permanent dictatorship.
Now, I have to call you on that. The exact quote is:
"I don't tend to bother about slashdot, because quite frankly, the whole _point_ of slashdot is to have this big public wanking session with people getting together and making their own "insightful" comment on any random topic, whether they know anything about it or not."
So you see, Linus accepts that some of us might know what we're talking about, although there's no way to tell who.
Though the wanking in public thing, he did say that, yes.
I leave you with a horrific image that comes later in the same e-mail:
"I was really hoping this particular wanking session wouldn't overflow into Linux-kernel."
Hold on, let me re-read that submission again. "Using a network of cameras that can record license plates, Britain plans to build a database of vehicle movement for police and security services: rollout begins in March. Can't someone just swap/steal/disable the tracking device? Seems to me just another way to track the average citizen and not those wishing to avoid authorities."
OK, I'm used to posters not reading the article, and to editors not reading slashdot, but is this the first instance of a submitter not reading his own submission? It doesn't use a tracking device, they photograph people's license plates.
Which is what this article, and other comentators, are starting to think about. If these illegal wiretaps were conventional wiretaps, why would the administration not get FISA to rubber-stamp them? Exactly what kind of wiretap is so secret and so iffy that FISA wouldn't sign off on it? Listening to every cell phone call made in Brooklyn for a month, and using Echelon to pull out the good stuff, perhaps?
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm... the player must store the revocation list in firmware... what happens if you create a DVD that fills up the list with garbage keys? Or does it reset the list everytime a new DVD is inserted?
A lot may be down to tariffing; certainly here in the UK there are no cheap data options, darn it.
Ah, no, the Americans did invent the internet, and indeed Al Gore was an important figure in this. Who can argue with that? But the web, the thing that made the internet what it is today, was the invention of Professor Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, KBE, FRS.
I just read Cory Doctorow's delightful Eastern Standard Tribe, and in it he postulates that this is the unanticipated factor that will prevent the "global village". My job should really be in Montreal, but it isn't, because I live in London and it's a bitch of a commute. ;-) I do adjust my hours to get more overlap, and this suits me as I'm not really a morning person, but it is still a problem.
...by, for example, telling us what frickin' country you're in... I dunno, we Brits invented the computer and the web, but do we get any respect?
Well, it's tricky. Your argument about the Treo is a little off-beam - there is a big difference between a push e-mail device and a pull device; of course for many, including me, that difference is the reason we don't want one!
Well, in my case it's also that I'm the messaging admin so I don't want to have to deploy enterprise server.
But of course with some work you can make any modern smartphone do push e-mail.
I think the selling point of the crackberry has always been that it works out of the box.
With other devices there is always a degree of tweaking and configuration involved. For me, I'd far sooner have my P910i because it can do so much more, but hey! I'm a geek. A PHB or a rap star prefers something that just works.
I think he's trying to emphasise that the cuts are needed by the business, since if they were just random the tendency would be to cut people you don't know.
Let's see, the article says they'll be left with 55000, that means they're cutting almost 4% of the combined workforce. woo.
Ah, you wacky americans with your primitive cellphone technology ;-) I think I have to go back 4-5 phones to find one that couldn't do this. My current one can do it via IR, Bluetooth, SMS, MMS, or e-mail.
In fact, a couple of phones ago I transfered all my contacts from old to new by beaming.
That should read "DRM can not work". (Not being a grammar nazi, making a point).
And of course this has the interesting side effect that DRM increases "piracy".
Bob wants to put the new Celine Dion CD on his iPod
Alice's DRM stops him.
Bob googles around for a way to get round this restriction, and discovers Bittorrent
Bob downloads Celine just to get it on his iPod
Bob notices her entire back catalogue linked on the same page
This is to my mind why this argument is one of the most important there is at the moment. In the grand scheme of things, of course, whether or not you can play a Celine Dion CD is not critically important.
But I believe there is a good chance that sooner or later we'll have 3-D printers of such quality and ability that the marginal cost of physical artifacts drops to near zero, just like it has for music now. And when that happens we'd better have some of the economics of 0mc goods worked out, or else it's going to be nasty. When you can copy chairs over the internet just as easily as you can copy MP3s, the world is going to be a radically different place...
Free business idea:
How about a cheap small, 800x600 say, LCD panel, with a built-in USB video card, nothing fancy, that you can plug into your PC to get a mini second display without any trouble?
Er... because IE (be it 5, 6, or 7) is part of the OS, not a standalone application.
Out when pigs fly? But there were flying pigs in Duke 3D!
It's not for people who want programable keys, it's for people who want programable keys with displays in them. You don't map volume mute to it, or firefox, because they don't need displays.
how about if you configure Button one to display the album art for your currently playing song in WinAmp, that does a pause when you hit it. Perhaps a second that shows you the next track's name, that skips forward when you press it. That leaves the last to show you unread e-mail totals, that opens mail when you hit it. An arrangement like that would have value, wouldn't it?
While admittedly this specific suggestion is probably not a good idea (bit hard to tell without the details), I'm glad to see some thinking going on in the music industry.
Of the many things wrong with the music and movie industries at the moment, the one that worrys me most is that there is no long-term thinking going on. Technology has, basically, destroyed their business model, which largely comprises distributing recorded performances. Now that any bozo with a copy of Garageband and a web page can do this, they are stuffed. Even the non-distribution bits of their business, which are also important, are stuffed, because it was the distribution component that collected the customer's money.
Their response has been to run amok trying to keep that model alive. Sueing your customers and breaking their media players is clearly insane, but they can't think of anything else that will keep up the pretence that ther business model isn't dead.
What they, and we, and the creative artists need, is for someone to come along and come up with a new 21st century business model, where music gets made, creators get paid, and we get to listen to it in the ways we want. But almost no-one is thinking about this. (In part this is because this is a hard problem)
Is a sort of download tax, which may be what WB are proposing, the answer? Hard to say. How well does the performing rights society do with distributing royalties on public performances of work? (I think an independant body should be in charge of such a scheme, rather than the record companies) How would they cope in a situation where every bozo with a web page is a music publisher?
Indeed, I always make a deliberate effort to use my Mod points in stories that didn't make it to the front page. (Disclaimer: There is a degree of self interest in this as there's less crap to mod down in the sections, and I prefer modding up as it is more interesting)
Ah, I'm from Northern Ireland, where everyone is Green or Orange. We never really had any other colors when I was growing up: cf Joyce - "Ireland never had any problems with the Jews because she never let them in in the first place"
Though sadly it appears, from recent incidents, that now that we are starting to get people of different colors, we're perfectly capable of being horrible to them too. It's sort of like a feature upgrade - "Wow, now you can get people to discriminate against that come in easy-to-identify colors"
I've always had a problem with understanding racism because I simply cannot get myself into a mindset where I can see why you would ever judge someone on the color of their skin rather than the content of their character.
Which would imply that the ping tag is a good thing, since it makes it easy to write an extension that blocks tracking links.
VLC is actually a very scary application.
Think about it - other media players only handle a limited set of formats and even then they often choke and complain that you haven't got the right codec etc. But VLC just plays everything. So either everything else is crap, or they've made some sort of a deal with Satan.
Examples:
I was having trouble watching the MacWorld keynote, for example, with Quicktime spluttering, and was about to give up when I thought "hang on, try VLC". Worked a treat. I also had a problem with a 1Gb MP2 file from my PVR that I needed to move to another computer - with no DVD burner avaialble. Messed about for a while, then tried VLC. Transcoded it down to 150Mb (quality was not an issue) and popped it onto a USB memory stick.
What is a president to do?
He is to ask Congress to pass a law allowing him to order the type of wiretap you describe, or he can accept legal advice that he is able to do anything he likes under his wartime powers, which he is able to invoke because there is a "War on Terror".
Option 2 is probably slightly easier, and appears to be the one he is going for, although it has the minor side effect of turning the US into a permanent dictatorship.
Now, I have to call you on that. The exact quote is:
"I don't tend to bother about slashdot, because quite frankly, the whole _point_ of slashdot is to have this big public wanking session with people getting together and making their own "insightful" comment on any random topic, whether they know anything about it or not."
So you see, Linus accepts that some of us might know what we're talking about, although there's no way to tell who.
Though the wanking in public thing, he did say that, yes.
I leave you with a horrific image that comes later in the same e-mail:
"I was really hoping this particular wanking session wouldn't overflow into Linux-kernel."
Hold on, let me re-read that submission again.
"Using a network of cameras that can record license plates, Britain plans to build a database of vehicle movement for police and security services: rollout begins in March. Can't someone just swap/steal/disable the tracking device? Seems to me just another way to track the average citizen and not those wishing to avoid authorities."
OK, I'm used to posters not reading the article, and to editors not reading slashdot, but is this the first instance of a submitter not reading his own submission? It doesn't use a tracking device, they photograph people's license plates.
My head is throbbing now.
"The only question is, will everyone be willing to relearn how to type?"
Happy to help! The answer is: No.
Next patient please!
Which is what this article, and other comentators, are starting to think about. If these illegal wiretaps were conventional wiretaps, why would the administration not get FISA to rubber-stamp them? Exactly what kind of wiretap is so secret and so iffy that FISA wouldn't sign off on it? Listening to every cell phone call made in Brooklyn for a month, and using Echelon to pull out the good stuff, perhaps?
I had to look after a compaq once, had a propriatary keyboard. Seriously, the only thing in our server room that wasn't on our KVM switch.
I think that they assume they sell into Compaq shops, and that the only thing that matters is that their kit interoperates with other Compaqs.